Gigabyte Aorus 17X gaming laptop delivers power and a keyboard that just clicks

The mechanical keyboard is among the Aorus 17X’s highlights.
Lori Grunin/CNET
Gigabyte’s spectacular Aorus 17 line of gaming laptops distinguishes itself from loads of opponents with the superb mechanical keyboard it added to the 12 months’s fashions. That, plus its better-than-average efficiency and massive, 17-inch 240Hz show make it a strong selection as a desktop substitute for the work-from-home, speed-minded gamer. But if you happen to plan to shell out the massive bucks — over $3,000 — for the higher-end configurations, you would possibly discover a few of its limitations annoying given the expense.

LikeNice-feeling mechanical keyboard appears nice, tooLots of connectionsPowerful

Don’t LikeRefresh charge selections for the display screen are solely 240Hz and 60HzExpensiveConfusing and restricted ControlCenter utilityDual, humongous energy bricks required for the GeForce RTX 2080 Super configuration

Fixed throughout all of the configuration choices is the Pantone calibrated 240Hz show, the mechanical keyboard, and many of the ordinary points (ports, networking, audio, webcam and so forth). You can select from an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super, 2070 Super or 2070; Intel Core i9-10980HK, i7-10875H or i7-10750H; as much as 64GB of reminiscence; and as much as 3TB of storage (one 2.5-inch SATA and two NVMe strong state drives). Like the Alienware Area-51m, it requires two mammoth AC adapters, albeit that is only for the 2080 Super configuration of the Gigabyte.Our practically $4,000 maxed-out configuration was actually quick, however except you are working with high-resolution video or 3D designs, enjoying video games greater than casually which have loads of ray-tracing and the like, that is so much to spend — although it isn’t unusually costly for its specs (the Alienware m17 R3 is over $4,000, albeit with extra storage and a sooner show). If you need to save a bit, a variation with an i7-10875H and a 2070 Super is about $1,300 much less and that is nonetheless a rattling good configuration. That’s additionally the bottom configuration; for cheaper 17-inch Aorus fashions it’s a must to drop to the 17G, which is a thinner design.

Gigabyte Aorus 17X

Price as reviewed

$3,899

Display dimension/decision

17.3-inch, 1,920×1,080-pixel IPS 240Hz 3ms 100% sRGB

PC CPU

Intel Core i9-10980HK

PC Memory

32GB 3,233MHz DDR4

Graphics

8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super

Storage

1TB SSD, 2TB HDD, SD card reader

Ports

3x USB-C (1x Thunderbolt 3), 3x USB-A, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x headphone, 1x mic

Networking

Killer AX1650x WiFi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.0, Killer E2600 Ethernet

Operating system

Microsoft Windows Pro (1909)

Weight

8.3 kilos (3.8 kg)

The keyboard is nice, however not with out issues. Normally, I seize an exterior keyboard as quickly as I can when reviewing a laptop computer, however the Aorus’ clicky, tactile, however not too loud keys have a strong quantity of journey and are literally a pleasure to kind on. The per-key RGB lighting appears very good; it appears greater distinction than regular and illuminates the shift and performance key assignments, that are steadily uncared for. (In different phrases, at midnight it is unattainable to inform which key mutes the audio system, modifications display screen brightness and so forth.)But it did take me a bit to get used to it. Although the keycaps are an ordinary dimension, they really feel a bit slippery, and the small right-shift key paired with inline cursor keys nonetheless sometimes defeats my muscle reminiscence. There are not any CapsLock or NumLock indicators on the keyboard, only a message that flashes on display screen once you toggle it (pet peeve alert!).For gaming, the Omron B3KL low-profile switches really feel like they’ve a really excessive actuation level — good for pounders, not so good for these with fleet, light-touch fingers. Gigabyte’s meh ControlCenter utility has a cumbersome lighting configuration utility with a single customized profile. Other limitations of the utility embody no CPU and GPU temperature, frequency or particular person core monitoring (regardless of the Gigabyte motherboard inside) and no small monitoring widget.

