GIGABYTE – 16″ 165Hz Gaming Laptop IPS – Intel i7-14650HX with 32GB RAM – NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 – 1TB SSD – Black

This gaming laptop embodies the latest and greatest hardware and specs for this level of gaming performance. There’s a lot to love in this Gigabyte Aorus 16X, but a few aspects could use improvement. Performance: The 3070 8GB GPU in this machine handled everything I threw at it. I started by spending a few hours in Apex Legends. On the highest settings, I was able to consistently achieve 150+ FPS during my matches. The fans would ramp up to moderate levels, but the Aorus 16X never felt like the pedal was pinned to the floor. I was incredibly happy with how well it managed the thermals of the GPU and CPU. Do keep in mind that this performance is only achievable while plugged in. If you are running off battery, even on performance settings, the GPU will cap the FPS at 60. It still allows for a great gaming experience off battery alone, but you will need to plug it in to unleash the beast. Screen: The screen was a minor disappointment for me. Don’t get me wrong, this laptop has great color with 100% sRGB coverage, impressive contrast, and a 91% screen-to-body ratio. I was hoping that at this price point, we would be seeing an OLED option. IPS panels have come such a long way, but they will always be hindered by their viewing angles. Build Quality: It’s the best I’ve seen in a long time, to be completely transparent. This laptop deserves every star in my rating. The keys feel like butter with a distinct tactile feel, there’s almost no flex in the keyboard, and the trackpad is oversized and beautifully accurate. I mean, the list goes on. Every inch of this gaming laptop feels premium. Ports: This is more of a personal preference, but I would prefer having most of the ports on the back—especially the charger. Committing the charging port to one side feels outdated and requires extra thought when setting up. Again, there’s nothing wrong with where the I/O is located, but personally, I think this could be improved. One odd discovery I made was that the barrel charger doesn’t fully seat into the port visually. It does provide a confident click to let you know it’s connected, but you can still see some of the barrel, which makes it look like it’s not plugged in. This doesn’t actually affect anything, but I found it to be a bit strange. AI: Not much to cover with regard to AI. Gigabyte does include some AI functions on the software side for managing performance, but these proved to be fairly basic, and I didn’t really notice many benefits. Wishlist: There are a few things I wish could have been included or changed. I wish the Aorus 16X shipped with 2TB of storage. This is a minor complaint because it’s easy to upgrade the SSD, but not having to tinker with a new machine out of the box would have been nice. The barrel side of the charging cable could be a bit longer. I use this laptop on the go, and I’ve found that I have to set the power brick on the table with the laptop most of the time. Personally, I’d like to keep the brick on the floor to free up space. Here’s a quick summary of Pros and Cons I found: Pros: – Solid performance for the price. You can’t go wrong with this Gigabyte gaming laptop. – Handles thermals incredibly well under stress. – Not loaded down with bloatware. – Thinner and lighter than expected. As portable as any non-gaming laptop. – Awesome build quality. – Beautiful IPS display. – Handles AAA titles and creative tasks with ease. – Super fast Wi-Fi. – Near-perfect experience in every way. Cons: – Transparent keys can be hard to see. – Speakers are lackluster. – 1TB of storage out of the box. – Lid is aluminum and scratches easily. – What AI? Would I recommend this Gigabyte Aorus 16X to a friend? You better believe it. Every aspect of this machine screams premium gaming laptop. It’s powerful and ultra-portable; what more could you want?

