Gigabyte Aero 17 XA HDR Laptop Review: This is a *Really* Good 17-inch Laptop

Overall dimensions are very similar to the ultra-thin Asus Zephyrus S GX701 with differences of only 2 to 3 millimeters at most. They even weigh about the same at 2.5 to 2.6 kg. While the Razer Blade Pro 17 is thinner and heavier for a denser feel and the MSI GS75 is even smaller and lighter, the Aero 17 is still much more portable than most other 17.3-inch laptops in the market.

The Aero 17 series is Wi-Fi 6 ready with its Killer AX1650 WLAN for theoretical transfer rates of up to 2.4 Gbps if your wireless router can support it. The AX1650 benefits from Killer Control Center 2.0 features not found on the standard Intel AX200.

We experienced no connectivity issues during our time with the unit. Performance can be faster than what we've recorded below as our test server is limited by a 1 Gbps line.

The bottom panel can be easily removed with a T6 Torx screwdriver and a sharp edge. However, keep in mind that some stickers must be torn to remove the screws which could potentially impact the manufacturer warranty.

Users have direct access to the the batteries, both M.2 storage bays, both DDR4 SODIMM slots, and the WLAN module.

The clickpad is slightly smaller (10.5 x 7 cm) than the one on the 15.6-inch Dell XPS 15 (10.5 x 8.5 cm). Even so, its surface is smoother than the surrounding palm rests for a uniform glide with almost no sticking regardless of movement speed.

Our main complaint about the clickpad is that its integrated mouse keys are a bit on the spongy side. The shallow travel requires more force than usual to register an input as well which could be fatiguing if clicking repeatedly. We would have preferred dedicated mouse keys to better differentiate the Aero series from the Aorus series especially since the Aero series caters more to professionals.

Color space is wider than any 144 Hz or 240 Hz IPS alternative to appeal to professionals. On the other hand, this comes at the cost of refresh rate as the 4K UHD SKUs are limited to 60 Hz. Gigabyte promises 100 percent AdobeRGB coverage which is similar to our 87 percent recording of the AdobeRGB 3D space.

Further measurements with an X-Rite colorimeter prove just how accurate Aero displays can be out of the box. Even without any end-user calibration, average grayscale and color saturation deltaE values sit at just 0.9 and 1.31, respectively, when up against the AdobeRGB standard. Most multimedia laptops would be lucky to have deltaE values this low after calibration.

Outdoor visibility is better than other 17.3-inch laptops due to the brighter backlight. Even so, glare from the sky will still be prevalent as shown by the images below unless if working under shade. We recommend a high text scaling setting especially since this is a 4K panel.

Unlocked CPUs are a mixed bag on laptops because they are generally unable to maintain their super-fast clock rates for extended periods and this continues to be the case on the Aero 17. When running CineBench R15 Multi-Thread in a loop, the initial score of 1594 points drops to 1333 points by the second loop to represent a performance dip of about 16 percent. Even so, this is still about 27 percent faster than the Core i7-9750H even after accounting for any performance throttling.

The Eurocom Nightsky RX15 ships with the same Core i9-9980HK CPU as our Aero 17 and yet it is able to consistently outperform our Gigabyte by about 10 percent because its processor able to maintain faster clock rates for longer as shown by our graph below. It may be minor, but the smallest of details become important when looking at these high-end configuration options.

See our dedicated page on the Core i9-9980HK for more technical information and benchmarks.

PCMark benchmarks rank our Gigabyte in the same ballpark as other gaming laptops with GeForce RTX graphics including the Alienware m17 and Asus G731. Overall scores are slightly higher than these alternatives likely due to the faster multi-thread performance of our octa-core Core i9 CPU.

We experienced no software or hardware issues during our time with the test unit. We did notice, however, that waking from sleep would be unusually slow each and every time. It takes about 6 seconds before the Windows login or lock screen appears when lifting the lid.

There are two M.2 2280 slots available whereas many other 17.3-inch laptops offer at least one seondary 2.5-inch SATA III bay. This makes the Aero 17 lighter albeit more costly to upgrade.

Our test unit comes with a single 512 GB Intel SSD 760p SSD. Gigabyte frequently advertises "Intel only" components and so it's unlikely that we'll see other configs sporting Samsung, Toshiba, or SK Hynix anytime soon. Sequential transfer rates are nearly 2x faster than the Intel SSD 660p as found on the Asus G731GV while being slower than the Samsung PM981 when it comes to reading and writing of smaller 4K blocks.

See our table of HDDs and SSDs for more benchmark comparisons.

The cooling solution consists of two large diameter fans and four major heat pipes between the CPU and GPU. The fans are always active no matter the onscreen load at about 33 dB(A). Be sure to manually set the system to Power Saver or Quiet mode or else the fan will pulse more frequently during low loads like web browsing or streaming.

When gaming on the default Normal Fan mode, fan noise becomes decent for a thin gaming laptop at 42 to 45 dB(A). When gaming in Maximum Fan mode, this jumps to a steady 59.6 dB(A) to be one of the loudest gaming laptops we've recorded. As shown by our 3DMark results above, however, Maximum Fan mode provides no major performance benefits meaning users can game in the default Normal Fan mode without any tangible FPS losses.

Our test unit exhibits very slight electronic noise that is only audible when placing an ear near the keyboard keys. This never becomes an issue since the system fans will always overwhelm the presence of any minor electronic noise.

We stress the Aero 17 with synthetic loads to identify for any potential throttling or stability issues. When running Prime95 on the default Normal Fan mode, the CPU will boost to 4.1 GHz for the first few seconds until hitting 71 C. Thereafter, clock rates stabilize at 3.0 GHz for a cooler core temperature of 63 C. If running on Maximum Fan mode, CPU temperature drops to 56 C but clock rates do not improve. Maximum Fan mode is therefore more useful if you desire cooler running temperatures as any performance benefits would be minimal.

Running both Prime95 and FurMark simultaneously at Maximum Fan mode will cause the CPU and GPU to stabilize at 74 C and 70 C, respectively. Running Witcher 3 at the default Normal Fan mode results in relatively high CPU and GPU temperatures of 81 C and 78 C, respectively, compared to only 77 C and 67 C on the Razer Blade Pro 17. You'd have to activate Maximum Fan mode for significantly cooler temperatures as shown by our table below.

Running on batteries will limit performance. A Fire Strike run on battery power returns Physics and Graphics scores of 9745 and 11093 points, respectively, compared to 20584 and 16369 points when on mains.

Idling demands anywhere between 19 W and 36 W depending on the brightness setting and power profile. Since the display can be so bright, the difference between minimum and maximum brightness settings is about 9 W.

When running Witcher 3, consumption becomes constant at 158 W compared to 147 W and 181 W on the RTX 2060-powered Asus G731GV and RTX 2070-powered Asus G731GW, respectively. The RTX 2070 Max-Q consumes roughly 13 percent less power than the standard mobile RTX 2070 for 11 percent slower GPU performance. The performance and power consumption differences between the RTX 2070 Max-Q and mobile RTX 2060 are similarly linear.

We're able to measure a maximum consumption of 238 W from the medium-sized (~15.5 x 7.5 x 3 cm) 230 W AC adapter when running both Prime95 and FurMark simultaneously. This high of a consumption is unsustainable due to thermal limitations and so it eventually falls and stabilizes at 194 W as shown by our graph below. Similarly, running Prime95 results in a ~20 second spike to 143 W before inevitably falling to match our CineBench R15 loop test and stress test observations above.