The ASUS Scar III is a new gaming laptop, but just how well does it perform in games?
I’ve benchmarked 20 different games at all setting levels to show you how well it runs,
and compared it against some other gaming laptops to see how it stacks up.
Just quickly before we jump into the benchmark results I’ll cover off the specs in my unit.
I’ve got the G531GW model, which means there’s an Intel i7-9750H CPU, Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics,
and that’s the full on 2070, no Max-Q here, 16gb of memory running in dual channel and
a 240Hz screen. The Scar III is available in a few different configurations, you can
check updated prices for different models in the description.
I was running Windows 10 with the latest Nvidia drivers available with the turbo profile enabled
for best performance, and we’re only looking at out of the box gaming performance here,
if you’re new to the channel get subscribed for the upcoming full review which will cover
everything. We’ll start off with the results from all 20 games at all setting levels, then
compare with some other laptops afterwards to see how the Scar III stacks up.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode and not in multiplayer mode, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run. The purple bars show the results with ray tracing
disabled, while the green bars show RTX on. As always seems to be the case, this game
looks better, at least in my opinion, with RTX off with ultra settings, and we can see
this performs better than RTX on at low settings. RTX on only really starts looking nice at
high to me, so depends if you want to play a first person shooter below 50 FPS.
Battlefield 1 was also tested in campaign mode, and like usual was running well. Ultra
still delivered above 100 FPS, with not really much to gain at lower settings, so probably
makes sense to just enjoy the higher settings.
Apex Legends was tested with either all settings at maximum, or all settings on the lowest
possible values, as it doesn’t have predefined setting presets. It still played well at ultra
settings, however we could boost average FPS by 45% with all graphical settings set to
minimum.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, the results from this
test were looking good at higher settings, but we’ll see how these results compare
with some other laptops soon.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built in benchmark. I wasn’t seeing too much difference
in this test over some 2060 laptops I’ve tested, for instance the Dell G7 scored 75
FPS at ultra settings. This is just one title though, for the most part, as we’ll see
later, the 2070 is a nice amount ahead of the 2060, it just depends on the game.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the built in benchmark, and the results were ahead of the
newer Far Cry New Dawn just covered, and we’ll see how this one compares to some other laptops
later.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and while I have to regularly refresh the
replay due to updates I test in the same area, so results should be somewhat comparable to
my past ones. Maximum settings were easily getting us above 100 FPS, with closer to 200
possible at low and medium.
Overwatch is another well optimized game and was tested in the practice range, as other
players, bots and even different maps in actual gameplay affect the frame rate and this allows
for consistent testing. Even at maximum above 170 FPS averages were possible, while even
high settings allows us to make good use of the 240Hz panel.
Metro Exodus was also tested using the built in benchmark, most parts of the game perform
a fair bit better than this, so don’t take these results as a good indication of what
to expect throughout the entire game, it’s more of a worst case but does let you perform
the same test to compare against.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and like always high frame rates were coming
out of this test. Minimum settings were almost averaging 240 FPS, a nice match up for the
240Hz screen.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark, and is a game I’ve found to
benefit from Nvidia’s new turing architecture. Even with maximum ultra settings 144 FPS averages
were possible in this test, nearing closer to the 200 mark with the low preset.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and over 100 FPS was possible even with the
settings maxed out at ultra, however the results aren’t too different from other lower specced
machines I’ve tested.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark, and from my experience
seems to be a fairly CPU heavy game. The results here are looking alright, I haven’t yet
used too many 9th gen laptops, but I have seen much worse from throttling 8750H machines.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with an average amount of action going on,
and it was running very smoothly without any problems at all. I’ve found this to depend
quite a bit on the CPU, so even with our 2070 the results aren’t much different compared
to a lower specced machine.
Watch Dogs 2 is often maxing out the CPU and using all the resources it can get hold of,
however personally I can play it just fine with 30 FPS, so even at ultra settings we’re
seeing quite a good result for this game.
Ghost Recon is another resource intensive game and was tested using the built in benchmark.
I’ve only really seen 60 FPS and higher at ultra settings from a thick high end gaming
laptop, not counting a PC of course, so these results are looking pretty good.
The Witcher 3 was playing very well, with ultra settings almost averaging 100 FPS and
above 60 for the 1% low. Considering that I don’t think this game needs a super high
frame rate I thought this was a good result, easily playable while looking great.
DOOM was tested using Vulkan, and is a game that almost always gets really high frame
rates. I wasn’t seeing that much of a practical difference between the different setting levels,
so might as well just play maxed out at ultra and still get well over 100 FPS.
Strange Brigade was another game that was tested with Vulkan, and this one was also
running well. At ultra settings even the 1% low was above 100 FPS, with much higher possible
at lower settings.
Shadow of War was tested with the built in benchmark, and is another game that I’ve
found to benefit from Nvidia’s new Turing architecture. Even with very high settings
100 FPS averages were possible in this test.
Let’s also take a look at how this config of the ASUS Scar III compares with other laptops
to see how it stacks up, use these results as a rough guide only as they were tested
at different times with different drivers.
In Battlefield 5 I’ve got the Scar III highlighted in red, and compared to the other machines
I’ve recently tested it’s doing quite well. Not quite as good as the 2080 Max-Q
machines above it, but not too far behind, and still quite a bit better than most others
due to the full 2070, it was just slightly ahead of the only other 2070 machine I’ve
tested so far, the Aorus 15.
Here are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built in benchmark. This time
the Aorus 15 with same specs is much closer to the Scar III, and the Scar III is actually
ahead of two of the 2080 Max-Q machines. The GX701 dominates because it was tested with
G-Sync, so no Optimus bottlenecks allow it to perform better.
These are the results from Shadow of the Tomb raider with the built in benchmark at highest
settings. The results are pretty similar to what we’ve seen before, the Scar III is
way up there thanks to the 2070, just 1 FPS behind the Aorus 15 with same specs, otherwise
only behind the 2080 Max-Q machines.
Overall the results here are looking quite good, at least at the higher setting levels
where the 2070 can stretch its legs. Like I mentioned in my first video covering 240Hz
gaming laptops, the 240Hz screen was only really beneficial in esports titles like CS:GO
or Overwatch that can actually push out crazy high frame rates.
All games that I threw at the Scar III ran without issue. At lower settings I did notice
lower performance in some cases, which may indicate some form of CPU throttling, but
I’ll be investigating that in depth in the upcoming thermal testing video. To be fair
though, with a 2070 laptop you’re unlikely to be playing at lower settings in most cases
anyway, so it’s kind of a moot point.
So how do you guys think the new ASUS Scar III gaming laptop held up in these games?
Let me know your thoughts down in the comments, and get subscribed so you don’t miss the
upcoming full review which will include everything you need to know about this laptop.