Aorus X9 (i7-7820HK, GTX 1070 SLI, QHD) Laptop Review

While some of Gigabyte's gaming notebooks have a rather subtle design, the manufacturer has taken a more daring approach to the design of the Aorus models. The X9 is no exception. Starting with the display cover, which does not only feature a backlit logo, but also a relief that reminds us of a Formula 1 car.

Opening the X9 unveils a whole range of fancy design features. They include striking ventilation slots that should get lots of fresh air into the device as well as an enormous Aorus logo on the touchpad. We were not so excited by the massive arch between the two fragile-looking hinges. The light strips around the hinges are not just decoration: they can display information on fan speed, battery level as well as CPU and GPU temperature. 

The sides and display cover are very angular. You rarely see such unusual forms in the notebook segment. The manufacturer even thought of including the bottom of the base unit in its all-round design process. As you can see from our gallery, the ventilation slots are formed like some flying animal.

Gigabyte deserves respect for the quality of the case. Both the display cover and the base unit are made of aluminum. Therefore, the X9 did very well in our pressure test. The surfaces gave way only minimally (if at all) under high pressure. Unfortunately, the case does seem to attract dirt. Our test unit was covered with fingerprints and smears very quickly - despite normal use.

The X9 has good build quality. Only under close scrutiny did we notice that the gap dimensions could be a little cleaner in some areas. Backlighting enthusiasts will be very pleased: Like the Alienware products, Gigabyte has also decided to highlight additional elements of the X9 and not just the keyboard. The device is covered in light strips both on the front and back.

The X9 also looks good on the scales. 3.6 kg (~7.9 lb) is a decent weight for a 17-inch Dual-GPU notebook. Our comparison devices, the MSI GT75VR, the Alienware 17 R4, the Acer Predator 17 and the Asus G752VS all weigh significantly more at 4 kg (~8.8 lbs) despite having only one GPU. At 3.0 cm (~1.18 in), the X9 is also one of the slimmer gaming laptops. Only the Alienware 17 can keep up with this; all other competitors are quite a bit thicker (4.0 to 5.8 cm / 1.57 to 2.28 in). This makes us very curious to find out about the performance of the cooling system.

The 17-inch device offers exactly what you would expect from a modern-day gaming notebook - except for a Kensington Lock. While the back has only the power supply connector, the left side features an RJ45 port, a card reader, two audio jacks (headphone & microphone) as well as a USB 3.0 port. Most connections are placed on the right side: two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 2 port and a Thunderbolt 3 port. A Mini-DisplayPort 1.3 or an HDMI 2.0 (4K@60Hz) take care of video output. Combined with the Thunderbolt 3 port, this means that you can connect three external screens.

The port distribution is decent, although we would have liked a second USB port on the left side, and in the author’s opinion the ports on the right side could have been spaced a little wider. As Gigabyte has positioned all the ports towards the center, you are a little limited in your movements with an external mouse, which can collide with connected cables.

The performance of the card reader is way ahead of its competitors. It can make almost full use of our Toshiba reference card (max 260 MB/s) with a maximum speed of 240 MB/s (sequential reading). 199 MB/s when transferring photos is also a great result. Our comparison devices have to make do with between 78 and 89 MB/s in both tests, which is on par with USB 3.0 speeds.

Our 17-inch test unit did not do quite as well in our Wi-Fi speed test. Although Gigabyte has equipped our device with the very successful Killer module Wireless-AC 1535, which is made specifically for gamers (supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/B/ac and Bluetooth 4.1), the results of the Wi-Fi test are only mediocre. The module manages an average of 536 MBit/s when sending and 396 MBit/s when receiving data, speeds that can be easily overtaken by the competition. The E2500 Gigabit Ethernet controller, also from Killer, takes care of the internet connection via cable.

Buyers of the X9 receive a cleaning cloth, warranty information, a QuickStart guide and an Aorus sticker together with their device. We liked the enclosed USB stick, which has various drivers on it. The 20 x 10 x 3.5 cm (~7.8 x 3.9 x 1.3 in) power supply offers 330 watts and weighs over 1.1 kg (~2.4 lbs), which is quite heavy.

