Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 review

Frame rates

1920×1080, High preset, upscaling off.

Measured on this machine. Source: Notebookcheck, 2022-05-31.

In use

The short version

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 is a powerful 15.6in gaming laptop built around an RTX 3070 Ti configured with a 150W GPU power limit, a Core i9-12900H and 32GB of memory. At its listed UK price of £1,967, it delivers high frame rates in a broad range of games at 1920x1080 using the High preset with upscaling disabled. Notebookcheck’s measured figures show that it is especially strong in lighter and older games, where it can get close to or beyond the screen’s 240Hz refresh rate. It is still convincingly fast in demanding modern games, but the results also make clear that a 240Hz display is not something this machine will fully exploit in every AAA title.

The important point is that this is not a laptop with a weak implementation of the RTX 3070 Ti. Asus has given the GPU a 150W power limit, which is above the 140W configuration in the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ARH7H listed below and matches the Acer Predator Helios 300 comparison machine. That matters because the RTX 3070 Ti name alone does not describe the whole performance picture. Laptop GPU power limits vary, and the Scar 15’s measured results place it effectively level with the two nearest RTX 3070 Ti rivals in the shared games.

Its benchmark spread is also sensible. F1 2021 reaches 238fps and Strange Brigade reaches 235fps, making them the clearest examples of games that can meaningfully benefit from the 240Hz panel. The Witcher 3 at 209fps and GTA V at 172fps remain very fast, although they do not fully match the display’s maximum refresh rate. Dota 2 reaches 165fps. Moving to the more demanding end of the results, Far Cry 5 reaches 138fps, Final Fantasy XV reaches 96fps, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla reaches 94fps and Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 reaches 90fps.

That makes the Scar 15 easy to recommend to the buyer who wants a high-spec gaming machine for competitive games, older AAA games and current titles without having to lean on upscaling in the measured settings. It is less compelling for someone choosing purely on price. £1,967 is a substantial outlay, and the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ARH7H with the same RTX 3070 Ti has a confirmed UK price of £1,706 while producing an effectively identical shared-game result. The Scar 15 is not meaningfully slower than that Lenovo, but the available figures do not establish a performance lead that would make the extra spend self-evidently worthwhile.

It is also not the right machine to buy solely because it has a 240Hz screen. The screen has the refresh rate for extremely high frame rates, but the benchmark data shows that those figures are title-dependent. The Scar 15 can approach the panel’s ceiling in F1 2021 and Strange Brigade at the measured 1920x1080 High settings. It cannot do so in Cyberpunk 2077 1.6, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Final Fantasy XV under those same conditions. That is not a flaw unique to this laptop; it is simply the reality of demanding games meeting a very high refresh target.

There is another limit on how far the data can be taken. The display’s native resolution is 2560x1440, whereas the supplied results are measured at 1920x1080. They are valuable for showing what the hardware can do in a consistent benchmark scenario, but they are not native-resolution frame-rate claims. Running at 2560x1440 asks the GPU to render more pixels than the benchmark setting, so these figures should not be treated as a promise of the same performance at the panel’s full resolution. There are no supplied native-resolution figures, and there are no supplied results with upscaling enabled.

The best reason to buy the Scar 15 is therefore straightforward: you want a 15.6in QHD, 240Hz IPS gaming laptop with a full-power RTX 3070 Ti configuration, a Core i9-12900H and 32GB of memory, and you value the measured high-frame-rate performance more than you value finding the lowest available price. The best reason not to buy it is equally clear: if the primary objective is extracting the best value from an RTX 3070 Ti laptop, the supplied comparison with the cheaper Lenovo leaves the Asus with work to do.

Performance

What the measured figures show

Notebookcheck measured the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 at 1920x1080, using the High preset with upscaling off. Those settings matter. They give a clean view of conventional GPU performance without a frame-rate uplift from upscaling, but they do not represent every way the laptop might be configured. They also put the emphasis on the hardware’s ability to produce high frame rates at a widely used gaming resolution rather than on native 2560x1440 output.

Across the supplied scoring-suite titles, the Scar 15 records a mean of 167fps. That figure comes from Strange Brigade at 235fps, GTA V at 172fps, Dota 2 at 165fps and Final Fantasy XV at 96fps. It is a useful summary of the machine’s pace across games with very different demands, but it should not be mistaken for a universal expectation. The range within that small set is already large: Strange Brigade is far ahead of Final Fantasy XV. The wider list reinforces the point, running from 238fps in F1 2021 down to 90fps in Cyberpunk 2077 1.6.

