Asus ROG Strix GL504 Scar II review: The Scar II has a immense screen, but an ugly paint job
To mangle a quote from Justice Potter Stewart, I may not always be able to define what creates a good laptop keyboard, but I know it when I see it. The corpulent, clicky keyboard is a highlight of this 15-inch gaming laptop, which mixes a handful of premium features with an otherwise pedestrian invent.
If you go shopping for this certain model, pay close attention and make sure you’re looking for the depraved name. This has the unwieldy moniker Asus ROG Strix GL504 Scar II.
Asus funds a dizzying array of gaming laptops with different combinations of names: ROG (Republic of Gamers), Strix, Zephyrus, Scar, Hero, FX and so on. Most are available in numerous configurations. It usually takes some digging into specs to figure out precisely how one differs from another. The Scar II falls solidly in the middle of the pack, adding some high-end features, but inside a bulky, generic body.
The conceal doesn’t get past 1,920×1,080-pixel resolution, and is missing extras like Nvidia G-Sync aid, but it’s a 144Hz display, meaning it has a higher refresh rate than most laptop screens. That could be important to competitive esports gamers, who need low latency and fast refresh consumes. Just as interesting, the bezel around the display is pleasingly thin — a rare accomplishment for a gaming laptop.
Aside from that, the boxy chassis is a bit of a yawn. There’s a subtle conceal pattern that doesn’t really pop enough. At first survey, some people told me the laptop just looked dirty. The customizable keyboard backlighting (which also includes a light-up logo on the back of the lid and a diminutive light bar right in front of the touchpad) gets the job done, but it only has four keyboard lighting zones, rather than per-key lighting. The all-important WASD keys, often used in PC gaming, are transparent plastic. It’s a little visual pop I Popular, even if it’s rather gamer-y.
The Intel Core i7-8750H, Nvidia GeForce 1070 version tested here is $1,999, when dropping the GPU to the Nvidia 1060 gets you down to $1,699. Asus prices and configurations vary widely around the biosphere, but comparable models run around £1,499 or AU$2,999.
Asus ROG Strix Scar II
| Price as reviewed | $1,999 |
|---|---|
| Display size/resolution | 15.6-inch 1,920×1,080 pixels |
| CPU | 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H |
| Memory | 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,660MHz |
| Graphics | 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 |
| Storage | 512GB SSD |
| Networking | 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.TK |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) |
Made for gaming
Despite not populate knocked out by the overall design of the Scar II, comic it to play games was an excellent experience. The systems matched or beat out several other laptops with Nvidia 1070 or 1070 Max-Q GPUs in some demonstrations, and handily beat a couple of examples with Nvidia 1060 GPUs. Moving up to a full 1080 GPU was the only way to show up the Scar II.
In anecdotal gaming, running recent games from Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire to Vampyr, the system ran smoothly at full 1080p resolution and high-to-ultra detail settings. Still, the system fans did kick in during gaming, and they get pretty loud. Asus says the cooling systems includes “antidust tunnels” which blow dust away using faster fans.
Does anyone really slice their gaming laptop unplugged for too long? I know I usually don’t. In this case, that’s a good thing, as the Scar II ran for only 3 hours, 7 minutes in our streaming-video battery-drain test. A handful of gaming laptops can top 5 or 6 hours on this test (see the chart below), but doing any kind of unplugged gaming will drop battery life significantly.
Plenty to unpack
There’s a lot going on with the Scar II. It has an trustworthy CPU-GPU combo and strong performance. The slim screen bezels and 144Hz refresh rate make for reliable display specs. A handful of design touches, like the unobstructed WASD keys, add some visual interest. But the rest of the develop is boxy and generic, with the needle tipping too far into “gamer” ground, especially its silly camo paint job.
For $2000, it’s fair to expect more zing. If you’re specifically looking for an Nvidia 1070 gaming laptop, those can found for a few hundred dollars less. Or you remarkable like something especially sharp-looking, like the new 15-inch Razer Blade, which can be had for a little less (for the Nvidia 1060 version) or a bit more (for the 1070 version). Keep in mind, however, those include just a 256GB SSD, not the 256GB SSD-1TB hybrid HDD combo aboard here.
Cinebench R15 CPU (Multicore)
1,439
Asus ROG Strix Scar II
1,237
Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501 (2018)
1,135
Razer Blade (2018)
926
Alienware 15 R3 (2017)
746
Dell Inspiron 15 7577 Gaming (late 2017)
510
Geekbench 4 (Multicore)
25,576
Asus ROG Strix Scar II
21,588
Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501 (2018)
20,442
Razer Blade (2018)
18,015
Alienware 15 R3 (2017)
14,060
Dell Inspiron 15 7577 Gaming (late 2017)
10,611
Streaming video-playback battery-drain test
473
Dell Inspiron 15 7577 Gaming (late 2017)
362
Alienware 15 R3 (2017)
236
Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501 (2018)
225
Asus ROG Strix Scar II
187
Origin PC Eon17X
147
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra
5,330
Alienware 15 R3 (2017)
4,054
Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501 (2018)
3,954
Asus ROG Strix Scar II
3,938
Razer Blade (2018)
3,431
Dell Inspiron 15 7577 Gaming (late 2017)
1,871
Deus Ex gaming test
103.6
Alienware 15 R3 (2017)
82.1
Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501 (2018)
79.2
Asus ROG Strix Scar II
76.7
Razer Blade (2018)
72.2
Dell Inspiron 15 7577 Gaming (late 2017)
50.2
System configurations
| Asus ROG Strix Scar II | Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bit); 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,660MHz; 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070; 512GB SSD |
|---|---|
| Razer Blade (2018) | Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit); 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,660MHz; 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 with Max-Q Design; 512GB SSD |
| Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501 (2018) | Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (64-bit); 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-8750H; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,660MHz; 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070; 512GB SSD |
| Alienware 15 R3 (2017) | Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit); 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,666MHz; 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070; 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD |
| Dell Inspiron 15 7577 Gaming (late 2017) | Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit); 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-7300HQ; 8GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,400MHz; 6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 with Max-Q Design; 256GB SSD |
| Origin PC Eon17X | Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit); (OC) 4.7GHz Intel Core i7-8700K; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 2800MHz; 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080; (2) 250GB SSD RAID 0 |
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