great progress in-game thanks to 3D V-Cache

Almost identical to the previous model, the ROG Strix Scar 17

Technical sheet

The PC was loaned by Asus for this test.

Design

The Strix Scar 17 hardware update, for which we will focus more on the performance of the beast than on the side effects.

Keep in mind that this is a fairly large machine with almost 3 kg on the scale, even if it can be seen as a compact computer if we reduce that to its performance level. We benefit from a solid, almost impeccable construction. The only thing that we can criticize that Asus has not changed over the iterations: the plastics of the chassis retain all the traces, so much so that it is necessary to regularly wipe a cloth around the keyboard. Nothing serious though.

The RGB lighting is still there, with an LED strip arranged so that the laptop seems to “levitate” on our desk. In short, you will have understood, “we take the same ones and start again”.

Keyboard and touchpad

17 inches requires, the keyboard includes a welcome numeric keypad which should delight those who use their laptop to work. The Strix Scar 17 X3D has not yet been equipped with fingerprint sensors or facial recognition for biometric connection. Its power button still displays a status LED that cannot be deactivated via the Armory Crate software and, apart from that, the keyboard and touchpad have not changed a bit.

Connection

The majority of connectors are placed on the rear of the chassis, as is usual on this range of laptops. There are two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, including one supporting Display Alt Mode with Power Delivery and G-Sync, an HDMI 2.1 FRL output and an Ethernet port. The right side of the laptop is devoid of connectors to leave room for your mouse movements, while the left side has a 3.5 mm combo jack connector and two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports.

Screen

Asus reiterates with the same screen as on the previous model, namely a 17.3-inch IPS panel supporting a maximum definition of 2560 x 1440 in 16:9. Its refresh rate is 240 Hz, the minimum for fans of shooting games and other games where fluidity and responsiveness take precedence.

The screen remains quite classic apart from that. Its native contrast is worthy of an IPS panel with a ratio of around 1000:1, while its light peak is limited to a small 320 cd/m². This is not much, in any case insufficient to enjoy a truly dynamic and contrasting image. Color accuracy, on the other hand, is excellent with an average Delta E of less than 2 and above all excellent coverage of color spaces, in particular by displaying almost the entire DCI-P3 space.

Performance

Asus is pulling out all the stops to offer gamers a powerful machine. We logically find an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card with a basic TGP of 150 W to which is added 25 W thanks to Dynamic Boost. At this level alone, the Strix Scar 17 X3D has one of the most generous versions of this GPU. On the processor side, the big news is obviously the presence of the famous 3D V-Cache, a cache memory stacking technology which allows this chip to see its L3 cache increased by an additional capacity of 64 MB.

The Ryzen 9 7945HX3D therefore benefits from a 128 MB L3 cache which should allow it to obtain better gaming performance. AMD cites a performance gain of around 15% on average. For the rest, the processor displays characteristics quite similar to the Ryzen 9 7945HX with a TDP variable between 55 and 75 W, 16 cores for 32 threads, a boost frequency of 5.4 GHz. Only the base frequency of the processor increases here from 2.5 GHz to 2.3 GHz.

No surprises in our first series of benchmarks carried out using Cinebench R23. Focusing on performance on a single core then on all the cores of the chip, Cinebench R23 returns us perfectly realistic results which place this Ryzen 9 7945HX3D just below the 7945HX due to its significantly lower base frequency, with a single-core score of 1,953 points and a multi-core score of 32,315 points. To summarize, overwhelming results which are also better than those recorded with the Core i9-13980HX, at least when all the cores are used.

We continued with an encoding test on HandBrake. Still using the same video to encode with the same options, we achieve a stunning result that we have never seen before on a laptop. The encoding was carried out with an average of 111 fps over a duration of 2 minutes and 39 seconds, a record!

Finally, PCMark10 allows us to have an overall view of the laptop’s performance by bringing into action all the elements of the PC thanks to tests which are based on the application and common daily tasks. The Strix Scar 17 X3D obtains an overall score of 8,743 points and is thus placed in the top three laptops tested on CssTricks.

In-game performance

As specified above, the Strix Scar 17 Radeon 610M integrated into the processor and the RTX 4090 whenever necessary. It is also possible to deactivate the iGPU using a MUX switch, the functionality is accessible directly within the Armory Crate software. The manipulation nevertheless requires a restart of the system.

The results obtained with our usual benchmarks are clear: the ROG Strix Scar 17 X3D is indeed one of the most efficient laptops on the market. The results are nevertheless very close to what we had already noted on the previous model, a priori, the 3D V-Cache shows more of its usefulness in gaming. In short, we obtain an overall score of 19,637 points under Time Spy, 10 512 points under Time Spy Extreme, a framerate stability of 99.6% with the Time Spy stress test, and impressive scores in terms of raytracing rendering: an average of 71.22 fps under the DirectX Ray Tracing benchmark , as well as an average of 63.6 fps and a score of 13,727 points for Port Royal. To summarize, the Strix Scar 17 X3D is a machine that destroys and explodes the scores.

You must therefore launch games on this machine to notice the difference compared to the previous version. We would nevertheless like to qualify our initial remarks, because the largest performance differences will especially be visible in FHD resolution. It’s more subtle with the native resolution of the screen, in QHD, but overall the new processor manages to give us between 5 and 10% performance in this resolution.

The difference is still notable, for example on Cyberpunk 2077 where we obtain an average of 99 fps (1% percentile of 73 fps) with the ultra ray tracing preset, 105 fps (1% percentile of 85 fps) in accelerated ray tracing (with path tracing) and 156 fps (1% percentile of 136 fps) with ultra ray tracing with performance-adjusted DLSS.

For the rest, the results are most convincing, particularly in games that use ray tracing:

Watch Dogs Legion – Very high: 121 fps, ultra ray tracing: 69 fps, ultra ray tracing and balanced DLSS: 107 fps
Control – Ultra: 139 fps, high ray tracing: 91 fps, ray tracing and DLSS: 163 fps

Finally, the benchmark integrated into Red Dead Redemption 2 allowed us to obtain an average of 125 fps in ultra. Apex legends runs with an average of 224 fps by adjusting all the sliders as high as possible.

Heat dissipation and noise

The Strix Scar 17 X3D manages to be relatively quiet when used for everyday office tasks. It’s a completely different matter when it comes to launching heavy applications or video games. The Asus laptop then turns on the blower at the cost of a significant rise in decibels. On the other hand, the temperatures remained correct during our various stress tests, proof that the cooling system manages to regulate heating quite effectively.

Autonomy

The Strix Scar 17 X3D has a battery with a capacity of 90 Wh. The laptop comes with a particularly impressive 330 W external unit, although charging via USB-C remains much more practical when you have to transport this computer.

We were able to put the battery to the test with a dedicated test on PC Mark 10, the laptop lasted 4 hours and minutes to go from 100 to 2% battery, it obtained a score of 6,799 points. The autonomy does not seem very high at first glance, but this result must be put into context, because it is possible to obtain much better results by opting for a more energy-efficient power mode.

Price and availability

The Asus ROG SCAR17-G733PYV is clearly not cheap. Count between €4,599 and €4,999 depending on the version chosen, with the differences between the two models being larger RAM and SSD.