Best Gigabyte Aero 15X V8 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals & Sales 2020:

In just over a year, the Aero line of laptops has become the backbone of Gigabyte. Careful products, offering an excellent compactness / performance ratio and a high quality screen. This new generation of Aero 15 V8 (i7-8750H) does not revolutionize the formula, but welcomes for the first time an Intel processor with 6 cores.

Best Gigabyte Aero 15X V8 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals & Sales 2020

1. GIGABYTE Aero 15X v8-BK4 15″ Ultra Slim Gaming Laptop 144Hz IPS Anti-Glare FHD Display, i7-8750H, GeForce GTX 1070. 16G RAM, 512GB PCIE SSD, Metal Chassis, RGB Keys

2. GIGABYTE Aero 15W v8-BK4 15″ Ultra Slim Gaming Laptop 144Hz FHD X-Rite i7-8750H. GeForce GTX 1060, 16G RAM, 512GB SSD, Metal Chassis, RGB Keyboard

3. Gigabyte AERO 15-X9-RT5P 15″ Thin Bezel FHD 144Hz IPS, Intel i7-8750H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070. 2666MHz 16GB RAM, M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD, RGB Keyboard, Win10 Pro, 94Wh Metal Chassis Ultra Slim Gaming Laptop

4. AERO 15S OLED SA-7US5130SH [Silver] 15″ Thin Bezel Samsung UHD Amoled, i7-9750H, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. Samsung 16GB RAM, M.2 PCIe 512GB Intel 760P SSD, W10 Home, RGB KB, 94W Ultra Slim Laptop

5. GIGABYTE AERO 15-X9-RT5P 15″ Thin Bezel FHD 144Hz IPS, i7-8750H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070. 2666MHz 16GB RAM, M.2 PCIe 1TB SSD, 94Wh Metal Chassis Ultra Slim Gaming Laptop (Renewed)

Construction

For this new generation of Aero, Gigabyte set out to change the background, but not really the shape. In appearance, the PC is therefore very similar to the previous models, however it would be difficult to complain about it given the impeccable design and construction work carried out by the Taiwanese brand. The Aero 15X V8 (i7-8750H) is thus a notebook with a sober look, whose entirely black aluminum chassis shines by its discretion. The mat treatment on top and around the keyboard is quite effective, although fingerprints tend to persist.

Little fantasy here, except the Gigabyte logo backlit in white and the possibility of activating RGB on the keyboard. The latter occupies the entire length of the chassis, which makes it possible to benefit from a welcome numeric keypad. The typing is very pleasant: fairly long stroke, slightly concave keys, well present return … We can possibly blame him for the very small spacing of his keys, which requires a certain time to adapt. Nothing to say on the other hand on the touchpad, impeccably integrated, very slippery and very precise.

Very complete, the connectivity is also up to date, notably thanks to the presence of a USB Type-C / Thunderbolt 3 port and a UHS-II compatible SD card reader, allowing theoretical speeds up to 300 MB / s – an additional argument for photographers or videographers, who need to regularly download their files. In addition, there is a mini DisplayPort 1.4, an HDMI 2.0 output, a gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 3 Type-A ports and a combo jack.

More

On board the same graphics card as the previous Aero 15 X (2017) , but a new processor this time with 6 cores, the Aero 15X V8 inevitably heats and ventilates a little more, but it is still very contained and satisfying to look at the finesse of the PC. So after 1 hour of testing under Metro: Last Light, we find a hot spot of 54.1 ° C at the front, above the keyboard, and another at 63.5 ° C under the chassis. On the top, the heat is concentrated in very precise places and the keyboard always remains at an acceptable temperature. On the noise side, we noted an average of 46-48 dB. So we can distinctly hear the breath of the fans, but it remains fairly muffled and uncomfortable. It is still higher than that of the Aero 15 X (2017) which did not exceed 46 dB.

Note: you can open the Aero 15X V8 with a star screwdriver. Once the dozen screws are removed, you can easily add a RAM module thanks to the free space provided for this purpose or replace the SSD in M.2 format.

Screen

The screen has always been a highlight of Aero models and the new Aero 15X V8 is no exception. The major advantage here is the delicacy of the frame, which provides the slab with an occupancy rate of more than 80%. The IPS mat panel is therefore particularly well developed. It has a very correct contrast ratio (for mat) of 950: 1 and a good maximum brightness of 300 cd / m². The whole is therefore particularly legible.

