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for years the gaming laptop has been this sort of b-tier experience for

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people without enough space for a desktop but the ASUS rog strix scar 3

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has something to say about that rocking a 240hz ips panel and some sick internals

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this laptop is freakishly good for gaming but

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a lot of other laptops will be getting a similar panel soon so has ASUS done a

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good enough job with the all-new strix 3 to beat out the competition actually

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i like their chances

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when i opened up the new scar 3 my first thought was wait a second

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is this a zephyrus because the styling of the strix lineup

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has undergone a huge change and at least

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partly thanks to ASUS's collaboration with bmw design works i think it turned

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out really fine save for

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maybe the slightly over the top RGB along the bottom up close well it's not

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perfect there are still some plasticky feeling bits here and there but the good

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news is that that actually helps keep the scar 3 from completely destroying

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your bank account more on that later overall then with that in mind the feel

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of the build quality is solid with a robust feeling hinge and very strong

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chassis rigidity not that you'll be staring at it for too long because once

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you boot it up the screen just sucks you right in

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this 240hz panel is not just the best

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looking that i've ever seen on a laptop it may be the best looking 240hz screen

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i've ever seen period the thing is previous 240hz gaming

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displays have always used tn panels

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trading away their color accuracy for faster pixel response times now this

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panel is ips meaning that the colors are

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shockingly vivid and accurate given the fast refresh rate and although you do

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technically give up some responsiveness compared to tien i can't detect any lag

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or excessive motion blur and it's easily better than any 144hz display

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the only issue that we did encounter was while viewing compressed video like on

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youtube gradients can actually shimmer and look extra ugly this is something

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that we've noticed on esports monitors before as they tend to increase the

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vividness to make spotting enemies easier so i guess what i'm saying is

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that this is a trade-off that i understand but ASUS if you guys are

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taking notes i think that having different profiles like you would have

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on a desktop monitor would be a nice addition here obviously though 240hz is

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meaningless if you can't push 240 frames per second in your games

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thankfully though our unit with a core i9 9880h

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and an rtx 2070 please note that is not

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a max-q model is powerful enough to get darn close

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and simply put this is the kind of gaming experience

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that ruins you because once you've had it sitting down at another monitor and

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i'm talking even like a half decent 120

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hertz one is gonna feel like slushy garbage

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playing doom on the g531 hot damn cs go

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oh yes i mean just to put this in perspective

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even moving the cursor around playing minesweeper feels so freaking smooth

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between the speed of this machine and the screen you're going to be using this

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laptop at a pace that just isn't possible on mere mortal computers

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and then there's the use cases that go beyond gaming so our unit's 8 core

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processor 32 gigs of RAM and 1 terabyte

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SSD mean that it is crazy fast basically

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across the board with that said though ASUS like apple as

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we showed recently is still beholden to the laws of physics

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so when we pushed it to the limit with an all-core load our CPU got pretty

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toasty and the fan started to scream as they tried to contain the heat of 8

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cores at 3.5 gigahertz then when it

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looked like they were going to lose the battle the CPU dropped to just 2.8

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in fairness to ASUS though that is still noticeably faster than the 2.3 gigahertz

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base clock that this CPU is rated for so

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although i was at first a bit disappointed it still delivers the best

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CPU performance out of anything that we've tested outside of desktop

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replacement models that are literally double its size and usually double the

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price now then back to noise for a bit the

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scar 3 does get a bit loud but thankfully the tone of the sound is such

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that no high-pitched whining is going to make it past your headphones and if you

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don't want to use headphones the included speakers are actually

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shockingly full sounding even good enough to blast some tunes while setting

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up for a gaming session with your friends and the good news train just keeps

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rolling here and i keep waiting for the bad stuff day-to-day use of the strix

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g531 as just a laptop is a pretty good

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time too the keyboard is awesome it's

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tactile but with a softer touch that makes it comfortable to both type and

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game on and the keycaps above average

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stabilization brings it right up there with the new bar that alienware set with

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their most recent gaming machines just a short aside here by the way i'm

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really glad to see how seriously companies are finally taking keyboards

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on gaming laptops because like news flash everyone even avid

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gamers do more than just game

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moving on to the track pad it uses the Windows precision drivers has dedicated

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left and right mouse keys and generally just does the trick my only real

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complaint here is that like every other trackpad on the market the pulling rate

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is stuck at 125 hertz which isn't an

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issue with a 60hz or even a 120hz display but at 240hz the leg and jutter

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is noticeable so it's fine but as always

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our recommendation is to use a high quality gaming mouse at a thousand hertz

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wherever possible putting another usability feather in ASUS cap is the

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above average i o it's got HDMI several full-size usb ports and Ethernet all

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making appearances although it would have been nice to have Thunderbolt 3.

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now something ASUS did include it's a little weird is what they're

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calling the keystone and it's a little

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nfc key that you can plug into the side of

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the machine that will load up your gaming and RGB profiles as well as

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unlock your shadow drive which reveals a

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hidden drive partition and like i don't know i i guess this is

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cool but personally i would stick with a

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password protected folder over a very losable

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plastic key which perfectly transitions us i guess to the mediocre stuff the 66

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watt hour battery in the scar 3 is more than enough for most laptops

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but once you throw an 8 core processor at it

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it's not that bad like we were able to wring

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out about four hours of life on a single charge which is acceptable but it's not

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an incredible number either and what's even less incredible is the webcam

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now in light of the popularity of video chat and game streaming we've been

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asking the industry to take front-facing cameras seriously for ages and some

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brands finally have with dell creating a small bezel webcam for their xps line

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and razer introducing facial recognition on the blade

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meanwhile at ASUS headquarters it's like oh you like webcams eh cool

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why don't you go pound sand because yeah they totally removed the

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webcam i mean come on guys at least make an attempt you could go

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back to bundling one in the box maybe you could put a little magnetic chum on

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the top that clips like i don't know i never thought i'd say this but how

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about one of those stupid ones on the bottom bezel anything is better than

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nothing since as it stands if you need a webcam

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you have to just buy something else which i guess brings us nicely to

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should you buy something else well with the

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hertz rtx 2070 equipped a sue strix scar

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3 starting at 2 grand it's still not cheap but given how much laptop you're

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getting and how surprisingly totable it is

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it's actually not too bad of a deal like to put this in perspective a similarly

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spec'd alienware m15 is 2600

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and that's with only a six core core i7 and without its optional 90 watt hour

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battery now the Gigabyte arrow 15 is a compelling option

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but you'd be giving up the 240 hertz display meaning that the strix car 3 is

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a lot of gaming performance for the money

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so if you've got deep enough pockets and i don't know maybe some 3d printing

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know-how for a webcam bracket the scar 3 gets the line of seal of

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buttery smooth gaming approval so thanks for watching guys if this

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video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that

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like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description

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also linked in the description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which

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you should totally join