ROG Strix Scar 18 review: If you needed every competitive advantage available
It wasn’t too long ago that we tried out the ROG Zephyrus Duo, and while that was a very powerful gaming machine in its own right, it was its unique form factor that made it a special device.
Today though we’re going back to basics with what ROG is best known for: a no-nonsense, balls-to-the-wall powerhouse gaming laptop that will be giving you the most competitive edge you can get. It’s of course none other than the ROG Strix Scar 18.
Even better than ROG thought
The ROG Strix Scar 18 that we tried out comes with an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, with 64GB of DDR5 6400MHz memory, 1TB + 1TB SSD storage in RAID 0 and of course, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU.
Now, it’s not often that a laptop I’m reviewing benchmarks even better than Asus’ own benchmarks, but that’s exactly what happened here. Seeing as the ROG Strix Scar 18 is meant to be the most powerful desktop-replacement class of laptop they have, I went into Armory Crate and switched it into Manual mode, before pushing TDP and TGP settings to the maximum (that Asus allowed me to anyway).
With up to 320W of wattage—the CPU at 145W and the GPU at 175W—I was higher results in synthetic benchmarks than those claimed by ROG themselves. For instance, in 3DMark TimeSpy, our review unit managed a score of 24,559, while Asus themselves got 24,141 in the same Manual mode. Of course not all our results beat Asus’, but we were mostly on par; in PCMark 10 for instance, we scored 11,801, compared to their 12,024. Unsurprisingly, this beast of a laptop excelled in our benchmark tests:
It was a similar story in games, with the ROG Strix Scar 18 comfortably handing just about every title we threw at it, from big open world triple-A games and grand strategy titles to competitive shooters as well:
| Game | Score | Notes |
| Marvel Rivals | ~80FPS | Native resolution, high preset, DLSS quality |
| Counter-Strike 2 | ~180-240FPS | Native resolution, high preset, de_dust2 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | ~224FPS | Native resolution, RTX Ultra preset, DLSS auto, frame gen dynamic |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | ~56FPS | Native resolution, RTX Ultra preset, DLSS auto, frame gen off |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | ~106FPS | Native resolution, max settings, DLSS auto |
| Total War: 3 Kingdoms | ~63FPS | Native resolution, ultra preset |
| Anno 117: Pax Romana | ~62FPS | Native resolution, very high preset, DLSS on, frame gen off |
| Age of Mythology: Retold | ~85FPS | Native resolution, mythical preset, 1765 points |
| Black Myth: Wukong | ~57FPS | Native resolution, cinematic preset, DLSS auto, frame gen off |
| Sid Meier’s Civilization VII | ~145FPS | Native resolution, high preset, FSR3 quality |
| Sid Meier’s Civilization VII | ~11 seconds/turn | AI turn test |
Other great things about the ROG Strix Scar 18 is that even though I turned the knob up to 11 on it, it still kept pretty cool thanks to its new thermal design. According to ROG, there’s a 20% thicker vapour chamber in there, while the fans can push up to 91% more airflow; trust me, when this things starts going you can really feel the air coming out of it. This meant that even under full load during benchmarking, the ROG Strix Scar 18 didn’t thermal throttle or struggle at all.
Even the screen helps you win
Perhaps the most interesting thing other than the sheer performance with the ROG Strix Scar 18 is that even the screen in this generation’s laptop is designed to help you win games. Not by cheating of course, but by giving you OLED-level response times even though this is a Mini LED display.
Let’s first mention what display the ROG Strix Scar 18 actually packs. You’ll find an 18-inch ROG Nebula HDR display with Mini LED packing over 2000 local dimming zones, as well as a 4K resolution, an up to 240Hz refresh rate, a peak brightness of 1,600nits and 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut.
Now all of that on its own already makes the ROG Strix Scar 18 have a formidable display. But it’s the addition of ROG Nebula ELMB technology, or to use its full government name, Extreme Low Motion Blur, that makes the Strix Scar 18 truly stand out. Turning on ELMB delivers clearer and shaper motion by strobing the backlight between each frame, and with Mini LED it actually uses the dimming zones themselves to make motion clearer without a large reduction in brightness.
This reduced ghosting means that for competitive gamers, you’ll be able to get up to 16 times the motion clarity compared to a regular panel, giving you OLED-like response times. For what it’s worth, you do have to turn off HDR mode for it, so you’ll lose a little bit of brightness still, but the budding eSports pros out there will surely appreciate this feature. And besides, if you’re more of a cinematic gamer, you can always turn off ELMB and enjoy the brilliant Mini LED display as is.
Even more expensive than before
Unfortunately, packing in all of the latest and greatest hardware solutions in the year of our lord 2026 also means that the ROG Strix Scar 18 will not come cheap. The top spec model that we have here today comes in at a cool RM32,999, while for RM27,999 you’ll get one kitted with an RTX 5080 instead.
Nevertheless, if you’re seeking the ultimate gaming laptop that will handle both the most demanding of games or push out the most frames in competitive eSports titles, then the ROG Strix Scar 18 with its combination of incredible hardware and ROG Nebula ELMB display is hard to top.
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