AERO 15-Y9 LAPTOP REVIEWED
THE FIRST OF THE RTX-POWERED NOTEBOOKS IS HERE!
THE AERO 15 range has traditionally packed the most powerful PC components it could into an ultrabook form factor, but it always left the most powerful components to the company’s sister gaming brand, Aorus. In 2019 the Aero 15 has smashed through this barrier, adding a Core i9/ RTX 2080 configuration to the Aero 15 range and another thousand dollars to the price of this top-of-the-line model.
BREATH OF FRESH AERO
The 2019 Aero 15’s flagship feature is definitely the new notebook RTX GPUs from Nvidia. The RTX 2070 or 2080 configurations introduce a new type of real-time light rendering to games that drastically changes how shadows, reflections, refractions and light diffusion are created and displayed. This effect is only available on a handful of current titles and the difference is subtle in most circumstances, however this lighting protocol is already widely used to create more authentic looking cut-scene shots and it won’t be long before RTX capabilities are a must have feature for high fidelity gaming.
At the moment real-time ray tracing is really just on the cusp of being possible for the most powerful graphics cards using ‘Ultra’ settings at anything above FullHD resolutions, so Nvidia has also introduced Deep Learning Supersampling or DLSS to help reduce the GPU load. DLSS is basically machine learning software that looks at high resolution game screenshots and converts them to lower resolution (say 1080p) screenshots in order to build efficient algorithms that reverse engineer 4K content from lower resolution footage. This AI upscaling frees up a lot of spare GPU space to help offset the additional demands of ray tracing, but the machine learning algorithms still have a lot of optimisation before this trick looks good enough to counterbalance the fidelity loss.
Another noteworthy feature is the introduction of Microsoft’s Azure AI power management system. Many gamers will know how to optimise their PC’s performance by tweaking clock speeds or just toggling between performance and balanced power modes, but Gigabyte is hoping to squeeze a little more out of this process with the help of machine learning.
In theory the Azure AI system should learn how much power each component requires for particular tasks and will, over time, deliver the ideal amount to each processor. Eventually the system should learn to use power more efficiently, allowing it to extend battery life and, surprisingly, boost performance.
We were able to get 15% frame rate increase in Middle Earth: Shadow of War while using the cloud-based AI optimisation, despite only seeing an increase of a few percent in more straightforward processor benchmarks. The AI power management system seems to show the biggest improvements in complicated processes like games that use lots of different systems simultaneously. It still feels a little like voodoo magic right now as there aren’t many details on it, but you can’t argue with the benchmark results.
CONFIGURATIONS
The Aero 15 has two main variations, the X9 which features a Nvidia RTX 2070, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe SSD, or a Y9 which gets the bigger RTX 2080, 32GB of RAM and a 2TB PCIe SSD. While both these units can be configured with either an Intel Core i7-8750H or a Core i9-8950HK CPU, the X9 is only available as a Core i7 locally. You can also choose between a 15.6-inch FHD 144Hz IPS display or a 15.6-inch UHD 60Hz IPS display, depending on whether you prefer resolution or responsiveness in your games. The cheapest configuration comes in at $3,599 while you can fork out up to $5,899 for the most expensive models.
AIR-TIGHT PERFORMANCE
While we saw a difference in graphical performance between the Y9 and the X9, there was minimal difference between the two CPU configurations in general computing tasks and CPU stress tests. It costs $1,300 to add a 4K screen and Core i9 CPU to the Aero 15 Y9, but this only nets a maximum 7% performance boost over the i7 model on every CPU benchmark we ran – with some results even showing the i7 ahead by 4%. This is a pretty clear indication that the Aero 15 doesn’t have the cooling infrastructure to utilise anything more than the Core i7-8750H, so we’d recommend not throwing money away by getting the Core i9 model.
We’re also on the fence about the additional GPU grunt in the Gigabyte Y9. In the most demanding 3DMark graphics benchmarks we saw a mark up of between 15.6% and 12.6% on the i9 unit, but when it came to real world gaming this fluctuated considerably more. So While we were able to get an 8% framerate improvement in Total War: Warhammer II, on The Division, Far Cry Primal, Ghost Recon Wildlands, and Middle Earth: Shadow of War, the framerates on the X9 using an RTX 2070 were, at most, 5% behind the Aero 15 Y9’s 2080.
BATTERY
Considering the last Aero we tested had a Core i7 CPU and a Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU, 1080p screen and the same size battery, we were expecting the lifespan to take a hit. That said, we weren’t expecting the 2019 Aero 15 to drop close to two thirds of its predecessor’s battery life even if they have 4K screens. The 1080p display variations won’t be anywhere near as bad, but the Y9 and X9 Aero 15s we tested netted only 3:31 and 2:47 hours in 1080p movie playback using the native 4K resolution at 50% brightness.
The Aero 15 X9 is the first RTX unit we’ve tested and it sets an extremely high benchmark for any other manufacturers to try and beat this year. Unfortunately Gigabyte has overextended itself by trying to accommodate RTX graphics cards and an Intel Core i9 CPU, which just don’t have the cooling capacity to really utilise these more powerful components. It’s unusual for two models to have such differing results, but these two devices really are night and day when it comes to performance and value for money. If we could split these two reviews, the Aero 15 Y9 would get a 3/5 while we’d give the X9 a 4.5/5, with its only fault being a considerable hit in battery life.
WE WERE ABLE TO GET A 15% FRAME RATE INCREASE IN MIDDLE EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR WHILE USING THE CLOUD-BASED AI OPTIMISATION, DESPITE ONLY SEEING AN INCREASE OF A FEW PERCENT IN MORE STRAIGHTFORWARD PROCESSOR BENCHMARKS.