The Aorus 17 is Gigabyte’s new high end gaming laptop, featuring an 8 core overclocked
CPU and RTX 2080 graphics, so let’s check out how well this beast performs in 20 different
games at all setting levels and see how it compares with some other gaming laptops.
I’ve got the highest specced version of the Aorus 17 which includes 8 core overclockable
i9-9980HK CPU, 200w Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics, 17.3” 1080p 240Hz screen and 32gb of memory
in dual channel. You can find other configurations and updated prices linked in the description.
The Aorus control center software allows us to either run with the Intel graphics using
Optimus, or instead use the Nvidia GPU only which should boost performance. I’ve tested
all games without Optimus for best results.
The control center software also lets us pick between 6 different CPU power levels and 2
for the GPU. I didn’t find these modes to apply any overclocking to either the CPU or
GPU, however by default all cores were already overclocked to 5GHz, otherwise I just found
the CPU options to adjust max power limit.
I’ve used the highest settings for best performance along with max fan speed.
We’re only covering gaming performance here, so if you’re new to the channel you’ll
definitely want to get subscribed for the thermal testing and full review videos where
I’ll cover everything. We’ll start off by going through all 20 games at all setting
levels, then afterwards we’ll see how the Aorus 17 compares with some other laptops.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode. I’ve got RTX on shown by the green bars,
and RTX off shown by the purple bars. It’s pretty rare for us to see a good playable
frame rate with RTX on at ultra settings in this test, but the 2080 is able to average
60 FPS here which is a good result. With RTX off though even the 1% low at ultra settings
was higher than the average with RTX on, so much higher performance is possible without
it.
Control was tested by running through the start of the game, and again I’ve tested
both RTX on in green, and RTX off in purple. Despite using the highest RTX settings available,
it was still pretty playable, with medium settings almost averaging 60 FPS. Although
RTX does actually look quite nice in this game, I found the higher FPS from RTX off
much better when getting into fights.
Borderlands 3 was tested using the game’s built in benchmark tool, and out of the laptops
I’ve tested with so far generally it’s quite hard to hit above 60 FPS with max settings
in this test, but the Aorus 17 is achieving it flawlessly.
Apex Legends was tested with either all settings at maximum, or all settings on the lowest
possible values, as it doesn’t have predefined setting presets. Over 200 FPS was being hit
at minimum settings, while even maxed out it was still playing extremely smoothly.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, and these are some
of the best results I’ve ever seen from this test, but we’ll compare this title
and more against some other laptops later.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint was also tested with the benchmark tool, and even very high settings
was averaging above 100 FPS, which is a great result for this title, even the highest ultimate
preset was offering playable performance.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built in benchmark, the results with this test don’t
tend to change too much with higher hardware, so while not appearing impressive the results
are fair for this title.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and as a less demanding game even epic settings
was scoring great results. Given we’ve got a 240Hz screen we can actually put it to use
quite well with the high setting preset, though low settings was scoring close to the screen’s
refresh rate for the 1% low which is very impressive.
Overwatch is another well optimized game and was tested in the practice range, again even
with the highest epic setting preset we can utilize the 240Hz panel quite well, with high
settings and below hitting the 300 FPS frame cap and achieving 1% lows that hit the screen’s
refresh rate.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and as a game that depends primarily on CPU
power the results are a nice step up over the 9750H laptops that I usually test as we‘re
hitting higher clock speeds here. Even max settings was scoring average FPS higher than
the refresh rate of the screen, with over 100 FPS for the 1% lows.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane, and as another primarily CPU heavy game the
results are some of the best I’ve ever seen from a laptop. To be fair though, they’re
not really that much higher than an i7 based laptop with lower tier graphics, so there’s
definitely diminishing returns at play for this game.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark. Even the maximum ultra setting
preset was able to hit 140 FPS for the 1% low and that’s with a 100% render scale,
so another game that should play very nicely on this machine.
Metro Exodus was tested using the built in benchmark, most parts of the game perform
a fair bit better than this, so don’t take these results as a good indication of what
to expect throughout the entire game, it’s more of a worst case.
The Division 2 was also tested with the built in benchmark, again impressive results, scoring
over 100 FPS at the max setting preset isn’t an easy task in this test, and almost 200
was hit at low settings.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and the results were a little lower than I
expected considering I’ve tested a few i7 based laptops lately that could hit 150 FPS
at low settings. Regardless the results are still quite good here, especially with ultra
settings.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark, and as this is more
of a CPU demanding test the results here are quite good thanks to the overclocked 8 core
CPU. Even with this top tier hardware we’re only just able to get above 60 FPS maxed out,
though to be fair it doesn’t need super high FPS to play, plus much higher was achievable
with lower settings.
Watch Dogs 2 is a resource heavy game, but I think it still plays fine with a stable
30 FPS, so considering that we’re smashing this at ultra settings it’s playing very
well without any issues whatsoever.
The Witcher 3 was playing well even with ultra settings, despite it being a step down in
FPS compared to high settings and below. 120 FPS for the average is plenty for this title,
so no issues running it maxed out on the Aorus 17 with these specs.
F1 2019 was tested using the game’s benchmark tool, and it’s a similar story to the witcher
3 in the sense that the highest setting preset was a fair step back compared to the others,
but realistically the performance is still great anyway.
Strange Brigade was tested with Vulkan using the game’s benchmark tool. This test generally
runs very well on any modern hardware, so when combined with these top end specs we’re
getting extra high results.
Let’s also take a look at how this config of the Aorus 17 gaming laptop compares with
other laptops, use these results as a rough guide only as they were tested at different
times with different drivers.
I’ve tested Battlefield 5 with ultra settings and I’ve got the Aorus 17 highlighted in
red near similarly specced machines. In this test it’s well above most of the machines
I’ve tested, and closer to the other high specced laptops that also have the 2080. The
ASUS mothership actually has the same CPU and GPU, however the Mothership is doing better
as the cooling there is next level.
These are the results from Shadow of the Tomb raider with the built in benchmark at highest
settings. Again the Aorus 17 is ahead of most laptops tested due to the high end specs,
and it’s not far below the other high end machines that I’ve covered on the channel
in the past, I guess it really goes to show what the 200 watt RTX 2080 can do in a laptop.
Here are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built-in benchmark. This time
the results from the Aorus 17 were much lower compared to those other 3 machines ahead of
it. I’m not exactly sure what the issue was, but I triple checked the results, and
while it is still a good result it’s more inline with other lower specced laptops.
As expected the gaming performance from the Aorus 17 in this highest YA configuration
is performing extremely well. The 200 watt RTX 2080 puts it on an entirely different
level when compared to even expensive 2080 max-q laptops.
The specs are actually good enough to take advantage of the 240Hz screen in many cases,
granted this is typically with more esports titles, but not being limited to minimum settings
to surpass 200 FPS was nice.
There are definitely some compromises to be made with a machine like this, mainly in terms
of size, battery life, portability and price. Although it’s closer to the desktop replacement
side than laptop, I found the Aorus 17 more portable than the ASUS Mothership, MSI GT76,
or Alienware 51m. Don’t get me wrong it’s still thick, but yeah it didn’t seem quite
as bad in that regard while still offering high levels performance.
I’ll be testing thermal performance in the next detailed video, so if you’re new to
the channel consider getting subscribed for that as well as for future tech videos like
this one.