The ROG Strix Scar 15 G533QS shows that Asus is taking its AMD-powered gaming notebook lineup very seriously; in the battle for the CPU lead, AMD is closing the gap with Intel and offering stiff competition in price and performance.

The G533QS is the more expensive of the two Scar 15 configurations, this one featuring the RTX 3080; there are no major differences between the G533QS and G533QR except for the RTX 3070. Each can be equipped with an AMD Cezanne-H chip (Ryzen 7 5800H or Ryzen 9 5900HX). Between the memory and display options offered in the new Scar 15, the final price tag will range from $2,000 to $2,700. Slightly cheaper than its big brother, the Scar 17, the Scar 15 manages to pack a lot of power into a small chassis.

One of the first things you notice about this 15-inch laptop is its design; the Strix series laptops are strongly geared toward competitive gamers, so the look is skewed toward the flashy, designed to let people know that you are a gamer playing very high frame rate games. They are designed to let people know that you are a gamer who plays very high frame rate games.

The diagonal slashes across the lid accompanied by the dot matrix pattern are sophisticated, but the giant ROG Eye logo is a bit too large; Scar's most striking design touch is the wrap-around light bar located along the bottom front of the laptop, with other RGB controlled by ASUS Aura Sync as well. [This Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 has a 1440p IPS panel with a refresh rate of 165Hz. Also available are 1080p/300Hz displays and configurations that slot in an RTX 3070 instead of an RTX 3080; if you go the 1440p/165Hz route, you can make the most of the RTX 3080 packed into the Scar 15 as long as you can afford the $2,700 price .

In practice, the screen is a thing of beauty, whether for gaming or media viewing. I spent hours last weekend watching superheroes beat each other in "Invincible," and the colors just pop. The ultra-thin bezel makes gaming and movie watching more immersive, but at the cost of no webcam. Paying $2,000+ for a laptop without a webcam (even if it's a crappy one) is a bit of a pain, but given that the Scar 15 is superior in every other way, I'll allow it. If you do a lot of video calling for work or chatting with friends, you might want to pick up one of the best webcams for gaming and, incidentally, one of the best microphones. The built-in noise-canceling microphone is usable, but a little too quiet for serious recording.

The Scar 15's typing experience is often overlooked in the face of the system-wide light and color, but the optical mechanical keyboard is good for typing. My characters per minute are around 75 on a good day with 90% accuracy; on the Strix keyboard, I can type an average of 70 characters with 80% accuracy, not bad.

Since this model has a 1440p display, I ran most benchmarks at native resolution. Since its launch, the Ryzen 9 5900HX has proven to be a powerful CPU and a highly desirable component for gaming laptops. It is worth noting that this chip differs significantly from the desktop Ryzen 9 5900X, with 12 cores instead of the overclocked 8 cores of the 5900HX. In terms of performance, it is on the higher end of CPU load performance than other 15-inch products such as the MSI GS66 Stealth, Gigabyte Aorus 15G, and Razer Blade 15.

This is a powerful mobile chip that easily outpaces Intel's offerings, and it is no wonder that more and more laptop makers are launching AMD gaming laptops. Combine this with 32 GB of RAM and you have a little workstation.

It was mentioned earlier that if you opt for the RTX 3080 configuration, it seems only natural to choose a higher resolution. Scar 15 was well above 70 fps in most of our gaming tests, with Metro Exodus being the exception. Of course, if you pick a 1080p game, you'll get impressive numbers. I'm playing Apex Legends this season and easily hit an average of 160 fps on Ultra at 1440p.

The touchpad is spacious and was fairly easy to use on a daily basis. For gaming, a wireless mouse or gamepad is still the best way to mess up the demons in Doom Eternal. The touchpad also has a toggle to switch to Numpad, which is nothing new, but as someone who types in spreadsheets daily, I would prefer to have a numeric keypad somewhere.

The Asus ROG Strix SCAR 15 G533QS, like its larger (and more expensive) Asus Scar 17 sibling, is one hell of a gaming laptop. Its power is matched only by its flashy RGB-heavy design. The powerful AMD CPU, beautiful display, and gaming performance make the Scar 15 one of the best 15-inch gaming laptops we tested this year.