The maintenance options of the 17-inch device gave us mixed feelings. It has become normal by now that you have to remove the entire bottom cover of the base unit to access the insides, but in this case, the bottom cover is fixed with not only 16 (!) Torx screws (TX6), but also secured with several clips that are so tight that you need to apply a lot of force to open them and risk damaging the device. Gigabyte could also improve the dust protection. A large part of the motherboard was covered in fine dust particles after only 10 hours of use (see photos). We have not encountered this much dust in any other gaming notebook. This is probably the "fault" of the many ventilation slots on the device. In addition, the battery is not screwed into the device and can easily drop out of the case when opening the base unit.

Apart from that, maintenance looks promising. The wireless module, the RAM (four slots for a maximum of 64 GB) and storage devices (two M.2 2280 slots with PCIe/NVMe support & 2.5-inch bay) can be upgraded or removed. The cooling system consists of two cooling fans, each of which has four heatpipes for CPU and GPUs.

The device comes with a 24-month warranty. Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies & Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Touchpad

Let us move on to the touchpad, which also gave us a good impression in most respects. Although the mouse replacement has a rubbery surface, fingers glide easily over the smooth surface (provided they are dry). Precision is very good, but the Multi-Touch support could do with a few improvements. While the Aorus X9 usually recognizes the supported gestures reliably, we felt that it responded a little slowly to the zoom and scroll commands via two-finger gesture. 

As the Gigabyte decided to use a ClickPad, the left and right mouse keys are directly integrated into the 10.6 x 7.0 cm (~4.1 x 2.7 in) touchpad. Feedback and sound of the mouse keys are good and the ClickPads of other gaming notebooks felt a lot less stable.

The QHD display is really satisfactory in only some respects. While the brightness is high enough with an average of 326 cd/m², the contrast is disappointingly low at about 640:1. Normally, gaming laptops top the 1000 mark. The reason for these low results is the poor black value of 0.54 cd/m² that makes dark areas slide off into grays, which can be bothersome in dark game and film scenes

Overall, we were not particularly impressed by the image quality - X-Rite Pantone and 120 HZ or not. If possible, we would recommend choosing the (probably better) 4K edition with an IPS screen. For this, Gigabyte promises 100% AdobeRGB coverage. By the way, although the panel name and measured results are similar, the Alienware 17 R4 that we tested has a slightly different screen.

With 32 GB of RAM, PCIe SSD and GeForce GTX 1070 SLI, the Aorus X9 definitely belongs to the upper high-end segment, which is currently being dominated by Intel and Nvidia. Therefore, it fits that the device is powered by an overclocked quad-core processor.

Gigabyte has enabled comfortable one-click tuning via Command & Control/System Gauge, which is easy to understand and use even for amateurs and does not require a reboot or similar. The middle setting, or to be more precise: 4.1 GHz is a good compromise between performance and heat production.

When the OC function is activated, the X9 can sprint past most gaming notebooks. While devices based on the 7700HQ are beaten by 12 to 14% in the Multi-Core benchmarks (Asus G752VS & Acer Predator 17), the X9 is only about 10% faster than a non-overclocked Core 17-7820HK (MSI GT75VR).

The Aorus X9 handled long periods of load without any difficulties. Its results remained steady after half an hour of Cinebench R15 tests.

The system tests were also ideal. The 17-inch device kept up with its competition both in the Home and the Work Suite of the PCMark8. It even landed 8% ahead of the MSI GT75VR 7RF in the PCMark 10. Thanks to the SSD, Windows boots incredibly quickly and reacts well in general.

If you do not own a large collection of games, films or music, you might get along fine with the available storage space. The M.2 drive that Gigabyte has given our test unit offers 512 GB and comes from Samsung. The SM961 is known for its lavish performance. The AS SSD benchmark measured about 2695 MB/s during sequential reading and 1678 MB/s during sequential writing. These are top marks that only the MSI GT75VR 7RF can beat with its RAID system. Compact files that often come up in everyday Windows use are also dealt with very quickly by the Samsung SSD.

