Gigabyte Aero 15 XB laptop review: Taking the lead with OLED

Since Gigabyte hasn't made any changes to the chassis, we won't go any further into the case, ports and input devices in this article. You can find the corresponding information in the review of the predecessor.

Competitors of the Aero 15 OLED include other 15-inch gaming devices from the "thin and light" category with GeForce RTX 2070 (Super) Max-Q graphics such as the MSI GS66 Stealth 10SFS, the Acer Predator Triton 500, the HP Omen X 2S and the Schenker XMG Neo 15. The latter laptops appear in the tables as comparison devices.

Similar to the old Aero 15 OLED, Gigabyte has used the SDCA029 panel from Samsung. Not only does the 4K screen score points with a relatively high brightness (390 cd/m² on average) but also with a gigantic contrast thanks to the outstanding black value, which outshines all conventional panels (IPS, TN, etc.) and makes them look extremely pale and undifferentiated.

Caution: Below 80% brightness, the Aero 15 OLED will flicker at 60 Hz (240 Hz at less than 44%), which can cause problems for sensitive users. However, the most annoying thing for us was the glossy surface. Due to the strong reflections, the device isn't really suitable for outdoor use.

All editions of the Aero 15 OLED belong to the high-end segment. As already indicated, Gigabyte wants to attract professional users who are focused on video and photo-editing, for example, in addition to the gaming faction. Just to say it up front: The compact 15-incher manages this balancing act quite well.

We have checked the i7-10875H's clock-speed behavior with the help of Cinebench R15. It turned out that the Turbo lagged a bit behind its capabilities. Even in the first run of the multi-core test, the clock rate drops from 4.1 to 4.3 to 3.5 to 3.6 GHz after a while, which causes a performance loss of over 10%. As the lower graph shows, performance is then relatively stable beginning with the second run and remains at a similar level. With the MSI GS66 competitor, the result doesn't drop quite as much, but the MSI device performs worse overall despite the actually more powerful CPU. You can see very clearly here that more does not necessarily mean better.

The Core i7-10875H clearly sprints past the old hexa-core favorite, the Core i7-9750H. In the Cinebench R20 multi-core test, the improvement amounts to 55% to 65%. However, gamers will be happy with the Core i7-10750H too.

In terms of system performance, the Aero 15 OLED also makes itself comfortable at the top of the test field. 6,580 points in PCMark 10 means first place among the comparison devices, although there are hardly any differences from a subjective point of view.

Surprisingly, Gigabyte has not used a "normal" PCIe SSD but an Optane model that combines a particularly fast 32 GB storage device (3D XPOINT) with a further 512 GB of storage (QLC 3D NAND). In practice, however, we couldn't determine any improvements - quite the contrary. On one hand, file transfers from our external SATA III SSD regularly dropped from over 300 MB/s to just 60 MB/s (tested on several USB ports with different cables). On the other hand, loading times in games often took longer than with classic SSDs. The storage benchmarks also show a tendency for the Optane drive to lag behind the competition.

The GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q is a particularly efficient and energy-saving version of the standard RTX 2070 Super. While the number of shaders (2,560 CUDA cores) and the size of the VRAM (8 GB GDDR6) are identical, the Max-Q edition has to make do with a lower clock rate. Instead of 1,140 MHz, there's only 930 MHz here.

Thanks to the automatic GPU boost, however, the clock rate is raised well above the base value under load. In this way, we could draw an average of 1,440 MHz from the Turing GPU (12 nm process) in 3D usage (a maximum of 1,860 MHz in the GPU-Z tool's render test). As our 60-minute test with the role-playing game The Witcher 3 proves, performance is kept quite constant even over a longer period of time. There weren't any frame-rate drops or other abnormalities.

The fact that the 15-incher is about 10% ahead of the MSI GS66 Stealth, which also contains an RTX 2070 Super Max-Q, in the 3DMark tests is probably related to the cooling system on one hand and to the Dynamic Boost feature (reduces the CPU's TDP in favor of the GPU) on the other hand; the latter runs by default in the Gigabyte laptop and is a very useful technology for gamers since most games are graphically limited - at least at higher settings or resolutions.

Despite the first-class performance, the GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q doesn't manage to run all modern titles smoothly at maximum details and at the native 3840x2160 pixels. Demanding games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Anno 1800, Control and Borderlands 3 end in a real stuttering mess. In the QHD area, i.e. with 2560x1440 pixels (which is unfortunately not supported by the OLED display), the situation looks much better. Games that run below 40 FPS are rather the exception than the rule. 1920x1080 pixels is usually a breeze for the high-end chip (60 FPS+).

In the early days, Max-Q laptops were not only known for their moderate power consumption but also for their moderate noise levels. But the latter phenomenon hasn't happened for quite some time now. The Aero 15 OLED clearly draws attention under load too. 48 to 54 dB suggests the use of headphones.

As long as you use the auto mode, the fans are also audible in idle usage (34 to 36 dB) and tend to accelerate towards 40 dB at times, which isn't always comprehensible.

Let's take a look at the components, which become relatively hot under extreme load (maximum of 85 °C (~185 °F) @GPU, maximum of 95 °C (~203 °F) @CPU) but never throttle below their base values. The Turbo is always active to a certain degree.

In order not to waste energy unnecessarily during simple activities like running Office applications, video playback and browsing the web, the Aero 15 makes use of the Optimus technology from Nvidia, which dynamically switches between the GeForce GPU and the graphics chip of the processor (UHD Graphics 630) depending on the scenario. As a result, the 15-incher only consumes 18 to 38 watts in idle mode. That other devices are even more energy-efficient is mainly due to the dimmer and lower-resolution displays. Under load, the measuring device showed between 113 and 256 watts. Therefore, the included 230-watt power supply is properly utilized, whereby the degree of efficiency is missing in our tests.

The 15-incher offers quite good battery life. The 94 Wh battery lasted around 6 hours in the WLAN test at medium brightness, which is in line with the MSI GS66 Stealth's result (99.9 Wh).