Gigabyte aero 15

Nvidia's RTXs dominate the notebook market and today we have with us the Gigabyte Aero 15-X9. This laptop mounts one of the new Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q and a 15.6-inch screen with a Full HD IPS panel at 144 Hz. We continue with the general trend of the presence of an Intel Core i7 8750H just like the model of AORUS recently reviewed here.

Let's see right away what this 2600 euro beast is capable of with the new Metro Exodus and the other games, so let's start.

We thank Gigabyte for the trust placed in us to give us this product for analysis.

Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 technical characteristics

Unboxing and Design

The brand has ensured that this Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 reaches our hands in perfect condition, with a thick cardboard box similar to that of other models of the brand and the “AERO” logo on black colors.

And it is not all, since inside we have the product perfectly packaged on cardboard molds and in turn wrapped in a textile bag. The rest of the accessories are placed inside boxes integrated in this mold on a second level and very well stored to isolate them from the main product. In total we find the following accessories:

• Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 laptop 230W power supply and power cable Thermal Pad for installation of a second SSD User manual and warranty € 20 gift card for Steam

Basically it is almost the same thing that the AORUS 15-W9 brought, although in this case we have a Thermal Pad for an SSD and the mold is not made of polyethylene foam, which perhaps is safer than cardboard.

If anything distinguishes Gigabyte laptops, it is their good finish, which abounds in matte black tinted aluminum and a very elegant aesthetic and without garish gaming details, something that is appreciated for once. In the rear area we have a finish that simulates carbon fiber and the Gigabyte logo, which has lighting.

This laptop has very tight measurements to its screen, with 356.4 mm wide, 250 mm deep and 18.9 mm thick. So we can say that we are dealing with a Max-Q design, although it is about 2 cm thick. This laptop only weighs 2 Kg, making it very manageable and light, despite its large battery and the cooling system it implements for new hardware.

Let's take a closer look at the side finishes and connectivity. The whole profile is distinguished by being quite sober and with simple and grooved finishes. At the back we do not have any type of connection ports, so they will all be on the sides, power connector included.

We will now analyze in more detail the connectivity of this Gigabyte Aero 15-X9. Starting from the right side, we have two USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, a Thunderbolt 3 port under USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C interface, UHS-II SD card reader, power connector and a Kensington lock. Of course we highlight the presence of Thunderbolt 3, although in this case we also have our own charging connector.

On the left side we find another USB 3.1 Gen 2 port compatible with DisplayPort 1.4, a USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A port, RJ45 connector for LAN, HDMI 2.0 port and finally a 3.5 mm Jack audio connector. Without a doubt we see that the connectivity is of a very high level, with the presence of extremely fast and useful connections for all types of devices.

Regarding wireless connectivity, we also have a pretty good section, with the presence of a Killer Wireless-AC 1550 controller operating under 802.11ac protocol and capacity for 2 × 2 connections at 1550 Mbps and support for Bluetooth 5.0. Although the design of the equipment is quite thin, we greatly appreciate the RJ45 Gigabit ethernet connector, very useful for high-speed and LAG-free connections in competitive video games.

In the sound section we also have a high-level chip with NAHIMIC 3D technology and two 2W speakers each, which really sound very good and at a considerable volume. Through NAHIMIC 3 software we can update the surround sound for our headphones.

We arrived at the important section of the screen of this Gigabyte Aero 15-X9, which visually highlights its very fine bezels to adjust the measurements of the equipment to the maximum and with Anti-Glare. The technical section consists of a 15.6-inch panel with IPS technology at Full HD resolution (1920 × 1080 pixels) at no less than 144 Hz. Although we can also opt for a higher performance screen with UHD (4K) resolution, although at 60 Hz.

We think that this Full HD version is the most recommended, with a pixel density of 141 dpi. In this model we have not detected any type of bleeding on the screen, and thanks to the wide viewing angles we will not have color degradation problems.

Being a laptop we must stop to see its image and sound capture section thanks to a Webcam at the bottom with HD resolution (720p) and two microphones to record in stereo and in an omnipolar range. The hardware is exactly the same as that of AORUS 15, so the result of image and sound quality is also correct, without further ado.

The Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 features a Chiclet keyboard with N-Key Rollover and Anti-Ghosting, with software-configurable RGB Gigabyte RGB Fusion LED lighting to customize the illumination of each key. It already comes from the factory with a configuration adapted to gaming, with the arrow keys illuminated in red, as well as different function keys.

We must say that the experience of using this keyboard is good, at least for my taste, although the large and separated keys are similar to the AORUS 15. In the same way we also have a numeric keyboard and a very striking screen printing with large characters. The F keys are full of typical secondary functions on a laptop and we also have the fan control on the Esc key, very interesting to modify the speed of the cooling system.

The touchpad in this case is a standard size of 10.5 x 7 mm and with a soft touch, very fast and with a somewhat hard click but that allows a forceful panel fixing to the laptop. We have the ability to perform gestures such as pinch to zoom and some more useful and according to the overall quality of the laptop.

Internal features and hardware

We leave the exterior behind to focus on the internal hardware of this Gigabyte Aero 15-X9. In this case we have the successful Intel Core i7-8750H of the Coffee Lake mobile family that so many teams mount today. A CPU with a TDP of just 45 W, 6 cores, 12 threads of processing, and a cache of 9 MB L3. Its base frequency is 2.2 GHz, reaching 4.1 GHz in Turbo Boost mode. The RAM configuration consists of 16 GB DDR4 at 2666 MHz in 8 GB SO-DIMM modules and Dual Channel configuration. In any case, the maximum capacity is 32 GB, so we can extend it when we want by acquiring new modules.

The storage section we liked a lot with an Intel SSD M.2 1 TB (1024 GB) under PCIe x4 interface and NVMe protocol that has provided us with a sequential read speed of 3000 MB / s. We have Intel Rapid Storage and Microsoft Azure technology. We will have the possibility of installing another M.2 unit in a second slot, so we have the possibility of expansion. In this case we do not have a 2.5 ”mechanical unit installed.

Last but not least, we have a novel Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q based on the characteristics of the desktop model, i.e. TU106 core with 2304 CUDA Cores, 288 TENSOR Cores and 36 RT Cores. The base frequency of the GPU is 885 MHz and can go up to 1185 MHz in turbo mode, significantly lower registers than those of desktop cards and that are the differentiating element between both platforms. Thanks to this reduction, we have a performance of 70% compared to desktop cards consuming only 1/3 of energy. Similarly, we will have a quantity of GDDR6 memory from 8 GB to 14 Gbps and a 256-bit bus width .

For the cooling system, a configuration of two Heatpipes that collect heat from the CPU and GPU has been used to redirect it to two side fans that will be in charge of sending the heat to the outside. Clearly it is a lower performance system than the AORUS 15 that worked like a charm. In this case we have considerably less noise and energy consumption, but the temperatures shoot up quite easily as we will see later. To finish we have a G-Style Li Polymer battery that provides an energy power of 94.23 Wh with its 6, 400 mAh.

Performance and storage tests

We start with the testing phase of this Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 where we will see what it is capable of, both in terms of processing and games, as well as storage and temperatures. All the tests have been carried out with the fixed power supply connected for maximum capacity.

We start with benchmark tests to the SSD storage unit you install. For this we have used the CristalDiskMark software in its version 6.0.2.

The sequential writing performance is very good, comfortably reaching 3000 MB / s, although it is true that in writing it remains only about 1500 MB / s and therefore far from the best models on the market.

We continue with the Cinebench R15 software, in search of the performance offered by the CPU of the Gigabyte Aero 15-X9.

We continue with the 3D processing performance of this RTX 2070 Max-Q, for this, 3DMark has been used in Time Spy and Fire Strike Ultra, in addition to PCMark 8.

The results obviously show the expected data, we have listed the last three notebooks analyzed with Nvidia RTX 2080, 2070 and 2060 cards. This Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 sits at intermediate performance with the AORUS right on its heels. They are spectacular results for a laptop.

We now turn to the gameplay section, where we have tested a total of 6 games with the new addition of Metro Exodus. For him we have put all the meat in the activated grill both Ray Tracing and DLSS in search of the performance it provides in a laptop like this, with full capacity of real-time ray tracing and deep learning.

