Introduction, Design Features
If we had to collect one trait that PC gamers have in common, it’s competitiveness. That assign is keenly reflected in a marketplace for gaming notebooks, that continues to be a splendid mark in a PC attention as 2016 rolls to a close. One demeanour during a immeasurable array of models from Alienware, MSI, HP, Lenovo, and smaller vendors such as AVADirect and Origin PC, and it’s a transparent indicator that literally everyone is removing in a game.
We’ve reviewed several notebooks from Taiwan-based Gigabyte over a past few years, many of that finished it by a contrast with high marks. Standing detached from a container by being comparatively composed in terms of entrance (“black slab” is a Gigabyte laptop motif), a altogether peculiarity and opening of Gigabyte’s own-brand notebooks tends to be first-rate. But we consider there’s a reason Gigabyte doesn’t visually dress adult a machines: It leaves that pursuit for a group during Aorus, Gigabyte’s chosen gaming brand.
The Aorus X7 we’re reviewing in this essay is now in a sixth generation, so a “v6” after a name. This v6 indication is some-more than usually a record modernise with Nvidia’s new “Pascal” graphics cards, however (in a exam unit, a GeForce GTX 1070). This time around, a vital creation is a RGB Fusion keyboard, with any pivotal divided tractable to one of 16.7 million colors. After regulating it, we consider it’s one of this notebook’s best features.
Also in this era is an softened cooling system, as good as a 1440p (2,560×1,440 pixels, also famous as “QHD”) arrangement with support for Nvidia G-Sync. The latter is generally interesting, and something we’ve been watchful to see for a prolonged time. It’s good determined during this prove that a GTX 1070 can’t unequivocally widen a legs during 1080p, so a step adult to a 1440p shade is usually about a ideal compare for a turn of performance. (We’ll have some-more on that in a benchmarking section.)
The high-performance thesis continues with a Aorus X7 v6’s factory-overclocked Intel Core i7-6820HK processor, regulating during a peppery 4GHz; 16GB of RAM; and a 512GB SSD (supporting a PCI Express train and the NVMe protocol), paired with a 1TB tough drive. Packing that into a metal-covered framework that weighs usually 7 pounds—and measures underneath an in. thick—is an considerable feat.
There’s tiny doubt that a Aorus X7 v6 sets a standards high, yet it’s expected to do so during $2,699. That cost prove puts it right during a outdoor extent of what we’d spend for a GeForce GTX 1070-equipped notebook, as against to spending about 10 percent some-more for something with a some-more absolute GeForce GTX 1080. Value-wise, it’s in line with a competing Asus RoG G752VS OC EditionMSI GT73VR Titan Pro
. Let’s take a demeanour and see possibly a Aorus X7 v6 stands out adequate to tip those crafty early Pascal machines.
Design
The all-black Aorus X7 v6 has a challenging presence. Its bony extraneous is set off by a snarling behind empty vents, that demeanour something like a behind of a secrecy aircraft.
But what’s truly distinguished about a X7 v6 is a thinness, trimming from nine-tenths of an in. to an in. during a most. It’s officious skinny for a 17.3-inch notebook, let alone one that’s designed to residence top-shelf gaming hardware. It’s about a same breadth as a standard 17.3-inch notebook, during 16.9 inches, yet a 12-inch front-to-back footprint is a tiny some-more than average, we consider given of a additional cooling. The X7 v6 is rather heavier than a competing HP Omen 17
, during 7 pounds, yet it’s still comparatively light for a gaming notebook. (The MSI GT73VR Titan Pro, for one, is many heavier during 8.6 pounds.)
The X7’s slab-like framework is high-quality all a approach through. The extraneous is lonesome roughly wholly in black aluminum, with a prosaic anti-glare finish. The lid is stiff, and a bottom of a framework even some-more so. We could hardly get it to flex by rambling a corners with a hands (which should not be finished during home, by a way).
The lid can be non-stop one-handed yet a keyboard rug wobbling upward. Aorus’s soft-white, splendid trademark is laser-cut in a center. Immediately next a arrangement hinge is a core atmosphere intake, flanked by dual additional ones new for this v6 model. The shield-shaped energy symbol creates a solid, lawful click when pressed, and it glows white when a cover is powered up.
