ASUS ROG Strix Scar Edition 17.3" 120 Hz GTX 1060 6 GB VRAM i7-8750H 16 GB Memory 128 GB PCIe SSD + 1 TB SSHD Windows 10 Home VR Ready Gaming Laptop - ONLY @ NEWEGG

Pros: The powerful CPU and GPU, dual video outputs, and both M.2 and 2.5" storage bays make this a true desktop replacement. The Intel i7-8750H has 6 cores (12 threads), a large 9.0 MB L3 cache, and a maximum TDP of 45 watts. The on-board Intel UHD Graphics 630 are not used, which provides additional thermal headroom for turbo boost. Although the base clock is 2.20 GHz, under load the frequency was always at least 2.63 GHz, and that was after eight hours running 12 threads in Silent fan mode. I observed a maximum of 4.07 GHz in a single threaded application. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 is a significant upgrade from the 1050 series, with 1280 CUDA cores (vs. 640 to 768) and a 192-bit memory interface (vs. 128-bit). However, it has a maximum TDP of 120 watts (vs. 75), so expect some heat when running the GPU flat out in 3D games or other GPU-accelerated applications. Forgoing the Optimus Intel/NVIDIA hybrid graphics allowed ASUS to provide HDMI 2.0b which supports 4K @ 60p. (The on-board Intel GPU supports only up to HDMI 1.4.) The build quality is very good. It's a noticeable step up from the ASUS TUF FX notebook that I reviewed previously. The hinge is solid and the power, Ethernet, HDMI, and USB connectors feel very secure. The 17.3" display has a nice matte surface so it doesn’t reflect everything behind you and show every speck of dust. The colors are vivid and the black is deep. The brightness range is good; I found 75% of maximum brightness to my liking. I was skeptical that a 120 Hz refresh rate would be a noticeable change at all from 60 Hz and was surprised to see how much clearer 120 Hz is with moving objects. This is easily shown using the "UFO motion test" web page to scroll a fast-moving object at 120, 60, and 30 fps. At 30 fps the individual steps are perceptible so the motion is not smooth at all. With both 60 and 120 fps the steps are imperceptible and the motion appears equally smooth, but there is a lot of blur at 60 fps while the moving image is very sharp at 120 fps. Windows is installed on the 128 GB M.2 drive, leaving the 1 TB disk free. The M.2 drive is a Kingston RBU-SNS8154P3/128GJ (2280 form factor, PCIe Gen3 x2 / NVMe 1.2). After applying updates, Windows showed 58.4 GB free out of 118 GB total. After using Windows Storage Sense to remove previous versions of Windows, the free space increased to 84.4 GB. The sequential read performance is incredible. HD Tune 2.55 showed a minimum of 396.7 MB/s, a maximum of 504.1 MB/s, and an average of 480.0 MB/s. Using h2testw to write to 80 GB of the remaining free space resulted in a sequential write speed of 127 MB/s. Booting from power off to the Windows lock screen takes about 8 seconds. The 1 TB disk is a Seagate ST1000LX015-1U7172, which I'd previously panned for slow performance. I didn't have any problems with this one though, aside from the audible chatter when seeking. HD Tune reported sequential read speeds as 61.8 MB/s minimum, 134.3 MB/s maximum, and 105.4 MB/s average, with a 19.6 ms average access time. Using h2testw to write over the entire disk resulted in an overall 87.0 MB/s sequential write speed. The Wi-Fi speed is very good. I ran an iperf3 server on a fast desktop computer that is connected to an 802.11ac access point with wired gigabit ethernet, and measured 645 Mbit/s with this laptop about six feet from the access point, and 251 Mbit/s two rooms away. The wired ethernet port measured 948 Mbit/s. Both were solid throughout a week of suspend/resume and power cycling. The touchpad had some lags during the first three or four iterations of updates and reboots but it was perfectly smooth after that regardless of load. The keyboard feels good, with adequate travel and a light tactile touch. The wider keys, like shift and the space bar, have the same feel all the way across. There are dedicated keys for volume up, volume down, microphone mute, and the ROG Gaming Center application. There are three brightness levels selected by hotkey. The default color is a rainbow color shift, which ended up being my favorite despite the many other possibilities. Keyboard colors and effects are configured using the ROG Aura Core application. I expected the key colors to be individually programmable, but the finest control for static colors is four broad keyboard zones, with the colors blended from one zone to the next. The most fun effect is Music, where the lighting pulsates to the volume of the sound. The HDMI output worked as it should. There were no problems extending the desktop onto a 2560x1080 external monitor. Audio also redirected to HDMI properly.

