Aorus 15

The new generation AORUS laptops are already here and today we have with us the AORUS 15-XA, recently announced with the 9th generation Intel Core i7-9750H 6-core processor and a whole Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q inside. In addition, it has the highest performance screen for gaming, a 15.6-inch Sharp IGZO 240Hz FHD panel. Definitely an enjoyment for the eyes and also for entertainment, so don't miss this review.

First of all, we have to thank AORUS for giving us this laptop to do their analysis.

AORUS 15-XA technical characteristics

Unboxing and design

Just a few days ago, AORUS introduced its new range of laptops that install the new 9th generation Intel Core i7-9750H CPU. In total there will be three models with the same CPU and different graphics card specifications, specifically in the lowest cost unit AORUS 15-SA the recent Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti is installed. The one we have is the 15-XA that installs nothing less than an RTX 2070 and an impressive 240 Hz screen, something little seen on a laptop.

But let's not anticipate events, because we will see all this throughout the review. Let us now focus on the outer aspect. And there is nothing more external than the box in which this AORUS 15-XA comes, which is made of very thick cardboard and a briefcase style, the house brand in these laptops. The brand's colors, black and orange, are screen printed with the AORUS logo clearly visible.

Well, we opened the box and found the unit wrapped in a black textile bag and attached to two polyethylene foam molds next to a cardboard box where the external power supply is inserted. So in total we will have the following elements:

• AORUS 15-XA Portable 230W Power Supply and Cable User Manual and Warranty Screws for Attaching a Second M.2 SSD

The external appearance has practically not changed at all compared to the other AORUS 15 laptops. Its lines are sharp and daring as a good gaming laptop with the AORUS logo and two bands on the cover that have white LED lighting. The chosen construction materials are aluminum, practically for all the equipment, inside and out, and plastic only for the inner frame of the screen. Maximum quality on all sides.

The laptop is painted entirely in matte black and remains a magnet for fingerprints and dirt. The measurements of this AORUS 15-XA are 361 mm wide, 246 mm deep and 24.4 mm thick. It is not an ultrabook, but it does not need to, because only with this half centimeter you will see that the cooling works quite well, especially in these new models that have a new system. The weight on the other hand is about 2.4 Kg with the included battery.

The interior area we have also said is made of aluminum, specifically the entire base of the chiclet-type keyboard that has RGB Fusion lighting. Nowhere do we have an anti-fingerprint finish, so the rag will be our most faithful friend. The display hinge appears quite robust and features medium-high hardness.

Also in this photograph we appreciate the thin cover that contains the screen, about 6 mm thick. The frames on the other hand are 8 mm in the lateral zone, 12 mm in the superior zone and 23 mm in the inferior zone. This makes enough room for the camera and microphones to fit in the upper area, which is welcome. We must also indicate that this cover is quite robust and we almost do not obtain torsion when opening it only from one end.

We start by looking at the sides of the AORUS 15-XA by looking at the openings for cooling. It is very positive that they are so wide, with grilles both on the two sides and in the rear that they are capable of expelling a really large air flow with those two 71-propeller fans that we have installed inside. Of course, the system is quite noisy when the speed of turns goes up due to the temperature.

You can see that it is a relatively thick laptop with excellent finishes throughout this side area. We really like the aggressiveness of the rear area in counterpoint with the simplicity of the front area, which ends diagonally and gives us the feeling of lightness and thinness.

We will start in this case on the right side to list the ports that we find in addition to the grids. Install a 3.5mm audio jack port that supports both audio and microphone combo, or audio only. Right next to it we have two USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports with fast charge function.

We will continue with the left part, symmetrical in ventilation to the right and with more data ports. On the left we have an RJ-45 connector for the 1 Gbps wired LAN. Then there is another USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port and a card reader that only supports the MicroSD format, and we consider it a little fair, because there is room for more. Finally there are two indicator LEDs for powering on and for hard drive activity.

By zooming in on the rear area, we will be able to see in more detail the ports of this part located in the central area and which are oriented to digital video connections. This is due to an HDMI 2.0 port, a Mini DisplayPort 1.3, and a US B 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port with DisplayPort 1.3 support as well. In this case we do not have Thunderbolt 3 support in this connector.

Wow, we almost forgot again about the Kensington slot for universal padlocks, and also the connector for the external 19.5V and 11.8A (230W) DC power supply.

The lower part is also part of the exterior design and we cannot leave it behind because it is quite interesting. The cooling openings grow considerably to occupy almost half of this area, with strong metal grilles and fairly high rubber feet, especially in the rear area. The truth is that we asked for a little more work on the cooling system and AORUS has complied, so congratulations.