The performance is very good, comfortably exceeding 60 FPS in almost all cases as expected. The 95 FPS obtained in Metro is interesting while waiting to test it in larger resolutions. With Ray Tracing in Ultra and DLSS they are very good results and even superior to the rest of tested games.

That yes we must say that 90 degrees in the CPU is reached quickly, and 86 in the GPU also, that it is a very high temperature and that it will not be advisable to play very long games without a support cooling system.

We quickly go to temperature tests to corroborate what was said previously.

With the system at maximum lap speed and AIDA 64 as stress software, it took 23 seconds to go from 37 degrees to 92 with Thermal Throttling activated four of the six cores. In the case of the graphics card while we have been playing Metro, we have risen from 35 degrees to 86 in a short period of time, staying at that level constantly. They are results that leave a lot to be desired and temperatures skyrocket very quickly, something to consider when using it for gaming. Without a doubt, the Max-Q design takes its toll on the Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 in this regard.

Gigabyte Control Center and Killer Control Center software

Gigabyte Control Center is the software par excellence of Gigabyte for the management of resources of our computer. In it we will have several sections with which we can modify parameters such as the use of CPU and graphics card power and a monitor to see CPU, Memory, GPU and hard disk usage. This software is not included natively on the PC, and we will have to download it for free from the website.

In the second section we can generate a panel of applications to access them directly. As in the third section, we will have access to most of the screen parameters, Wi-Fi, sound, etc., to activate and deactivate each one of them.

The fourth section is especially useful, to fully customize our keyboard both in lighting and functions. Also the fifth, for the personalization of the operating profile of the laptop's cooling system. Anyway, we can do little to avoid good warm-ups. Finally, with the last section we can check if there are updates for the hardware controls.

We will also have other software for managing the LAN and Wi-Fi, and in this case they do come natively available with the system. We have interesting utilities in this software in addition to the typical dashboard that monitors the state of the network.

We can customize the bandwidth used by the applications individually, in order to optimize their use, for example, for P2P download programs or for games. We will also have a Wi-Fi analyzer to select the least saturated channels and thus have the maximum bandwidth of our connection available. The graph will show all the networks that exist in the environment, we in the example are completely alone.

In the rest of the section we can activate a Game Fast mode to improve the performance of the connection in games, and other functions and settings related to our adapter.

Final words and conclusion about Gigabyte Aero 15-X9

Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 comes to market to expand options with available Nvidia RTX. In this case we have the Max-Q version of the RTX 2070 with remarkable performance accompanied by a Core i7-8750H CPU and an NVMe of no less than 1TB. It is a first level hardware as it is clear.

However, we must say that we expected a slightly better performance in terms of games and 3D processing. The problem of this equipment is the implemented cooling system, which we do not see at the height of the hardware, limiting its pure performance. Therefore we recommend acquiring an external cooling base to improve this section.

You can stop by our guide to the best gamer notebooks on the market

As for the aesthetic section, we liked it a lot, a fairly thin laptop and with measures very tight to its 15.6-inch diagonal. All this with only 2 Kg of weight, to provide a very good portability. And not for that reason we lack connectivity, since we have a very abundant and varied, undoubtedly highlighting the two USB Type-C, with DisplayPort 1.4 in one, and Thunderbolt 3 in another.

The screen is very good, a high-performance IPS panel with 144 Hz and Full HD will give us great image quality in games and multimedia content. As for the keyboard we have sensations similar to the AORUS 15, large and quite separate keys to which you have to get used to writing with ease. The touch on the pulsation is good and the lighting is outstanding.

This laptop will be yours for a recommended price of "only" 2600 euros, which we even see as normal due to the colossal figures that are being handled these days in laptops with RTX technology.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DESIGN AND PORTABILITY	- IMPROVABLE REFRIGERATION SYSTEM, BUT WE UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS VERY FINE AND SOMETIMES IT IS DIFFICULT TO REFRIGERATE WELL.
+ 1TB NVMe SSD	- PRICE
+ INTERNAL HARDWARE WITH RTX 2070
+ 144 HZ DISPLAY
+ ADVANCED MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

The professional review team awards him the gold medal.

Gigabyte Aero 15-X9

DESIGN - 87%

CONSTRUCTION - 89%

REFRIGERATION - 70%

PERFORMANCE - 87%

DISPLAY - 90%

85%