Gigabyte’s Aero series laptops have been my go-to for a few years for people that do
a mixture of content creation and gaming, so let’s check out the differences in the
new 2021 Aero 15 and see what improvements have been made.
Thanks to Newegg for sponsoring this video.
New Australian customers can get a $65 gift card when spending $650 or more on their first
purchase!
Despite living in Australia, I buy from Newegg in the US all the time as they've got such
an extensive range of products. Whether it's laptops or PC parts, they're usually cheaper
than buying locally even after taxes, which the Newegg site conveniently includes in their
pricing.
I’ve found Newegg’s shipping to b e fast and fairly priced, despite tech coming from
overseas. You can check out their offer with the sponsored link in the video description
below, and now back to the Aero 15 review, updated pricing of which can also be found
on Newegg with the links down in the description.
My config has an 8 core Intel processor, Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics, 32 gig of memory in dual
channel and an OLED screen.
The Aero 15 has a smooth matte black finish both on the lid and interior, with a subtle
new pattern towards the bottom of the lid. Overall build quality feels great as it’s
mostly aluminium, and there aren’t any sharp corners or edges, but these are plastic.
The laptop alone weighs just over 2.2kg or 4.9lb, or around 3.2kg or 7lb with the 230
watt brick and cables.
The new 2021 model has the same dimensions as last gen, so just 2cm thick and fairly
portable considering the specs inside.
The Aero has a 15.6” 4K 60Hz AMOLED display, and like I’ve said in the past, this thing
looks amazing, but there is also a 1080p high refresh rate option for gamers. It comes X-Rite
pantone calibrated with a Delta E less than 1 out of the box, so quite accurate and with
high colour gamuts. It can get fairly bright too at over 400 nits, which we’re expecting
as it’s certified for HDR 400.
It’s not possible to disable optimus and there’s no G-Sync, but it does have resizable
BAR.
There’s no backlight bleed as OLED panels don’t use a backlight, each pixel is individually
lit.
The 720p camera is under the screen, and there’s no Windows Hello support.
So as the camera is down the bottom it does kind of look up your nose a bit and there’s
no adjusting it, but it does have that privacy filter. Here’s what it sounds like to type
on the keyboard, and this is what it sounds like if I set the fan to full speed. So it’s
not doing a great job of isolating my voice over the fan noise.
The keyboard has per key RGB backlighting which can be adjusted between two levels by
holding the function key and pressing the spacebar. When you hold the function key,
the keys that have a secondary function change to white. This works great if you’ve got
the keyboard lighting off, but with the keyboard lit up it can be harder to tell which keys
have changed to white. Like previous Aero models, unfortunately secondary key functions
are not illuminated, I really hope this is something they improve for the upcoming 11th
gen version.
Typing otherwise worked fine, the keys have a subtle clicky feel, here’s how typing
sounds to give you an idea of what to expect.
The power button is separate to the keyboard and above it in the center, and there appear
to be some small air vents back there too.
The precision touchpad is excellent, it’s super smooth to the touch and works well.
There’s a fingerprint scanner in the top left corner which I found to work fast and
accurately.
Fingerprints and dirt show up easily on the black finish, but they’re easy to clean
off the smooth surface with a microfiber cloth.
On the left from the back there’s an air exhaust vent, HDMI 2.1 and mini displayport
1.4 outputs, USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A port, 3.5mm audio combo jack, and a 2.5 gigabit ethernet
port.
The right has two more USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A ports for 3 in total, a Type-C Thunderbolt
3 port, full sized UHS-II SD card slot, the power input, and there’s an air exhaust
vent on this side too.
The Type-C port cannot be used to charge the laptop, and it connects to the Intel integrated
graphics, but the HDMI and Mini DisplayPort outputs connect directly to the Nvidia discrete
graphics.
The ethernet cable might get in the way if you’re left handed as it’s towards the
front, I guess there’s not much space with the air exhausts on either side, personally
I prefer bulky I/O out the back and out of the way.
There are two air exhausts on the back too, and unlike the old model, the Aero logo doesn’t
light up, which seems preferable from a battery life perspective. The front just has a groove
for getting your finger in for opening the lid.
It’s easy to open up with one finger as it feels well balanced, and it sits fine on
my lap. Screen flex wasn’t too bad and the hinges felt fairly sturdy, though the screen
did still have some wobble to it.
Keyboard flex was on the lower side, the chassis felt quite solid.
The Aero logo on the back lights up white, as the OLED panel doesn’t have a backlight
it must have it’s own dedicated light, I didn’t see an option for turning it off.
Underneath there are plenty of air vents towards the back half of the machine.
Getting inside was very easy, just take out 12 TR6 screws of same length and pry off the
bottom panel.
