Asus’s latest laptops are getting “maxed out.” With the Strix gaming laptop lineup, configurations will feature Intel’s latest 13th Gen processors, AMD Zen 4 CPUs, and Nvidia’s 40-series mobile GPUs. Along with these next-gen upgrades, the Strix series—along with its updated sister series’—will come with heaps of gaming optimisations, to boot.
At the top of the range sits the Asus Strix Scar. Still essentially the same beastly desktop replacement we tested before, in 2023, it’ll come with either a 16-inch or 18-inch, 16:10 panel and a name to match.
The Strix Scar 16 and Strix Scar 18’s top config includes Intel’s recently announced Core i9 13980HX (opens in new tab) and a 150W RTX 4090 GPU (175W with dynamic boost). The rest of the spec matches: panels with a max 240Hz refresh, 3ms GtG and 2560 x 1600 resolution, up to 64GB DDR5-4800 RAM, and maybe two 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs if you’re lucky.
The Scar 17 is Asus’s latest AMD offering, touting the Ryzen 9 7945HX, with the same beastly config as its Intel counterparts. The main differences to note between the Intel and AMD models are that the Scar 17 will use vapour chamber cooling instead of the edge-to-edge heatsink solution on Intel models.
These will come with “Conductonaut Extreme liquid metal” on both the CPU and GPU, which Asus claims will give the Strix G16 and Strix G18 5 degrees lower temperatures than previous cocktails of the stuff could. The Scar 17, too, will benefit from this second-generation apparent wonder solution.
While Asus isn’t the first to experiment with liquid metal, it could be the first to get it right. Only time will tell, and we’ll let you know how that translates in the real world once we get our hands on it.
The RTX 4090/Core i9 13980HX model Strix scar 18 comes in at £3,399, and should be here some time in the first quarter of 2023. We’ll have to wait for Q2 before Asus graces us with the rest of the Strix lineup, the £3,300 Scar 16 and £3,800 Scar 17 included, as well as the upcoming Strix G16, G17, and G18.
Asus’s G series holds the more affordable RTX 4050, RTX 4060, and RTX 4070 models, with the 17-incher again as its AMD offering. These start at £1,499, £1,799 and £2,599, respectively. We’re waiting on US pricing now, and will update when we get hold of the figures.
