Gigabyte Aero 17 HDR XB
A powerful laptop built forfo both work and play, with highly effective cooling on tap if you need it
SCORE
PRICE £2,249 (£2,699 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk
The gap between gaming an and creative laptops is rapidly dwindling. After all, both benefit from a high-end multicore processor and supercharged graphics acceleration, and in either situation users will be willing to sacrifice slim dimensions for the sake of speed.
With the latest version of its Aero 17 series, Gigabyte has created what may well be the perfect example of a crossover device.
For this is a gaming laptop. Just look at the RTX 2070 Super graphics and the customisable RGB keyboard. Or take a gander at its sides and rear: these scream boy racer, with a mix of grey mesh fuselage, striking geometry and even a metal “number plate” that boldly states AERO. Heck, press the top-left button on the keyboard and you’re treated to the scream of extra-loud fans to squeeze that extra ounce of performance from the components within.
Yet it takes little to switch from gaming to professional mode. By the simple means of changing the backlit keyboard to plain white and choosing the quietest fan mode, the Aero 17 becomes a laptop that’s perfect for demanding creatives. With a tenthgeneration Core i7-10875H processor inside, Windows 10 Pro and a Pantone-calibrated display – as well as the guarantee of compatibility with leading creative software such as Photoshop and 3ds Max via Nvidia’s RTX Studio programme – this is a machine that could easily fit into the workflow of a creative studio.
Let’s ’ talk lk speed
Whether you need a quick k turnaround d on a render or smooth fra frame rates, , there’s no need to switch the fans into overdrive: this is a fast machine regardless. In our benchmarks, it returned an overall score of 222 with the fans on their normal settings compared to 229 with them switched on. Unless you crave the sound of jet turbines, the return isn’t worth the aural expense.
A glance at the graphs opposite will show that there are faster laptops out there, including the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 GX550LXS overleaf, but they’re also more expensive. If you need more power, you can always upgrade from the system on review (code: XB-8UK4130SP) to one with a Core i9-10980HK to match the Asus, but that will cost £4,499.
The phrase “diminishing returns” springs to mind, and a look at the Aero 17’s other key benchmark scores emphasise its power. A multicore result of 7,218 in Geekbench 5 shows the effect of eight cores, while a return of 3,372 in Cinebench R20 is again excellent for a laptop. That’s faster than a desktop PC with a 12-core
Xeon, albeit one based on Intel’s aged Ivy Bridge architecture.
Gigabyte helps to speed things along courtesy of a fast Samsung PCIe SSD. Sequential read speeds of 2,339MB/sec are right up there with the best, as are write speeds of 2,635MB/sec. The only downside to its i choice is its 512GB capacity; considering consider the greedy nature of many games, and c creative apps to a lesser extent, ext that is stingy. Luck Luckily, unscrewing the 14 Torq screws that secure the Aero 17’s metal base bas reveals a spare NVMe NV slot, making it pleasing pleasingly simple for anyone to add another drive. Whilst you’re there, you can also swap out the two supplied 8GB DIMMS for either a pair of 16GB or 32GB replacements. Few laptops offer such a simple upgrade path, and certainly not the Razer Blade 17 ( see issue 311, p54) or Apple MacBook Pro 16in ( see issue 305, p52).
Super accelerator
“Press the top-left button and you’re treated to the scream of extra-loud fans to squeeze out that extra ounce of performance”
One thing you can’t upgrade is the supplied graphics chip. The £4,499 specification I mentioned above also buys you GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max-Q Design graphics, but you must “make do” with a 2070 Super Max-Q in this more affordable specification. For most gamers, that should be an acceptable compromise. While you’ll struggle to run demanding games such as Hitman 2 at 4K – it stuttered to 10.9fps at our toughest settings, which include 2x super sampling, but managed 38.5fps once we reduced super sampling to 1x – you should see smooth results at 1080p. Keeping super sampling at 1x, Hitman 2 returned a 76fps average.
Less demanding games should reliably keep above 60fps at 4K. The Aero 17 returned averages of 114fps in Metro: Last Light and 144fps in Dirt:
Showdown, and the offscreen creen Car Chase benchmark chmark (part of the GFXBench FXBench suite) rattled d along at 326fps. Again, n, the Asus on the next page proved significantly ficantly faster in every y gaming benchmark, hmark, but that’s reflected cted in its price.
