The Gigabyte A5 X1 allows for gaming without noise

Gigabyte has a powerful gaming laptop in its lineup with the A5 X1, which is available for just under $1,800. The A5's case doesn't feature high-quality materials - it's completely made of black plastic. There's no maintenance hatch. Positive: The battery can be removed from the outside.

The combination of the Ryzen 9 5900HX APU, the GeForce RTX 3070 laptop GPU (max TGP: 140 watts), and 16 GB of RAM (dual-channel mode) brings all the latest games smoothly onto the matte 240 Hz screen. The full screen resolution (1920x1080 pixels) and maximum quality settings can be used. Higher resolutions are also possible when a corresponding monitor is connected - up to three additional screens can be connected (1x HDMI 2.0, 1x Mini DisplayPort 1.4, 1x DisplayPort via USB-C).

The storage capacity (512 GB, M.2 2280) is quite limited for a gaming laptop. This can be improved if necessary: The A5 offers room for a second NVMe SSD (M.2 2280) and a 2.5-inch storage drive. Both M.2 slots support PCIe Gen 4.

The laptop produces a lot of noise under load - this is true when using three out of the four available power profiles. The fourth profile - "Silent Mode" - doesn't quite live up to what the name promises, but it does ensure a significant reduction in noise. The fans work at very low speeds and only emit a quiet hiss. The resulting reduced computing power is still sufficient for gaming - with some compromises.

Further information and many benchmark results are available in our review of the Gigabyte A5 X1.