[In-depth Comparison] ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 vs MSI GE76 Raider (2021) – two gaming giants go to war

The flagship gaming laptop segment is full of goodies from all brands. Today we have a fierce comparison between two high-caliber laptops, which are some of the top choices if you are lucky to be on the lookout for such a laptop.

Needless to say, the laptops offer overkill performance, coming with flagship CPUs and GPUs. The ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 is the crown jewel of ASUS’s gaming crown. You can tell that it means some serious business from the aggressive design and attention to detail. On the other hand, the MSI GE76 Raider dials things down a bit, choosing to be the grown-up in the situation, utilizing a more subdued design.

Today we are giving you an in-depth comparison between the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 and the MSI GE76 Raider (2021).

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733: Full Specs / In-depth Review

MSI GE76 Raider (2021): Full Specs / In-depth Review

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 configurations:

MSI GE76 Raider (2021) configurations:

Contents


Design and construction

Starting off with the ASUS, the laptop has a very sturdy and well-built body, which is to be expected from a flagship product. The design is also on point, with ASUS going all out in order to create a customizable laptop that can become uniquely yours. For instance, you have an armor cap, which can be taken out. Then you can 3D print your own using the ASUS ROG website, making the laptop truly yours. The lid has a ROG logo with RGB LEDs behind it, which can illuminate in whatever color you prefer through the ASUS app. You get more RGB on the base, in the form of a bar, which spans the front of the entire base. Half of the base is also transparent, revealing the internal components.

Going over to the GE76 Raider, it gets an aluminum body, with there being some plastic elements here and there. This laptop also gets an LED bar, but the overall design is more elegant. The exterior of the laptop adopts the sportscar design language of a subdued and elegant front end, with an aggressive and powerful-looking rear, which looks spectacular. You can see the huge hinge covers, which look to be taken straight out of the rear end of a Corvette.

WeightHeight
ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G7332.70 kg (6 lbs)28.3 mm (0.92″)
MSI GE76 Raider (2021)2.90 kg (6.4 lbs)25.9 mm (1.02″)

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Keyboard and touhpad

The ASUS laptop features a fantastic set of input devices. The keyboard has an RGB backlight and quite large keycaps, which will definitely deliver a good experience. You also get long key travel and clicky feedback. ASUS has also done the work, using optical switches with a spring and a sector, which gives you an unrivaled latency of 0.2 ms. As for the touchpad, it had everything you could want from it, including smooth gliding, accurate tracking, and a large enough size.

On the MSI device, you get a keyboard with a per-key RGB backlight, which can be synced with the LED bar below it. You get an unparalleled key travel which is among the longest that we have testes. As you would expect the feedback is very clicky, with the overall experience being more than comfortable. The only con that we can see is the position of the arrow keys, which are very close to the other buttons, making them prone to accidental presses. The touchpad here is definitely smaller, but still offers smooth gliding, tracking, and a clicky mechanism.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Ports

The ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 offers a wide I/O, which is split between the left and the rear sides of the laptop. You have a total of three USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, one USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port, an HDMI 2.0b connector, an RJ-45 connector, and the power plug.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

Shifting over to the MSI, it has a densely populated I/O, as well, with a total of three USB Type-A 3.2 ports (two Gen. 1 and one Gen. 2 ports), one USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2), a 3.5mm audio jack, an SD card reader, a Mini DisplayPort, a Thunderbolt 4 connector, an RJ-45 connector, an HDMI connector, and the power plug.

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Spec sheet


Disassembly, Upgrade options

Taking apart the SCAR 17 is a relatively simple procedure. You have to take care of 11 Phillips-head screws, after which the bottom panel pops out. Get a plastic pry tool, if it’s a little difficult, but really make sure it’s made of plastic so that you don’t scratch the laptop. Lift the bottom panel and you see a cooling solution consists of a total of six heat pipes. Below that, there are two SODIMM and two M.2 PCIe x4 drives. The laptop can fit a total of 64GB of DDR4 RAM running in dual-channel mode.

