The ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023) Laptop Review: Mobile Ryzen 9 7945HX3D with 3D V-Cache Impresses

ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023): Graphics Performance

The term 'desktop replacement' is one that gets banded around aimlessly sometimes, but the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 in specifications is certainly one of the best examples there has ever been. With the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D, as seen in the compute section of our performance testing, smashed against its bigger desktop siblings, it's time to put the laptop's graphics subsystem to the test, as well.

As a premium desktop replacement, the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 is using the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, which isn't to be confused with the fully-fledged desktop GeForce RTX 4090 video. Still the flagship discrete graphics chip for mobile in any laptop right now, it has had to undergo a cut down in specifications compared to the desktop model, mostly due to power and heat restrictions. While the desktop RTX 4090 has a absurd-by-laptop-standards TDP of 450 W with 16834 CUDA cores and 512 Tensor cores, the laptop variety has 9728 CUDA cores and 304 Tensor cores, with a TDP of 150 W; add an additional 25 W to that in even more graphics intensive scenarios thanks to Dynamic Boost.

The ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 (G733) with the regular AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX is also available with NVIDIA's RTX 4090, so this isn't the first time ASUS has used it. Installed into the Scar 17, Resizable BAR has been enabled by default by ASUS, and the RTX 4090 within our sample has a base frequency of 1590 MHz and a boost core clock speed of 2040 MHz, with an effective memory clock speed of 2250 MHz. This is more than powerful enough to chomp through AAA titles with ease, so framerates with the included 240 Hz screen aren't going to be an issue at 1080 or 1440p, depending on the graphics settings used in each game.

As this is our second notebook to use our updated test suite for 2023, and I've not had as much time as I would have liked before I set off for a trip to Malaysia, I've not had the opportunity to farm laptop and notebook data points. We can compare the ROG Strix Scar 17 to another premium model, the Razer Blade 14 (2023), with AMD's more power-conscious true mobile Ryzen 9 7940HS which is also paired with an NVIDIA RTX 4070 mobile graphics chip. We've tested the ROG Strix Scar 17 at the native default resolution of 2560 x 1440p, as well as compared it to the Razer Blade 14 (2023) at 1080p settings.

All of our notebook/laptop gaming data is taken from the discrete graphics card installed, as we wouldn't expect any of the titles we run at 1440p to perform on an integrated chip, such as the AMD Radeon 610M, which only has 2 RDNA 2-architecture CUs. Although this is absolutely fine for regular desktop applications that don't rely on heavy graphical grunt, they certainly aren't cut out for gaming. First of all, we'll start off with gaming performance at the native resolution and then compare data at 1080p for comparative reasons.

It is also worth noting that the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D is basically the Ryzen 9 7945HX without the 3D V-Cache and a slightly faster base frequency (>200 MHz), so we've tested gaming with the 3D V-Cache optimizations enabled and without, allowing games to utilize the full 16C/32T vs 8C/16T+3D V-Cache to show the differences the large L3 cache can, or does make to framerates.

ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023) Gaming Performance @ Native Res

From the titles we've evaluated thus far, we can see that the ROG Strix Scar 17 is a much more potent gaming notebook than the Razer Blade 14 at their native resolutions, which we expected. The CPU (Ryzen 9 7945HX3D) and GPU (GeForce RTX 4090) are much higher-grade parts in terms of compute and graphical performance. The ROG Strix Scar 17 easily runs games well above 60 fps at the native 2560 x 1440p resolution and higher settings. The most demanding title we tested was Red Dead Redemption 2, which is notorious for being poorly optimized for PC hardware.

Looking at how much difference the 3D V-Cache plays into things, we also ran the games with Game Mode disabled, which enabled the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D to run with both CCDs (16C/32T) as opposed to one CCD just (8C/16T) with the 3D V-Cache. We can see that Borderlands 3 performed around 11% better in average frame rates, while we also saw a good boost to performance in F1 2022 with just under 14% higher frame rates. We saw no benefit to the 3D V-Cache in Red Dead Redemption 2, and we actually saw marginally better performance in Total War Warhammer 3 with Game Mode disabled, likely because the regular CCD can clock a bit higher.

ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023) Gaming Performance @ 1080p

Comparing the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 directly to the Razer Blade 14 at 1080p, it's clear to see that the Scar 17 is a monster in comparison. At 1080p, the combination of the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D with 3D V-Cache and the NVIDIA RTX 4090 can easily run any game at high settings with high frame rates.

Despite coming with a 240 Hz panel, which is more favorable for less demanding eSports titles such as DOTA 2 and League of Legends, this notebook will max out 240 fps at maximum settings with ease in games like these.