ROG Strix Scar 18: A Record-Breaking Mini-LED Laptop with Extra Features

Asus is always among the first to incorporate the latest technology into their laptops. Every spring, we test one of their powerful gaming laptops primarily to see what Intel, AMD, and Nvidia have to offer. This year, it’s the new and incredibly fast Core Ultra processor from Intel and the most powerful of Nvidia’s latest RTX 5000 series graphics cards, which together shatter performance records in the test lab.

But there’s more to celebrate in Asus’s construction (for those who can afford it). There’s the 18-inch bright mini-LED professional-grade display. Heavy, powerful, and crisp sound. An unusually fast storage solution and more gaming bling than seems reasonable, complete with programmable RGB effects and an LED matrix on the lid.

The ROG Strix Scar 18 G835L was showcased at the CES fair in Las Vegas last winter and is now available globally, including here in Sweden. It comes with a staggering price tag of €6,170. If you want the very best of the latest technology, it comes at a cost. A clear example of this is that the same laptop equipped with an RTX 5080 instead of an RTX 5090 is also available — and it costs €1,037 less.

Massive Build with Fun Effects

The laptop is built like a classic gaming laptop, a rarity nowadays. A massive matte black chassis that combines metal and plastic, large heat sinks, and exhaust vents on the back, substantial air intakes on the underside, with no regard for actual portability. Over three centimeters thick and nearly 3.5 kilograms heavy—a true “desktop replacement.”

Part of that weight lies in the lid, which is made of solid metal and not only contains a large 18-inch panel but also a spectacular LED matrix on the outside that can display animations, information such as battery level and email notifications, and pulse to the music. Asus calls this feature and system AniMe Vision, controlled just like the rest of the RGB lighting in the laptop through the control program Armoury Crate.

The screen also has a full mini-LED matrix for backlighting. It features dense dimming zones and a high brightness of up to 500 cd/m2, combining to create a screen with wonderful dynamics. Watching films or playing games with HDR output adds an extra dimension of immersion that feels hard to give up when switching from HDR to SDR content.

The dimming reacts quickly, so it’s rarely noticeable, but there are still occasions when bright areas sweep across the screen and cause some flicker at the edges. It’s probably unavoidable entirely, although I’ve seen a couple of mini-LED screens getting closer, such as Sony’s top TV, the Bravia 9.

Accurate Colors, Accurate Resolution

The IPS panel is top-notch, offering a 100% match against the DCI-P3 color gamut, while the viewing angles don’t result in any shift in white point or color balance. This is a good screen not only for enjoying media but also for creating it. The resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels is sharp enough in most scenarios, and with a refresh rate of up to 240 Hz, you can achieve perfect fluidity in all games.

And I mean really all. The 1600p screen delivers the right sharpness without unnecessarily burdening the graphics card. I find no game, from the Western epic Red Dead Redemption 2 to Eastern adventures in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, to lightning-fast action in Naraka Bladepoint, that doesn’t deliver a stable frame rate of over 100 fps—at the highest Ultra settings for effects with auto-settings for DLSS. I don’t have to fiddle and compromise. The graphics card, together with the processor and a whopping 64 GB of fast DDR5 RAM, handles all challenges without breaking a sweat.

The processor is also the brand new Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, featuring eight high-clocked performance cores and 16 more energy-efficient cores. Without multi-threading, they are best used to maximize performance in intensive tasks, successfully setting several new highs for laptops in my measurements. This is a point where all x86 processors lag behind Apple’s M4 chip, but those single-core operations are rare in Windows.

This is a Core Ultra processor, so it includes an NPU. However, it’s not particularly powerful, on par with those from the previous generation. On the other hand, you’ll get all the AI performance you might need from the graphics card. With Nvidia’s Optimus technology, the RTX card automatically activates for extra computing power in creative software like Adobe Premiere Pro or Blender when needed.

Battery According to Expectations, Better Fans

I do wonder a bit about its worth, because even when the laptop operates as energy-efficiently as possible, the battery doesn’t last particularly long. At best, approximately five hours, if I also reduce the screen brightness until the laptop becomes nearly unusable. No, you’ll need to anticipate carrying a heavy power block and staying close to a wall outlet. Don’t expect serenity either if you want to achieve the highest performance. The fans kick in quickly and run quite loudly. However, it can be balanced, and they don’t produce more noise than necessary. You can set the laptop to “silent” mode for when you’re just browsing or doing some Office work. In those cases, it might even cool passively at times.

With the screen lifted, you’re greeted by a matte screen surface with excellent glare protection, under which sits a comfortable keyboard with programmable RGB lighting per key, five extra macro keys, and well-built buttons with greater travel than in most laptops. Some keys, like the return key, feel a bit cramped, but it allows for a full numeric keypad on the side.

A large and comfortable touchpad offers good control for the desktop, but otherwise, you’ll probably plug in a regular mouse instead. You have two USB-A ports on the right side for that purpose. On the left side, there’s an additional USB-A and two Type-C ports, which are the first Thunderbolt 5 connections I’ve seen aside from those on the Mac side. This translates to more than double the data rate and support for multiple 8K displays.

So, it’s undeniably extra everything in this laptop. From the best graphics and processor to fast and ample memory, and even an SSD that, thanks to a RAID solution, can be up to twice as fast as what we usually see in PCs. And it manages heat from the graphics chip and processor excellently. I was a bit worried about overheating and uncomfortably high temperatures around the keyboard. But not with the massive fans and active cooling you get here.

If you have more money than sense, and don’t mind that the laptop is more portable than truly portable, this is among the most powerful machines you can buy right now. Not just in the laptop category but overall for a PC. But is it worth the staggering price tag Asus has set for it? That’s something you and your wallet will have to decide for yourselves.

Specifications
Product Name: ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX-SA009W
Tested: April 2025
Manufacturer: Asus / ROG
Processor: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, 8 P-cores up to 5.5 GHz + 16 E-cores up to 4.6 GHz
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop, 24 GB
NPU: Intel AI Boost, 13 TOPS
Memory: 64 GB LPDDR5X, 5600 MHz
Storage: 2 TB SSD
Display: 18-inch matte Mini-LED IPS, 2560 × 1600 resolution, 240 Hz, 500 cd/m²
Webcam: 1080p, IR
Ports: 2× Thunderbolt 5, 3× USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, HDMI 2.1, LAN, headset jack, DC-in
Wireless: Wi-Fi 7 (2×2), Bluetooth 5.4
Operating System: Windows 11 Home
Other Features: RGB keyboard with numeric keypad and macro keys, facial recognition, AniMe Vision
Noise Level: 0–53 dBA
Battery: 90 Wh, 1 hour 10 minutes (high load, full brightness) to 6 hours 20 minutes (low load, low brightness)
Dimensions: 39.9 × 29.8 × 3.2 cm
Weight: 3.48 kg