Display and calibration

In every gaming notebook, the screen plays a prominent role in the gaming experience and image quality. In AORUS 15-XA it will not be less, in fact, it is one of its most outstanding features. AORUS has installed a 15.6-inch LCD panel with IGZO technology (Indium, Gallium, Zinc and Oxygen transistors) that comes from the manufacturer Sharp, how could it be otherwise. This screen generates a Full HD resolution (1920x1080p) at a refresh rate of no less than 240 Hz, which surpasses the vast majority of desktop gaming screens.

And the truth is that fluidity is very noticeable with this incredible refresh rate. Despite this, the dynamic refresh technology is not implemented, neither from AMD, nor from Nvidia.

The color space is not specified either, but we already tell you that it is 100% RGB in view of the results we have obtained during the calibration tests with our Colormunki Display colorimeter. The contrast is approximately 1200: 1, in view of the results obtained.

The viewing angles are clearly 178 degrees, since during our tests and images the color distortion is practically nil. Although this is always better appreciated in person than through a photo. On the brightness side, it is a fairly uniform panel, with variations of only 23 cd / m ² (nits) at maximum brightness, obtaining an average of about 310 nits approximately.

We now continue with the measurements carried out by the colorimeter together with the HCFR software. We have not calibrated the screen, we have only collected the data from the screen as it is configured at the factory.

Overall we see that Sharp and AORUS have done an excellent job on this screen. delta E calibration is located in almost all the colors sampled below 3, which is a practically negligible value for the human eye, depending on the color in question.

The luminance curves, RGB levels and black scale are also very good, although the white scale does vary greatly, staying away from the IPS panels, just like the gamma in the white area. In the CIE diagrams we see that the color space practically mirrors the sRGB, but does not exceed it, so it is far from the DCI-P3, a wider space and oriented to professional video editing.

In any case, they are very good results and they have exceeded our expectations. Sharp demonstrates its power by providing us with not only an excellent gaming display, but also for amateur graphic design.

Web camera, microphone and sound

Well, we hardly have to talk about the webcam sincerely. AORUS 15-XA installed a traditional HD Webcam that is capable of capturing photos and recording at a resolution of 1280 × 720 pixels and 60 FPS. In this case we do not have a Full HD or anything like that either.

You could not miss face detection with the native Windows application. But in moderately dark spaces, we already encounter the first difficulties in obtaining a quality image due to graining. In any case, we leave you some screenshots so you can see the results. They are not bad, just the standard of 98% of laptops.

The microphone is also the standard of the range and most laptops, a double configuration on each side of the camera to record in perfect stereo and unidirectional pattern. Audio quality is good for basic tasks like video chat calls, but not for professional recording or quality streaming.

The sound system consists of two 2W speakers located in both lateral zones with Nahimic 3 technology. The sound power and clarity is very good, although not having a subwoofer speaker is missing the presence of deeper bass. In general it is a very good system like the entire AORUS 15 range.

Touchpad and keyboard

These two elements have not undergone changes with respect to other models in the range, AORUS 15-XA installs an island- type chiclet (membrane) gaming keyboard and also with a Gigabyte RGB Fusion backlight, which we can customize with some effects from the software AORUS Control Center.

As in other models, the keys are island-type, quite wide and with a minimum travel that does not exceed 2 mm. Also, the hardness is moderate, it doesn't feel as good as you are for hours writing, at least in my personal case. On the other hand, for gaming it does a great job, due to its speed and overall feel. The panel does not sink anything in the central area, unless we press a lot and the keys are very well held and without any slack.

Something we should consider is that it does not implement the Anti Ghosting N-Key function, so we cannot press too many keys simultaneously. The lighting effects are not as wide as in other Gigabyte notebooks either, and we will not be able to configure individual lighting in each key, but in three already delimited areas.

On the touchpad, what stands out the most is its spaciousness, with measures of 115 x 60 mm and very elegant polished aluminum finished edges. In touch and precision we have no doubt that it does an impeccable job and we have been using it for a long time. As for the button system, these are integrated into the touchpad itself. Personally I do not see it as functional as having two individual buttons in the case of a gaming computer. Although it is true that they work perfectly and there is no slack or sag at the ends.

Network connectivity

We now turn to see the network connectivity of AORUS 15-XA, in which we do not get great surprises either and that is good, because both the AORUS 15 and AERO 15 range of Gigabyte present good possibilities in this regard.

We start with a Killer E2500 controller that works at 10/100/1000 MB / s, which has been the standard in a wired LAN. Recall that the most powerful chip that the brand has is the Killer E3000 2.5 Gbps, but in this case we have stayed with the standard.

Regarding Wi-Fi connectivity, the Killer Wireless-AC 1550i chip (9560NGW) is also maintained. In a new generation laptop, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity or through the 802.11ax protocol is already beginning to be lacking. In fact, Killer already has an AX1650 chip with Wi-Fi 6, so we hope that Ponto is installed on some computer. In any case, this will provide us with a bandwidth of 1.73 Gbps, 2 × 2 MU-MIMO at a frequency of 160 MHz. It has Bluetooth 5.0 + LE connectivity.

