ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR II GL504 PRICE IN INDIA,Detailed Review,Specifications

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR II GL504: Detailed Review

With the upcoming 20-series mobile GPU launch right around the corner, most laptop manufacturers are taking it slow. Newer SKU are only being introduced for the sake of emptying component inventory. Then there’s ASUS which is still pushing for more features that benefit the gamer-on-the-go. The ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR II GL504 Gaming Laptop was shown to all at COMPUTEX 2018 and launched within a similar time frame overseas. Today we’re seeing the India launch for the same. As with the previous generation, the GL504 comes in two variants, the Hero and the Scar. Let’s take a look at the specifications of the Scar II. 

ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR II GL504 Specifications

The ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR II GL504 is powered by the Intel Core i7-8750H and an NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB SKU. This isn’t the MAX-Q variant of the GPU so it’s better in terms of performance. ASUS has SKUs with the GTX 1070 for both, the Scar II as well as the Hero II for Rs.1,79,990 should you want a bit more firepower.

ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR II GL504 Specifications
Processor	8750H 2.2 GHz
Platform	300-series
RAM FSB	2666 MHz
RAM Capacity	16 GB
Screen Size	15.6–inches 144 Hz
Screen Size	1920x1080 AUO82ED
GPU	GTX 1060 6 GB DDR5
SSD	Toshiba 256 GB NVMe
HDD	Seagate FireCuda 1 TB
Ethernet	Realtek GbE Controller
Wi-Fi	Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 9560
Audio	Realtek ALC294
Battery	4210 mAh 66 Whr @15.4v
AC Adapter	180 W
Weight	2.4 Kg

The Indian SKU has just one 16 GB DDR4 DIMM which is a bit of a disappointment given that there is a performance loss when the memory runs in single channel. There is a noticeable price difference between the a 2x 8 GB configuration and a 1x 16 GB configuration, so perhaps that’s where a bit of money has been saved. We’d advise you to get another 16/8 GB module just to get double-channel working. 

Performance

We’re looking at a very common configuration with the ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR II GL504. The Intel Core i7-8750H coupled with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM clocked at 2666 MHz ensure a pretty high headroom for most mundane tasks. Then there are the two options with GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 based on how much eye candy you want to enjoy in AAA games.

WinRAR’s compression benchmark scored 12770 KB/s which is very similar to other 8750H powered laptops that we’ve tested earlier. As for PCMark8, we used Accelerated to leverage the GPU and ended up with a score of 7760 on PCMark8 Creative (Acc.), 5374 in PCMark8 Home (Acc.) and 5548 in PCMark8 Work (Acc.).

Wi-Fi

For Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the SCAR II makes use of the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 9560. As mentioned, it’s a dual band 802.11ac adapter with MIMO enabled. We used iPerf to see how well the add-on card fared over the ‘ac’ band. We managed to get 523 Mbps on the throughput and about 69 Mbps via a single stream which is more than sufficient for gaming or otherwise. 

It doesn’t feature a separate QoS solution to prioritise traffic, but you can always install one yourself and get the job done.

Storage

The Toshiba SSD may be a bit low on capacity for with read speeds hitting 2130 MBps and write speeds of 1125 MB/s, it makes your overall experience very fluid. It is an NVMe drive (duh!) and has a good set of characteristics overall across different file sizes. It’s accompanied by a Seagate 1 TB FireCuda drive which itself is aanSSHD. 

While performance benchmarks such as CDM cannot get the most of SSHDs because it depends on frequently used files being cached, we don’t get the real picture. However, if you were wondering about the pure performance, then here’s a good estimate. 

Gaming

The Intel Core i7-8750H along with the GTX 1060 make for a balanced configuration for serious gamers. Most of the current AAA titles run with ease and the older competitive titles do even better. Coming back to what we have on hand, we started with the trusty 3DMark with the latest NVIDIA drivers. We managed to get 10372 in Fire Strike, 5396 in Fire Strike Extreme and 2765 in Fire Strike Ultra.

Moving on to games, Rise of the Tomb Raider scored 64 FPS with all the settings cranked out and BioShock Infinite managed to hit 114 FPS. We tried playing Strange Brigade as well but there were certain issues in the beta so we’ll leave that be. 

Pricing

For the price of 1,39,990 for the GTX 1060 SKU, the ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR II GL504 is priced to sit right in the midst of all GTX 1060 + Intel Core i7-8750H SKUs such as the MSI GL63-8RE and the Acer Helios 300. The MSI laptop costs lesser and the Acer one costs more. The thing of note with the GL504 here is that it offers a nice mix of features that strike a balance for the price but bears more on the expensive side. 

Verdict

The ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR II GL504 is the result of ASUS listening to user feedback. The first-gen GL503 wasn’t a bad laptop at all. In fact, it was a nice change to see a manufacturer add more value to an existing lineup by specialising laptops based on the genre of games that the consumers tend to play. With practically everyone in the market providing the exact same hardware, there arises a need to add more value and with such SKUs that are built for a genre, ASUS is filling that void.