Something we immediately favourite about a Aorus X7 v6’s keyboard is a chain toward a front of a chassis. This means your hands don’t have to go as distant to strech it, yet it still leaves copiousness of room for a atmospheric reason pad in a palm rest.
The Aorus X7 v6 is a company’s initial era to underline a new RGB Fusion keyboards. This is a initial loyal foe we’ve seen to Razer’s Chroma keyboards, employed on a latest Razer Blade
notebooks. The keys on a X7 v6’s keyboard can be set to one of 16.7 million colors, a whole RGB spectrum. The keys can be divided controlled, or we can select from many pre-configured patterns in a pre-installed Aorus Fusion software, that we can see here…
We became generally lustful of “Fade on keypress”, that does accurately that. The smiles we could elicit from mouth-watering others to form something and watch any pivotal change to a pointless color, afterwards kindly blur away, never got old. We also enjoyed a keyboard’s “raindrop” pattern, where a keys wink on and off in opposite colors during random. The speeds and colors of a patterns are tractable in a software, as well.
The keyboard backlighting is splendid and sharp, seemingly manifest in a daytime. Also, a delegate black on a keys are backlit, distinct those on Razer’s RGB LED cover keyboards that we tested. The lighting is faintly manifest around any key, as well.
The keyboard has minimal flex. Although a transport is limited, a pleasing feedback is adequate. Each press requires usually a right volume of effort, with a rubbery yet quick response. The keypresses are good and quiet, as well. The one key-layout shade value observant has to do with a arrow keys, that are flush with a bottom dilemma of a categorical keyboard area and embedded in a surrounding keys. There’s no finger-feel idea that sets detached a arrow keys, and their placement truncates a right Shift and a series pad “0.” The rest of a keys are in their standard positions, and all are full-size, reduction a tip F-key row, and a nuances we mentioned.
Down a left dilemma of a keyboard is a mainstay of 5 by-pass keys. You can store adult to 5 dissimilar profiles opposite a Aorus X7 v6’s macro-key array. With 5 apart keys, that allows for 25 programmable macros. Pressing a “G” pivotal atop a mainstay cycles by a profiles. (The mainstay changes tone to prove that form is activated.) The macro editor we use in unison with these keys is sincerely basic, yet it gets a pursuit done. The settings for a keyboard lighting are also saved in a profile.
The abundantly sized reason pad is centered underneath a categorical apportionment of a keyboard, roughly in line with a spacebar. It has Aorus’ light-sensitive trademark pound dab in a middle. The anti-glare aspect is excellent, as is a unchanging clicking action. The clicks are usually hardly audible, and usually a tip one-quarter or so of a pad is some-more formidable to press than a rest. One surprising reason about a reason pad: When a cover is off, dire a reduce right dilemma of a pad illuminates a standing lights on a right side of a palm rest, with a 5 LEDs indicating how many battery assign remains.
Features
The 1440p arrangement quarrel on a examination territory is one of a Aorus X7 v6’s standout features. Although others are coming, it’s a initial 17.3-inch cover we’ve gotten into a labs to offer this arrangement resolution. Up until now, if we wanted a aloft fortitude than 1080p on a cover shade during this size, we were stranded with a vast burst to 4K (3,840×2,160 pixels). Pairing a GeForce GTX 1070 with a 4K arrangement isn’t a offset combo, given a 4K fortitude is usually too high for a label to hoop yet dropping a fact settings rather in today’s AAA titles, in many cases. You’ll need a GTX 1080 to single-handedly energy 4K gaming yet many compromise.
Adding to a fad of this arrangement is a 120Hz modernise rate, 5-millisecond (ms) response time, and Nvidia G-Sync support. Those 3 facilities sum interpret into an intensely well-spoken gaming experience. The GTX 1070 won’t normal tighten to 120 frames per second (fps) in many of today’s AAA titles during 1440p, during slightest with a fact settings cranked up, yet it can do good over 60fps, in many cases. Most cover arrangement panels tip out during 60Hz, so carrying a modernise rate aloft than that is practical, in this case.
In further to being good for gaming, a 1440p fortitude is a bonus for productivity. It has 78 percent some-more pixels than a 1080p display, clarification we can see that many some-more calm when browsing a Web, operative in spreadsheets, or print modifying yet carrying to corkscrew or wizz in. It’s also unequivocally useful for regulating dual windows side by side; we could fist in a third if we wanted, that is generally not unsentimental to do on a 1080p display. We found we could see a content yet regulating Windows 10’s content scaling to strike adult a rise size.
