Gigabyte Aero 15X v8 (i7-8750H, GTX 1070 Max-Q, Full-HD) Laptop Review

One of the greatest strengths of Gigabyte Aero 15X has always been its high-quality chassis. Unlike many other gaming laptops in this price range, the Aero 15X's exterior is not made of plastic, but rather aluminum. Although the metal makes the notebook highly sensitive to dirt, it leads to high stability and an elegant appearance. We particularly enjoyed the more subtle design, which at first glance suggests an office or multimedia notebook, rather than a full-on gaming machine.

Gigabyte has furthermore recognized current trends and decided to give the Aero 15X extremely narrow borders around its display. This leads to a scenario wherein the 1.8 cm (~0.7 in) already slim chassis appears particularly compact. The similarly slim Asus GM501 appears far larger due to its bigger overall footprint.

The Aero 15X is also lighter than the competition. At around 2.1 kg (~4.6 lbs), it feels noticeably lighter than the Zephyrus M at 2.5 kg (~5.5 lbs). All in all, the chassis is by our accounts excellent, leading to a high score in this respect.

The Aero 15X is equipped with numerous USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, as well as an SD card reader and an RJ45 port. A dedicated DisplayPort is also a great addition. The Asus GM501 requires a Thunderbolt 3 adapter to plug into DisplayPort or HDMI devices.

The placement of ports is in our eyes very thoughtful. While the competitor from Asus has its ports at the front to accommodate for the side vents, Gigabyte have placed theirs on the rear of the notebook, reducing the risk of collisions (keyword: mouse movement).

While the card reader of the old model was held back by using the slower USB 3.0 interface (82-89 MB/s), the new Aero 15X achieves excellent results when testing with our reference card from Toshiba. Approximately 242 MB/s for sequential reading and 191 MB/s for transferring photos are among the best results we have ever measured. Even the already incredibly fast card reader of the MSI GS63VR (181-204 MB/s) falls a little behind.

The WLAN performance is not so excellent. With 379 MBit/s the Aero 15X, or rather the wireless module Intel Wireless AC-8265, ranks clearly behind the MSI GS63VR and Acer Triton 700 in our testing (1m/~3 ft distance to the router) both of which rely on the Wi-Fi chip Killer 1535. The Zephyrus M equally has higher transfer rates, which can primarily be traced back to a newer Intel chip, the Wireless-AC 9560.

The box contains a driver DVD, a warranty card, and a short manual. A 215-watt power supply that provides 205 watts for the notebook and 10 watts over an integrated USB port is also included.

Since the Aero 15X does not include a maintenance hatch, the entire base plate must be removed to access the hardware. Due to additional hooks, taking the laptop apart requires a great deal of force.

In any case, all components are located at the bottom. To start with, the cooling system consists of two fans and two heat pipes for CPU and GPU. In addition - as mentioned before - there are two DDR4 RAM banks and two M.2 slots, of which only one was occupied on our configuration.

The Aero 15X comes with a 24-month warranty, which is valid worldwide. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Touchpad

The manufacturer has opted for a modern and - in comparison to other notebooks - surprisingly stable ClickPad without dedicated keys. The smooth finish enables fingers to glide very easily over the surface. The ClickPad is also sufficiently dimensioned.

Precision and Multi-Touch support are however only average. Two-finger gestures such as zooming or scrolling are recognized and implemented somewhat sluggishly.

The fact that Gigabyte does without Nvidia's G-Sync function is, on one hand, understandable because the Aero 15X is primarily designed for mobility. On the other hand, one could integrate G-Sync AND the graphics switching technology Optimus, as the Asus GM501 and some Clevo Barebones (see e.g. the Schenker XMG Pro 17) have done.

This chapter begins with a series of screenshots depicting the components.

The Core i7-8750H surpasses the previous Kaby Lake series effortlessly. In Cinebench R15, the multi-core score increases by almost 50% compared to the i7-7700HQ. In Cinebench R11.5, we measured an increase of almost 60%.

