ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 (2025) Laptop Review – A Gaming Monster That Blows Your Mind

It’s been a fairly busy few weeks for ASUS. Following a stellar announcement event at CES 2025, the brand has begun rolling out the individual launches of some of its lineup showcased at the event. As a tech journalist, it’s been exciting to see the lineup of next-generation devices that were launched with the new NVIDIA RTX 5000 series GPUs. However, that excitement has now been put to the test through the review of some of the world’s best laptops. ASUS has led the way with its RTX 5000 laptop. Last month, I reviewed the impressive ROG Strix G16 (2025). This time, however, things take a turn for the crazy with the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835 (2025). 

During the initial release period around March, for the first few launches of the ASUS CES 2025 range, we saw ASUS’ business laptops hit the shelves. This included the Zenbook Duo (2025) UX8406CA and ROG Flow Z13 GZ302 (2025). Fast-forward to a month later, and it’s the turn of the ROG brand featuring some powerful gaming laptops. Having already covered the ROG Strix G16 (2025), which was an amazingly powerful laptop across the board, how does the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 (2025) compare? With a much more powerful build on paper, including the top-tier RTX 5090 GPU, it’s sure to be an exciting journey.

A Showstopper Built Like a Tank

Unlike the G16 unit reviewed last month, which offered a reserved approach to its design, by gaming laptop standards, the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835 (2025) is not subtle about its nature. It’s a beast, both in terms of its internals as well as everything else. It’s bulkier than many other gaming laptops, even its 2024 predecessor, and comes with all the added flair on the outside. If you’re looking for an LED showcase, the SCAR 18 is definitely up your alley. 

Removing any doubts about its subtleties, it measures 399 x 298 x 23.5 mm (32.0 mm at its thickest). It also weighs approximately 3.30 kg to drive home the message. To put that into perspective, that’s 700g heavier than the Strix G16. The difference here is the screen size, which is 16″ versus 18″ on the SCAR 18. There is also a difference in the GPUs, although I’m not sure how significant a factor that plays here. More on that later. 

With more performance under the hood, it also requires more efficient cooling. As a result, the vents on the rear are much larger than your average laptop, even by gaming laptop standards. 

As stated previously, the G835 provides quite the lighting show. LEDs are running all across the bottom of the device, which gives it an appearance of floating when the lighting is done correctly. However, its best lighting feature comes from the lid. The newly upgraded chassis includes ASUS’s AniMe Matrix LED display on the lid. This isn’t a new feature for ASUS, as it had previously showcased the display on its Zephyrus range five years ago. At its most basic, it displays your custom text on the lid next to the glowing red ROG logo. But its best value comes from personalisation, especially being able to download animations from the market on the Armoury Crate software. These features include explosions, such as fireworks, which work brilliantly. Yes, it does add some overheads to the load and battery drain, but once you’ve hit the button on the custom display, it’s very hard to put it back on the shelf. 

If there is one negative aspect of the design, it’s its matte finish. It’s not so much the colour but rather the coating or finish. It’s a magnet for fingerprints. This is a common occurrence across many laptops but shouldn’t be an issue for something as premium as the G835. 

Overall, the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835 (2025) goes all out with its design and LED lighting display. It doesn’t shy away from what it is: a gaming beast, and it wants to show this off to the world in style. At times, I wouldn’t have qualified it as a laptop, as it put a strain on my lap after a few hours of use, which I could feel in my knees after a long gaming session. But it’s still mobile, and that’s all that matters. 

Bigger, Brighter, Bolder: The SCAR 18’s 18” Mini-LED Display

The panel fitted to the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835 (2025) is similar to that of the Strix G16. It has the same 2.5K mini-LED technology with the exact 2,560×1,600px resolution. Irrespective of this, it has a larger 18″ screen, which means that you’ll have larger pixels or a lower pixel-per-inch count. 

It also features much of the same technology, including the ROG Nebula HDR display, which boasts a 240Hz refresh rate and a 3ms response time. It sports an impressive 1,200 nits of peak brightness, as well as a 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space. Additionally, the screen features a dual ACR layer to reduce reflections and enhance contrast by up to 4.5 times, producing more vivid colours. 

Similar to the G16, it offers various picture modes utilising SDR. This includes multi-intensive, multi-balance and single-image control. Each of these also provides different settings with different peak brightness levels. Multi-intensive features local dimming active and 750nits brightness. Multi-balance also features local dimming and a brightness of just under 500 nits. Lastly, the single image mode has local dimming deactivated and a brightness of over 600 nits. It’s worth noting for designers that the single image mode has the most uniform brightness across the screen, making it ideal for editing to ensure the best colour correction. 

Speaking of which, its use of HDR support yields some interesting results. To start, it boasts a peak brightness of approximately 1,500 nits. Using various modes, users can toggle the option to convert non-HDR content from sRGB colour space to P3, for which it has 100% coverage. This, again, might aid your image editing for the creators out there. 

Its 240Hz refresh rate is fantastic. As with the G16, it works well, even when you’re not gaming. Although you won’t always be able to maximise its potential up to 240Hz with varying FPS, it’s still impressive. It looks super smooth and doesn’t have the aftereffect of dizziness. 

That said, it’s not perfect. The black level isn’t entirely zero when switching between some of the SDR modes. This can cause backlight bleeding in specific modes. It’s worth running through a few of them to find the perfect fit for your immediate requirement, which you can change when you’re switching between editing and gaming, for example. 

