There’s a battle raging in front of you, and it’s not for the faint of heart. The demon hordes are descending, dropping from dark skies and climbing over walls. You take a deep breath and press ahead, ready for battle. Thankfully, you have one advantage this time. In other gaming scenarios, a slow graphics card and some annoying lag might ruin the experience. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been testing the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 gaming laptop, and it provided all the power—and then some—to defeat those demon hordes.
The game in question is Doom: The Dark Ages, and it’s a blast. Even more so on the ROG Strix Scar 18 because all of the action is so streamlined and fluid—like driving a Ferrari on a highway without any posted speed limits.
It all starts with the display, which features a fast response time of around three milliseconds or less. The Adaptive-Sync tech makes sure everything runs smoothly by syncing the display’s refresh rate to the game you’re playing. With Doom, I noticed virtually no lag at all during several matches—so smooth that you feel more immersed in the game.
I liked how many ports there are for all of my USB connections and, of course, an actual HDMI port for an external monitor instead of just a USB-C port. The keyboard is designed for gamers and lights up in multicolored patterns, even if I can’t see myself typing a novel on it.
Another important spec is the RTX 5080 graphics card, which powers everything from the Doom game I was playing to the Adobe products I use in my job. I take a lot of product photos during the week and for other journalistic work, so flying through Adobe Lightroom and other apps means I get my work done faster. The GPU offers a boost mode that helps make high-end games even smoother. I also played the new DLC for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and the only slow part of the game had to do with figuring out the puzzles.
A cooling system called ROG Intelligent Cooling ensures that all of that processing power for games and Adobe products never causes serious overheating. The tech involves liquid metal, fans, thin copper fins, vapor chambers, and anti-dust features to keep the laptop cool. I connected the laptop to an external 50-inch monitor for most of my testing and even left the game running when I went to grab some food. When I came back, the laptop didn’t seem hot at all—which is a problem I’ve noticed with several other gaming notebooks I’ve tested.
I had never tested the AniMe Vision tech before on an Asus gaming laptop, and it’s really fun. The laptop itself has an array of LED lights and other accents that can be programmed any way you want. For me, it added some bragging rights during multiplayer gaming nights when other laptops just sat there without much lighting at all.
The display is super bright as well. Asus uses ROG Nebula HDR tech to increase the brightness up to 1,100 nits. For me, that means sharpness and vividness that help you see all of the action—or watch movies where extreme clarity is important. For example, during the last season of Andor, the display made the show more lifelike and clear.
The system I tested costs $2,699.99 and, for what you gain with the fast refresh rate, high-end components, and overall design, it’s well worth the price. If I had more time with the system, I’d really dig into the AniMe Vision tech to program more animations. As it stands, the overall system provides plenty of power and a bright display for my favorite games.