The high end is properly high. F1 2021 reaches 238fps, only narrowly below the 240Hz panel refresh rate. Strange Brigade reaches 235fps, again close enough to the panel ceiling that the difference is not the story; the important result is that the Scar 15 can produce a genuinely very high refresh experience in games of this kind at the measured settings. The Witcher 3 follows at 209fps. That is below 240fps, but it remains a level of performance that is substantially beyond the traditional 60fps target and clearly suited to a fast screen.

GTA V at 172fps and Dota 2 at 165fps continue the pattern. Neither reaches the display’s maximum 240Hz refresh rate, but neither needs an excuse. These are fast results, and they indicate that the Scar 15 has considerable headroom for players who prioritise responsiveness and high average frame rates. More importantly, they show that the machine is not dependent on a small number of unusually favourable games to look quick. There are several titles here comfortably over 160fps, alongside the near-240fps results.

Far Cry 5, at 138fps, is where the performance starts to move further away from the panel ceiling while remaining clearly strong in absolute terms. A 138fps result will not turn a 240Hz display into a fully saturated 240fps experience, but it is still a high-refresh result rather than a borderline one. It gives the machine room above 120fps in the measured configuration and demonstrates why a 240Hz panel can still be a useful match for a laptop that does not reach its maximum refresh rate in every game. Screen refresh is a ceiling, not a compulsory target that must be met in all titles before it has value.

At the demanding end, Final Fantasy XV reaches 96fps, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla reaches 94fps and Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 reaches 90fps. These are the figures that should guide expectations for heavier games. They are not 240fps results. They are not even 144fps results. However, they remain close together, which gives a useful indication of the level at which this hardware settles when the game places much more pressure on the GPU. For a buyer expecting demanding modern games to run smoothly at high settings without upscaling at 1920x1080, the data is encouraging. For a buyer expecting the screen’s full 240Hz refresh in every visually demanding game, it is a direct warning not to buy on that assumption.

The difference between 238fps in F1 2021 and 90fps in Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 is not inconsistency in the laptop. It is the expected consequence of different games making very different demands on the GPU and, at 1920x1080 in lighter titles, sometimes putting greater emphasis on the CPU. The Core i9-12900H is a high-end processor in this configuration, and the results in F1 2021, Strange Brigade, The Witcher 3, GTA V and Dota 2 show that the rest of the system is capable of keeping frame rates high where the game allows it. But a benchmark list should be read game by game, not reduced to a single attractive average.

The 150W RTX 3070 Ti configuration

The RTX 3070 Ti is configured here with a 150W GPU power limit. That is one of the most important specifications in the Scar 15 because laptop GPU names do not guarantee identical performance between machines. The power limit is part of the reason why comparing one RTX 3070 Ti laptop with another requires measured data rather than relying on the badge alone.

In this case, the 150W figure places the Scar 15 above the 140W RTX 3070 Ti in the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ARH7H comparison. It matches the 150W RTX 3070 Ti in the Acer Predator Helios 300 comparison. The shared-game results are tightly grouped: the Asus averages 1fps ahead of the Lenovo across four shared games, while it averages 1fps behind the Acer across four shared games. That is a useful outcome because it prevents the 150W figure being oversold. The higher stated power limit than the Lenovo does not translate into a decisive advantage in the supplied shared-game average. Likewise, matching the Acer’s power limit does not guarantee a tie in every individual game, although the average difference is effectively negligible.

The right conclusion is that the Scar 15’s 150W RTX 3070 Ti is operating in the top part of this particular RTX 3070 Ti comparison group, but it is not establishing a meaningful gap over every rival with the same GPU family. Its measured performance is exactly where a buyer would want it to be: not compromised by an unusually low power limit, and competitive with other powerful implementations. Yet the supplied figures do not support paying a large premium on the assumption that 150W alone guarantees substantially higher frame rates than a 140W alternative.

The comparison with the MSI Raider GE77 HX is also revealing. That machine has an RTX 3080 Ti with a 175W GPU power limit, and it averages 14fps ahead of the Scar 15 across four shared games. The Raider’s hardware has a higher GPU tier and a higher stated power limit, so it is unsurprising that it is ahead. What matters is the size of the lead in the shared data. Fourteen frames per second is a real advantage, especially if the aim is to push further into high-refresh territory, but it does not turn the Scar 15 into a poor performer. The Asus remains close enough that its own results need to be judged as strong rather than dismissed because a more powerful configuration exists.