Under the Hood: Specs That Make This a Desktop in Disguise

To say that the ROG Strix SCAR 18 (2025) has good hardware would be to undersell its components under the hood. It features some of the best available hardware for laptops today and maximises much of its potential in this respect. Although several variants of the G835 are available globally, ASUS South Africa offers only a single option in the local market. That said, potential buyers don’t need to worry too much about this, as the unit selected for the market features the top-tier selection of hardware specifications available. 

To start with, its CPU features an Intel Core i9-9750H processor. This features a 2.7GHz CPU (36MB Cache, up to 5.4GHz, 24 cores, 24 Threads) as well as an Intel AI Boost NPU, which offers up to 13 TOPS. 

Its standout feature amongst the hardware specifications is its GPU. Bolted onto the motherboard is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX™5090 Laptop GPU. Previous iterations of the NVIDIA card didn’t feature the top-tier GPU in its mobile format. This is what makes the RTX 5000 series take a giant leap forward for mobile gamers, pushing the limits of what’s possible on your laptop even further. The GPU also sports ROG Boost, pushing clock speeds up to 1,647MHz at 175W (1597MHz Boost Clock+50MHz OC, 150W+25W Dynamic Boost) along with its 24GB GDDR7 memory. 

On the topic of memory, the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835 (2025) includes an impressive 64GB DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM RAM. This is the maximum capacity for the range. Additionally, it features a 4TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD (in RAID 0 configuration). 

The battery is a 90Whrs unit with fast charging support. Its charger is a 380W AC adapter, which allows for up to 50% charge in just 30 minutes. It’s a relatively small battery, but it makes up for this with its impressive fast-charging capabilities. 

The unit has a range of ports with a decent mix. This includes x2 Thunderbolt™5 USB port, as well as x3 USB 3.2 ports, HDMI 2.1 and a 2.5G Ethernet port. Its wireless connectivity options include Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) (Triple band) and 2×2+Bluetooth 5.4. 

RTX 5090 in Action

With that impressive lineup of specifications, it’s an overkill of hardware on paper. You’d be hard-pressed to find many laptops that can match these specifications, let alone anything that could beat it. It’s a powerhouse of note, but how fair is it in the real world, and is the overall experience worth it? 

As with many modern flagship smartphones, it seems almost superfluous to discuss basic functionality and tasks. It should be a given that it would tackle everyday tasks and work with ease unless there was some type of issue to report. Thankfully, that’s not the case here. And, completing my standard list of tasks, which includes multiple tab browsing, continuous streaming, and many other concurrent activities, I can report that nothing was amiss. Even with the use of the highest refresh rates and HDR upscaling on some videos in the background, there wasn’t even as much of a stutter. Opening and closing optimised apps was as crisp and responsive as opening a new tab in your browser. Yes, there will always be some background loading when running certain apps, but compared to any other laptop I’ve tested before, it’s very fast. 

Moving onto the gaming performances, it also showcased quite impressive results. For the most part, games played effortlessly using the native resolution for the 2.5K screen and with graphical settings set to the maximum possible. Having played through the same list of games for testing as the G16, I recorded the average FPS over 30 to 60 minutes of gameplay and compared it between the two gaming laptops. 

Game	Resolution	Settings	FPS: G835 (average)	FPS: G16 (average)	% Change
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33	2.5K	Ultra	80	55	45%
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales	2.5K	Ultra	120	110	9%
Red Dead Redemption 2	2.5K	Ultra	80	60	33%
Bro Force	2.5K	Maximum	120	120	0%
Sonic X Shadow Generations	2.5K	Maximum	60	60	0%
Avowed	2.5K	Epic	100	80	25%
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle	2.5K	Supreme	60	60	0%
Starfield	2.5K	Ultra	220	180	22%

As you can see from the results, there were gains on all the games that didn’t have FPS limitations. Even some modern AAA games, such as Indiana Jones, may still be framerate-limited for various reasons, so you won’t be able to eke out the maximum performance of your GPU and gaming configuration. Across these eight games, there was an average performance bump at under 20%. However, considering FPS-limited games, this increases to around 27% in performance gains. 

There are some key points to make in this regard. For starters, being a relatively new chipset, NVIDIA’s drivers haven’t yet maximised their performance extraction from the cards, especially in relation to being optimised for specific games. This is the case for both the SCAR 18 with its RTX 5090 and the G16 with its 5080 laptop GPUs. Whether or not NVIDIA will be able to extract more of a performance gain of 20% between the two GPU models remains to be seen, but worth keeping an eye out in the months ahead. 

The final performance deliverable to examine closely is the battery. The ROG Strix SCAR 18 has a similar 90Wh battery to the Strix G16. As a result, its overall battery performance is down. This is a result of the higher-specced hardware and larger screen, all of which draw more power on average. This results in a 20% decrease in uptime across the board. However, the SCAR 18 offers fast charging from its 380W adapter. This allows for charging of up to 50% (from zero) in just under 30 minutes. So, if you need a quick charge and be on your way again, it’s a decent compromise. 

Is the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 (2025) Worth It?

The ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 G835 (2025) is one of the most powerful gaming laptops on the market. Its list of specifications makes for great reading on paper, and it delivers in the real world. With its over-the-top lighting and included AniMe animated LED lid, it can also put on a show while at it. 

But the SCAR 18 doesn’t come cheap. At a retail price of R99,999, it’s also one of the most expensive laptops in the country. That said, it’s not the most expensive I’ve seen, but it does boast a much more impressive hardware configuration. Looking at the pricing differences between the Strix G16 and the SCAR 18, it’s a bit tough to justify that extra R25,000. With a price increase of 33% and a gaming performance increase of around 20%, it doesn’t quite add up on paper. However, with a larger screen, an enhanced design, and top-tier specifications for creators as well, it may have enough of an advantage to justify the price bump.