The ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023) Laptop Review: Mobile Ryzen 9 7945HX3D with 3D V-Cache Impresses

ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023): Compute Performance

Typically in previous notebook reviews, we lump basic compute and general performance in with our system performance summary. As we advance into 2023 and beyond, we'll split the sections up and use some of our 2023 CPU Suite benchmarks to measure performance, not just from a compute standpoint but also from memory and other compute-related variables that can substantially affect compute performance.

CPU-Z Screenshot of the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D processor

We'll also have more data points as we test more notebooks, and for now, we've included our data from some of our more recent yet relevant CPU reviews to judge performance. This includes AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X3D, the regular 7950X, and other lower-powered 65 W Ryzen 7000 CPUs. We've also added the Intel Core i9-13900K in for good measure, as, after all, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D is technically designed to be a desktop replacement alternative.

Starting off with our 3DPM v2.1 benchmark, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D performs insanely close to the Intel Core i9-13900K in the non-AVX section, which is very impressive, given that it pulls 1/3rd of the power than the desktop chip at full blast. Naturally, AMD's Zen 4 architecture includes support for AVX-512 workloads through two 256-bit channels, and as a result, performs very similarly to the 12C/24T Ryzen 9 7900 desktop chip.

Next up is Blender 3.3, and in the case of the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D, it's more than capable of performing rendering tests. Sitting primarily between the Ryzen 9 7900 and the Ryzen 7 7700 (both desktop) processors, it outputs a lot of grunt for a 55-75 W processor packed into a notebook chassis.

In our Crysis CPU render benchmark, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D performed very well and wasn't too far off its larger packaged desktop sibling, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

Looking at the results in our C-Ray 1.1 4K benchmark, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D performs very well, even ousting the Ryzen 9 7900 slightly and making light work of the other sub-16 core chips on test; both desktop and the mobile Ryzen 9 7940HS.

Often used as the go-to benchmark to measure CPU performance by users across the world, CineBench R23 yielded some interesting results. First of all, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D was only around 8% slower than the desktop Ryzen 9 7950X3D, which also has the 3D V-Cache packaging. It also showed similar performance in the single-threaded test, which is understandable given both chips feature the same Vermeer Zen 4 cores.

Our last compute-related benchmark is WinRAR 5.90, which is sensitive to both CPU cores and memory. Again, we see very similar performance between the desktop Ryzen 9 7950X3D and the mobile Ryzen 9 7945HX3D, which is impressive. It's worth noting that the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 is using DDR5-4800 memory, which, if ASUS had used faster memory such as DDR5-5200 as per JEDEC specifications, the tables could have turned.