The presence of the Killer Control Center software could not be lacking to manage this connectivity in advance. We will be able to see the data transfer rate and bandwidth consumption of the applications, analyze the least saturated channels of our Wi-Fi router and other interesting configurations such as the accelerated GameFast optimized for games.

Technical characteristics and hardware

We have seen quite a few elements of the AORUS 15-XA laptop , but there is still a good overview of the main hardware, which will make this beast move, and of course the cooling system. As it could not be otherwise, we have taken the liberty of opening it to take a closer look at its interior.

Starting with the CPU, we have one of the latest outlets from the Blue Giant's oven. Nothing less than an Intel Core i7-9750H that works at a base frequency of 2.6 GHz and 4.5 GHz in turbo boost mode. A 9th generation CPU that also has 6 cores and 12 processing threads under a TDP of only 45W and a L3 cache of 12 MB. In tests carried out by Intel it is shown as 28% faster than the i7-8750H, the CPU most used by laptop manufacturers.

The motherboard must be up to the task and it is, with an Intel HM370 chipset that is the most powerful in its category for notebook, although this CPU does not allow overclocking. In it, two DDR4 Samsung RAM modules of 8 GB at 2666 MHz are installed in Dual Channel, making a total of 16 GB. This capacity will be expandable up to a total of 64 GB at this same speed.

The graphics card is nothing less than an Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q that will offer us a performance of 70% compared to its desktop version consuming 1/3 less energy. The best thing is that it will offer us a total of 2304 CUDA Core, the same as in the desktop version, and Tensor and RT cores to do Ray Tracing in real time and DLSS. The processing frequency is between 885 MHz and 1305 MHz at maximum performance. The 8 GB of GDRR6 memory is not missing either, although in this case they work at 12 Gbps instead of 14. In bus width it is also kept at 256 bits.

Finally, the AORUS 15-XA storage consists of a hybrid configuration. First of all, a 512 GB Intel SSD 760p drive has been installed that works under PCIe x4 NVMe interface at a speed of about 3, 000 MB / in sequential reading.

Second, we will have a HDD (Mechanical) drive with 1 TB of storage and a size of 2.5 inches to be able to store all our data. We find it as a very successful configuration, and the possibility of expansion through another M.2 or the space for 2.5 ”units is extremely interesting.

The next point to study is the refrigeration system, which we have already discussed in the first section. AORUS has updated this one to give it an extra performance and the truth is that we are extremely satisfied with it. It is a double fan type turbine system, each one of them has 71 propellers and is capable of working at a maximum of 7000 RPM, impressive speed and impressive noise, because the truth is that when noise is required from the equipment it is noticeable enough.

But in a gaming team efficiency is valued more than noise, at least in my opinion. To capture the heat there are three heat pipes installed on the GPU and CPU along with some metal blocks and thermal pads to secure the transfer. We also have another one of these heatpipes in the VRM of the motherboard, which goes directly to a small finned block to the left.

The system works quite well, especially considering the powerful hardware, and both the software and the speed of response are efficient and well calibrated. From the AORUS Control Center software, and from the keyboard itself, we will have a button to activate the maximum power if we need it.

Battery and autonomy

A primary issue in a laptop is battery consumption and its power settings. In this case we will have a fairly small battery not only in size but also in capacity. 4070 mAh at 62.35 Wh, although in practice it will be 3950 mAh at 60.51 Wh. The duration we have obtained from it by making normal use of a laptop, browsing, watching videos and writing with a brightness level of 70% is about 2 hours. Yes, nothing more than two hours.

The use of part of the space for a 2.5 ”HDD and the powerful hardware make the space available for the battery quite small, and of course it suffers in the duration of this. This means that we will not be able to do too much on the AORUS 15-XA if we do not have a plug nearby, although being a gaming laptop, it will spend practically all the time connected to the general network.

To the rescue our friend comes the external power supply, which in this case is 230W, with a considerable size. It may be silly, but we did not like the connection of the cable laterally in it, since, before a possible strong pull without realizing it, we could break the connection.

AORUS Control Center Software

This software is very similar to Gigabyte's own, they are not sister brands for nothing. We can download it from the website without problems, although this AORUS 15-XA is already installed natively.

Among the most relevant options we have a real-time performance monitor, a control panel of different elements such as Wi-Fi, screen brightness, touchpad lock, sound, etc. We will also have a section dedicated to configuring keyboard lighting and application shortcuts. In this case we miss a cooling customization panel, since we can only activate or deactivate the maximum RPM regime.

Other programs that we recommend will be the Nahimic 3 sound program, to get the most out of its features and the Killer software for managing the LAN and Wi-Fi network.

