In the spring of 2023, a 17-inch gaming laptop from Asus stepped into a long contest between chipmakers, carrying AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX into a field where Intel had long held the performance crown. In one reviewer's testing, it outpaced the rival processors it was measured against, even when those rivals sat inside larger and more heavily cooled machines. The gains were tempered by a plastic body, a dim screen and modest battery life, so the machine reads less as a flawless triumph than as a sign that the balance of power in mobile computing may be shifting. Whether that shift holds will depend
Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 Review: AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX Takes the Laptop Performance Crown
One of the fastest gaming laptops on the market
Mark
Why does this one laptop matter more than any other $3,500 gaming machine?
Mimi
Because of the chip. The Ryzen 9 7945HX is AMD's first 16-core, 55-watt laptop processor, and in the reviewer's tests it beat Intel's 24-core Core i9-13980HX.
Luke
Worth saying that's one reviewer's suite, on a handful of benchmarks. It isn't a universal win.
Mark
Right, it didn't win everything?
Mimi
No. Against the MSI GT77 Titan it led Handbrake and Cinebench multi-core by 9%, but trailed about 7% in Geekbench multi-core and lost 3DMark Time Spy.
Luke
And the Titan lost the Valhalla and Red Dead comparisons by only 6% and 4%. Those are small margins, and the review doesn't say how much run-to-run variation there is.
Mark
What's the catch for buyers?
Mimi
The body is mostly plastic, the screen tops out at 330 nits, and the battery won't last a day. The port layout leaves the right side empty.
Luke
Also, the Scar 17 is cheaper than some rivals, but the review compares list prices, not street prices. Whether it stays a bargain is unknown.
Mark
So what should readers watch?
Mimi
Whether AMD holds this lead next generation, and how Intel responds.
Der Puls
- AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX has beaten Intel's Core i9-13980HX on the reviewer's processor tests, a rare lead in high-end laptop chips that unsettles a market Intel once dominated.
- The $3,500 RTX 4090 model pushes gaming frame rates to the top of the class, yet its plastic shell and 330-nit screen show where the price of performance was paid.
- Compact cooling and a quiet Performance mode let the Scar 17 match a much larger rival, though Turbo mode turns the fans loud when the chip is asked for everything.
- Competitive pricing, about $200 under an Alienware m18 and $1,000 under the Razer Blade 18, is positioning the machine as value, and the next generation of AMD chips will decide whether this lead holds.
In the spring of 2023, a 17-inch gaming laptop from Asus stepped into a long contest between chipmakers, carrying AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX into a field where Intel had long held the performance crown. In one reviewer's testing, it outpaced the rival processors it was measured against, even when those rivals sat inside larger and more heavily cooled machines. The gains were tempered by a plastic body, a dim screen and modest battery life, so the machine reads less as a flawless triumph than as a sign that the balance of power in mobile computing may be shifting. Whether that shift holds will depend on what AMD and its competitors build next.
Asus has built a 17-inch gaming laptop that, in one reviewer's hands, outran every other mobile processor he had measured. The ROG Strix Scar 17 is the first laptop to carry AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX, a 16-core chip with a 55-watt design that marks a new step for AMD in laptops. Digital Trends gave the machine an Editors' Choice designation, and the reviewer tested the $3,500 version with an Nvidia RTX 4090.
On the benchmarks, the AMD chip beat Intel's Core i9-13980HX across the reviewer's suite, including when that Intel chip sat in the much larger MSI GT77 Titan. Gaming results were stronger still, with the Scar 17 leading the Titan in several titles, though the Titan won in Cyberpunk 2077 and in one 3DMark test. The machine's cooling kept it comfortably quiet in its default mode, a notable feat for a slim clamshell.
The compromises are real. Much of the body is plastic, the screen reaches only 330 nits of brightness, and the battery is not all-day. Still, the reviewer calls the price decent for the hardware. AMD's push into laptops has put pressure on Intel's long-held lead, and the next generation of chips will show whether that pressure becomes a lasting change.
Asus has built a 17-inch gaming laptop that, in one reviewer's testing, outran every other mobile processor he has measured. The ROG Strix Scar 17 is the first laptop to carry AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX, and Digital Trends gave it an Editors' Choice designation, calling it a solid gaming machine lifted by the chip inside.
The 7945HX is AMD's first 55-watt laptop processor and its first 16-core mobile part. It also debuts the Ryzen 7000 platform in laptops. Asus sells only two versions of the Scar 17, identical except for graphics: one with an Nvidia RTX 4090 at $3,500 and one with an RTX 4080 at $2,900. The reviewer tested the 4090 model. Either card gets 175 watts, made up of 150W for the GPU and 25W from Dynamic Boost. The rest of the specification is typical for a 2023 high-end 17-incher: 32GB of DDR5-4800 (expandable to 64GB), a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, a 90 watt-hour battery and a 720p webcam the reviewer calls mediocre.
On the benchmarks, the AMD chip beat Intel's 24-core Core i9-13980HX across the reviewer's suite, even when that Intel chip sat in the MSI GT77 Titan, a large machine with heavy cooling. Against that Titan, the Scar 17 finished a Handbrake transcode in 44 seconds to the Titan's 47, and led by 9% in Cinebench multi-core. It trailed by about 7% in Geekbench multi-core. Against the smaller 16-inch Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, the gap was wider: 20% less time in Handbrake, better single-core and similar multi-core Geekbench results. The review notes the comparison with the Lenovo is not entirely fair because of the size difference.
Gaming gains were larger still. At 1080p, the Scar 17 posted 160 fps in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, 143 in Red Dead Redemption 2 and 119 in Cyberpunk 2077. It beat the Titan in Valhalla by 6% and in Red Dead by 4%, though the Titan won in Cyberpunk (132.7 fps) and in 3DMark Time Spy (20,836 to 19,009). The Scar 17 won 3DMark Fire Strike, 43,553 to 35,827. The reviewer notes the Titan is heavier and thicker.
Cooling is a strength. The Scar 17 uses a plain clamshell design, which worried the reviewer at first, but thick rubber feet and a large rear intake feeding a vapor chamber kept it comfortably quiet in the default Performance mode. Turbo mode, set in Asus' Armoury Crate app, allows 230W total (55W CPU, 175W GPU) and gets loud. Manual mode adds 10W to the processor for 240W. The Titan draws up to 250W, yet the Scar delivers similar performance with a much smaller heat sink. The Scar 17 is slightly thicker and heavier than the Razer Blade 17, at 0.92 inches and 6.61 pounds.
The compromises are real. The body is almost entirely plastic apart from an aluminum lid, despite Asus advertising a milled aluminum chassis, though the reviewer says it does not feel cheap and the keyboard barely flexes. The screen is a 17.3-inch 1440p, 240Hz, G-Sync IPS panel that is color accurate (error under 1) but reaches only 330 nits of brightness and 980:1 contrast, well short of the Nebula HDR displays on other Asus machines. Ports sit mostly on the back, including both USB-C ports, which support DisplayPort and G-Sync, alongside HDMI 2.1 and 2.5G Ethernet. Both USB-A ports are on the left, and the right side has none. Battery life edged out the Core i9-13900HX by about 30 minutes but is not all-day.
On price, $3,500 is about $200 below a similarly configured Alienware m18 and $1,000 below the new Razer Blade 18. The reviewer calls it decent value for the hardware. AMD's Dragon Range line has put real pressure on Intel, which long held the laptop performance lead, and the next generation will show whether that lead lasts.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
The Scar 17 is a solid gaming laptop, buoyed by the excellent AMD processor inside.— Digital Trends review verdict
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