At the other end of the spread, the Asus averages 93fps ahead of the MSI Prestige 15 with an RTX 3050 Ti at 105W across three shared games. This is the large gap in the comparison set and the one that best illustrates why GPU tier and power limit both matter. The Scar 15 is not merely a slightly faster version of a thin system with a lower-power GPU. In the shared games, it is in a very different performance class. There is no confirmed UK price for the Prestige 15 in the supplied information, so this is a performance comparison rather than a value judgement. But for someone deciding whether a lower-tier RTX 3050 Ti machine is enough for a high-refresh gaming target, the Scar 15’s lead is substantial.

High frame rates are not the same as a locked 240fps

The Scar 15’s screen refresh rate creates a tempting but simplistic way of judging the figures: anything below 240fps might appear to be leaving performance on the table. That is not a useful way to read this laptop. A 240Hz screen offers the capacity to show up to 240 frames each second, but games differ enormously in whether they can deliver that rate at a chosen preset, and the supplied measurements make that difference explicit.

F1 2021 at 238fps and Strange Brigade at 235fps are the closest matches to the panel. These are the games in which the Scar 15 gets near enough to the display limit for the 240Hz specification to feel directly relevant. The Witcher 3 at 209fps is also close, although it does not meet the full refresh rate. GTA V at 172fps and Dota 2 at 165fps are further away but still firmly in high-refresh territory.

The next group tells a different story. Far Cry 5 at 138fps is fast, but it is not a 240fps result. Final Fantasy XV at 96fps, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla at 94fps and Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 at 90fps demonstrate that modern demanding games can pull the Scar 15 well below the panel’s ceiling even at 1920x1080 High with upscaling disabled. The display remains capable of showing those frame rates, but its headline refresh number should not be confused with an achieved frame rate.

This distinction matters most for buyers with a fixed gaming library. Someone spending most of their time in F1 2021, Strange Brigade, GTA V, Dota 2 or The Witcher 3 has evidence that the Scar 15 can produce very high frame rates. Someone whose priority is Cyberpunk 2077 1.6, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Final Fantasy XV should read the figures differently: this machine is still quick, but it is aiming at performance around the supplied 90fps to 96fps range in those benchmarks, not at making a 240Hz screen fully busy.

There is no need to distort either result. Ninety frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 at the measured settings is a strong result. It is simply not evidence for a locked 240fps gaming experience. The same is true of 94fps in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and 96fps in Final Fantasy XV. A credible recommendation has to preserve that difference because a buyer who cares about fast competitive games and a buyer who cares about demanding AAA visuals are not necessarily shopping for the same thing.

Reading the mean with caution

The 167fps mean across the four supplied scoring-suite games is a useful shorthand for the Scar 15’s overall speed in that limited group, but it has clear constraints. The games are Strange Brigade, GTA V, Dota 2 and Final Fantasy XV, and they span from 235fps down to 96fps. A mean can hide the fact that one machine is extremely fast in lighter games while settling much lower in a more demanding title. That is exactly why the individual results deserve more attention than a single summary figure.

It also cannot be used to place the Scar 15 in the site’s wider scored ranking. The scoring suite is incomplete because there is no figure for X-Plane 11. Every scored laptop is averaged over the same five games, and a partial set cannot be ranked honestly against those complete results. The available four-game mean is still reported because it describes the supplied benchmark data, but it is not a substitute for a complete like-for-like ranking.

That limitation does not stop us drawing practical conclusions. The individual game results clearly establish the Scar 15 as a high-performance laptop at the stated 1920x1080 High settings. The comparisons also establish that it is level with the closest RTX 3070 Ti alternatives in the shared games, far ahead of the lower-tier RTX 3050 Ti comparison, and behind the more powerful RTX 3080 Ti Raider. What is not justified is pretending that the incomplete scoring suite produces a definitive place in a broader league table.

The screen

A QHD panel with a very high refresh target

The Scar 15 has a 15.6in IPS screen with a native resolution of 2560x1440 and a 240Hz refresh rate. On paper, that is an appealing combination for a gaming laptop: the resolution is above 1920x1080, while the refresh rate is high enough to matter for games where the GPU and CPU can deliver very high frame rates. The screen specification is ambitious relative to the RTX 3070 Ti, but the benchmark data shows that it is not an unreasonable pairing. It simply needs to be understood in terms of different gaming workloads.