Performance tests and games

We have already completed the description of this AORUS 15-XA, so it is time to know the results of the performance tests we have subjected it to.

SSD performance

Let's start with the unit benchmark on this solid Intel 760p, for this we have used the CristalDiskMark 6.0.2 software .

We already know this SSD drive, since it is installed in other models of the brand and Gigabyte, and the results presented to us are as expected. Sequential read rates on this 512GB drive have exceeded 2, 900MB / s, a fairly high figure that demonstrates excellent performance. In writing it lags somewhat behind another SSD like Samsung with just over 1, 500 MB / s.

CPU and GPU benchmarks

Let's see next the synthetic test block, also called benchmarks. For this we have used Cinebench R15, PCMark8 and 3Dmark in the Time Spy, Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra tests.

These synthetic tests demonstrate that this RTX 2070 + Core 9750H configuration works better than previous 8750Hs. We see Cinebench scores that reach almost 1200 and 200 points, and higher scores even than some models with RTX 2080. This is also due to the good cooling work, and especially to how well this processor withstands high temperatures.

Let's note that a normal 3DMark Fire Strike score for a desktop RTX 2070 with an Intel Core i9-9900K is 22, 000 points. So the results are some of the best we've seen on a laptop with this GPU.

Gaming performance

We see below what this AORUS 15-XA is able to offer us in terms of gaming experience , we are only going to test in Full HD resolution, which is the native of the screen obviously.

• Shadow of the Tomb Rider Alta + TAAFar Cry 5 Alta + TAADOOM Ultra + TAAFinal Fantasy XV Hight QualityDeux Ex Mankind Divided Alta + TAAMmeter Exodus Alta + RTX

We have had absolutely no issues with game performance at this resolution. Loosely surpassing the 70s and 80s FPS with graphic settings in "high" or "very high". As always, it highlights the great performance in Far Cry 5 over DirecX 12 and DOOM over Open GL 4.5. We have run Deux Ex Manking Divided on DirectX 11 and it also presents great results.

Certainly, we are not taking full advantage of 240 Hz, we believe that 144 Hz would also have been sufficient. But if we decide to lower the graphic quality, the FPS will rise immediately.

Temperatures

AORUS 15-XA	Repose	Maximum performance	Maximum performance + maximum cooling
CPU	42 ºC	89 ºC	83 ºC
GPU	39 ºC	81 ºC	74 ºC

Temperatures are within what is considered normal-high in a laptop, if we take into account that we have intensively subjected it to a stress test with Aida64. If anything has been shown during testing it is the ability of this CPU to withstand high temperatures.

Sometimes we have come to see in a nucleus instantaneously up to 95 degrees. Unfortunately Thermal Throttling has also made an appearance, in approximately 5%. It is something that we must assume in these extremely powerful equipment with so little space to refrigerate.

Final words and conclusion about AORUS 15-XA

So far our complete review of AORUS 15-XA comes, a gaming laptop that incorporates the new Intel Core i7-9750H processor, successor to the well-known 8750H. And the truth is that it brings good performance improvements that we notice in the handling of the equipment and especially in the synthetic tests.

In design it follows a continuist line with respect to the rest of the AORUS 15 range, something that we see as correct for the quality of the materials, the use of aluminum with elegant lines and not as gaming as other equipment. Calibration of this Sharp 240Hz IGZO display is really good with 100% sRGB color space and spectacular system and game fluidity. Only the white tones in it can be improved.

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The rest of the hardware is also very successful and fairly balanced, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB NVMe SSD and 1 TB HDD, of course an Nvidia RTX 2070 inside which in this case performs spectacularly as we have seen. And this is due to an improved cooling system capable of keeping temperatures at bay under moderate loads. Of course, we must say that it is quite noisy, but it is that or heating to bag.

Perhaps the weakest aspect of this AORUS 15-XA is the battery, which is very small, mainly due to the space that remains available after introducing the 2.5 ”HDD. Making a very restrained use of the laptop has only endured 2 hours of autonomy, which are not the 4 that we at least ask for in such a team.

Of the three models we launched on the market, this laptop is the most powerful of them, and it is priced at around 2, 400 euros in Spain. It is a fairly predictable price considering everything you have inside, and we do not see it too expensive if we serve other manufacturers.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ GREAT SET OF HARDWARE	- VERY SMALL BATTERY
+ CONSTRUCTION IN ALUMINUM AND DESIGN	- REFRIGERATION IS NOISY
+ REFRIGERATION HAS IMPROVED
+ SPECTACULAR PERFORMANCE IN GAMES AND MULTITAREA
+ WELL CALIBRATED 240 HZ DISPLAY

The professional review team awards him the platinum medal:

AORUS 15-XA

DESIGN - 90%

CONSTRUCTION - 93%

REFRIGERATION - 89%

PERFORMANCE - 91%

DISPLAY - 93%

91%

9th generation CPU inside