Cons: The display looks great head-on but it has a narrow viewing angle, with noticeable color shifts appearing soon after moving off-center in both the horizontal and vertical planes. At idle there is an audible coil whine. It disappears under any load. While editing I was able to hear mouse movements in the coil which was a little annoying. There are no dedicated keys for PageUp and PageDown; they are on the numeric keypad’s 9 and 3 keys respectively. Surely on a 17" notebook there is room for a few more dedicated movement keys around the numeric keypad. As it stands, there’s no way to access PageUp and PageDown when num-lock is enabled. Speaking of which, there’s no LED indicator for num-lock. Caps-lock has an indicator on the key itself. The palm rest looks textured but in reality it's perfectly smooth and kind of a fingerprint magnet. The 720p camera images are a little grainy in indoor lighting, although perfectly adequate for Skype.

Overall Review: In normal use the fans are either off or very slow. The speed doesn't wander so it's easy to get used to the sound. At high fan speeds, there is a definite jet-engine whine with different tones from the CPU and GPU fans. The rear exhaust vents keep the heat air away from hands and workspace. There are three fan modes, selectable by hotkey (Fn+F5): Balanced, Overboost, and Silent. Silent mode keeps the fan speeds low with just a small performance penalty. Unless you’re gaming with headphones on, I’d recommend using Silent mode all the time. Overboost results in a significant increase in fan noise compared to Balanced for just a tiny bit more performance. I used PassMark Performance Test 9.0 to measure CPU and 3D GPU performance in each of the three fan modes, while watching the power consumption at the outlet and recording the maximum CPU temperature with CoreTemp: Silent: CPU Mark 11657, max power 116 W, max CPU temp 86 C; 3D Mark 9278, max power 101 W. Balanced: CPU Mark 12106, max power 122 W, max CPU temp 91 C; 3D Mark 10344, max power 131 W. Overboost: CPU Mark 12127, max power 124 W, max CPU temp 88 C; 3D Mark 10443, max power 136 W. I used the Gears of War 4 built-in benchmark to evaluate GPU gaming performance in each of the three fan modes while watching the power consumption at the outlet: Silent: 71.7 fps, max power 114 W. Balanced: 85.5 fps, max power 153 W. Overboost: 85.8 fps, max power 158 W. For comparison, a similar laptop with the GTX 1050 Ti benchmarked at 59.8 fps. The power consumption is more reasonable when not running performance tests or 3D games. Here are some power measurements for a variety of lighter loads: 84 watts running twelve BOINC threads at 3.10 GHz (Overboost fan mode). 81 watts running twelve BOINC threads at 3.00 GHz (Balanced fan mode). 65 watts running twelve BOINC threads at 2.63 GHz (Silent fan mode). 54 watts running two BOINC threads at 4.00 GHz. 42 watts running one BOINC thread at 4.07 GHz. 31 watts running Marine Aquarium 3D (silent fan mode). 22 watts idle in Windows desktop (processor at about 1.0 GHz). 10 watts idle in Windows desktop with the display off (power saving). Case temperatures were slightly higher in Silent mode than the others. After running 12 threads in BOINC overnight at 68 F ambient temperature, the left wrist rest was 73 F, the right wrist rest was 69 F, and most of the keyboard was between 85 F and 90 F. The hottest key was "F5" at 104 F and the hottest surface was the top vent at 115 F. The case bottom was remarkably cool, with most areas between 77 F and 84 F, reaching 93 F around the intake vents. Battery life is as expected for a laptop of this size and performance. One hour of editing in LibreOffice took the battery from 97% down to 70%, with Windows showing 2 hours 13 minutes of battery life remaining. Gaming sound is very good. As one might expect, the built-in speakers are mediocre for music, although there is more bass response than many other laptops. A 100 Hz test tone is very attenuated relative to higher frequencies but is audible without distortion. Music at 30% volume is about conversation level loudness. Movie dialog is clean and fills the room at 80% volume but the overall sound is treble-heavy and a little thin. There are no clicks or pops when audio starts or stops. There is a single 1/8” audio jack. When I plug in my headphones, there is a pop-up prompt to select mic in or headphone. The sound quality is excellent. I found 20% volume to be plenty loud with my over-the-head headphones. ASUS didn’t go overboard with unwanted software although I'd prefer not to have McAfee pre-installed. There's no need to reinstall Windows to avoid software bloat -- and it was easy enough to uninstall McAfee WebAdvisor, McAfee LiveSafe, and McAfee Security. The 16 GB of RAM occupies one slot (mine has a PC4-21300 DDR4 2667 MHz SK Hynix HMA82GS6CJR8N-VK). The second slot is open for an easy upgrade to 32 GB and dual channel speed. MemTest86 V7.5 measured 14.79 GB/s which is very good for a single channel. For comparison my i5-3360M with two channels of DDR3-1333 measured 15.07 GB/s. Although it’s not marketed for Linux use, I booted into a Live distribution just to see. Everything I tried worked as expected: the touchpad, display, storage, USB ports -- all fine. Other PassMark Performance Test 9.0 scores, in Balanced fan mode: 2D Mark: 832 Memory Mark: 2485 Disk Mark, C: 7965 Disk Mark, D: 734