The 240Hz refresh rate is most useful when the Scar 15 is running games that produce frame rates in the upper end of its results. F1 2021 at 238fps and Strange Brigade at 235fps are the obvious examples. Those figures nearly fill the panel’s refresh capacity at the measured resolution and settings. The Witcher 3 at 209fps is also close enough to make the fast display relevant, even if it does not fully reach 240fps.

GTA V at 172fps and Dota 2 at 165fps are still well suited to a high-refresh display. There is a sizeable gap between those results and 240fps, but they remain far above the levels associated with basic 60Hz play. A 240Hz panel does not stop being useful below its maximum refresh rate. It gives the machine room to present high frame rates where they are available, rather than placing a low ceiling on the games that run especially quickly.

The slower measured titles show the other side of the pairing. Far Cry 5 at 138fps, Final Fantasy XV at 96fps, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla at 94fps and Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 at 90fps do not come close to 240fps. For these games, the benefit of the 240Hz panel is not that the laptop reaches its maximum refresh rate; it is that the display is not the limiting factor if the user chooses settings that favour frame rate. The actual achieved figure remains determined by the game and the hardware.

The benchmark resolution is not the native screen resolution

The most important caveat in the display discussion is that all supplied frame rates are measured at 1920x1080, while the panel itself is 2560x1440. The laptop has a QHD screen, but the benchmark data is Full HD data. It is therefore wrong to present the listed frame rates as native-resolution results.

This matters particularly because the Scar 15 is being considered for a 240Hz QHD screen. The fact that F1 2021 reaches 238fps at 1920x1080 High with upscaling disabled does not establish that it will reach the same figure at 2560x1440. The same applies to every other game in the list. There are no supplied 2560x1440 measurements, so there is no defensible native-resolution frame-rate estimate to give.

That does not make the results less useful. They answer a specific and valuable question: what can this 150W RTX 3070 Ti and Core i9-12900H system do at 1920x1080 High without upscaling? The answer is that it can range from close to the display’s maximum refresh rate in F1 2021 and Strange Brigade to around 90fps in Cyberpunk 2077 1.6. Buyers can use that evidence to identify the kind of game experience this laptop is designed to provide. They should simply avoid treating it as a direct native-QHD performance chart.

The absence of upscaling in the test settings is also important. These are conventional rendered frame rates rather than figures lifted by an upscaling mode. That gives the data a clear baseline. However, there are no supplied measurements showing what any upscaling setting would do in any of these games, so it would be speculation to claim a particular result at the screen’s native resolution with upscaling enabled.

What can and cannot be said about the panel

The supplied specification confirms an IPS panel, a 15.6in size, a 2560x1440 resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate. Those are meaningful buying details. The display is a relatively compact gaming panel with more pixels than a 1920x1080 screen and a refresh rate aimed at high-frame-rate play.

There is no supplied information on brightness, contrast, colour coverage, response behaviour, adaptive-sync support or outdoor usability. Those are all relevant display qualities, but they are not available here and should not be invented from the ROG branding, the panel type or the refresh-rate figure. An IPS label tells us the panel technology specified; it does not provide a complete picture of image quality or motion performance on its own.

For gaming, the practical conclusion is narrower but still useful. The screen has enough refresh headroom for the Scar 15’s fastest measured games. The native QHD resolution provides a higher-resolution option than the 1920x1080 benchmark setting, but the supplied results do not show the frame-rate cost of using it. A buyer who wants the strongest evidence-based high-refresh experience should focus on the 1920x1080 measurements. A buyer who treats native 2560x1440 gaming as non-negotiable should seek native-resolution benchmark data before assuming how close the laptop will get to 240Hz.

Build, size and portability

The Scar 15 weighs 2.3kg. That makes it a laptop that can be transported, but the specification does not suggest treating it as an ultra-light everyday machine. It is a performance-focused 15.6in system with a high-power RTX 3070 Ti configuration, a Core i9-12900H, 32GB of memory and a 90Wh battery. The weight needs to be understood alongside that hardware rather than in isolation.

At 2.3kg, the Scar 15 is likely to make most sense as a machine that moves between a desk, another room, university accommodation, an office or occasional travel rather than one selected primarily for minimum carry weight. The value of the format is that it combines a 15.6in QHD 240Hz screen and high gaming performance into a laptop rather than a desktop arrangement. The trade-off is that 2.3kg is still a meaningful amount of weight for a bag.