Should storage space become tight eventually, the device still has a free M.2 slot and empty 2.5-inch drive bay available.

Unfortunately, the speed of the SLI or CrossFire system cannot always be used, as the GPU driver or relevant program needs to have the suitable support. Of the 16 games that we tested, four (so 1/4) did not benefit from the second GTX 1070 (“Call of Duty Infinite Warfare”, “Resident Evil 7”, “Dirt 4” & “F1 2017”) in any way. And this despite the Nvidia driver (ForceWare 387.92) being up-to-date. 

Then come other weaknesses such as the very high power consumption and the need for cooling as well as problems connected to micro-stutters. Particularly with low frame rates, the image can seem to have more stuttering than on single-chip notebooks with identical performance. The latter is also connected to the missing G-Sync technology.

Judging by the benchmark results alone, the SLI pair looks very impressive. In the Fire-Strike and Time-Spy test of the current 3DMark, the Aorus X9 reaches results that are between 80 and 100% better than a GTX 1070 notebook and about 50% better than a GTX 1080 laptop.

The fact that Gigabyte has created a suitable cooling system is proven by our “Witcher 3” tests at 1920x1080 pixels (which are interpolated well) and set to full details. After one hour, both GTX 1070 chips reach a temperature of only 70 °C (~158 °F) at a clock rate of 1600 to 1700 MHz. In the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark, it clocked between 1600 and 1800 MHz. As Nvidia has given the Pascal series a very generous turbo, the core can even manage up to 1926 MHz at medium overclocking (Render test from GPU-Z).

As usual, we ran our gaming benchmarks in the resolutions 1920x1080 and 3840x2160. To be clear: If a game supports SLI, the second GTX 1070 offers a significant increase in performance that can range from 28% (“FIFA 18”) all the way to 93% (“For Honor”). On average, the frame rate increases by about 60%, which clearly justifies the high price for some buyers.

Basically, you can play all current games in 4K with settings set to High or Ultra, although the 120 Hz would not be a lot of use and you would often have to make do with less than 60 FPS. Our device can significantly overtake notebooks with the GTX 1080, particularly at higher resolutions.

We have to deduct a few points due to the fact that an unidentified component tends to make a whistling noise while idling and because there is some coil whine at the higher FPS rates. In short: Users that are sensitive to system noise should avoid the X9, although hardly any high-end notebook can be considered quiet. Extra tip: You can calm the X9 down during simple tasks such as using Office, watching videos or surfing the web by setting the fan mode to "Quiet".

On the inside of the device, it is mainly the CPU that heats up. After an hour of the stress test, the Core i7-7820HK settled down around 94 °C (~201 °F). The graphics chips reached only 72 °C (~161.6 °F). There was no throttling despite the high CPU temperature. Only a few devices can manage 3.5 GHz under full load.

But this is just nit-picking as almost no laptop can keep up with the sound quality of our 17-inch test unit. (Look at the values of the Alienware 17 R4 and Asus G752VS, for example). In our test group, only the MSI GT75VR 7RF and the Acer Predator 17 have a similar sound profile. But these notebooks simply offer more space for a good sound due to their chunkier build. Therefore, we can say that Gigabyte has really made the most of what it has.

Frequency diagram in comparison (checkboxes can be turned on/off!)

Only a few gaming laptops are blessed with high battery runtimes. The Aorus X9 is definitely not made for mobile use. Even when you reduce the display brightness to minimum and let the system run without load, the 94-Wh battery does not even last three hours. The results were not much better during our realistic measurements. 2:18h when playing HD films is just as disappointing as 2:14 hours of surfing on Wi-Fi (always at medium brightness).

Playing games on battery is no fun either as performance decreases significantly (-90% in “The Witcher 3”!) and it is game-over after just over an hour. While the Alienware 17 R4 and the MSI GT75VR have better results in some tests, the Acer Predator 17 and  the Asus G752VS in particular, offer significantly higher battery runtimes.