I’d buy the new Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 Special Edition laptop - here’s why

Asus has just launched what could be their best competitive gaming laptop yet. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE (Special Edition) follows on from the regular edition of the PC which was released earlier in 2022. Amongst the changes are more powerful hardware and cutting edge cooling solutions, but there’s one extra special feature that will have jaws dropping - the lid is covered in durable invisible ink. 

At first glance, you would think it's not much different from the standard Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 with a matte metallic chassis, the same RGB lighting and customisable Armor Caps, but shine it under UV or blue LED light and you’ll reveal cryptic text in blue and green invisible ink. You even get a UV torch included in the box.

The point? As well as looking really cool, it actually holds clues to help you beat SCAR Runner, a new parkour game made for the ROG SAGA universe. This invisible ink won’t be the only reason to buy the Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 Special Edition but it certainly helps it to stand out from the ever-growing gaming laptop crowd.

Outside of its design, this PC packs the latest hardware and state-of-the-art cooling solutions as well, the more you hear about it, the more you can’t deny that it sounds like a seriously impressive piece of kit. Could it be the best gaming laptop Asus has ever produced? 

You’ll be able to buy it with an Intel Core i9-12950HX processor with a total of 16 cores and 24 threads, as well as an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU. But it’s the cooling which could push this laptop’s capabilities above and beyond anything we have seen before.

A custom vapor chamber is paired with new ‘Conductonaut Extreme’ liquid metal to cover both the CPU and GPU at once. Conductonaut Extreme was made in collaboration with Thermal Grizzly to deliver around 5°C lower temperatures than standard liquid metal thermal compound, unlocking even more potential. It certainly bodes well for Asus’ claim that this is the ‘ultimate gaming machine’.

When it comes to the display, Asus offer the ROG Strix SCAR 17 Special Edition with an FHD 360Hz 3ms display or a QHD 240Hz 3ms display depending on what you want or how much you want to spend. Both are sure to look fantastic across all sorts of tasks thanks to Dolby Vision and Adaptive-Sync support.

All things considered, this sounds like it could be one of the best gaming laptops of the year so far - it’d be hard not to want it. But like all great things, it comes at a price. 

The ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 SE will be available later in 2022 with prices starting from £3,999.99 in the UK.