AMD’S NEW RANGE of Zen 4 mobile chips are the finest number crunchers that you’ll find in a gaming laptop. That makes this Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 one of the most powerful gaming laptops I’ve ever tested. This is also the most affordable RTX 4090 machine I’ve seen in this generation, and one of the best-performing RTX 4090 machines I’ve seen, which is a combination that makes this laptop easy to recommend.
Just bear in mind that this isn’t at the top end of Asus’s ROG offerings. That means there’s no ROG Nebula Display like on the excellent Zephyrus G14, meaning this Scar 17’s display looks dull, and maybe a little tired. I also feel like the machine doesn’t quite have the quality I’ve been used to from the other Asus laptops I’ve looked at. Trackpads are historically bad on gaming notebooks, but this one is painfully poor. And then there’s the fingerprints—the matte finish looks nice out of the box, but give it ten minutes of use, and it’s going to be permanently stained by the natural oils of your skin.
You absolutely do need to be plugging it in, because despite that 90Wh battery, it really doesn’t last long away from a wall socket. If you’re gaming, consider the battery like some sort of uninterruptible power supply rather than something to rely on for long.
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Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av Maximum PC.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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NZXT C1500 Platinum
Top-tier performance and efficiency
Nvidia DLSS vs AMD FSR
Which AI upscaling technique has the edge?
World of Goo 2
Goo-d enough for two
BenQ X300G 4K Short Throw Projector
Priced high, yet punchy
Hyte Thicc Q60
Almost more mobile phone than CPU cooler
Remove stalkerware from your PC
ACCORDING TO KASPERSKY’S LATEST ‘State of Stalkerware’ report, over 40 percent of those surveyed worldwide said they’d experienced stalking or suspected that they were being stalked.
BUILD AN IT SUPPORT HUB
Discover how to use RustDesk to provide remote assistance and control your own devices remotely with Nick Peers
AMD's turn to drop the ball?
WITH INTEL'S RAPTOR LAKE CPUs falling over, the company firing around 15,000 employees, and cancelling its 2024 innovation event, AMD must have been enjoying the view - until its new Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs rolled out. So, is AMD's CPU a minor stumble or game-changing fumble?
Intel issues fix for Raptor Lake degradation
EARLIER THIS YEAR, I wrote about difficulties I was having with a Core 19-13900K processor (see MPC230 Tech Talk). Little did we realize that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. While most complaints have involved the unlocked Core i9 Raptor Lake CPUs, it appears the instability problems build up and potentially impact many Raptor Lake-13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs, with Intel identifying 22 different desktop parts.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
The new Zen 5 CPUs are here—time to benchmark!