Pros: - 8th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU (6 cores/12 threads) 8750H @ 2.20 GHz/Turbo Boost up to 4.1 GHz. - GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB GPU. - 17.3" Full HD (1920 x 1080) display, 120 MHz refresh rate, 3 ms response time, TN panel. - Customizable, backlit, 4-zone RGB Gaming Keyboard with number pad. - 128 GB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe OS drive. Kingston model # SNS8154P3/128GJ - Windows 10 OS with hardly any bloatware installed. I did not even feel the need to reinstall OS to get rid of junk. - 1 TB SSHD 2.5 fusion (FireCuda) storage drive. Seagate model # ST1000LX015 - 16 GM of RAM (one more empty RAM slot remaining). Hynix model HMA82GS6CJR8N. - Gigabit 2x2 802.11 Wi-Fi modem. Intel model # 9560NGW - 4 USB 3.0/one USB 3.1 Type-C/HDMI 2.0/Mini DisplayPort/SD card ports/headphones out. - Dimensions/Weight: 16.22" x 10.77" x 0.94"/6.5lbs. - One year international warranty. - Beautiful design with ROG gaming accents. Nice ROG wallpaper.

Cons: - OS drive could be larger than 128 GB. - the finish is quite nice but the materials used show fingerprints easily.

Overall Review: As always, shipping from Newegg was very fast. The item was packaged well for shipping and arrived in pristine condition. I was expecting a bulky and heavy gaming laptop with heavy gaming styling and accents. In reality, ASUS ROG Strix is quite thin and looks stylishly normal. Gaming accents are limited to ROG logo on the lid. At 6.5 lbs, the laptop is still quite portable. The laptop is very sturdy. The top lid, does not wobble and the materials give appearance of high quality. Dual fans keep the laptop well ventilated. You can manually set the fans to either “silent”, “balanced” or “overboost”. The fans do kick, sometimes semi-randomly. The fans stay on while paying some more demanding games. They do become noticeable at times but I do not find them distracting. The main system M.2 storage as well as the 1 TB 2.5” storage Hard Drive and an empty RAM slot can be easily accessed by removing a single screw and lifting a back cover. Laptop’s Gigabit LAN port comes handy when downloading large files, especially if your WiFi is saturated with multiple devices. The Wi-Fi card is Intel 802.11ac featuring 2x2 MU-MIMO technology (Dual-Band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz). The touchpad is powered by Microsoft Precision Touchpad Drivers with standard, optimized gestures for precise and crisp handling. The touchpad is nice with options for tweaking. The keyboard has outstanding programmable RGB back-light effects. The keyboard back light was turning off randomly until I re-installed “ROG Aura Core” app from the Microsoft store. Typing is easy and the keys are well sized and spaced. The keys do not feel mushy, get stuck or sound “clacky”. The keyboard has dedicated number pad too. In clear nod to gamers, W A S D keys have additional border around them. A dedicated hardware button on top of the keyboard brings up ROG Gaming Center app, which neatly presents system information, allows to change multiple settings and allows to create custom gaming profiles. Granular gaming-related controls over system hardware are available in one central location. Excellent! The ROG Gaming Center is very neat and well designed. The speakers are located on the sides of the laptop. They sound is surprisingly good for laptop speakers, better than I would expect. The gaming stereo effects are fairly crisp and do not sound hollow, with little distortion, even with the volume cranked up. Conversions are easy to understand. Music sounds quite good. The battery capacity is 76 Wh. The battery is built in (it cannot be replaced without opening the bottom of the laptop). The battery lasted 2 hrs 5 min when I played COD Black Ops 4. Expect this laptop to last between 3 and 4 hrs on single charge with mixed use. The screen resolution is 1920x1080. No flickering, washed out colors, visible backlight bleed or unevenly lit up edges. The screen looks excellent to me. This laptop will handle most of modern games at good playable settings. I have spent some time playing COD Black Ops 4, a copy of which came free with this laptop. The frame rates stayed consistently around 60 FPS. Not bad at all. The laptop had no trouble driving my HP Omen monitor at its full resolution of 3440x1440 at 100 Hz, through a Thunderbolt-to-DV cable (see item #: 9SIAAJ97N38236). Good CPU and graphics make this laptop an excellent choice not only for gaming but also for other resource-intensive tasks such as video editing, graphics design, software compiling etc. I am very impressed with Asus ROG Strix gaming Laptop. You get outstanding build quality, latest available CPU and excellent graphics card for good price. The performance for the price is excellent. This is a very stylish gaming laptop but the gaming accents are very subtle. It looks like a normal, well designed laptop. ASUS ROG Strix is a great choice not only for mobile gamers but also for those looking for very capable desktop replacement laptop.