4K K screen
Gigabyte byte makes much of the e Aero’s 17in IPS
screen. With a matte finish, this non-touch panel has a professional air compared to the glossy displays of consumer laptops, and this is hammered home by the “Pantone certified” badge that sits beneath it.
Gigabyte makes an accompanying promise of calibration before Aero 17 laptops leave the factory, so it was no surprise that the panel performed so well in our technical tests: it covers 99.4% of the Adobe RGB gamut with 105.6% volume, with an average Delta E of 0.25 and a maximum of 0.58 (Gigabyte guarantees that every Aero 17 will have an average Delta E of less than one, which translates into perfect accuracy even for professional eyes). Add a blazing peak brightness of 560cd/m2 and a contrast ratio of 1,514:1 and you have what’s almost the perfect set of stats.
It also supports the VESA DisplayHDR 400 standard, which doesn’t mean that HDR content will look as amazing as on a top-end TV – you need support for the DisplayHDR 1000 standard for that – but does give it an immediate edge over other laptop displays. It’s backed up by excellent speakers too, which do full justice to film soundtracks.
Ergonomic excellence
I’m also a fan of the Aero’s keyboard. It doesn’t include a fancy mechanical action (if you want this, consider a member of the Gigabyte Aorus family) but offers plenty of travel and a solid feel to keys. As I alluded to earlier, it supports RGB backlighting, all controlled from the Gigabyte Control Center software, so you can switch from sensible white during work hours to pulsing rainbows at night.
Note that Gigabyte still includes a separate number pad too. While this delivers obvious advantages to anyone who enters data as part of their job, it also means that the main keys shift to the left. As such, it can take time for muscle memory to realise where you need to place your hands before you start typing – I made many typos at first. However, I soon got used to it, and it helps to have the width afforded by a 17in screen as Gigabyte still has room for large
Enter, Backspace and Space keys (along with separate cursor keys).
The touchpad is small by modern standards, but still pleasant to use thanks to a glass coating. This means that fingers glide that little more smoothly. Fans of Windows Hello should note the fingerprint reader embedded into the touchpad, while the best thing I can say about the webcam – situated just behind the power key in a raised area above the keyboard, and so in prime nosegazing position – is that it includes a privacy cover.
Tricked out
Another benefit of so much space is that Gigabyte doesn’t need to stint on connectors. The left includes an RJ-45 port (notably 2.5Gbits/sec rather than normal Gigabit speeds), a full-size SD card slot, two USB-A ports and a 3.5mm mic input along with 3.5mm audio out. Head over to the right-hand side and you’ll find an HDMI out, mini-DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 3 port and a final USB-A connector.
This is also where you plug in the beefy 230W power brick, and chances are that you’ll need to bring it with you on your travels. While a battery life of 5hrs 43mins is good by gaming laptop standards, that result came in our undemanding video-rundown test where we switch on Flight mode and set screen brightness to 170cd/m2 : start doing intensive work on this machine, or playing games, and you can cut that life expectancy in half.
Final say
All these component parts add up to a powerful, well-rounded and versatile laptop – but I suspect not one that will have Apple or Razer quaking in their designer boots. Sad as it is to say, the reason for this is style: while I actually prefer the Gigabyte’s no-nonsense design, it’s chunky and functional to the sleek sophistication of both those rivals. Nor does the Gigabyte Aero “brand” have the cachet of a MacBook.
The question then becomes whether that matters to you – and there’s nothing wrong with admitting it does, as we all like to make a good first impression. If not, there are many excellent reasons to choose the Aero over its rivals. By prioritising function over form, Gigabyte has produced a laptop that can satisfy the needs of demanding workers and gamers. It’s also the sort of hardnosed machine that you want to earn a few dents and prangs on the road to show that it’s been thoroughly used, as its creators intended. And it has a solid, all-metal frame that will take the punishment. As such, the Gigabyte Aero 17 is a machine that I would happily take into battle above its more stylish rivals. TIM DANTON
SPECIFICATIONS
Hexa-core 2.3GHz Core i7-10875H processor
16GB DDR4-2993 RAM 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q Design graphics
17.3in non-touch IPS display, 3,840 x 2,160 resolution 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD 720p webcam 2x2 802.11ax Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5 Thunderbolt 3 HDMI 2 mini-DisplayPort 1.4
3 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 2.5Gbits/sec Ethernet port SD card slot 3.5mm jack 94.2Wh battery Windows 10 Home 396 x 270 x 21.4mm (WDH) 2.5kg 1yr limited warranty model number: XB-8UK4130SP