Strange: Although the Aero 15X displays less consistent clock speeds, it delivers higher CPU performance than the ROG Zephyrus M during long test runs. While the Core i7-8750H in the Asus GM501 throttles from 3.9 to 3.3 GHz after a short load, leading to a performance loss of approximately 10%, the frequency of the Aero 15X generally varies between 2.6 and 3.9 GHz with an average of 3.6 GHz. The different turbo behavior of these Coffee Lake notebooks can be seen very nicely in our Cinebench chart.

The performance of the Aero 15X is comparable to its Asus counterpart. No wonder, as both offer the same CPU and utilize an NVMe SSD. As usual, the solid-state drive ensures short boot times and a responsive operating system.

If you want to use 2.5-inch hard drives, you are at the wrong address with the Aero 15X. Gigabyte relies purely on the M.2 interface (SATA III or PCIe), offering two slots. Our configuration came with a 512 GB NVMe drive from Toshiba, which in CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD was surpassed by the Samsung SM961. The latter is offered in both the Asus GM501 and the old Aero 15X, which is why the change is somewhat surprising. Despite the lower results, the two SSDs feel almost identical in day-to-day use, so there is no significant disadvantage resulting from this change.

Buyers have to make concessions in terms of 3D performance. In order not to overtax the cooling, Gigabyte does not put a normal GeForce GTX 1070, but "only" a Max-Q version under the hood of the Aero 15X. Max-Q stands for clock-reduced yet at the same time more economical and thus cooler/quieter chips.

Fortunately, the performance loss is not quite as great as with the GeForce GTX 1080 (Max-Q). In the 3DMark 11 and Fire-Strike, the ROG Zephyrus M is about 10% faster, though the still high results of the Aero 15X make it a great gaming device as well. 1,920x1,080 pixels rarely push the GTX 1070 (Max-Q) to its limit, even though the 144 Hz refresh rate often is not fully utilized. In demanding games and playing with maximum settings, one often achieves less than 60 FPS.

To test whether the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q can maintain its performance over a longer period of time, we used "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt". During a 60-minute test (Full HD/Ultra) the Aero 15X showed no abnormalities. An average GPU clock of 1,480 MHz is respectable for the Max-Q edition. Nvidia actually claimed only 1,215 to 1,379 MHz as the turbo range.

As long as you do not use a 4K display, you should get your money's worth. All seven tested games were fluid even on maximum settings. The six-core CPU had little impact on gaming performance. The “Witcher 3” ran just as fast as on the old Aero 15X despite the increase in cores. As requirements for high-end games may change, we would recommend going for a six-core based notebook if possible, to be future proof.

To avoid unnecessary power consumption in idle mode, the Aero 15X shuts off the dedicated Nvidia GPU and uses the graphics chip included with the processor (UHD Graphics 630).

If the Aero 15X is idling or confronted with simple tasks such as office, video or web browsing, the fans are usually rather quiet and seldom spin up excessively. If you prefer it silent, simply switch to Quiet in the Smart Manager (there is also a manual control). The fans then deactivate completely.

While idling, the laptop fairs far better. Temperatures of between 24 to 30 °C (~75-86 °F) are good. Core components reached upwards of 90 °C (194 °F) under full load.

The six-core processor does impact energy consumption significantly. Where the predecessor of the Aero 15X consumes only 10 to 20 W while idling, the Coffee-Lake model draws between 14 and 22 W from the socket (average value: 18 instead of formerly 13 W). The Core i7-8750H also leads to higher power consumption under load. Instead of 79 to 165 W, the newcomer requires 91 to 173 W. The Asus GM501 consumes even more (103-223 W) due to its non Max-Q graphics card.

When it comes to battery life, the Aero 15X wipes the floor with the competition. Gigabyte is the only manufacturer in this field that offers a battery far larger than 50 Wh, in this case an impressive 94 Wh, which guarantees first-class running times.

The Asus GM501 can only dream of about 8.5 hours of movie playback and 8.5 hours of Internet surfing via WLAN (medium brightness). The maximum runtime of the Aero 15X also deserves praise. Under ideal conditions (minimum display brightness, low load) the system lasts over 12 hours. Chapeau Gigabyte!