No dimensions are supplied, so there is no basis for claims about thickness, footprint, how easily it fits in a particular bag, or whether it is smaller or larger than the listed rivals. There is also no supplied charger weight. Those details can matter significantly to real portability, particularly with a high-power gaming laptop, but they are not available in the fact sheet.

The battery capacity is 90Wh. That is a specification, not a measured battery-life result. There are no supplied figures for web browsing, video playback, gaming away from mains power or any other battery scenario. It would therefore be misleading to promise a number of hours or to describe the Scar 15 as an all-day machine. Gaming performance figures should also not be assumed to apply on battery, because the provided Notebookcheck frame rates do not state an on-battery test condition.

For a buyer deciding between a desktop replacement and a portable work-and-play laptop, the Scar 15 sits between those extremes on the available facts. Its 2.3kg weight and 15.6in display make it more transportable than a fixed desktop setup, while the component specification and 150W GPU power limit show that performance, not minimal mass, is the central priority. It is a laptop to take with you when required, not one whose key selling point is effortless portability.

The 32GB memory allocation is also worth noting in this context because it means the machine arrives with more memory than a basic gaming configuration. The supplied information does not state memory speed, slot arrangement or upgrade options, so no conclusion should be drawn about expandability. What can be said is that the listed configuration includes 32GB, alongside the Core i9-12900H and RTX 3070 Ti, which fits the Scar 15’s position as a high-spec gaming machine rather than an entry-level option.

How it compares

Against the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ARH7H RTX 3070 Ti

The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ARH7H is the comparison that matters most to a value-conscious buyer because it has the same RTX 3070 Ti GPU family, a listed 140W GPU power limit and a confirmed UK price of £1,706. The Scar 15 costs £1,967. The Asus is therefore the more expensive machine in the supplied UK pricing data.

On performance, however, there is almost nothing between them in the shared games. The Scar 15 averages 1fps ahead across four shared games. This is a near-zero difference, and it should be explained rather than exaggerated. At 1920x1080, lighter games in the shared set can become CPU-bound, compressing genuine GPU gaps. That means the Scar 15’s 150W GPU power limit compared with the Lenovo’s 140W limit does not produce a large average separation in these particular measurements.

The result is not an argument that GPU power limits are irrelevant. It is an argument that benchmark context matters. The Asus has a higher stated power limit, but the shared-game evidence says performance is effectively tied in this comparison. A buyer choosing between these two should not expect the Scar 15 to provide a transformative frame-rate advantage over the Legion simply because its RTX 3070 Ti is configured at 150W rather than 140W.

That leaves the price difference as a serious consideration. The Lenovo’s listed price is lower, while the measured shared-game average is effectively level. The Scar 15 may still appeal because its own specification includes a 15.6in 2560x1440 240Hz IPS screen, 32GB of memory and a Core i9-12900H, but the supplied fact sheet does not provide the Lenovo’s full configuration beyond its GPU and power limit. It would be wrong to assume that the machines are identical in every other respect. What is clear is that the Asus does not establish a meaningful shared-game performance advantage at its higher listed price.

Against the Acer Predator Helios 300

The Acer Predator Helios 300 comparison has an i7-12700H, an RTX 3070 Ti and the same 150W GPU power limit as the Scar 15. Across four shared games, the Asus averages 1fps behind. Again, that is a near-zero difference rather than a meaningful defeat.

This pairing reinforces the most useful conclusion from the performance data: the Scar 15 is operating in the same practical performance band as other high-power RTX 3070 Ti laptops. The Acer shares the 150W GPU limit and has a different listed CPU, yet the average difference is only 1fps in the shared set. The result does not prove the machines are identical in every workload, every game or every setting. It does show that, at 1920x1080 in the selected shared games, there is no evidence of a meaningful Scar 15 advantage or disadvantage.

There is no confirmed UK price for this Acer in the supplied information. That prevents a proper value comparison. If the Helios 300 were substantially cheaper or more expensive, that would materially change the buying recommendation, but no such figure is available here. The honest position is performance parity in the shared measurements, with price unresolved.

Against the MSI Raider GE77 HX

The MSI Raider GE77 HX is the stronger comparison machine. It uses an RTX 3080 Ti with a 175W GPU power limit, compared with the Scar 15’s RTX 3070 Ti at 150W. Across four shared games, the Raider averages 14fps ahead.

