ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 Review

If you’re a serious gamer searching for the best gaming notebook there is, then you’re in the right place. The ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 is a high-end gaming laptop that comes with all the bells and whistles you’ll ever need. With a high price point, the laptop is made with hardcore gamers in mind. 

In this ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 review, we take a good look at this new gaming champion from ASUS and see where it shines and where it falls short. The laptop has excellent specs and is one hell of a gaming notebook on paper. But how does it fare in real-life performance? Let’s find that out in the review below.

Design

The ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 comes with a stylish build that makes a brilliant first impression. The black color suits the gaming profile of the laptop while the RGB accent at the bottom makes for a sporty gaming experience. The build quality is sturdy and convinces us regarding the durability of the laptop.

When you open the lid, you can see the screen is not your regular rectangular screen. The bezels on the screen are super thin and help in reducing the footprint of the laptop. The thin bezels make for an uninterrupted viewing experience and offer more immersion when playing.

The keyboard is one of the most important features of the laptop. It is an Aura sync keyboard that comes with RGB backlighting. There are 4 RGB zones that can be customized to suit your needs. The fast actuating keys are a pleasure to type on and comes with a decent key travel as well.

The keyboard also comes with full N-key rollover which makes it more suitable for multi-key inputs. The touchpad is responsive and captures your gestures accurately. If you’re someone who uses numbers a lot, then you’ll benefit from the fact that the touchpad also doubles up as a number pad.

How good is the cooling system in the ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76? The cooling system is made of two fans with blades that are 33% thin. These thin blades improve the airflow by 17% and make for a better cooling system. If you find the fans too loud, then you can switch the modes from turbo to silent for less noisy fan performance.

ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 specs

The laptop comes with a 15.6″ screen with full HD resolution. The display delivers IPS level performance but the fact that this isn’t an IPS display can’t be ignored. The colors are more than decent and pop well during gameplay. The screen can get bright enough even when you’re in a well-lit environment.

The display is perfect for media consumption so you can enjoy your movies and tv shows to full effect. The thin bezels help in delivering your an immersive visual experience. The viewing angles are good but not as impressive as an IPS display.

The ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 is a gaming laptop and to maximize the gaming experience, the display comes with a 240Hz refresh rate and a 3ms response time. These two specs eliminate any ghosting or motion blur on the screen even when playing fast-paced games.

The sound quality coming out of this ROG notebook is pretty good, to be honest. It has a punch but you do observe some distortion when the volume reaches higher levels. The sound is perfectly fine for media consumption but for gaming, we suggest a good pair of gaming headphones.

Raw Performance

There is a lot of power in the ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 gaming laptop. It comes with an Intel Core i7 9750H processor. This is a 9th gen processor from Intel and comes with 6 cores. It has a base clock speed of 2.6GHz and a maximum clock speed of 4.5GHz. This is easily one of the top three processors you can get in the market right now. With a smart cache of 12MB, you can run applications without any issues.

The processor scores are high in benchmark tests. It gets a score of 13658 in the CPUMark benchmark test which is pretty good. The laptop does incredibly well when it comes to everyday tasks like browsing the internet, listening to music and watching online videos. The laptop can easily handle heavy, processor-intensive applications as well. If you’re a serious user, then you’ll love the processor’s ability to do some serious work.

The notebook is also a contender for multitasking as well. It comes with 16 gigs of DDR4 type memory which is more than enough for most gamers out there. You can run multiple applications side by side without impacting the overall performance of the laptop. If you’re a serious multitasker, you’ll have good fun with this laptop.

Another key spec in the ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 gaming laptop is the storage. For storage, we have a 1TB SSD which comes with good reading and writing speeds. You can feel the speed improvements all over the user interface. Games and applications launch at super-fast speeds and the operating system boots up in a whiz.

Gaming on the ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76

The graphics card in the ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 gaming laptop is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 with a dedicated memory of 8GB GDDR6 type. This GPU is one of the latest ones out there in the market and is based on the Pascal architecture. This laptop variant consumes 30% less power when compared with the desktop variant and that can help with extending the battery life.

When it comes to real-life gaming performance, the laptop can play pretty much any game. You can run most games with ultra or QHD or high settings which is impressive. If you’re a fan of MMORPGs, then you’ll have a super smooth gaming performance. With a 240Hz refresh rate and a 3ms response time in play, your gaming experience is nothing but excellent.

The following are some of the games and their frame rates when played in the respective settings.

Ultra Settings:

• Rage 2 – 70 FPS
• Anno 1800 – 40 FPS
• Anthem – 69 FPS
• Far Cry New Dawn – 80 FPS
• Apex Legends – 105 FPS
• Battlefield V – 105 FPS
• F1 2019 – 102 FPS

High Settings:

• Rage 2 – 73 FPS
• Anno 1800 – 64 FPS
• Anthem – 72 FPS
• Far Cry New Dawn – 71 FPS
• Apex Legends – 112 FPS
• Battlefield V – 115 FPS
• F1 2019 – 135 FPS

Battery Life and Connectivity

The battery life on the ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 is definitely impressive. With light usage, you should get around 7 to 8 hours of battery life. This is great considering that this is a gaming laptop. When you’re gaming, this number does take a nosedive. If you’re going to go for a gaming marathon, then be sure to have a power outlet handy next to you.

The laptop comes with a ton of connectivity options. You’ll find 3 USB 3.1 gen A ports that can help you with data transfer and connectivity. If you’re someone with USB C gadgets, then you’ll find the USB type C port useful. There is also an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, and also a headphone jack as well. 

Bottomline

The ASUS ROG Strix Scar III G531GV-DB76 is a solid, high-end gaming laptop that comes with excellent specs. The laptop has all the power you need and can be seen as overkill for even mid-range users. When it comes to gaming, you can run almost any game without compromising settings which is great. If you’re looking for a high-end, hardcore gaming laptop then this is probably it.