9.0
Score

It is that time of the year where ASUS Malaysia send us the ROG Strix SCAR once again for us to review. After our time testing for this ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835L Review, I got to say, it sure is a true monster in every way possible and it has gotten some interesting improvements worth highlighting too. So, let’s talk about it.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835L Review – Improvements

A More Refined and Polished Look

Coming at a whopping 3.3kg, this is a heavy laptop that would spend more time on a desk, perhaps, connected to displays and such than be brought around everyday because it is a tough laptop to just bring around. But when you do, it’s the laptop you want to bring back to your hometown during the holidays – situations where bringing a PC around isn’t easy, especially with all the peripherals. That said, the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835L is a stunner. This time around, there are some significant improvements.

From using proper materials that has made this laptop built like a tank from the ground up, to things that makes a whole lot easier to use for all users – this is really the best design I have seen on a laptop. For starters, ROG has retained their best display hinge since Strix SCAR 2 and they have retained the overall look for the most part but now its more refined with more curves at the right places.

The customizable plastic clip edge is gone for good in my opinion, the RGB on this laptop lights up like a Christmas tree, but more importantly, it has a quick access to the components for upgrade without the need for screws – which is absolutely genius. I love what I see here.

It has Anime Matrix(!)

As someone who’s using the ROG Zephyrus G14 with Anime Matrix as my current daily driver, the Anime Matrix has always been the good kind of show stopper whenever I go to events and meetings as its highly customizable. And sure, it is a very gameresque feature, I have done some funny tricks to show my site and YouTube handles at events for people to know who I am.

While the ROG Strix SCAR 18 is not the most portable laptop to bring around – I have to say, the Anime Matrix technology has matured for the better and it looks absolutely stunning in every way possible. A lot of consumers who wants this laptop, would be very happy to see these cool features baked into this laptop.

The 2.5K Nebula MiniLED Display is just Orgasmic

Once you open up the lid and turn the laptop on, you are greeted with the 18” 2.5K MiniLED Nebula Display and it has a 16:10 aspect ratio to it, which hits 240Hz refresh rate. Honestly, that’s all I have to say because this display is just stunning to look at and the colours are amazing. While this isn’t the first time we are checking out the Nebula display but it is the first time we are seeing a more close to edge-to-edge display which offers an immersive experience.

On top of the display, it houses a camera with Windows Hello, so logging into the laptop is pretty breezy and you don’t have to resort to an external camera for your video calls and such. But wow, this display is simply great for gaming, editing, entertainment and at its peak brightness, it looks like it could blind a person and it can get hot over time – especially when you touch the lid, so, I’d suggest you knock the brightness down whenever it’s necessary. Otherwise, you are looking at a great display.

Performance: Once you go Ultra Nightmare, you never go back

Under the hood, this laptop has all the “dream PC/Laptop” specifications money can buy. It’s powered by Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 with 24GB GDDR7. Paired with that, you have 2x 2TB SSD in RAID 0 configuration and 64GB DDR5 RAM.

Just hearing this hardware, you’ll realise that this laptop is one powerful machine – which is why ROG has included the 380W Adapter in the box. You can use a Type-C 100W charger, but your performance will be capped to a lower TGP and TDP. Despite it being a power-hungry machine, the laptop experience has come a long way with MUX Switch and Advance Optimus where the laptop has the potential to scale down the performance on the move. But I still wouldn’t bring this laptop around because it will break my back. 😂 If you want to, by all means, be my guest.

Just like any other laptop, we did benchmarks with CineBench, PCMARK10 and 3DMARK and the scores says what exactly you have hoped for. You can check it out below. With these kinds of score, you can do whatever you really want and push as much as you want and you are still not at it’s limit. The Ultra 9 processor is crazy good but what’s more interesting and worth addressing is the RTX 5090 GPU because doing a gaming benchmark is no longer easy you think it is.

The RTX 5090 DLSS 4.0 brings a Different Experience

For years, gamers have been chasing after frames and it’s the simplest indication on how good the hardware performance is. With DLSS 4, things are changing and with that you are getting more AI-features to help with the performance. We had a limited selection of games to test what we are about to show you but these two games are enough to give a better picture.

Multi Frame Generation is an AI feature that gives you more frames inbetween of the original frames to give the highest frame rate and smoothest experience possible. Now, you could say these are fake frames but we disagree. Now, here is exactly what’s going on under the hood.

Now, a game you play creates all that frame rates based on the games renders and such, and creating graphics from the ground up can be demanding – so, what NVIDIA has done is step in and fill the gaps where the game itself doesn’t have to lose it’s playability, processing for more frames. So, with DLSS 4 Multi FrameGen, you are getting more frames without the native game doing too much work.

It works very well in Marvel Rivals and Indiana Jones because these two games are some of the few out right now to support DLSS 4 properly. It’s hard to show in video due to the restrictions of recording but it’s something you need to try it to experience it and when you do, you’ll realize how impressive it is. In fact, when we ran all of it, all the games were set to the highest settings these games could offer and it still did not break a sweat.

I lowkey would love to ditch my PC for the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835L, I am not going to lie.

Upgrading this Laptop is easy AF

ROG innovating in the laptop space is something I genuinely appreciate because this R&D is exactly what you are paying for with ASUS/ROG. This time around, they have made upgrading parts like SSDs and RAMs extremely easy to upgrade by just opening the Q-Latch, slide it off and you have access to the RAM and Storage. This is amazing. Goodbye screws.

Conclusion

With the direction we are heading in the PC Master Race, not to forget, the price is getting pretty crazy, it is amazing to see that the laptop we have here can truly replace a desktop in every way possible.

Every penny and dime that goes towards the ROG Strix SCAR 18 is the most powerful laptop we have seen till date and tested here at The Adventures of Vesper. And if you need that zero compromise and decked out experience, in gaming, editing, or anything you throw at it really – this laptop will truly handle it like it’s as easy as 123. The specification we see here is an RM 23,999 – and if money is no problem, this is the decked-out laptop you could get.

But if you are like me, and price is a concern but you still would like to spend a decent chunk to get a good laptop that lasts for years, I’d settle with the RM 16,999 version of the laptop which has 2TB SSD, 32GB DDR5, RTX 5080 and the rest of it is pretty much the same. I can’t wait to see how much ROG is planning to push the envelope further.

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