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I’ve tested the ASUS Scar 15 gaming laptop in 20 different games at all setting levels
to show you how well it performs. I’ve also compared it against other laptops so that
you can see the differences and decide if the Scar 15 is a laptop you should consider buying.
All testing was done with manual mode enabled, which basically maxes out the
fan speed and applies the following GPU overclock. I haven’t tested with
undervolting as it’s not a default option available through Windows and is locked to
software like Intel XTU or Throttlestop, however you can undervolt in the BIOS.
I’ll test that out in the upcoming full review video so make sure you’re subscribed for that.
We’ll start out by testing the Scar 15 in 20 games,
then afterwards I’ll compare it with other laptops and check out screen response time.
Watch Dogs Legion is a new addition to the testing lineup, I’ve tested here with the games built in
benchmark tool but once I finish playing through the game I might change this to actual gameplay,
anyway even the highest ultra setting preset was just able to run at 60 FPS in this test.
Microsoft flight simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge.
Even the lowest setting preset wasn’t able to deliver 60 FPS in this one, but it’s
still quite usable even with the ultra setting preset which was delivering 30 FPS for 1% low.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested using the game’s built in benchmark tool, and as another resource
heavy game ultra settings wasn’t capable of reaching 60 FPS here, though it’s not
too far off so this is quite a nice result, and we could almost hit 100 FPS with lower presets.
Death Stranding wasn’t running all that differently between the different setting levels,
the 1% lows in particular were quite close together,
so might as well just run it at max settings, which was still around 120 FPS.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode, and the highest ultra setting preset was
still above 100 FPS and playing fine, but I’ll use this game to
compare with other laptops shortly so you can see how the Scar 15 compares.
Control was tested with and without RTX. I’ve got RTX off results in the purple bars,
RTX on in the green bars which was much worse comparatively, then RTX on with DLSS enabled
in the red bars, which is able to offer a good mixture of looks and performance.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, the highest setting
preset was only just shy of 100 FPS which is an excellent result for this test,
and this is another title we’ll use to compare with other laptops soon.
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.
Even max settings was hitting above 100 FPS for the 1% lows, so no problems running it at all.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare was tested in campaign mode with either max or min settings
for the same reason. No problems running it at max settings, as you’d hope with 2070 Super graphics,
it was only just under 100 FPS with not too big of a gain with minimum settings.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, it doesn’t need much to run
so with the good specs in my test unit even epic settings had 100 FPS for the 1% low,
with an average that would be a nice match up for a 144Hz panel. I’ve got 300Hz though,
and even low settings wasn’t quite able to get us all the way, but it’s still ultra smooth.
CS:GO was tested with the ulletical FPS benchmark, and low settings aren’t too far off 300 FPS,
a good match for the 300Hz panel in my unit, but still this could easily be higher if ASUS offered
the option of disabling optimus as that generally boosts FPS in high frame rate titles like this.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with bots, it’s performing similarly
to laptops with far lower specs as this one plays fine on moldy potatoes.
Overwatch was tested running through the practice range,
the 300 FPS frame cap was hit with the low setting preset, so between low and
high settings the 300Hz panel would start being a bit more useful compared to the 240Hz option.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark using Vulkan, as is typically the case,
there’s no real difference between most of the highest setting presets which are
all easily over 200 FPS, definitely no issues at all running this one.
Metro Exodus was 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 that can be compared against my other data.
Borderlands 3 was tested using the game’s built in benchmark, this is a resource heavy test too,
so above 60 FPS at the highest setting preset is a great result for a laptop.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is another that was tested with the games benchmark, and it was
right on 60 FPS with the highest setting preset, another good result for a resource heavy test,
or perhaps one that’s just poorly optimized. I’ll drop this one for the newer Valhalla soon.
The Witcher 3 was running above 100 FPS with ultra settings, but it was possible to boost this by 33%
by stepping down just one level to high settings, while low was close to 200 FPS.
F1 2020 was tested with the games benchmark tool, again quite good results here too,
above 120 FPS at max settings and nearly 200 FPS once more with the lowest setting preset.
Far Cry New Dawn was also tested with the games benchmark, and 100 FPS was possible
with the low preset here, though ultra wasn’t all that far behind.
Now let’s take a look at how the Scar 15 compares against other laptops, use
these results as a rough guide only, as they were tested at different times with different drivers.
I’ve tested Battlefield 5 in campaign mode at ultra settings,
and the Scar 15 is highlighted in red. I don’t have too much other 115w 2070 Super data yet.
Compared to other machines this is a nice result, though the Infinity W5, aka Eluktronics Mech-15 G3
with the same CPU and GPU was one FPS ahead, but it was about 10 FPS higher in 1% low,
probably a result of being able to disable optimus which the Scar unfortunately does not offer.
These are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built in benchmark.
The position of the Scar 15 drops back a bit now compared to the same selection of laptops. This
test tends to be more dependent on the processor, and it’s the lowest result I’ve got with the
10875H here, so it will be interesting when I test CPU performance in the upcoming full review.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested with the games benchmark tool with the
highest setting preset. The Scar 15 was back in the same position as Battlefield V now
as this is more of a GPU heavy test, though it’s still 7 FPS below the machine above it
with the same CPU and GPU, again due to the tweaks that one offers,
but regardless still a pretty good result compared to most of the others.
My Scar 15 has a 15.6” 1080p 300Hz screen,
no FreeSync or G-Sync. The ASUS Armoury Crate software gives us the option to
enable or disable panel overdrive which affects screen response time.
With overdrive off, we’re getting results that are typically closer to what we’d
see from 144Hz screens, with an average grey-to-grey response time of about 7.4ms.
There’s a link in the description if you need an explanation on these numbers.
Once we enable overdrive, the average response time lowers to 4.44ms,
so still a bit below the 3.33ms we need for all transitions to occur within the refresh window,
though some transitions were under this.
When compared to others, we can see it’s actually using the same panel as the Razer
Blade 15 Advanced and ASUS Zephyrus Duo 15, so I’m guessing we’re just looking
at some variance between the panels, leading me to believe results may vary a little bit.
Gaming performance from the Scar 15 was decent, this level of hardware can run any
modern game with high settings no problem, but to get the most of a 300Hz panel in
esports titles we really need the option of disabling optimus, as this is one of
the main reasons high FPS games are capped from doing well, take CS:GO for instance.
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