Pros: Asus especially under the ROG brand makes some amazing PC products for hardware enthusiasts and gamers and the ROG Strix Scar Edition 17" Laptop is no exception. The amazingly good looks and build quality, not to mention the over the top RGB array on the keyboard and breathing ROG logo are sure to turn some heads whether its at a LAN party or coffee shop. This laptop is on the larger end at 17" and the benefits of the large and heavy chassis is a full laptop, large screen, and lots of room to house powerful components and enough cooling to keep it all running. The amount of powerful hardware in this laptop is staggering, you have a FULL BOWN 6-core Intel i7 CPU and a FULL desktop equivalent GTX 1060 with 6GB of VRAM powering this thing. To think this was top-end desktop performance just a few years ago in 2014 (GTX 980 level performance) is simply mind blowing and this laptop still runs most games at 1080p with at least 60 FPS. Here's the Pros: +CPU and GPU combo is outstanding as mentioned for this price point. For just around $1000 you get a super powerful 6-core Intel i7 8750H along with an Nvidia GTX 1060 in a portable package that draws around 200W max. Amazing. I ran a few benchmarks and while the GPU does not throttle and stays around 1607-1658MHz while running Heaven benchmark, the CPU did end up throttling from 3.9GHz to 3.1GHz in Cinebench around 75% through the run. The Cinebench score was 1086cb which is still excellent overall. +Excellent gaming display. While it is a TN panel, the viewing angles are excellent with only noticeable white shifting when viewing from the top. The blacks aren't very good, you will be a little worried during boot-up that they look more grey than anything, the blacks tend to look better after the laptop has warmed up a bit. Oh yeah, and the display is also 120Hz which means silky smooth and snappy desktop performance as well as awesome gaming performance. The 1060 is enough to deliver high FPS in less demanding games like Overwatch, CS:GO etc but in newer games you will be around 60FPS-80FPS maxed out at 1080p. +Excellent chassis and build quality. The laptop looks and feels amazing. The keys are easy to type on and while they are more of a matte graphite finish on the keyboard, the top is high quality aluminum and the bottom is a sturdy plastic. I don't have problems with fingerprints but that may vary by how greasy your fingers are. +TONs of inputs. Really an amazing array of USB ports, USB-C, full HDMI, SD card (for photogs), a full ethernet port. They are all on the side too which means you don't have to go fumbling around the back. +Free COD4 Black Ops 4. Super easy to get the key, there was actually a pop-up that prompted registration, just signed up with an Asus account and they sent an email the key after I verified my account. No need to input any serial numbers or proof of purchase. +M.2 NVMe and 2.5" SSHD. Lots of hybrid storage with a fast NVMe SSD for the OS drive and a slower SSHD for storage. +16GB of RAM is just about perfect for a laptop today! Its so refreshing to have 16GB since browsers nowadays can eat up tons of RAM and 16GB is bare minimum in my opinion nowadays for a gaming and productivity laptop. +Easy access to the m.2, 2.5" SATA and 2nd SODIMM slot by removing a single screw.

