Asus unveils the 320W ROG Strix Scar 18 with RTX 5090, but it’s the CPU that steals the show
The 2026 ROG Strix Scar 18 pushes 320W total, pairs it with the world's first 18-inch 4K 240Hz Mini LED display, and ships with a 450W power brick.
Astrong
Asus extracting 81% more CPU wattage from the 2026 Strix SCAR 18 while Nvidia keeps the GPU locked at 175W is the most interesting story in this spec sheet.
Asus
Asus has announced a new gaming laptop, the ROG Strix Scar 18 (2026), with a claim that it’s the most powerful gaming laptop the company has ever built.
The main highlight of the device is the 320W of total system power: 145W to the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and 175W to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 laptop GPU. While the CPU offers a meaningful upgrade over the 2025 model, the GPU has been borrowed unchanged.
Meet the next evolution of gaming performance with the ROG Strix SCAR 18, engineered to push power, visuals, and immersion to the next level. 320W Dominance. 4K Flagship.
🔥 Pre-orders are now available. pic.twitter.com/xMMkzQTf94
What’s actually new on the ROG Strix Scar 18 (2026)?
To me, the 450W power adapter (up from 380W) supplied in the box is proof that the company is quite serious about Strix Scar 18. The 18% headroom goes into helping the CPU sustain up to 200W under certain workloads, though it’s not immediately clear which ones.
The cooling solution is overhauled to match the gain in power consumption and void throttling. Strix Scar 18 now features an end-to-end vapor chamber with a sandwiched heatsink design that features 0.1mm copper fins across a total surface area of 246,898mm².
You can configure the laptop with up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM and 8TB of PDIe 5.0 SSD storage, and of course, the top variant would cost you a fortune. Connectivity options include two Thunderbolt 5 ports (with DP 2.1 and PD 3.1), three USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and one HDMI 2.1, and Wi-Fi 7 among others.
Asus
The laptop features world’s first 4K 240Hz Mini LED display
Coming to the display, it has received a major, first-of-its-kind upgrade. The 2026 Strix Scar 18 flaunts an 18-inch 4K (3,840×2,400) Mini LED panel that supports 240Hz refresh rate, ROG Nebula ELMB technology, and covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color space.
Just yesterday, I covered the Razer 18’s launch, and that particular laptop also provides 240Hz refresh rate in 4K resolution. So, what’s the difference? While the Razer uses an IPS panel, Asus adds Mini LED to it, so it’s the world’s first 4K 240Hz Mini LED panel, to set the record straight.
With everything, the laptop is now over 400 grams heavier than its predecessor, which, in my opinion, wasn’t exactly the lightest option in the first place. Asus hasn’t announced the pricing, nor availability.
For me, the 2026 ROG Strix Scar 18 is the clearest example about how gaming laptop performance gains are increasingly coming from an improved CPU, not GPU.
For more than five years, Shikhar has consistently simplified developments in the field of consumer tech and presented them…
ChatGPT will now dole out finance tips if you connect your bank account. I won’t.
ChatGPT can now access your bank account to offer spending analysis and financial planning.
ChatGPT already knows a lot about you. OpenAI now wants to add your finances to that list. The company has launched a personal finance feature for ChatGPT, currently in preview for Pro subscribers in the US at $200 a month. OpenAI says it will expand to Plus users after gathering feedback from this early rollout.
It lets you connect your financial accounts through Plaid, a platform that bridges bank apps with third-party services and works with over 12,000 institutions, including Chase, Fidelity, Schwab, American Express, and more.
CleanShot X is my favorite Mac utility. Here are 8 features that will convince you, too.
Your Mac's built-in screenshot tool has been holding you back. It's time to upgrade.
macOS has a built-in screenshot tool that gets the basics right. You can take a screenshot, record your screen, and even annotate your captures. But the moment you want something more, like scrolling capture, advanced annotation tools, or a quick way to share your screenshots via a link, it starts to fall apart.
That's where CleanShot X comes in. It's a powerful screenshot and screen recording app for Mac that replaces the built-in screenshot tool. It feels as if the developers looked at the screenshot features in macOS and added everything that was missing.
Wowed by computer-use AI agents? Research says they’re “digital disasters” even for routine tasks
Researchers tested 10 agents and models and found high rates of undesirable actions and real digital damage
AI agents built to run everyday computer tasks have a serious context problem, according to new research from UC Riverside.
The team tested 10 agents and models from major developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Alibaba, and DeepSeek. On average, the agents took undesirable or potentially harmful actions 80% of the time and caused damage 41% of the time.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23935558/acastro_STK103__01.jpg)