Inside we’ve got the battery down the front, an M.2 slot to the left of the battery and
the other just above the battery on the right. The WiFi 6 card is just above the M.2 drive,
and the two memory slots are towards the center.
The two speakers are on the left and right sides towards the front, I thought they sounded
adequate, around average to perhaps a little above average. They were loud enough at max
volume and still mostly clear without really any noticeable bass, and the latencymon results
looked alright.
This new 2021 Aero has a larger 99Wh battery compared to the 94Wh that it’s had for the
last few generations, a welcome improvement. I’ve tested it with keyboard lighting off,
background apps disabled and screen set to 50% brightness. It almost lasted for 7 hours
in the YouTube playback test, and 2 hours exactly for the gaming test, so a good result
for gaming, but not great compared to alternatives otherwise, but that said it was lasting longer
compared to the older 94Wh Aero models I’ve tested.
The Control Center software also lets you set the maximum battery charge level between
60 and 100% to help improve the lifespan of the battery.
Let’s check out thermals next.
The Gigabyte Control Center software lets you modify the CPU and GPU power limits, 2
levels for the GPU, and 5 for the CPU. These can only be adjusted when plugged into power,
they’re greyed out on battery.
Now I found the 3070 in my Aero to run up to 105 watts in a GPU only workload with dynamic
boost, however when the CPU was also under load the GPU maxed out at 75 watts, so a 30
watt range for dynamic boost.
The software also offers different fan profiles, quiet, normal and gaming modes, plus there’s
also a ton of granular fan control so you can get optimal performance. It’s also possible
to max out the fan speed by simply holding the function key and pressing escape, the
key with the fan icon.
The GPU is not overclocked, and undervolting did not appear possible, it was greyed out
both in Intel XTU and Throttlestop, and I couldn’t see anywhere in the BIOS to allow
it. Speaking of BIOS, there’s not too much customization available here.
The idle temperatures were on the warmer side when idling in my 21 degree Celsius room.
Stress tests were done with the Aida64 CPU stress test with stress CPU only checked and
the Heaven GPU benchmark run at the same time, while gaming was tested playing Watch Dogs
2.
The CPU was thermal throttling at 90 degrees Celsius, which I think is fine, Gigabyte have
had this limit on their Aero laptops for a while to prevent things getting too hot and
running higher. Many other laptops will happily limit at 95 or even 100 degrees. It was possible
to lower the temperatures quite a bit simply by setting the fan to max speed, and then
using a cooling pad also offered nice gains as there’s plenty of air vents underneath.
These are the clockspeeds for the same tests just shown. The GPU clockspeed was the highest
when both the CPU and GPU were set to the lowest amounts, and this is because dynamic
boost is able to push the GPU higher in this workload. The CPU speed improves going from
normal fan mode to max fan speed as this removes the thermal throttle at 90 degrees.
When we check out the power limits we can see the CPU was able to run at its full 62
watt limit with the fan maxed out, an impressive result given many other laptops do not allow
the processor to run this high in combined CPU plus GPU load. The tradeoff however seems
to be dynamic boost, when the CPU is using more, the GPU starts using less, at least
for this workload.
Here’s how CPU only performance looks in Cinebench with the GPU now idle. For some
reason the single core scores were better with the lower power limit modes, otherwise
multicore scores improved as a result of higher TDP.
I’m going to start moving over to the newer R23, as this is a much longer test and better
shows sustained performance over time. The scores were better compared to the Clevo based
XMG Pro 17 with the same processor, but not quite as good as the XMG Neo 15, otherwise
all the 8 core Ryzen options were offering better multicore performance with similar
single core scores.
Here’s how the Cinebench scores look when running on battery power. Compared to most
other laptops, the Aero isn’t doing great here. Both the single and multicore scores
are significantly lower when compared to similarly specced laptops.
When idling the keyboard was getting to the low 40s, warmer compared to most others I’ve
tested that sit at 30, but not a problem in practice. With the stress tests running it’s
at 50 in the middle now and warm to the touch. Normal fan mode was similar and hotter up
the back, but you don’t need to touch there anyway. Max fan speed was actually cooler
on the keyboard than running at idle, and the WASD area was cold, but as you’ll hear
next it’s a fair bit louder now.
Unfortunately my microphone wasn’t connected properly for these tests, which means that
you can’t compare how the Aero sounds to my other videos. You’ll instead need to
compare based on what the measurement tool is showing.
The fans were still audible when idling with the quiet fan profile, and remember it was
warmer here compared to most others. The quiet and normal profiles weren’t too loud even
with the heavy stress tests running. Gaming mode was a little louder, then max fan was
way louder.