Cons: Not everything about this laptop is perfect, but certainly not enough to take Eggs off for. I will probably end up addressing some of these issues after-market. -The 16GB is a single stick so this system runs in single-channel mode. This is great for anyone who wants to expand to 32GB but not so great for anyone who is happy with 16GB total that might have preferred 2x8GB. While the one stick is easy to get to, the 2nd stick will require removal of all screws and probably some plastic snaps which isn't great. -Backspace key seems to stick a bit compared to other keys when you don't strike it dead center. Just noticed this while typing this review. It probably needs a larger membrane or a second spring. -128GB M.2 is kind of small even for an OS drive and the Kingston M.2 SSD is kind of slow compared to what is out there. The good news is it looks like it can get the full x4 PCIe bandwidth, so an upgrade to a 3GB/s SSD of at least 250GB is going to be one of my first upgrades. -Fans are Kind of Loud sadly. Even using this in web browsing you can hear the fans ramp up. This laptop probably has at least 4 fans in it and you can hear each one ramp up individually during different levels of load. One fan for just medium CPU load another fan for heavier CPU load, one fan for GPU, and one fan for total system load. -Windows 10 Home? Kind of a wasted OS, luckily I have more keys through my MSDN account so I will upgrade my OS, but Win10 Home is disappointing.

Overall Review: While I would certainly recommend this laptop, I did have the chance to use an Acer Aspire 7 A17 gaming laptop with similar specs and I must say the Acer, while not built as well and not as blingy, was overall more impressive from a performance and acoustic standpoint. This Asus does have its CPU boost set more aggressively to 3.9, but it also throttles unlike the Acer which did 3.6GHz consistent without throttling. The Acer also didn't seem to get as loud even though the fans ramped up. Also, the Acer had a 256GB PCIe NVME SSD and 2x8GB of RAM instead of the 128GB NVMe SSD and 1x16GB RAM found on this laptop. I did some shopping around also, and the Newegg version of this laptop is definitely better as it offers a GTX 1060 instead of a GTX 1050Ti for similar price which is a HUGE upgrade. So I lied, I am going to take ONE EGG off for this sticky Backspace Key because it is really annoying. EDIT: I gave the Egg back after I was able to manually fix the backspace by just putting a LOT of pressure on the center of the key and slighly shifting it slightly side to side. This must have allowed the scissor mechanism to re-attach, and also possibly centered the key back within the keyboard cutout chassis. Overall very happy again with typing on this laptop.

