The New ASUS Scar III gaming laptop is available with some pretty powerful specs, but just
how hot does it run? In this testing we’ll take a detailed look at thermals and see if
there are any issues, and see how much performance can be improved with some simple tweaks.
The ASUS Scar III is available in different configurations, my G531GW model has the Intel
i7-9750H CPU, Nvidia RTX 2070 graphics, and that’s the full 2070, no Max-Q here, and
16gb of memory running in dual channel, so expect different results with different specs.
You can find updated prices for different models linked in the description.
On the bottom of the laptop we’ve got some air intake vents towards the back, and also
this section below the screen. Air is exhausted from the vents out the back and on the right
hand side. Inside the heatpipes are looking pretty good, and there are two shared between
CPU and GPU.
I’ll also note that I’ve tested with a mixture of silent, balanced and turbo profiles.
The main differences are that higher tier profiles boost fan speed, CPU TDP limits,
while turbo also overclocks the GPU core and memory clocks, as listed here.
Thermal testing was completed in an ambient room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, so
expect different results in different environments. I’ve tested idle down the bottom, and it
was warmer than average because the fans were completely silent. The rest of the results
are from combined CPU and GPU workloads and are meant to represent worst case scenarios.
The gaming results towards the upper half of the graph were tested by playing Watch
Dogs 2, as I find it to use a good combination of processor and graphics. The stress test
results shown on the lower half of the graph are from running the Aida64 CPU stress test
with only Stress CPU checked and the Heaven GPU benchmark at the same time to fully load
the system.
Let’s start with the stress test results. There was pretty much no change to CPU temperatures
here no matter what was done, it wasn’t too far away from thermal throttling and would
occasionally spike up and hit the thermal throttle limit, but it wasn’t most of the
time for the sustained average that I’m reporting here. While the turbo profile does
raise fan speed, as you’ll hear later, it also boosts CPU TDP which equals more heat.
Unfortunately my -0.13v undervolt to the CPU wasn’t enough to change thermals, but we’ll
see in the next graph how clock speed was affected. Even with the thermaltake massive
20 cooling pad there’s no real change to the CPU temperatures, however the GPU temperatures
in the green bar were steadily dropping down with these changes.
The gaming results followed a similar trend, where the CPU temperatures didn't really change,
but we did see improvements to GPU temperatures, and like all RTX laptops Hardware Info was
reporting the GPU as power limit throttling the entire time.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. With the balanced profile
we’re getting the lowest clock speeds, because it caps CPU TDP to 35 watts when under combined
CPU and GPU workloads. Once turbo mode is enabled, the CPU TDP cap rises to 45 watts
under these workloads, however the clock speeds only rise 200MHz or so before power limit
throttling is once more the limitation. This is why we see an almost 400MHz or so boost
once applying the -0.13v undervolt to the CPU, and no major difference with the cooling
pad in use, a little improvement to clock speeds as it helped reduce occasional temperature
spikes that would briefly trigger thermal throttling.
I did note some strangeness in my clock speed results with this machine. This screenshot
from hardware info was taken towards the end of the stress test with turbo profile enabled.
In my graphs I’m taking the average of all 6 cores and showing that number, however check
out these minimum clock speeds. While the test was running I would see all cores drop
down like this occasionally, and if we look at the current speeds they’re all over the
place. I don’t recall seeing this behaviour in the past, I’m thinking it’s related
to the power limit throttling, however we don’t see the minimum CPU package power
drop and match this.
Here’s the average CPU TDP reported by hardware info under CPU Package Power for these same
combined CPU and GPU workloads. Basically we’re reaching the power limit in all cases,
which is 35 watts in balanced mode, then 45 watts in turbo mode. Due to the high temperatures
that were already occasionally spiking into thermal throttling territory, raising the
TDP further to boost performance would not be a solution without first addressing thermals.
