Catfishing, sextortion, phishing and other romance scams are big business for fraudsters. Carey van Vlaanderen, Chief Executive Officer at ESET Southern Africa says knowing how to spot red flags can mean the difference between being deeply in love and knee-deep in debt. 

If you’re currently in the market for a high-end gaming notebook, and let’s say your budget is just below R88k, well, does ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) got something for you. Yesterday saw the South African launch of the new ROG Strix SCAR 18, a gaming notebook that not only looks the part but has all the internals to back it up. 

The Scar is noted as ROG’s highest-performing notebooks, with it powered by the latest chips from Intel and NVIDIA. Inside the Strix SCAR 18 you’ll find (up to) an Intel Core i9-13980HX processor with 24 cores and 32 threads, alongside (up to) an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU capable of up to 175 watts. This for a total system power of 240 W (with Dynamic Boost and Manual performance modes), according to ROG. 

Overheating on a gaming notebook can be a problem, with ROG noting the redesigned 18” Strix features an all-new Intelligent Cooling suite, with the Tri-Fan Technology first introduced on the 2022 Flow X16. In addition, the company has utilised the full-width heatsink from the Flow X16 and enlarged it for the 2023 Strix SCAR 18. This larger heatsink increases surface area for heat dissipation by up to 92.23% compared with 2022 models, according to ROG. There are also new full-surround vents, combined with Conductonaut Extreme liquid metal on both the CPU and GPU with seven heat pipes.

One of the costs often forgotten about when building your own gaming PC is, of course, the monitor. Just in case you don’t know how a notebook works, the ROG Strix SCAR 18 comes with its own display - an 18” QHD (2560 x 1600) 240 Hz screen now in a 16:10 aspect ratio. It’s fitted with ROG’s Nebula display, with these displays requiring high refresh rates with a response time of 3ms or less, at least 500 nits of brightness, and 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space. 

And what’s a gaming setup without some sweet RGB lights? There are plenty of these on the Strix SCAR 18, including an all-new full-width light bar along the vents on the back. With Aura Sync, users can keep their notebook’s lighting coordinated with their peripherals, or even design their complex lighting effects with Aura Creator.

ROG notes the spacious keyboard layout which makes for more comfortable gaming, alongside customisable hotkeys that control volume, microphone, or toggle performance modes for on-the-fly gaming. A larger glass touchpad provides “more precision”, and the chassis’ anti-fingerprint coating ensures a clean look no matter how grubby a user’s lifestyle. 

Availability & Pricing

As mentioned, the ROG Strix Scar 18 does not come cheap: The Intel Core-i9, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 spec will retail for R87 999, while the GeForce RTX 4080 spec goes for a bit less as R79 999. 

Luckily, you do have a few days left to save - ten to be precise, since the Scar 18 will be in the shops from the 20th of Feb. Which shops you might ask? Evetech, Wootware, Takealot, Incredible Connection, and ASUS eShop.