Pros: +Large form factor with full keyboard and keypad, it is the largest size and max weight(6.5lb) I would personally consider for lugging around for school/work purposes. + 120hz TN 3ms Display is great for gaming however it may not be used to its full potential in all situations (see thoughts below). The anti-glare is on point however and more manufacturers should take note of this. + GTX1060 is a great choice in this form factor and screen resolution in my opinion. For any more power in a laptop you would have to jump up to a full 12+ Lb (plus power brick(s)) or $500-800 more Max Q Design for anything similar size. + Lots of input/output from USB-C to Mini Display Port/HDMI/SD reader along with 4 USB 3 ports and the latest 802.11ac WiFi. +Speaking of USB-C The ability to use it along with an external GPU enclosure (ex. ASUS ROG XG Station) opens up the performance possibilities even more if you want to use this at work as a portable and bring it home and dock up to more GPU power. + 8th Gen 6 core Coffee Lake processor is almost overkill (but I love it) and will be thermally limited whilst gaming unless cooling measures are taken (see below). +16 GB of DDR4 2666 with room for upgrade to 32gb max. +Kingston NVME M2 128GB SSD is fast for OS and a few smaller games along with a hybrid one terabyte drive of spinning rust is a good staring point at this price. +Benchmark results were above what was expected (results below) and would seem that the machine would be able to run any current and upcoming games at Medium to Highest setting @ 1080p.

Cons: — The small form factor with no mechanical lifts on the hinges to pick the rear up makes air flow a big issue for this machine (think Max Q design as seen on the ROG Zephyrus S) and it does thermally throttle itself, thus making the full 4.1ghz turbo boost never seen during gaming since the heat of the GPU and CPU running together limits what the systems cooling can handle. However in the “gaming laptop” market, heat is to be expected and is usually accounted for with external cooling etc by the people who game heavily. — While VR ready (it just barely exceeds 3DMark and Vive recommended spec for VR). I would personally not recommend this for consistent VR use unless using an external GPU enclosure over USB-C due to the thermal throttling and long term reliability at full temps (unless using aftermarket cooling). — RGB Keyboard backlight goes wonky sometimes and turns off randomly, requiring restart or change of a setting and applying in the aura software (using latest bios/drivers/software as of this writing (Nov 18’)). — Speakers aren’t really powerful (1.5w x 2) but it does have mic/headphone jack which is becoming more rare. — Touchpad is on smaller side if you are used to MacBooks or larger human interface devices.

Overall Review: Before getting into my thoughts I will look at my Benchmark results as they left me impressed and were higher than I expected. All tests were conducted at 1080p with latest drivers, software and BIOS (as of Nov 18’) using GeForce Experience recommended settings for games or Default for synthetic tests. Another pleasant surprise was all games tested defaulted in the top 3-4 “clicks” of max settings in GF Experience optimization. 3DMark Time Spy 1.0 @ 1080p Default - 3494 (Better than 39% of all results) 3DMark Fire Strike 1.1 @ 1080p Default - 9975 (Better than 58% of all results) PCMark 8 Home Conventional - 4660 Fortnite - 75-85 Avg FPS (Observed during PvP match) Hitman - 68.69 Avg FPS / 14.56ms Frame time (In game bench tool) GTA 5 - 71-89 Avg FPS over 4 passes / 13.5ms Frame time (In game bench tool) Metro Last Light Redux - 46.62 Avg FPS (In-game bench tool) Witcher 3 Wild Hunt - 45-55 Avg FPS (Observed running around killing stuff). So as you can see the 120hz refresh rate may not be fully utilized much unless you play games with older generation game engines or using lower settings and resolutions. I personally wouldn’t let this be the issue to stop me from purchasing this unit because the screen is beautiful and provides excellent viewing angles and color reproduction for 95% of users. My idea of the best use case of this laptop would be a student or professional that needs to have a great big screen and lots of power for gaming and or editing on the go. Also having the option if you need more graphics power, to get an external GPU enclosure along with an additional cooling solution and thus you have created yourself one powerful gaming or work station. The only real worry is a common one of gaming laptops, and that is there is a lot of heat to contend with in a small space. If you plan to game or work this machine for long periods at a time and want it to last, please get yourself an aftermarket cooling solution and keep the fans/screens clear of debris/dust. In terms of extra software that comes pre installed I have to say hats off to ASUS for only including their house brand software and a basic antivirus software that was very easy to remove. If your looking to have more thermal cooling built in from the manufacturer you would have to step up to a GeForce Max Q design such as the ROG Zephyrus line offered by ASUS, but that is roughly $600-900 more depending on spec. So in closing, in my opinion I would not let any of the issues bother me, and use the machine on the go for light gaming (the battery is only good for about 1.5hr on full speed), and then bring it home to a nice cooling solution and or external GPU to enjoy lots of binge gaming sessions worry free.