The Gigabyte Aorus 16X ASG 2024 Laptop can be used for Gaming, Content Creation, and AI rendering. It comes equipped with the Intel I7 14650HX and the Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU along with 32GB of RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. I was impressed with just how many features Gigabyte managed to pack into this lightweight unit. **Unique Features** 1. The Aorus has Advanced Optimus that saves you from having to restart the computer or go into bios, every time you switch from Optimus to dedicated or integrated graphics. 2. Gigabyte, through its control center, has integrated AI to switch between graphic cards, or even change power modes depending on what application you open. Stable diffusion is also available in the control center to render graphics. **Design/Build Quality** There’s a matte surface (great for avoiding fingerprints) with a hard plastic bottom and surface, and aluminum lid. I was a little disappointed that it only opens up to about 120 or 130 degrees, so you can’t lay it flat, but the hinges are nice and strong. There’s a light projector with a purple AORUS that illuminates from the back (kind of cool,) and there’s an iridescent logo on top of the lid. I didn’t notice any flex on the screen. The trackpad is large with small satisfying clicks. There are two vents on the surface, two vents out the back, and vents on the left and right. You will notice 7 translucent keys on the keyboard, the Dolby Vision Atmos logo, subtle Auros graphics, and a power button top center. There is also non-slip rubber on the bottom to prevent sliding. Design and build quality is solid, but with the translucent key caps, iridescent logo, and RGB highlights, it will be hard to hide that it’s a gaming laptop. **Display** The display is a 16.0″ 16:10 WQXGA QHD (2560×1600) IPS with a 165 Hz Refresh rate. It comes with adaptive sync, 100% sRGB coverage. It’s pantone validated (must have for content creators using the Adobe Suite) and TUV Rheinland Certified (which means it is low-blue light emitting and takes better care of your eyes.) It comes with Dolby Vision, Gsync, 2 Display Ports via USB-C and 1 HDMI 1.1 out. This means 3 external monitors. (I hooked up 2.) It’s specced at 400 nits of brightness but this one goes well over 500 nits. You can also take this one outside with some sun and still see what you’re doing. There are slim bezels on the sides with a Webcam up top and thicker bezel at the bottom. The display boasts a 3ms response time which is great for gaming. TestUFO testing for ghosting shows a good image. There’s a very good 178 degree viewing angle and an anti-glare finish. This display is very good quality and great for gaming/content creation/rendering. **CPU** Equipped with a 14th Generation Intel I7 14650HX it will reach speeds up to 5.2 GHz. There are 16 cores, 8 P-cores and 8 E-cores. I feel like this is the sweet spot. You get plenty of power and Gigabyte manages to keep this one very cool. On Cinebench R23 I scored 1840 on the Single-Core test and a Multi-Core test of 21206. Very good scores here and capable of handling any gaming/software with ease. **GPU** Equipped with an Nvidia RTX 4070 and 8GB of VRAM, it maxes at 140 watts. The RTX 40 series is great for increasing frames with Frame generation and DLSS technologies. I scored 12600 on TimeSpy with standard settings. In gaming mode I hit 12900, and in Turbo mode (fans are maxed) I hit 13100. Note: During the Timespy test I did average 88 degrees on the CPU and 71 on the GPU. The clock frequency was right at 5.2 GHz on the CPU. The 4070 is more than enough to play any AAA title at High to Ultra settings. **HDD** There’s a 1 TB NVME SSD, plenty of space, and fortunately there are two M.2 SSD slots so you can expand later if necessary. These are the latest generation PCIe Gen4x4 NVMe M.2 SSD up to 4TB. I hit about 5000 MB/s Read/Write speeds on CrystalDiskMark 8.04 on the 1 TB SSD that was included. **Memory** There are 2 DDR5 slots with DDR5-5600MHz memory sticks in them. These are very good speeds for memory. Gigabyte didn’t cut any corners here. You can put up to 64GB in this system, but 32GB is more than enough for just about anything you throw at it. Memory never exceeded 16GB used on the performance monitor during gaming or while using content creation software. **Keyboard** There’s almost no keyboard flex so it’s a solid build. The Aorus comes with 3 zone RGB backlighting, and has up to 1.7mm key travel (supports n-key which is great for hitting multiple keys at once.) There are semi transparent W-A-S-D-Q-E-R keys that are soft and quiet. On the downside there is no per-key RGB which would allow for more customization. It does support macros if you want to save your common key combinations. **Ports** 2 Type-A supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 1 Type-C supports USB 3.2 Gen2 DisplayPort 1.4 1 Type-C Thunderbolt 4 (Supports USB4, Display Port 1.4) (Delivers power of 100 watts) 1 MicroSD (UHS-II) transfer rates here are exceptional 1 Audio/headphone jack 1 RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet 1 HDMI 2.1 (I’m using this slot for one of my monitors to save the USB-C for something else) There’s a nice selection of ports. I do wish they were a little higher up (away from the hands) or in the back of the laptop out of the way. **Webcam** The webcam is an IR (face recognition) 1080p at 30 FPS. There’s a built in array microphone, 2.1 MP camera, and it supports Windows Hello Face authentication. This is all you will need for any zoom/teams meetings. With good light it looks great, in low-light it’s good enough. **Tech** Equipped with Wi-fi 7 you get the 6GHz band too. It comes with Bluetooth version 5.4, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos (which is like 5.1.2 surround sound.) This is essential for gaming so that you can hear thing around you. It’s also great for movies. **Sound** There are two 2W Speakers that are bottom firing. Speakers get louder than most laptops I’ve had, but with little bass as usual. **Battery** There’s a big battery in the Aorus at 99WH. There’s a fast charge of 50% capacity in 30 minutes. With normal to light use (such as web browsing and other functions outside of gaming and video rendering, you can get 8 or 9 hours out of a single charge. There’s a small 240 watt AC adapter (nice for traveling.) I’m happy with the size of the battery, the run time, and the intelligent power switching provided by AI Power gear. **Fans/Cooling** The fans are silent most of the time. Some gaming laptops struggle with cooling and have to blasts the fans to compensate for inadequate cooling or space. Gigabyte really nailed the cooling in this laptop. When the fans are working hard, the highest sound I measured was about 51 decibels, not too bad. You will see CPU temps idling in low to high 40s and GPU temps in mid to high 30s depending on what power profile you choose. There are 5 heat pipes with a really well engineered system. There’s a large intake on the keyboard surface and four outtakes (2 on front, left and right), no vapor chamber, no liquid metal, but surprisingly cool. **Software** Gigabyte Control Center monitors temps and utilization but it also does much more. RGB Lighting – You can also select 8 different LED effects or even customize them. This will change how your keyboard looks and the pattern. AI – This is also your control center for AI. If you choose AI Boost and click on the settings, you can literally change power delivery by choosing different profiles. The default power range is 90 to 120 watts, Creator is 110-135 watts, Turbo is 125-150, Gaming is 110-135, and Meeting and Energy saving are both 65-100 watts. AI Power Gear switches between integrated and discrete GPU and dynamically adjusts power management. AI Boost will detect what application you’re using, and it can adjust the CPU, GPU, or fan curve for higher performance. Gigabyte control center also offers AI Stable Diffusion for rendering. Other Options – You can turn the keyboard to white backlighting or off (which might be nice in a professional setting.) You can also choose different fan control profiles which will determine when the fans kick in and how loud. I adjusted my battery to stop charging at 80% here, and you will find many more options available to customize your system. **Games tested** (All at highest settings with DLSS when available) Temperatures were very impressive! Senua’s Saga Hell Blade 2: FPS Ave: 52, GPU Temp:75, CPU Temp: 75 Shadow of the Tomb Raider: FPS Ave: 154, GPU Temp: 70, CPU Temp: 70 Alan Wake FPS Ave: 75, GPU Temp: 70, CPU Temp: 70 Cyberpunk 2077: FPS Ave: 75 GPU Temp: 74, CPU Temp: 70 Forza Horizon 5: Extreme Settings, FPS Ave: 82, GPU Temp: 71, CPU Temp: 70 **Conclusion** This is an exceptional laptop that does so many things well. Gigabyte covered every possible option for gamers and content creators with the added luxury of AI. Gigabyte gets everything out of the CPU and GPU here with no throttling that I could detect. When you analyze every element of this laptop, it’s an exceptional machine with hardly any weaknesses. I’m a fan. Highly Recommended. **Pros** * Cooling is top-tier * Display has a ton of features, >500 Nits * Design is slick and sturdy * AI features/Gigabyte software * 1080P IR Webcam * CPU, GPU, Memory speeds are well above average * No bloatware **Needs Improvement** * Lacks per-key RGB * Ports on sides (none in back) * Chassis only has metal on the lid * Some options are hard to find (not intuitive) in Gigabyte Control Center software * Micro-SD (Not full size)