ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 (2025) Reviews

They use their RTX 5090 SCAR 18 as a desk-bound workhorse for After Effects and Cinema 4D: much faster than a G16, but with almost no battery life and phone-quality speakers.

Used almost daily for several months and solid, but needed a repaste, removal of ASUS software, G-Helper and a lower CPU wattage to get there; the speakers are poor.

Had the same hot-CPU problem from ASUS liquid metal on their Scar; after a PTM repaste the benchmark score rose from 31k to 39k and temps dropped to about 78-80C in games.

Their Scar 18 works fine, but they are unhappy that it lacks good speakers.

Has used the 5090 model since October 2025 with no problems apart from USB devices disconnecting during games when many ports are in use; an externally powered hub fixes it.

After a month with their 275HX and RTX 5080 SCAR 18 they are selling it to keep an MSI Titan with a better screen and keyboard, though they find the ASUS keyboard lighting brighter and more accurate.

First 5080 unit had a poor factory liquid metal application, throttling at about 50-60 W, so they returned it; the replacement 5090 unit has been great.

Bought the 5090 model at launch. Reports that the heavy screen wobbles and closes slowly by itself, so the hinges feel loose.

Owns the 5080 model; early BIOS and driver bugs are now stable, it hits 100 C in benchmarks, and early startup throttling appeared for a few days.

They had stability issues on their RTX 5090 SCAR 18 until BIOS 315, and run a debloated clean Windows install with G-Helper instead of Armoury Crate.