The arrangement doesn’t support finger-touch input, yet that’s not a underline unequivocally common on gaming notebooks, anyway. Instead, it has a reflection-quashing anti-glare surface, a useful assign on a cover that’s expected to be used underneath a accumulation of lighting conditions.
The altogether design peculiarity is good, yet this being a TN panel, it falls a bit brief when it comes to tone facsimile relations to an IPS panel. The Aorus X7 v6 is also accessible with a 1080p IPS panel, if design peculiarity is of a pinnacle importance. For gamers, a 1440p panel’s high modernise rate and low response time is substantially value a amiable trade-off. Both quarrel choices support G-Sync, and have an anti-glare surface.
We have dual misgivings, however, about a Aorus X7’s 1440p display. The some-more teenager of a dual is that, as a TN panel, it has singular observation angles. The plane observation angles are scarcely perfect, and there’s usually minimal exaggeration from above. From below, however, a colors upset and noticeably distort. We perspective this ailment as a teenager one given a arrangement looks ideal when slanted behind 45 degrees, as distant as a arrangement hinge will allow. In practice, usually if you’re really disposition behind in your chair would we notice any exaggeration from below.
The other emanate is specific to this 1440p display, during slightest a quarrel that came in a examination territory and in a second territory we examined that was in a hands of one of a colleagues during sister site PCMag.com. Every other quarrel of pixels looked rather darker, ensuing in a arrangement carrying a striped or banded demeanour when legalised closely. We indispensable to counterpart in tighten to notice it, and mangle out a magnifying potion to unequivocally see this in detail. Our eyes practiced after a few hours’ usage, and we had to combine to notice it afterward. We didn’t find that a pointed striping was conspicuous while personification games or examination video, either. But when we’re spending tighten to $3,000 for a notebook, we design perfection, or very tighten to it. And this issue, however slight, doesn’t concede a 1440p Aorus X7 v6 to live adult to that definition. (We didn’t have a event to inspect a 1080p version.)
When we contacted Aorus about a issue, association reps told us that a quarrel maker, AUO, pronounced a banding is a by-product of a production process, and not a defect, yet remarkable that AUO is operative on a issue. Aorus similarly pronounced a display-banding emanate won’t be an emanate on a X7 v6 down a line in a future, yet didn’t yield a date on when that would be. For business that find it to be a problem, Aorus accepts returns. Remember, a X7 v6 is accessible with a 1080p IPS display, so if you’re supportive to these kinds of things, we might wish to check that chronicle out. The 1080p quarrel won’t have a fortitude of a 1440p panel, yet it should have improved design quality, being an wholly opposite IPS panel.
The pier preference on a Aorus X7 is sufficient for a desktop replacement. The left side of a framework is frugally populated with a cooling empty vent, a Killer E2200 Gigabit Ethernet jack, curiously blocked-out HDMI and VGA ports (they are non-functional), a USB 3.0 Type-A port, apart microphone and headphone jacks, and a orator grille.
The right side starts with a together orator opening, followed down a dilemma by a full-size SD-card reader, USB Type-A 3.0 and USB Type-C 3.1 ports, and HDMI 2.0 and mini-DisplayPort video outputs. The fact a HDMI pier is chronicle 2.0 is notable, as it allows for 4K video outlay during 60Hz.
Besides a empty vents, a behind of a framework has a AC energy jack, and a third and final USB port, a Type-A 3.0 connector.
The Aorus X7 v6’s dual speakers furnish pleasing sound. They strike their extent after about 70 percent volume, yet crafty motorist optimization automatically levels a volume during that prove to forestall distortion. The plcae of a speakers, banishment out to a side from underneath possibly palm rest, allows for reasonable clarity. The speakers get shrill adequate to concede dual people watch a movie.
Intel Core i7-6700K
. Needless to say, perfectionist applications are this processor’s break food.
A good-enough 16GB of DDR4-2400 came pre-installed in a Aorus X7 v6, in a dual-channel pattern of dual 8GB SO-DIMMs. The memory is expandable to 64GB, pleasantness of a notebook’s 4 accessible DIMM slots. 16GB is what we design to see in a gaming notebook.
