Today we’re looking at the Asus ROG Strix Scar II GL504GV, a gaming laptop with a protracted product name but a few of the brand new hardware inside, which includes GeForce RTX 2060 portraits. Having already reviewed the RTX 2060 in element, these days we’re that specialize in what the overall pc package deal gives.

Like many other refreshed RTX laptops, there hasn’t been a considerable trade to the design at the Asus ROG Strix or most of the inner hardware. Previously I reviewed the 15-inch Scar II which came with both a GTX 1060 or GTX 1070, at the same time as now you can get an RTX 2060 or RTX 2070, albeit at special rate factors. Our Laptopunit is the GL504GV that packs the RTX 2060 priced at $1,700.

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Other hardware is basically unchanged from the previous technology. The identical Intel hexa-middle Core i7-8750H is used, 16GB of DDR4 memory, and a 15.6-inch 1080p 144Hz IPS display. The number one garage alternatives had been bumped up a tier throughout the board, so where the bottom version got a 128GB SSD, that’s now up to 256GB, and so forth. Our Auroraunit, and the primary option available on Newegg and Amazon, comes with a 512GB PCIe SSD.

In terms of layout, apart from the brushed aluminium lid, maximum of the computer makes use of plastic, with a soft contact coating implemented around the keyboard. This smooth touch location has a carbon fiber design with 1/2 of it getting a camo print. We’d probably decide on if the camo wasn’t there but Asus likes to try this kind of component.

Yes, there’s RGB, too. You get a strip along the the front edge of the pc, plus the off-middle Asus ROG brand on the lid, each controllable through Asus’ Aura software program. The front RGB strip is immediately related to the four sector RGB keyboard backlighting, you don’t get per-key RGB here however the simple 4 area impact is excellent enough. The keyboard has a piece of a spongy tactile reaction, it is now not as clicky as I'd pick, however journey distance is decent, plus you get a numpad and none of the keys are truncated to fit that during. The trackpad is super and we adore the inclusion of separate click buttons.

Like a number of gaming laptops nowadays, a slender bezel around the 15-inch display keeps the laptop’s footprint pretty compact, despite the fact that there’s nonetheless a enormous bezel underneath the screen. Unfortunately Asus has long gone with possibly the worst webcam placement feasible, offset and low beneath the display, if the webcam is in any respect a difficulty for you, of direction.

The chassis is your normal mid-tier choice: it’s not a narrow and mild machine just like the Asus Zephyrus, however it’s no longer a corpulent beast like the huge boy Asus models. It clocks in at 26mm thick and five.three lbs, so it’s transportable with out getting into the skinny class that comes at a better fee. The predominant issue for portability can be the smaller 62 Wh battery, as opposed to close to one hundred Wh you get with systems like the Gigabyte Aero 15.

I/O may be very solid. Three USB three.1 type-A ports, two gen 1 and one gen 2, plus a USB 3.2 gen 2 type-C port (there’s no Thunderbolt). You also get HDMI 2.0b, miniDisplayPort 1.2, Ethernet, an SD card slot and a 3.5mm audio jack. Internal connectivity comes inside the shape of an Intel 802.11ac 2x2 Wi-Fi plus Bluetooth five.zero blend solution.

Before speaking about performance, there are some notes to be made. The first is regarding Asus’ software suite, the Armoury Crate. There’s a number of trendy stuff in there, but the critical thing are the fan profiles: Windows, Silent, Balanced and Turbo, plus a manual mode. For recreation checking out we used the balanced mode, because we couldn’t spot any difference in performance between that and Turbo. For productiveness apps we used the Turbo mode, it’s louder but it does growth the electricity limit on the CPU which for long workloads like video encoding brought about a small performance increase.

And while the Turbo mode is excellent, what’s not pleasant is getting a unmarried 16GB DIMM of DDR4-2666 reminiscence. This method the laptop runs a widespread 16GB configuration in unmarried-channel only, which results in decrease memory bandwidth than twin-channel laptops, and therefore lower overall performance. It does depart a DIMM slot free in case you want to improve to 32GB down the line, however that’s come at the price of out of the box overall performance.

We might not pass into excessive element approximately the Core i7-8750H because we’ve protected it masses of times in other reviews. It’s a popular six-core CPU utilized in maximum gaming laptops, and it’s the option we’d select for productiveness and gaming workloads with out entering into loopy form elements.

