Gigabyte Aero 14 (7700HQ, GTX 1060) Laptop Review

The plain, simple, and somewhat nonslip almost entirely matte black case is available in green and orange as well, and it is not particularly susceptible to fingerprints. We do expect this to be a non-issue with the brighter colors. Its molded base and the red embellishments surrounded by an accentuated decoration on the back cover define the laptop’s optical characteristics. As can be seen in the photos our review unit suffered from a spotted area around the touchpad which even dish-washing liquid failed to eliminate.

Gigabyte’s website makes different claims regarding the material used for the Aero 14. On the one hand, they claim an “original metallic feel”, and on the other they say it’s an “all aluminum robust shell”. On inquiry, Gigabyte confirmed that it is indeed metal, except for the lid which feels like it’s made of plastic. This is further reinforced by the fact that we were unable to warp the case even under intense pressure, and it did not creak during our tests at all. The lid can be opened one-handed, remains in position once opened, and it bounces back for around two seconds.

The Gigabyte Aero 14’s high quality does do its high price justice. Gaps are flush and even and we found neither sharp nor overhanging edges. Despite all this the Razer Blade does have the better case overall, though.

At only 18 mm the Razer Blade is also the thinnest and most compact laptop. The Aero 14 is only 2 mm thicker and slightly narrower but a full centimeter deeper. Both, the Schenker XMG P407 and the MSI GS43VR are slightly wider and thicker, but they are not as deep as our review unit. At only 1.9 kg / 4.2 lbs the Gigabyte Aero and the MSI G43VR are the lightest, with the Razer Blade and the Schenker clocking in at roughly 2 and 2.1 kg, respectively.

Despite its compact size Gigabyte went all out in regards to ports. In addition to three USB 3.0 Type-A ports the notebook also features a USB 3.1 Type-C connector, HDMI 2.0, and a Mini DisplayPort. This means it fully supports 4K video at 60 Hz. Unfortunately, it lacks Thunderbolt 3.0. Port spacing is sufficient, and the ports are located mostly in the middle on the left and towards the rear on the right-hand side - perfect for right-handed external mouse use.

Ever since we first tested a card reader’s performance all the contestants have tended to fall into one of three groups. The first group, defined by slow USB 2.0 connected card readers that barely reach 30 MB/s, is represented by the MSI laptop. The vast majority fall into the middle group with speeds equivalent to those of the Gigabyte or Schenker notebooks. These, at least, are connected via USB 3.0 instead of the much slower 2.0. The third and final group is comprised of incredibly fast, 200 MB/s card readers. Our reference card is a 64 GB Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC UHS-II SD card.

Even though it lacks a dedicated Ethernet port a USB-Ethernet adapter is included in the box. Gigabyte chose Intel’s Wireless-AC 8260 module (MIMO 2x2), which offers a theoretical maximum data rate of 867 MBit/s and also supports the less frequently used 5 GHz 802.11 ac/n band. Bluetooth 4.2 and Intel’s Wireless Display are included as well.

Tested with our Linksys EA8500 reference router we measured a very good 684 MBit/s when receiving and a good 503 MBit/s when sending data. Taking unavoidable overhead into consideration the data rates are very good. We only had data for two of our equally MIMO 2x2 equipped contestants, and while the XMG P407 falls behind significantly the Razer Blade only managed to be faster than the Aero 14 when sending data.

Given its focus on mobility Gigabyte has included a TPM 2.0 chip.

In addition to the charger, a set of recovery DVDs, a manual, and a warranty card, Gigabyte also includes a USB-Ethernet adapter. While we are positively surprised unfortunately we don’t expect this to catch on.

Speaking of which, Gigabyte includes a two-year warranty on the laptop itself, and a one-year warranty on the battery and charger. We were unable to locate optional extended warranties for purchase. In addition to this warranty by Gigabyte itself a laptop purchased in Germany obviously also comes with the standard two-year implied warranty.

Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Thanks to their fast quad-core processors with Hyper-Threading, their huge amounts of memory, their extremely fast graphics cards, and their SSDs, high-end laptops such as the Gigabyte Aero 14 run most modern applications effortlessly. According to the Gigabyte website various i7-CPUs are available for the Aero 14, and so are models with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 970M and 965M. Neither of those was available at the time of writing.