These are the average CPU clock speeds while under a CPU only workload. It was possible
to improve performance a little with turbo mode, however undervolting the CPU made a
larger difference, and when combining turbo mode with the undervolt we’re almost averaging
the full 4GHz all core turbo boost speed in this workload. The temperatures rise as we
enable turbo mode, though only by three degrees, and the undervolt didn’t help with temperatures
in this test. This is why the temperatures rise, more power equals more heat, and with
turbo mode and a CPU only workload PL1 would dynamically change between 51 watts and 57
watts, my graphs are showing the longer term averages.
To demonstrate how this translates into performance I’ve got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks here.
With the undervolt applied there was a nice improvement to the score, whereas at stock
the speed is closer to what I’d expect from the 8750H. In the newer Cinebench R20 there
was a decent improvement with the CPU undervolt in place, and interestingly a small boost
to single core result, though I’m not exactly sure why as this wasn’t enough to cause
detectable throttling.
So how do these performance boosts actually translate into games? I’ve tested with the
exact same Windows, Nvidia and game updates installed, the only changes were the ones
listed here, so the CPU undervolt and extra GPU memory overclock.
Far Cry 5 was tested using the built in benchmark at 1080p, and just to be clear the purple
bars listed as stock still had the turbo profile enabled in the ASUS Armory Crate software
as that’s what I used as the default level for my game benchmarks. Anyway, we’re barely
seeing a difference at ultra settings, but at lower settings there’s a larger improvement
to 1% low due to the improved CPU performance from the undervolting.
If you’re after more gaming benchmarks from the ASUS Scar III, check the card in the top
right where I’ve tested 20 different games.
As for the external temperatures where you’ll actually be putting your hands, at idle it
was mostly in the low 30s which is average, though the WASD area was a little warmer.
While gaming it didn’t actually get that hot, the wrist rest was the same 20 degrees
and the center of the keyboard was in the low 40s but cooler towards the sides. Similar
results with the stress tests running, there was a hotter spot towards the right near the
air exhaust though but it’s off the keyboard. Here’s the same test but with turbo mode
and faster fans, which appears to slightly lower the temperatures of the externals.
As for the fan noise produced by the laptop, I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle it was completely silent, no fan noise at all, so that explains the warmer idle temperatures
shown earlier. While gaming with the balanced profile it’s about average compared to many
other gaming laptops I’ve tested, and same results with the stress tests running. Once
we enable the turbo profile though it does get a bit louder.
Overall the ASUS Scar III is running on the warmer side, and we weren’t really able
to improve this either by raising the fan speed with turbo mode, undervolting the CPU,
or using a cooling pad. These changes did help lower the GPU temperature, but the CPU
didn’t really change as power limit throttling was the primary limitation there. With that
said, there was intermittent thermal throttling in most tests when the CPU would briefly spike
up and trigger that. As I tested with a 21 degree room temperature it would be interesting
to see how a slightly warmer room goes, it may be the case that thermal throttling becomes
more constant in that scenario. On average it was much less of an issue than the power
limitations, which is why we were able to get a decent clock speed boost by undervolting.
The 230 watt power brick that ASUS include with the Scar III appears to be adequate for
these specs, I didn’t see any battery drain during any of my testing.
These differences in performance shown aren’t hard and fast rules, there are different factors
which will vary results, primarily the temperature of the room you’re running in, application
of thermal paste, and even the specific hardware which comes down to the silicon lottery. You
may not be able to undervolt or overclock your hardware the same as me, it depends on
the chip and its specific power requirements, so don’t just blindly copy my settings and
do some testing to find out where your stable point is for best results.
It may be possible to further improve temperatures by swapping the thermal paste, however as
this is a review unit that I have to send back I’m not able to change the paste, otherwise
the next reviewer will unknowingly report different results due to what I’ve done.
Undervolting, boosting fan speed, or using a cooling pad are much easier for most people
to do anyway, and as we’ve seen these tweaks did help improve performance of the ASUS Scar
III gaming laptop, though didn’t do much in the way of helping with CPU thermals.
Let me know what sort of performance boosts you’ve found by undervolting your hardware
and what you thought of the improvements here, and course don’t forget to subscribe for
the full review of the ASUS Scar III gaming laptop as well as future thermal testing videos
like this one.