The MSI GE67 Raider is a tad more difficult, being held together by a total of 13 Phillips-head screws. The cooling solution on the MSI laptop also has six heat pipes, along with two SODIMM RAM slots and two M.2 PCIe x4 drives. This laptop also can fit up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM in dual-channel mode.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Display quality

The ASUS ROG offers a choice between three 17.3-inch IPS displays, with either Full HD or QHD resolution. The two Full HD panels offer a 300Hz or 360Hz refresh rate, while the QHD panel has a 165Hz refresh rate. Our laptop came with the 300Hz Full HD panel, which has a pixel density of 127 PPI, a pitch of 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm, and can be considered Retina when looked at from at least 69cm (from this distance the human eye cannot distinguish individual pixels).

Going over to the Raider, it offers a total of six IPS display options. There are three Full HD panels with either a 240Hz, 300Hz, or 360Hz refresh rate, along with two QHD panels with either a 165Hz or a 240Hz refresh rate. Finally, the last panel has a 4K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Our laptop had the 300Hz FHD panel, which has the same PPI and Retina distance, along with a longer pitch of 0.2 x 0.2 mm.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)

Viewing angles are excellent on both laptops. Here are some images at 45 degrees in order to assess quality.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)

The ASUS laptop offers a higher maximum brightness, with a 40 nits increase both when comparing the brightness in the middle of the screen and the brightness of the whole panel. The MSI panel, on the other hand, has a much smaller deviation of just 5%, while the ASUS stands at 12%. In terms of contrast ratio, the display on the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 G733 is better, with its 1200:1 contrast ratio, while the MSI display stops at 1000:1.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Color coverage

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows the color coverage of both the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 and the MSI GE76 Raider (2021).

The ASUS laptop covers 96% of the sRGB color gamut, while the MSI device covers 94% of the sRGB color gamut.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Color accuracy

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile. The ASUS laptop had a dE value of 3.2 from the factory, which went down to 1.0, within the standard. Going over to the MSI device, it had a better accuracy out of the box with a dE value of 2.3, which went down to 1.2 once we applied our profile.

Below you can check the results from the test of both laptops, with both the factory settings (left) and with our “Design and Gaming” profile applied (right).

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” methods from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

The ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 has a Fall Time + Rise Time of 7.4 ms, which is considered super fast. The MSI GE76 Raider has an OverDrive option, which gives us a Fall Time + Rise Time of 6.6 ms. If we disable the OverDrive setting, we get a time of 8.7 ms.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Health Impact / PWM (Blue light)

PWM – Screen flickering

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

In terms of flickering both panels show no usage of PWM across any brightness levels.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

Here at LaptopMedia, we create a set of custom-tailored profiles for every notebook we review. They boost the productivity of display and reduce negative effects such as blue light emissions and PWM. You can read more about them here.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 17.3″ FHD IPS Sharp LQ173M1JW04 (SHP14E1): Buy our profiles

MSI GE76 Raider (2021) 17.3″ FHD IPS AUO B173HAN05.1 (AUO348E): Buy our profiles

Sound

The ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 has a six-speaker setup, with two 2W tweeters, which are hidden behind the display shroud. There are also four 4W woofers, which are found on the bottom panel. As for the GE76 Raider, it has two front-firing speakers, which sit on the left and right sides of the keyboard, along with two others on the left and right sides of the notebook itself.

The ASUS setup shows no deviation across the entire frequency range, while the speakers provide clear and deep sound. On the other hand, the MSI speakers show some deviations around 4kHz.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)


Battery

The way we conduct our battery tests is with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. The ASUS laptop comes with a beefy 90Wh battery unit, which lasts for 5 hours and 53 minutes of Web browsing, and 9 hours and 10 minutes of video playback. The MSI GE76 has a 10% larger battery with a size of 99.9Wh. It lasts for significantly longer with 7 hours and 32 minutes of Web browsing, and 7 hours and 13 minutes of video playback.

为了模拟真实情况,我们使用自己的脚本自动浏览了70多个网站。

对于这样的每一次测试,我们都使用相同的高清视频。


Performance

CPU benchmarks

The laptops take an entirely different approach to hardware selection. The ASUS is powered by the Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000H-series. You can choose between the Ryzen 7 5800H and the Ryzen 9 5900HX. The MSI has gone with Team Blue, offering two Tiger Lake H45 processors: the Core i7-11800H and the Core i9-11980HK.