In our test group, the newer processors are a tad faster than the older ones. Performance is obviously en par compared to other laptops equipped with the same CPU. The graph above shows the results of 30 minutes of Cinebench R15, and as you can see they are very consistent and indicate a proper and steady use of the processor’s turbo boost frequency. On battery, the results were slightly lower at 661 points.

The fact that the device is trailing behind somewhat in PCMark 8 can be attributed to its single-channel memory configuration since neither CPU nor GPU nor SSD can have caused the dip in performance compared to the MSI and the Schenker notebooks. The Razer Blade comes in last in this test, which, however, has been addressed by Razer with an EC fix after we ran our tests.

Subjectively, this deficit does not show, and thanks to instantaneous application start times and fast boot times the laptop feels snappy and very responsive at all times. 

The GTX 1060 (GP106) is currently Nvidia’s slowest high-end GPU, accompanied by the faster GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 (both GP104) GPUs, respectively. However, it is also the only Pascal GPU that can be fitted into a 14-inch laptop without turning it into a mobile oven. The faster GP104 GPUs are commonly only found in much larger 15 and 17-inch laptops, such as the Asus GL502VS. Its 6 GB of 192-bit bandwidth VRAM running at effectively 8,000 MHz should suffice for ever growing memory requirements of modern games. You are much more likely to run out of processing power than video memory. Besides improved H.265 en- and decoding capabilities (PlayReady 3.0) the graphics card also offers modern HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4 ports.

Gigabyte keeps the GPU running at between 1,405 and a turbo-boosted 1,671 MHz, and graphics performance is very decent. It scores only 3% less than other GTX 1060 GPUs in 3DMark 2013’s Fire Strike benchmark and only 5% less in 3DMark 11. As expected, the older Cloud Gate benchmark has problems once more and scores even worse than the Schenker’s much less capable GTX 1050 Ti. Thus, we don’t read too much into it.

Not many games are capable of bringing a GTX 1060 GPU to its knees at Full HD with maximum details and improvement algorithms such as anti-aliasing enabled just yet. The inefficient Anno 2205 or XCOM 2 come to mind, but even those ran at more than sufficient 30 – 40 frames per second. It’s not unlikely that a few years from now games of the future will require details to be reduced to medium settings. The WQHD display’s native 2560x1440 resolution is already the crux of the matter in some games, and a native Full HD panel would have suited the system much better. 4K is limited to the higher end GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 models.

We’ve replaced our rather unrealistic stress test with a The Witcher 3 frame-rate test, and we kept the game running for a full hour on ultra-high settings (see how we test). The fluctuation is a moderate 3 frames per second, and the average frame rate never drops by more than 1 - 2 frames per second.  Gaming can thus be enjoyed over long periods of time, and The Witcher 3 still produces a respectable 31 frames per second and thus 81% of its peak performance when run on battery.

The Aero’s Dolby sound system is only loud enough to fill a medium-sized room with sound at maximum volume. Even so it already distorts system sounds at that level, which isn’t particularly uncommon. Mids and highs are too pronounced when playing music and the overall sound is a bit tinny as well, albeit a certain degree of dynamic range and ambience is detectable. Distortion is a problem here as well, but at least the sound is neither shrill nor erratic. Metal music with its constant highs is a serious challenge to the speakers, and the instruments end up sounding very mushy and soft. All-in-all, sound quality is okay for a notebook, but for an acoustically engaging gaming experience we highly recommend using headphones.

Frequency comparison (checkboxes are selectable!)

Unless under extreme load our review unit was one of the two most economical gaming laptops of our test group. The MSI GS43VR was the least efficient unit in all load scenarios. The included 150 W charger is sufficient for the Aero 14.

In terms of battery life the Aero 14 humiliated the competition thanks to its astonishingly large 95 Wh battery, compared to batteries ranging from 45 Wh (XMG P407) to 70 Wh (Razer Blade). Normalized battery life attested to its incredible energy efficiency, and it squeezed out a considerably longer runtime per Wh than all of its competitors. Our Wi-Fi test proved that the Aero 14 will comfortably last all day when used as a mobile office device, a unique feature for a gaming laptop and case in point for its versatility.