Fourteen frames per second is enough to matter, but its importance depends on the starting frame rate. At the high end, an extra 14fps can help move a machine closer to a fast panel’s refresh ceiling. In more demanding games, it can give additional performance margin. The Scar 15’s own figures remain strong, though, and the comparison does not justify describing it as underpowered. It shows the expected benefit of stepping up to a higher-tier GPU with a higher listed power limit.

There is no confirmed UK price for the Raider in the supplied information, so this cannot become a simple recommendation to spend more for the MSI. Without a price, the performance advantage is only one side of the decision. Buyers who want the highest available frame rates from this comparison group should note that the Raider is ahead. Buyers who are judging whether the Scar 15 is still fast enough for high-refresh gaming have the Asus’s own results, including 238fps in F1 2021 and 235fps in Strange Brigade, to show that it clearly is in suitable games.

Against the MSI Prestige 15

The MSI Prestige 15 represents the lower end of the GPU comparison spread. It has an RTX 3050 Ti at 105W, and the Scar 15 averages 93fps ahead across three shared games. This is not a marginal difference caused by benchmark noise or a light CPU-bound title compressing the gap. It is a substantial performance separation.

The comparison is useful because it shows what the Scar 15 buyer is paying for in practical gaming terms. The Asus has a higher-tier RTX 3070 Ti and a higher 150W GPU power limit, while the Prestige uses an RTX 3050 Ti at 105W. The supplied shared-game average reflects a large difference in gaming output. For someone whose target is to make meaningful use of a 240Hz screen in lighter games and to maintain high frame rates in a broad selection of titles, the Scar 15 is plainly the more appropriate class of machine.

No confirmed UK price is supplied for the Prestige 15. It may therefore be cheaper, but the fact sheet does not provide a figure and it would be wrong to invent a value conclusion. The evidence supports a performance conclusion only: the Scar 15 is much faster across the three shared games.

What the comparison group really says

The comparison set gives the Scar 15 a clear place without requiring an artificial overall ranking. It is far ahead of the lower-power RTX 3050 Ti MSI Prestige 15. It is effectively tied with the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ARH7H despite the Lenovo’s lower 140W RTX 3070 Ti configuration. It is effectively tied with the Acer Predator Helios 300, which shares its 150W RTX 3070 Ti configuration. It trails the more powerful 175W RTX 3080 Ti MSI Raider GE77 HX by 14fps across the shared games.

This is the pattern a sensible buyer should expect from the evidence. The Scar 15 is a serious RTX 3070 Ti gaming laptop, not an entry-level implementation and not a machine that falls away from its closest GPU peers. At the same time, its full-power configuration does not automatically create a meaningful win over every lower-power RTX 3070 Ti rival at 1920x1080. The shared games include lighter titles where CPU limits can compress GPU differences, so the near-ties are real results rather than proof that the hardware specifications do not matter.

It also means that the Asus needs to be chosen for its complete specified package, not merely for a claimed frame-rate lead over other RTX 3070 Ti systems. The 15.6in 2560x1440 240Hz IPS display, Core i9-12900H, 32GB memory and 2.3kg weight all form part of that package. Whether that package is worth £1,967 depends on priorities, but the performance data alone does not make the cheaper £1,706 Lenovo look obsolete.

Who it’s for

Buy the Scar 15 if you want high-refresh gaming with evidence behind it

The Scar 15 is for the buyer who wants a high-performance gaming laptop and wants published frame-rate data rather than vague claims about what an RTX 3070 Ti “should” do. The supplied Notebookcheck figures give it a convincing case at 1920x1080 High with upscaling off. F1 2021 at 238fps, Strange Brigade at 235fps, The Witcher 3 at 209fps, GTA V at 172fps and Dota 2 at 165fps show a machine capable of taking substantial advantage of a 240Hz screen in games that run well on this class of hardware.

It is particularly suitable for a player whose library includes lighter competitive games, racing games, older AAA titles and games where frame rate is prioritised alongside image quality. The Scar 15 does not merely reach 100fps in those favourable results; it moves well beyond that in several games. The difference between 165fps and 235fps is meaningful for a high-refresh buyer, and the machine has multiple results in that territory.

It is also for someone who wants a laptop with a stronger configuration than a lower-tier RTX 3050 Ti system. The 93fps shared-game lead over the MSI Prestige 15 shows that the Scar 15 belongs in a substantially higher gaming-performance class. If the aim is to buy once and avoid being limited to modest frame rates in more demanding games, the RTX 3070 Ti at 150W is the more convincing starting point.