Dual energy bricks apart, I usually just like the laptop computer’s design. The ambient illumination is putting however not overdone, and cables do not impede ports when plugged in, one thing I’ve grown to understand extra as laptops get smaller. And there are many connections. It’s heavy at 8.3 kilos (3.8 kg), however that is truly center of the pack for a 17-inch gaming monster. The air venting out the perimeters and again when operating at full pace is scorching sufficient to maintain my espresso heat however not sufficient to burn, although the followers unsurprisingly sound like a jet turbine and cat fur began to gather outdoors the underside vents. On the flip facet, the speaker system sounds fairly good for a laptop computer.Power upOf course, once you pack top-end elements in a system, except you do one thing unsuitable you are going to get top-flight efficiency. Which we did. But this was the primary laptop computer we have examined with a full-fat Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super; the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 has a low-power Max-Q model and on GPU exams performs considerably worse. That’s based mostly on my preliminary testing, which I have not included in charts as a result of it is, nicely, preliminary.Complicating evaluation is Gigabyte’s gazillion alternative ways of configuring it to run. In addition to the standard balanced and efficiency modes managed by the ability profile, there is a mode to pressure it to all the time use the discrete GPU — and on prime of these, Gigabyte’s proprietary AI widget, which theoretically boosts efficiency. And any mixture thereof. (The customary efficiency outcomes we publish are for the default profiles, which on this case was Balanced.) And it is annoying to alter loads of issues. It makes use of the previous Nvidia Optimus structure which requires a reboot to modify between enforced discrete GPU use and the automated GPU choice modes, and with a view to change coloration profiles it’s a must to disconnect any exterior screens first.After operating exams in a number of completely different combos, it appears such as you’ll get the very best total outcomes with High Performance+dGPU except your utility or recreation makes use of loads of cores and floating-point arithmetic, during which case it is smart to activate the AI widget as nicely for as much as about 25% higher multicore efficiency. I want to run as few inessential issues within the background as doable, which is why I go away it turned off. And after turning on the AI, the system spontaneously rebooted twice in a day for no obvious motive. While you will not essentially see enormous features in workloads which stability the dGPU and CPU, you will note an total carry. For occasion, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, it offers you greater minimal and most body charges as a result of it shifts extra of the load to the CPU. That means, in principle, that if you happen to pair the i9-10980HK with the RTX 2070 Super as a substitute of the 2080 — not simply to save cash, however to save lots of your self the twin AC adapters — the efficiency distinction will not be as huge as it’d in any other case have been.Multicore efficiency is roughly equal to the AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS within the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 when you consider that increase from the AI, although Intel stays sooner on single-core operations. Common duties which use all cores embody utility launching and set up (or a minimum of Adobe utility set up) and high-bandwidth downloads.Unfortunately, whilst you can simply get hold of someplace between 60fps and 240fps with this configuration, it would not assist G-Sync or FreeSync and your solely two refresh-rate selections are 60Hz and 240Hz — nothing in between — so you may have to make use of game-specific adaptive sync choices to match the display screen with the sport body charge. And I noticed fairly a little bit of stutter in some locations.Oh, these huge bricks.
Lori Grunin/CNET
Battery life, too, is fairly good for a gaming laptop computer. I bought about 4.5 hours on our streaming video check, however you’ll be able to prolong that as nicely by dropping right into a decrease energy battery profile (ours is predicated on Balanced). I’m not offered on the necessity to use Optimus simply to squeeze just a few extra hours of battery life out of a high-powered laptop computer like this, however I’m not the kind to schlep an eight-plus-pound system off web site simply to learn e mail and watch YouTube. For nearly something you may be doing with this regularly, you may need to be close to an outlet. Or two.Unless you’ve gotten cash and electrical energy to burn however crave the mechanical keyboard, I like to recommend dropping again to the cheaper, although nonetheless dear, $2,700 mannequin. It will not be as quick, but it surely ought to actually present greater than sufficient pace for the 1080p gaming the display screen helps. Or you may take the cash you have saved and purchase a extremely, very nice 4K monitor.Geekbench 5 (multicore)

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (GA401IV)