Pros: The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17.3” notebooks is a pretty nice setup for the price. Included in the box is the notebook, AC adapter, Republic of gamers clip, Instruction guide, Warranty card, and a page of stickers. Overall the notebook is quiet at idle and not overly loud at full load. The weight is about average weight for a 17” notebook. The customizable multi-color light-up keyboard is a nice touch. Inside is a 1TB Seagate Hard drive, a 128 GB Kingston M.2 SSD, 16 GB RAM, an NVIDIA GTX 1060, and an Intel 9560NGW wireless card. Overall I had a good experience with this notebook with a couple exceptions noted in the cons section. That said, the Strix is a good choice for the casual gamer or college student.

Cons: I ran into the “your PC had problems” error on boot up multiple times from a fresh startup. It loaded fine on restart each time. It seems to be related to starting to type in my login password before the system was ready. I only guess that as the computer wouldn’t type anything into the password box and then the blue screen would hit. Even after all system updates there is a system event WHEA-Logger ID 17. None of these really impacted my ability to use the notebook (which is why I still gave it 4 eggs). I will probably try to re-install Windows 10 from scratch to see if it resolves the issue. This isn't something a new owner should have to do on a brand new out of the box notebook though.

Overall Review: There is an access panel at the bottom of the notebook which you can open and add additional RAM if you have a need. You can also change out the pre-installed hard disks if you feel you need to upgrade them. With a little extra effort you can completely open the bottom of the laptop and change the pre-installed RAM, though replacing any of the pre-installed hardware will probably void the warranty. The notebook currently comes with a free copy of Call of Duty with purchase. 3DMark11 Score X5078 https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12991681 1TB Seagate FireCuda Hard disk Model ST1000LX015 128 GB Kingston M.2 SSD Model RBU-SNS8154P3/128GJ 16 GB Hynix DDR4, 2666, Model HMA82GS6CJR8N-VK Wireless Intel Model: 9560NGW As always I will report back if I have any new information to report about this product.

Pros: Very nice computer. Very fast. Very low profile. Everything runs Perfectly, so far!

Cons: Newegg itself was a nightmare to order from, with a horrible way of bestowing "free" gifts upon the buyer. There is ALWAYS a problem ordering something big from this site.