The Scar 15 suits a buyer who accepts that portability is useful but not the main goal. At 2.3kg, it can be moved when needed, but its appeal rests on its gaming hardware and 15.6in QHD 240Hz screen rather than on being exceptionally light. The 90Wh battery is a sizeable listed capacity, but there is no measured runtime supplied, so it should not be bought on an assumption of a particular unplugged endurance.

Buy something else if native-QHD performance is the deciding factor

Buy something else, or at least seek more benchmark data, if your requirement is confirmed 2560x1440 performance in specific games. The Scar 15’s panel is 2560x1440, but all available results are at 1920x1080. There is no native-resolution figure for F1 2021, Strange Brigade, The Witcher 3, GTA V, Dota 2, Far Cry 5, Final Fantasy XV, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 in the supplied data.

The laptop may still be a sensible QHD gaming choice, but that is not the same as having evidence that it can drive the native panel at a particular frame rate in a particular game. Buyers who want a reliable native-QHD target, especially one close to 240fps, should not extrapolate from the 1920x1080 numbers. The data supports excellent Full HD performance at the measured settings. It does not supply a native-QHD performance guarantee.

Likewise, do not buy it if your definition of value is simply “the cheapest laptop that is effectively as fast as possible in the shared games”. The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ARH7H costs £1,706 in the supplied UK pricing, while the Scar 15 costs £1,967 and averages only 1fps ahead across four shared games. The Asus may have other configuration advantages, but the information supplied here does not establish enough about the Lenovo’s full specification to justify the higher Asus price on performance alone.

Buy something else if every demanding game must target the panel maximum

The Scar 15 should not be bought by someone expecting every modern AAA game to run at or near 240fps at the measured High settings without upscaling. The figures do not support that expectation. Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 reaches 90fps, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla reaches 94fps and Final Fantasy XV reaches 96fps. Far Cry 5 reaches 138fps. These are good results, but they are plainly below the display’s 240Hz ceiling.

If the goal is to get closer to the highest refresh rates in demanding titles, the MSI Raider GE77 HX is the stronger performer in the shared data, averaging 14fps ahead with its RTX 3080 Ti at 175W. There is no confirmed UK price for that machine, so it cannot automatically be called the better purchase. But it is the relevant performance direction for a buyer who values every additional frame rate more than keeping to the Scar 15’s GPU class.

Conversely, do not buy the Scar 15 if you only need modest gaming performance and do not need a 240Hz QHD screen. The gap over the RTX 3050 Ti MSI Prestige 15 is large, but that does not mean every buyer needs the Scar 15’s level of hardware. The right question is whether your own games and desired settings justify paying for a 150W RTX 3070 Ti, a Core i9-12900H and 32GB of memory. The benchmark data says the Asus has the performance; it does not say that every buyer needs it.

The final buying case

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 is a credible high-performance gaming laptop with a well-supported gaming case. Notebookcheck’s measurements show frame rates from 90fps in Cyberpunk 2077 1.6 to 238fps in F1 2021 at 1920x1080 High with upscaling disabled. The 150W RTX 3070 Ti is not a token specification: it produces results that are effectively level with the closest 140W and 150W RTX 3070 Ti rivals in the shared games, substantially ahead of the 105W RTX 3050 Ti comparison, and only 14fps behind the higher-tier 175W RTX 3080 Ti Raider across four shared games.

The central compromise is price rather than raw speed. At £1,967, the Scar 15 is expensive enough that the £1,706 Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16ARH7H deserves serious attention, particularly because the supplied shared-game average differs by only 1fps. The Asus is not a poor gaming laptop; far from it. But its premium needs to be justified by the buyer’s preference for its specified 15.6in 2560x1440 240Hz IPS screen, Core i9-12900H, 32GB of memory and overall configuration, not by an expectation of a clear benchmark win over that Lenovo.

For the right buyer, that is still a defensible package. Choose the Scar 15 if you want very high Full HD frame rates from a 150W RTX 3070 Ti system, a fast QHD IPS display and a 15.6in gaming laptop that remains portable at 2.3kg. Look elsewhere if lower purchase cost, confirmed native-QHD frame rates, measured battery life or a guaranteed 240fps result in demanding AAA games matters more. The available evidence supports a strong performance recommendation, but it also gives clear reasons to compare carefully before paying the listed price.