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Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
With NVIDIA’s 50-series GPUs officially out in the wild, gaming laptops are entering their next evolution. ASUS has fired its first big salvo with the ROG Strix Scar 16 — a top-tier, powerful pitch for gamers who want nothing but the best. I spent a week with this monster, and here’s how it held up through anime binges, multicam edits and chaos in Los Santos.
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 stands at the pinnacle of gaming laptops, with a design that unmistakably reflects its high-end pedigree. Constructed with a combination of metal and polycarbonate plastic, the build quality feels sturdy and premium from every angle.
Weighing 2.8 kg, the Strix Scar 16 isn’t exactly lightweight. It’s not something you can easily slip into a backpack and carry with you every day. Throughout the time I used it, the device remained firmly docked on my desk at home, due to its heft.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
A standout feature is its tool-less upgradeability. Users can access the RAM and SSD slots by simply flipping a locking switch on the rear panel that opens the back cover. This provides easy access to an additional SSD and RAM slot for upgrades. A thousand brownie points to the device for being both future-proof and user-friendly.
The Strix Scar 16 design screams “hardcore gamer vibes”, and most will be fascinated with being able to personalise the rear AniMe Vision display. You can add custom text — such as your name — in addition to using preset ROG dot matrix templates that will flash on the laptop lid. Aura Wallpaper and Aura Sync let you download vibrant wallpapers and synchronise RGB lighting across the keyboard and lower panel.
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 features a 16-inch Nebula HDR display with a sharp and detailed 2.5K resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio, providing more vertical screen space.
Out of the box, the colours were rich and vibrant. Watching content such as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny showcased the display’s accurate rendering of anime pastels and vivid hues, while real-world shows like Blue Bloods and games like GTA 5 highlighted the panel’s life-like reproduction of action sequences, true-blue skies, and rich Hollywood sunsets.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The display utilises a mini LED panel with an anti-glare coating to reduce reflections, and it did help cut down stray reflections while running a video edit or a game while sitting close to a window or in a brightly lit office. It offers vibrant, true-to-life colours with 100 per cent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage and is Pantone Validated for colour accuracy.
With a 240 Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time, motion appears smooth and clear—ideal for fast-paced gaming.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The display also features G-Sync support that eliminates screen tearing, while the MUX Switch with NVIDIA Advanced Optimus enhances both performance and battery life by automatically switching between integrated and discrete graphics, the brand claims.
The ROG Strix Scar 16 is equipped with a robust 4-speaker system enhanced by Smart Amplifier Technology, delivering clear and rich audio. The speakers are positioned below the display hinge, directed toward the user. While the volume is adequate for in-game dialogue and ambient effects, I found the audio slightly lacking in vocal depth and separation from background sounds, which detracts from a fully immersive gaming experience.
The laptop supports Dolby Atmos, offering immersive, multi-dimensional sound. I found the built-in array microphone picked up my voice clearly, while the AI noise-canceling technology helped reduce background noise for better audio quality on calls.
The laptop features a backlit chiclet keyboard with per-key RGB lighting, which I could customise via ASUS’ Armoury Crate software. The keyboard was satisfactory in terms of key travel and responsiveness, and didn’t disappoint even during fast-paced games such as Counter-Strike 2.
The touchpad is large and responsive, comparable to that of the 16-inch MacBook Pro. It also supports the NumberPad feature, allowing quick access to a virtual numeric keypad by swiping the NumLock icon at the top right corner.
Additionally, the laptop includes a dedicated Microsoft Copilot key. Leveraging the 13 TOPS AI capabilities, it handled simple prompts efficiently—such as when I asked it to streamline my Premiere Pro workflow—and generated responses in approximately 4-8 seconds.
The unit I reviewed ran on an Intel Core Ultra 9 Processor 275HX (up to 5.4 GHz, 24 cores) with an Intel AI Boost NPU delivering up to 13 TOPS. It also featured an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 laptop GPU (175W TDP), 2TB NVMe SSD, and 32 GB RAM.
In Cinebench R24, the laptop topped the charts, scoring 129 in the CPU single-core test and 1,651 in the CPU multi-core test. In real-life usage, thanks to the 32 GB of RAM, the laptop effortlessly handled 40-odd Microsoft Edge tabs without any noticeable slowdown. In Grand Theft Auto V, with all settings maxed out on Ultra, the game ran smoothly, maintaining frame rates between 45-62 fps on the highest supported settings.
It also performed exceptionally well in video editing, rendering a 12-minute 1080p timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro in under 1 minute and 20 seconds. Combined with the excellent colour accuracy of the Nebula display, this makes the Strix Scar 16 a great option for content creators.
The device is designed with an end-to-end vapor chamber with a sandwiched heatsink and tri-fan technology which helps to send additional heat from the GPU directly to the heatsinks. There’s said to be Conductonaut Extreme liquid metal on both CPU & GPU, which helps the Strix Scar 16 stay cool during extended gaming sessions and video edits. I found that the cooling system worked efficiently and kept the keyboard area cool during gaming.
The premium laptop offers a solid selection of ports, including a slim pin charging port, an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, and two USB-C ports with DisplayPort support on the left side, along with two USB-A ports on the right. While the absence of an SD or MicroSD card reader is disappointing, especially for a device that caters to both content creators and gamers, it’s not a deal-breaker.
Powerful gaming laptops and their batteries and runtime are almost always inversely proportional. One can’t expect long runtimes, unplugged, from gaming beasts, and the Strix Scar 16 is no exception. It manages around 1.5 to 2 hours unplugged in eco-mode, and roughly 45 minutes to 1 hour in performance mode with the GPU active. This is very much a device meant to stay plugged in during gaming sessions.
The 380-watt slim-pin charger feels like a brick in my bag when I carry it home. It takes about 1.5 hours to charge the laptop fully with this. While the charging speed helps offset the battery drain, good luck finding a 16-amp socket in most offices or older homes.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 16 is currently one of the best gaming laptops available with 50-series GPUs, with more models expected to arrive in India soon. However, that performance comes with a hefty price tag and substantial physical weight. If you’re willing to spend the money, the Strix Scar 16 offers the best gaming performance at this price range, right now.
ASUS ROG Strix Scar 16 Review
Price: ₹3,79,990
Pros: Ultimate gaming performance, great display, easy DIY upgradability, unique AniMe Matrix Display
Cons: Average acoustics and battery life, hefty device, and charger
Published on June 25, 2025
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