Overall Review: First of all, I've been using Asus ROG systems since the G74, and have loved each one. This is my 3rd one, and after a few months, I'm very impressed with this one. This laptop has a lot of horsepower, and is about half the weight of the last 2 gaming laptops (G74 and G703, I think it is). Its very slim, and the profiles between the first 2, and this one, are vastly different. Its much lighter, and way less intrusive and bulky. I still can't believe how different it is! That being said, I definitely do not have the same level of confidence in the cooling capabilities of this computer, that I did with either of the last 2. It generates a ton of heat, and playing with it actually in my lap gets uncomfortable... fast. So, ironically, one of the most impressive things about it was its performance/size ratio, and that has been negated by the fact that I had to get external help, which brought the profile (not the weight, still) back up to the bulkiness of the previous laptops, if I wanted to sit in an easy chair, put my feet up, and play a game... which I do. On a flat, hard surface, it felt fine, but there's no way I want to come close to covering up a vent with my fuzzy comfy pants while playing The Division or Black Ops 4 (which came free with my purchases of my last 2 systems!) Either way, its a great system, with great specs, and I'm loving it! The REAL problem came from simply ordering it. Newegg has an absolutely ridiculous and idiotic system of giving you a "free" software bundle that they first charge you for, then refund you the money when the payment clears! Whoever came up with this system needs to be fired, immediately. It caused no end of heartburn when trying to get a bank card payment to go through, and to make matters worse, when using a bank card, they put a hold on money, and when their system causes a problem, it takes DAYS to free up the money charged to your card... FOR A FREE GIFT! The software bundle in question cost $350! So, when the bank inexplicably flagged newegg as a fraud, I had to clear it up with both of them, but since there was a hold on a $350 FREE gift, I had to resort to blowing off a dusty old credit card to rebuy the whole thing, and just pay it off when newegg finally freed up the money I had originally set aside to buy the laptop, to avoid the interest I didn't want to pay, on the credit card I didn't want to use in the first place! An absolute nightmare to get sorted out... Fortunately, they have excellent and sympathetic customer service reps, who understand just how stupid the people who run Newegg really are. They told me they get endless calls about this exact type of "free" system, but explained that its easier on the company's bookkeepers to do it this way... just not their customers! So, would I buy this computer again? YES! Its fantastic, if a tad flawed. Will I buy it through Newegg? That is a big, BIG, "IF"!

Pros: - This thing is fast, boots up near instantly from a full shutdown - Beefy specs for a laptop. the GTX 1060 and eighth gen i7 can handle just about whatever you throw at them - Despite being plastic, the case feels solid and the "brushed aluminum" lid looks nice. The design isn't crazy elegant but its not "in your face edgelord" like a lot of "gaming" laptops. I don't look out of place using it in an office setting. - Size is really nice for a 17.3" with this much power. Physically thinner, and barely wider than my few year old Dell 15.6". It's still easily portable. - Would have liked an IPS display but the 120Hz is super smooth and color seems good - Has no problem hitting high framerates in most games on the higher graphic settings

Cons: - Track pad has some times where it goes a bit wonky (not often) - Can run a little warm sometimes when heavy gaming. - The fans are a bit loud under heavy load, but headphones make this a non-issue, and unless your're gaming they are fairly quiet. I hate putting this under cons, because if you want a "thin and light" gaming laptop you sort of have to accept that those fans are going to need to be working overtime on occasion. - Battery life isn't great, but again that's one of those trade offs you usually have a laptop with this much horsepower.

Overall Review: I've only had it for a few weeks now so I'll update if anything changes but as of now I would recommend it. I use it for photo and video editing, as well as basic office and work stuff and a good bit of gaming. Performs great in all situations so far. Runs about 70-75* during heavy gaming, but much cooler during all other applications.

Pros: - Wonderful screen - Powerful CPU - Very classy and the design is cool. - Excellent keyboard - The best for any work you may need. - It can run any game smoothly.

Cons: - Overheat, overheat, overheat. It's crazy how it could easily get hot. - The keyboard gets really hot, I couldn't use it. - Very small SSD, I had to replace it. - The fans are not very quiet, but you can get them really loud (overboost) and silent. - You will lose a lot of essential applications if you change your hard drive, and cannot be downloaded. - The packaging was not secure enough. Even though, it has arrived safely. - No thunderbolt.

Overall Review: Bottom line: I'm happy with it. It does everything I need. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I rely on CPU heavily and it's outstanding. Especially after I added EVO 970. If you want a day-to-day laptop, that can do anything, then go for it. FYI: I tried to replace it because of the overheating. Unfortunately, here in Turkey, you cannot ship electronics over 1 Kg.