Another strong point of this screen: its colorimetry, close to perfection. There is indeed an average delta E which stands at 2 (remember that delta E, which accounts for the difference between the colors displayed and the actual colors, is considered to be excellent below 3), as well as a very balanced color temperature of 6,700 K (the standard being 6,500 K). The color rendering is therefore particularly good, as is the gray gradient, thanks to a very stable gamma curve.

Finally, note that the screen of the Aero 15X V8 goes up to a refresh rate of 144 Hz and offers a very good afterglow rate of 11 ms, which is frankly good for IPS.

Performances

The Aero 15X V8 has the distinction of taking advantage of the brand new Core i7-8750H processor from Intel. With 6 cores / 12  threads , it has a base frequency of 2.5 GHz and a turbo frequency of 4.2 GHz, as well as a TDP of 45 W. This new generation of Coffee Lake CPU replaces the Core i7 -7700HQ that we still find a lot on laptops with a dedicated graphics card. In addition to this, in our test configuration, 16 GB of DDR4 RAM (2,666 MHz) and a 512 GB SSD from Toshiba.

Put to the test of our various benchmarks (3D calculation, audio and video conversion, file compression, photo editing), this Aero 15X V8 has a fairly clear power difference with a laptop PC equipped with a Core i7-7700HQ. This is particularly obvious on Cinebench (3D calculation), almost twice as fast here (38 s on the Aero 15X V8, against 56 s on an MSI GE72 Apache Pro with a Core i7-7700HQ). The video conversion under Handbrake is also particularly convincing: it goes from 92 s on the MSI GE72 Apache Pro to 70 s on the Aero 15X V8.

In short, the performance of this new Aero 15X is excellent and is getting closer and closer to what a good desktop PC can offer. Unsurprisingly, it gets 5 stars on this point; you will be perfectly at ease in a very wide variety of tasks.

Games

On the graphics card side, nothing has changed compared to the previous Aero 15 X (2017): here we are still entitled to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 “Max-Q Design”, with 8 GB of video memory. Running at an average frequency of 1,544 MHz, this GPU offers performance fairly close to that of a mobile GTX 1070. Unlike a PC equipped with a GTX 1080 Max-Q, which sees its clock frequency largely revised down, the GTX 1070 Max-Q is much less sacrificed on the altar of consumption and its performance is less restrained .

In addition to a very good power index of 122 (based on 3D Mark), we noted the following results in game (tests carried out in Full HD 1080p, maximum level of detail, Hairworks disabled for The Witcher 3 ): 60 images / second on Metro: Last Light , 69 fps on Rise of the Tomb Raider , 68 fps on The Witcher 3 , 78 fps on Star Wars Battlefront II and 53 fps on Assassin’s Creed Origins .

Mobility / Autonomy

In terms of measurements, the Aero 15X V8 does a little better than its predecessor, but the difference is slight. The whole remains very impressive anyway given the on-board configuration. Weighing 1.9 kg and 19 mm thick, the PC fits easily into a bag, charger included.

On the autonomy side, however, the finding is worse than on the Aero 15 X (2017) . By staying in the “normal” battery usage mode, our streaming playback test (Netflix in Chrome, brightness at 200 cd / m², keyboard backlight off, headphones plugged in) did not exceed 6 hours 22 minutes, against 7.5 hours earlier. Small disappointment, therefore, especially since Gigabyte announces more than 10 hours of use for its new model.

Audio

Concerning the sound, the Aero 15X V8 oscillates between the very average and the good. Here, it is the speakers who disappoint, delivering a sound barely worthy of a radio. Sufficiently distorted, the sound can become aggressive to the ear. To this must be added a very limited extension in the bass, so much so that even the low mids are almost non-existent. The intelligibility of the voices remains correct, however, and will suffice for voice communications. There are two small things to note. First, the location of the speakers under the PC contributes to this lower quality sound. In addition, the Dolby software installed by default is almost unusable, applying extremely unpleasant dynamic compression to the sound.

STRONG POINTS

  • New very powerful Intel Core i7-8750H processor.
  • Always as good at play.
  • Screen with impeccable colorimetry.
  • Thin and light set, with regard to the configuration.

WEAK POINTS

  • A little disappointing autonomy.
  • Keyboard keys very close to each other.
  • Heats a lot under the chassis.

CONCLUSION

Once again, this update to the Aero 15 X (2017) is a great success. Here, it is the very high-end which prevails, whether it is by the all-new 6-core Core i7-8750H processor, the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics card which has largely proven itself, or the screen 144 Hz with almost perfect colorimetry. The GigabyteAero 15X V8 is one of the best 15 inch notebooks on the market. A laptop ideal for both work and play.

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