Upgrading a X7 v6 to get to those additional memory slots is a bit of an adventure, though. The bottom of a framework is reason on by no fewer than 12 star-shaped screws, all of that contingency come out. You’d also have to do that if we wanted to take advantage of a X7’s storage expansion. Our examination indication had a Toshiba 512GB M.2 PCI Express solid-state expostulate (SSD), ancillary a NVMe custom for quick reads and writes. It also has a 1TB 2.5-inch tough drive. There’s an additional PCI Express x4 container for M.2 Type-2280 (80mm in length) SSDs, and one some-more M.2 slot, yet that one “only” supports PCI Express x2 speeds. The latter is unequivocally designed to reason a Aorus X7 v6’s accessible hardware “live streaming” chip—a hardware accelerator that offloads a work of game-streaming to services like Twitch.tv. But Aorus told us that choice isn’t accessible in X7 v6 models shipping in a United States.
Thermals
Thermal government is always a plea in a gaming notebook, given a space constraints and a cooling final of a graphics chip. It gets even worse when cramming unequivocally high-powered components in a framework as skinny as a Aorus X7 v6’s.
The X7 v6 has dual fans total, one positioned during any behind corner. They empty prohibited atmosphere out a behind and to a sides. The cooling has been upgraded in this v6 indication contra prior iterations, with dual vast intake areas being combined above a top corners of a keyboard. The rest of a atmosphere intake comes from a vast opening around a energy symbol and grates on a bottom of a chassis.
In a march of bland usage, a X7 v6 becomes lukewarm during most, with a fans always regulating yet not quite conspicuous above ambient noises. Gaming changes a story a bit, with tools of a framework heating up, and a fan sound escalating. There’s some fan bemoan during top RPM levels. The fan sound isn’t during all overpowering, though, and while noticeable, it stayed within an excusable volume turn in a testing. We didn’t feel it would interrupt others sitting nearby, yet we substantially wouldn’t start gaming on a X7 in a recording studio or a library.
Another certain note to a X7’s fans is that they’re predictable. The fans don’t ramp adult quickly in RPM while quickly doing something intense. Provided you’re regulating bland tasks, we could use this cover in a still sourroundings yet fear that a fans will flog in and spoil it.
We available outmost aspect and inner member temperatures after a 30-minute gaming session, with a processor and graphics label during their factory-overclocked settings. The Core i7-6820HK surfaced out during 89 degrees C, while a GTX 1070 graphics label reached 78 degrees C. The CPU heat is on a high side, yet eventually next a thermal threshold. We’ve seen a GTX 1070 pull 90 degrees in some notebooks, such as Gigabyte’s possess P35X v6
, so a X7 v6’s comparably low heat is welcomed.
On a framework itself, many of a keyboard and surrounding area stayed in a mid-90-degree F range. That’s some-more than acceptable. The hottest partial was right around a energy button, that reached a still-moderate 107 degrees F. The underside of a cover became hotter, commanding out during 127 degrees F in a ubiquitous area underneath a energy button. That’s a bit too prohibited to lay in your lap, yet we unequivocally couldn’t diversion with this cover sitting on your lap, anyway; doing so would retard a fan intakes.
Aorus includes dual stick-on “feet” with a X7 v6, to be trustworthy on a underside of a chassis, usually inside of a dual behind rubber feet already on a bottom of a notebook. A tiny frame of 3M glue secures them. They column adult a behind of a cover off a table aspect by about a centimeter, and beneficially concede increasing airflow underneath a chassis. The feet can be folded to concede a cover to lay as it routinely would yet them.
To exam their effectiveness, we commissioned a feet after a 30-minute gaming session, and re-measured a temperatures after personification an additional 30 minutes. (All a while, of course, we insisted to government we were “working.”) To a surprise, there was roughly no change in heat on a outside, or for a processor and graphics card. Something we did notice, however, was that a X7’s cooling fans seemed to run reduction mostly during their aloft RPMs with a feet installed, revelation us a increasing airflow underneath a cover helped a cooling complement to get a airflow it needed.
We don’t generally design to be tender with a cooling systems on ultra-thin gaming notebooks. It’s singular that a multiple works out, yet it does in a box of a Aorus X7 v6. Its fans can be a tiny noisy, yet they positively keep a temperatures underneath control inside and out. Keep in mind that we did all a contrast with a processor and graphics label in their factory-overclocked states.