Personally I think this is a good thing, because you get a much more granular level of fan
control, meaning that you should be able to find a noise level that works for you, and
this is much better compared to most other laptops that restrict you.
Now let’s find out how well the Aero 15 compares against other gaming laptops in games,
but use these results as a rough guide only, as they were tested at different times with
different drivers.
I’ve tested Battlefield 5 in campaign mode with ultra settings, and the Aero 15 is highlighted
in red. This is a very impressive result. The average FPS is about the same as the XMG
Neo 15 just below it which has a higher wattage 3070, but Ryzen 7 5800H processor. The 1%
low in particular is higher with the Intel based Aero, which I think is interesting given
the Aero can’t disable optimus while the Neo can. I believe this is because of Resizable
BAR, I’m currently working on a video comparing gaming performance with it both on and off,
so make sure you’re subscribed for that one.
The Aero moves down a few positions in Shadow of the Tomb Raider though. This test is more
dependent on the GPU, which is likely why the higher wattage Neo 15 is now 8% ahead.
Regardless, still a decent result from the Aero, and similar to many of the 2080 Super
Max-Q results, granted at the higher end out of the machines that I’ve got data for.
What I found most interesting was that the Aero with these specs was 15% higher than
the XMG Pro 17, the first laptop I’ve tested with 16gb RTX 3080 graphics. The unit I’ve
tested has a similar power limit, so I would have thought they would be closer together,
but that wasn’t the case.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the games benchmark tool. The Aero 15 lowered a few more spots
in this test. This is more of a processor heavy test in my experience, so other factors
like CPU power limits will have more of an affect here. Again it’s close to many of
the 2080 Super Max-Q laptops, though on the lower side of these results now. What I found
interesting here was that it’s still outperforming the similar wattage 3080 in the XMG Pro 17
just below it with the same processor, so just goes to show that in some games the difference
between a 3070 and 3080 isn’t going to be worth the extra price, it all comes down to
the power limits.
I’ve also tested the Aero in 14 different games in this video over here, so check that
one out if you want to get a better idea of how this laptop performs in games.
Now for the benchmarking tools, I’ve tested Heaven, Valley, and Superposition from Unigine,
as well as Firestrike, Timespy and Port Royal from 3DMark, just pause the video if you want
a detailed look at these results.
Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark. They recently updated this test,
so results are not comparable to my previous videos, and as a result I’ve got less data
to show, but out of the laptop selection I have tested it’s doing alright, granted
performance is in between two 4800H plus 1660 Ti machines.
Adobe Photoshop generally depends more on processor performance, and the i7 is in line
with many other laptops with similar 8 core Intel processors.
DaVinci Resolve is more GPU heavy, and the new RTX 3070 graphics is doing very well here,
only behind the higher wattage 3070 in the XMG Neo 15.
I’ve also tested SPECviewperf which tests out various professional 3D workloads.
I’ve used Crystal disk mark to test the storage. The 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD was performing
quite well. The UHS-II SD card slot was basically maxing out my V90 card when it came to read
speed, however writes were much lower comparatively, I don’t think this is a huge deal though,
as most people dump files onto the laptop rather than save to SD from the laptop. The
SD card sticks out, so you’ll have to be careful not to bump it.
Finally let’s discuss price, you can check the links in the description for updated prices,
as these will change over time. At the time of recording, the XC model with the same specs
I’ve tested here is $2200 USD, while the maxed out version is more at $3500.
Here in Australia we’re looking at $3600 AUD for the XC model, though this one has
less memory, storage and 144Hz screen instead.
Now let’s conclude by summarising both the good and the bad to help you decide if the
Aero 15 is worth considering.
Overall I think the Aero 15 is an excellent choice for content creators, mostly due to
the calibrated OLED display which I just love to work with. The high CPU power limits compared
to most other laptops is also a plus, and despite the GPU lowering back in some workloads
due to dynamic boost, overall performance was still pretty good.
Seriously Gigabyte if you’re listening let me know if you want to swap this for my older
Aero 15X.
Well, actually, maybe hold off until the keyboard is fixed, please just make all secondary functions
light up.
The battery upgrade over the previous Aero was nice, though compared to other laptops
the battery life doesn’t stack up too well, and performance on battery was lower compared
to most alternatives too.
For creators though, I think the OLED screen, SD card slot and Thunderbolt are a hard combination
to beat, and this is still what I would personally pick today if I was upgrading my older Aero
15X for content creation. I pretty much only use my laptop when I travel to make 4K videos
for this channel, and Gigabyte’s Aero series is still the best laptop for that task that
I’ve found so far, but I’m keen to hear what you think down in the comments, so let
me know what you thought of the Aero 15, and if you’re new to the channel then make sure
you get subscribed for future laptop reviews like this one.