After a teaser last month, Asus’ latest ROG Strix Scar gaming laptops have arrived and are leaning all the way in the aesthetics of the player. The 2025 Scar 16 and 18 feature RGB lights all around the bottom of the chassis as well as a user-programmable LED matrix display on the lid, as seen on other ROG devices like Asus gaming phones .
Beneath their flashy exterior, the Scar 16 and 18 can be optimized with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 GPU. It can also be configured with up to 64 GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and a PCIe Gen4 SSD of 2TB. The ROG Nebula HDR display features a 16:10 2.5K Mini LED panel with a maximum brightness of 1,200 nits and a 240Hz refresh rate. Two Thunderbolt 5 ports are included and the design allows easy access to the bottom panel for component upgrades.
The Strix Scar 16 and 18 feature all the cooling technology you’d expect from a gaming laptop of this caliber, including an end-to-end vapor chamber and sandwiched heatsink. Combined with Conductonaut Extreme liquid metal processing on the GPU and CPU, Asus claims it can keep fan noise levels at a bookshelf-like 45dB even during extended gaming sessions.
On top of all that, the ROG Strix Scar comes with the aforementioned light show. Asus calls it AniMe Vision and you can customize it to display custom animations and sync it with any other AniMe Vision devices you own. Download pre-made illustrations or create your own using the Asus Pixel Editor – the choice is yours.
The ROG Strix Scar starts at $2,599; Asus says its new gaming laptops will ship in February.