Performance

The Asus ROG GL504GV plays more or less on par with a regular Core i7-8750H laptop, however that’s down to a few brilliant differences that each prefer and drawback the device. Due to the Turbo fan mode, longer workloads have a tendency to throttle less than wellknown 8750H performance, so we’re seeing up to a ten percentage advantage for longer multi-threaded workloads like Handbrake. This computer can maintain higher clocks for longer. On the turn facet, because of having unmarried-channel reminiscence, this pc gets lower marks in our memory heavy benchmarks. That consists of 7-Zip compression, MATLAB and Adobe Photoshop Iris Blur.

As standard right here’s our contrast among the Core i7-8750H and the remaining-gen quad-middle Core i7-7700HQ. Due to better clock speeds and greater cores, we’re looking at over a 50% advantage in some multi-threaded workloads, as well as better unmarried-thread overall performance. You received’t see this kind of improvement in every workload, however in case you’re coming from an older quad-middle gadget, the 8750H will be a exquisite improve.

This is the chart for the ones thinking whether or not they should purchase a larger 15-inch gaming device, or a portable thirteen-inch ultrabook for his or her productiveness obligations. Generally, the 8750H certainly smokes a 15W CPU like the Core i7-8565U, turning in more than double the overall performance in a few cases. Throw in right GPU acceleration and for something like Premiere encodes, a gaming computer is an order of importance faster.

When it involves gaming, we've got examined over a dozen games breaking down how the RTX 2060 performs on this exact machine. Check that out in our RTX 2060 (computer) GPU overview. Do note that for that overview we loaded up the GL504GV with twin-channel memory, so it will be a tad quicker because of that.

The laptop's display is right. A decent 15.6-inch 1080p IPS with a one hundred forty four Hz refresh rate, top brightness is up round 300 nits, acceptable for a gaming laptop, and it has a evaluation ratio of round a thousand:1. In phrases of color overall performance, that is an sRGB display, so no fancy extensive gamut, but now not that you want that for gaming.

Our important concern turned into with the wrong white factor. Asus is the use of about 7500K in place of the appropriate 6500K, which gives the show a chillier, bluer tone. This ends in average deltaEs among three.0 and 4.0 which isn’t correct however isn’t highly erroneous both.

Putting It All Together

The Asus ROG Strix Scar II GL504GV is a nice laptop with an amazing layout, an amazing trackpad and keyboard, and generous I/O. It’s now not overly transportable, it’s no longer overly chunky. It’s got a quite exact show, upgradeability alternatives, and the inner hardware and overall performance is ideal, too.

Our most effective most important challenge has to do with the unmarried-channel memory out of the container. It doesn’t effect productivity workloads heavily, but it does shave ~10% off the gaming overall performance. It is fixable – a $one hundred stick of memory delivered into the second slot immediately gives you that overall performance returned – but we’d instead get that included via default.

In terms of fee, the Asus ROG Strix Scar II is incredibly hard to advise to shop for proper now while you take a look at the gaming overall performance you have become. But this is not unique to this pc, but all RTX laptops currently inside the marketplace. At $1,700, the Scar II is notably extra luxurious than GTX 1060 laptops with a similar CPU, show, storage and other components, which retail for round $1,a hundred these days. In undeniable figures, for sixty three% more coins, you’re getting a system that’s simplest 12% faster... Or 28% faster if you upload in a 2nd stick of RAM.

It’s additionally now not aggressive with outgoing GTX 1070 laptops. The predecessor to this machine, the GL504GS, is most effective $1,500 in certain stores, including Newegg. That receives you a totally similar computer that is faster for less money. Even if for a restricted time even as components ultimate, RTX laptops at release do not provide extremely good cost.

Laptop costs will necessarily alternate over the approaching months, so those looking this evaluate within the destiny can be faced with a totally extraordinary scenario. For now, we without a doubt dislike the concept of a brand new product no longer beating final generation's on raw performance nor cost. We're genuinely now not positive who's liable for setting these charges. Perhaps it's truely Nvidia charging greater for the RTX GPU considering that every different RTX 2060 machine is across the equal price as the Scar II.

Value dialogue aside, Asus has designed the Strix Scar II to be reachable and supply a first rate 1080p gaming experience. You may not locate an awful lot to set it apart from other commonly exact gaming laptops at this price factor, however it is a good all-round package nevertheless.

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