In our tests, we put the Ryzen 9 5900HX (ASUS) against the Core i7-11800H (MSI).


GPU benchmarks

The laptops use the same RTX Ampere graphics cards, with the ROG Strix SCAR 17 offering the RTX 3060, 3070, and 3080. All of them are Laptop versions and have a 130W TDP. The MSI GE76 Raider (2021) also offers the same GPU selection, but with varying TDP. The RTX 3060 here has a 130W TDP, a 140W RTX 3070, and a 165W TDP RTX 3080, which is a stomper.

Our units were equippe with the 130W RTX 3080 and the 165W RTX 3080, respectively.


Gaming tests

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Highest (Check settings)
ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 – RTX 3080 (Laptop, 130W)127 fps122 fps95 fps
MSI GE76 Raider (2021) – RTX 3080 (Laptop, 165W)140 fps (+10%)139 fps (+14%)114 fps (+20%)

Tempretarures and comfort

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (Max Fans)
MSI GE76 Raider (2021)1719 MHz @ 82°C @ 159W1670 MHz @ 87°C @ 155W1715 MHz @ 84°C @ 161W
ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G7331523 MHz @ 81°C @ 129W1515 MHz @ 83°C @ 130W

The RTX 3080 is a difficult GPU to keep in check. It just wants to go and go, without thinking of the consequences. The unit in the MSI laptop is significantly more powerful, featuring a higher 165W TDP, which bridges the gap between mobile and desktop GPU performance. The card manages to keep similar temperatures while offering higher clock speeds.

Gaming comfort

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733

MSI GE76 Raider (2021)

The ASUS does have a much lower outside temperature, which should improve the gaming comfort. Keep in mind, however, that both laptops are still quite loud, especially when you enable their respective Maximum Performance setting.

Verdict

Both of these laptops offer something for their respective customers. Starting from the outside, the MSI GE76 Raider offers a beautiful combination of aggressive and elegant features, giving you a great-looking laptop,  that doesn’t scream “Gaming”. Yes, the LED bar can be a tough pill to swallow, if you’re more of a low-key gamer, in which case, you would want to take a look at other options, such as the HP OMEN series, and the Lenovo Legion series.

The I/O goes in favor of the MSI as well, offering a bunch of ports, including HDMI, DisplayPort, an SD card reader, and Thunderbolt 4, which is missing on the ASUS, since it uses AMD hardware. Both laptops are dead-similar when it comes to upgradeability, offering two SODIMM and two SSD slots.

The displays are a tie as well, with both of them offering near 100% sRGB coverage and standard matching color accuracy thanks to our Design and Gaming profile, making them ready for professional work. As for gaming, both panels are extremely fast when it comes to response time, offering a great gaming experience.

Going over to the battery life, the MSI GE76 Raider took the lead in Web browsing, while the ASUS device was better when it came to video playback. Regardless, the MSI laptop has a 10% larger battery.

Next is the performance, the Ryzen 9 5900HX performed better in 3D Rendering, while the Core i7-11800H took the lead in the Photoshop benchmark. The GPU tests and the Gaming tests went entirely in favor of the MSI GE76 Raider, which features the more powerful RTX 3080 with a 165W TDP. Lastly, the MSI also manages to keep its GPU cooler, especially considering the increased TDP. One area where the ASUS is better is in the gaming comfort when it has a much lower outside temperature.

The MSI GE76 Raider offers the better GPU, I/O, and gaming performance. If you are looking for a gaming laptop it is the go-to option. However, keep in mind that the processing power of the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 is significantly better in 3D rendering, and this is further aided by the liquid metal thermal compound over the CPU.

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733: Full Specs / In-depth Review

MSI GE76 Raider (2021): Full Specs / In-depth Review

Why choose ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733?

  • + Higher raw CPU performance
  • + Keyboard with optical-mechanical switches with a latency of 0.2 ms
  • + Better comfort during full load

Why choose MSI GE76 Raider (2021)?

  • + Subjectively better design and an aluminum body
  • + Wider I/O
  • + Offers a 165W TDP RTX 3080

ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 G733 configurations:

MSI GE76 Raider (2021) configurations:

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