Asus is one of the stalwarts of PC gaming, supplying us with high-end hardware ranging from graphics cards to sound cards, monitors to motherboards for generations. Seeing that they had a knack for this 'gaming hardware' stuff, in 2006 Asus launched the Republic of Gamers (ROG) line of products, which have included monitors, graphics cards and – most pertinently – high-end gaming laptops.
Now, ROG's latest offering is here to shake up the hardware scene once more.
The new ROG Strix SCAR 17 SE gaming laptop, powered by the latest Intel® Core™ i9 processor, is set to lead the line as the company's latest flagship. At the heart of this laptop is a 16-core Intel Core i9-12950HX CPU – a 65W beast capable of up to 5.2GHz boost speeds that will top up those framerates and breeze through any amount of multitasking and browser tabs you accidentally leave open on it to deliver an amazing game experience. The combo of a 360Hz/3ms screen and a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU worthy of it will ensure a tear-free, low-latency experience whether you're gaming or just admiring the liquid smoothness with which your mouse glides across the screen.
To sync up with its launch, Asus is also releasing SCAR Runner – the first major DLC for Asus' gorgeous (and totally free) first-person shooter ROG Citadel XV, which came out last year. The game, which marked the start of the ROG Saga, is set in the vast cyberpunk metropolis of Goeman City – all neon signs, smoking sewer grates and steely architecture. Your mission in SCAR Runner is to free-run across the city's rooftops and alleys to reach an agent before a disaster decimates the whole city.
The game will require both well-honed reflexes and a sharp mind if you're to complete your task on time. SCAR Runner is big on the puzzles, which may resonate with fans of classics like Portal. Some of the puzzles will even break through the fourth wall of your laptop screen and require you to explore the very chassis of your Strix SCAR 17 SE to solve them (though Asus reassures us that you can still play through the game without these cryptic clues).
True to form, Asus is pushing at the limits of how we experience videogames.
And there's no better way to push these limits than on the ROG Strix SCAR 17 SE. Beyond the aforesaid features, the laptop has all the typically high-end ROG underpinnings, like ROG Intelligent Cooling with 84-blade Arc Flow Fans, highly customisable RGB lighting zones on the keyboard and chassis, and Dolby Vision and Atmos support. You can, of course, customise things like the CPU, GPU and display to tailor the laptop to your needs and budget.
The great news is that you can now buy the ROG Strix SCAR 17 SE on Asus.
The Sweepstakes
With a little luck, you can procure all this power for free. From May 30th through June 30th, all you need to do is play the new SCAR Runner DLC through Steam to be entered into the sweepstakes (remember that you need the free base, ROG Citadel XV, to play it). You can find out more about the competition through the official event page.
There's always something new emerging from Asus' labs – whether that's trailbazling tech or, as the case may be, the latest entry in a promising new games saga. To keep up with the latest goings-on, head over to the ROG Facebook or Twitter pages. To see what's happening at Asus, you can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook, or head over to their official news page.
