Gigabyte G5 KC in review: Upgradeable gaming laptop

The Gigabyte G5 KC's case is made of sturdy plastic that protects both the base unit as well as the lid of the gaming laptop against torsion. The screen can be folded back by about 135 degrees, and it's kept firmly in its respective position by the hinges. The build quality is good, and we were unable to find any uneven gap dimensions or the like.

A unique feature of the G5 is that the battery can be removed at the bottom without requiring any tools. You only need to release the lock, and then you can replace the battery.

The G5's footprint is similar to that of other 15-inch laptops. However, it's significantly thicker than the rest of the devices in our test field. At around 2.1 kilograms, though, the weight is once again in the midfield.

The Gigabyte G5 KC has a respectable range of ports. These include a Gigabit LAN port and a Mini DisplayPort. Since some interfaces, including the power supply, have been placed on the back, you shouldn't expect too much congestion caused by connected cables.

With our 128 GB AV PRO microSD V60 reference memory card, the Gigabyte G5 achieves a passable result of 77 MB/s for copying data and 87 MB/s for reading data. Furthermore, the G5 is the only gaming laptop with an SD card reader in our test field.

The Gigabyte G5 KC has a Gigabit LAN port and is able to establish wireless connections via Bluetooth 5.2 as well as Wi-Fi 6. Using the latter in combination with our Netgear Nighthawk AX12 reference router, we reach average speeds of 1,388 Mb/s for receiving data and 1,520 Mb/s for sending data. This allows the gaming laptop to claim the first place in our test field.

The Gigabyte G5 also comes with a low-resolution 0.9 MP webcam like most recent laptops. Image quality is correspondingly mediocre, with subjects appearing blurry and with pale colors even in good lighting conditions.

Gigabyte offers a 24-month warranty period for the G5 KC.

Keyboard

The Gigabyte G5's keyboard offers a clear feedback and is well suited for typing longer text. A full-sized numeric keypad is available, and the arrow keys were made in the standard size. Furthermore, most of the special keys are available as single keys, which prevents the keyboard from having an excessive amount of keys with a secondary function.

In addition, Gigabyte has integrated a keyboard backlight that ensures a uniform illumination of the labeling on the keys. However, users can't choose the colors themselves, since they can only select them from a predefined palette, which means that you can't set a white backlight, for example.

Gigabyte markets the G5 KC as a budget entry-level gaming laptop. However, they still make sure that the hardware can run all the latest games smoothly. Apart from our test configuration, the laptop is also available with a stronger processor. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 installed here is always used as the graphics card.

An Intel Core i5-10500H ensures smooth system operation in our test configuration of the Gigabyte G5 KC. The processor has six cores and can therefore process up to 12 tasks simultaneously. The clock rates are between 2.5 and 4.5 GHz. Besides the cooling system, the TDP that has been configured also determines how long the clock speeds can be maintained at a high level. In this case, the TDP settings are generous with a long-term PL1 of 55 watts and a short-term PL2 of 135 watts.

Our Cinebench R15 continuous loop shows that the Core i5-10500H reaches a higher value right at the beginning compared to the Core i7-10750H in the MSI GF65 Thin 10UE, for example. Following a gradual descent, the sustained performance of the i5-10500H is slightly above that of the Intel Core i7-10750H and can consequently lead our test field.

The individual tests show that the single-core performance of the Intel Core i5-10500H is slightly above that of the Intel Core i5-10300H in the Dell G5 15 5500. The multi-core performance is considerably better and can once again compete with or exceed that of the Intel Core i7-10750H. Our CPU Benchmarks article shows how the performance provided here compares with other processors.

The Gigabyte G5 KC achieves a very good overall score in the PCMark 10 test, with which it can lead our test field. While the individual scores for Digital Content Creation and Productivity are comparatively high, the Essentials score is only enough for the penultimate place in the test field.

During the test period, the gaming laptop always showed a smooth system operation, and we didn't experience any micro stutters or the like. Programs were launched quickly, and accessing files was done without any lags.

With the hardware used here, the Gigabyte G5 KC shows very low interruption times in the test with LatencyMon. This makes it very well suited for real-time applications.

Gigabyte installs a 512 GB SSD in the G5 KC that achieves average rates in the storage benchmarks. This places the gaming laptop in the middle of our test field.

A comparison with other storage devices can be found in our HDD/SSD Benchmarks article.

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 is responsible for rendering graphically demanding applications in the Gigabyte G5 KC. It can be configured by manufacturers with varying TGP settings, and Gigabyte has set it to 90 watts. However, Dynamic Boost can increase power consumption up to 105 watts.

The RTX 3060 achieves very good results in the 3DMark benchmarks that we performed, and it can place itself at the top of our test field. As a result, the G5 KC is also suitable for demanding 3D applications. In our GPU Benchmarks article, the RTX 3060 can be compared with other graphics cards.

The Gigabyte G5 KC can run modern games smoothly and at high detail levels. Even in demanding games, the frame rates are always above 60 fps as long as the game is played in Full HD resolution. Only in the very challenging Cyberpunk 2077 did we have to reduce the detail levels from "Ultra" to "High" in order to reach over 60 fps.

The performance that can be expected in other games can be found in our GPU Games article.

Our endurance load test with The Witcher 3 shows that the gaming laptop from Gigabyte does experience slight fluctuations in frame rates, but it can always stabilize them again even over a prolonged period of time.

During our demanding endurance stress test, the temperatures inside the laptop climbed up to 91 °C (~196 °F). During this period, the CPU was kept at around 2.5 GHz, meaning that it didn't fall below the base clock speed.

During our The Witcher 3 test, the temperatures briefly rose up to 98 °C (~208 °F.). The clock rates remained at around 3.1 GHz throughout the entire gaming test. Therefore, users shouldn't expect restrictions due to excessive temperatures, even under heavy system load.