The Aero 15 X9 is a refreshed laptop from Gigabyte with Nvidia’s new RTX graphics,
but how well does it perform in games? I’ve benchmarked 13 different games at all setting
levels with both single and dual channel memory to show you how well it runs and help you
decide if it’s worth it.
Just quickly before we jump into the benchmark results I’ll cover off the specs in my unit.
There’s an Intel i7-8750H CPU and Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics. I’ll be comparing
this to the 1070 Max-Q in a future video, so get subscribed for that one. For the memory
my unit came with 16gb in single channel, but it’s also available with two sticks
in dual channel at 32gb so I’ve tested both configurations so that you can see the performance
difference and decide which to get.
I’ve tested with Gigabyte’s AI feature disabled, so it’s performing just like a
standard laptop, but I’ll investigate the performance difference with and without the
AI enabled in a future video. I was running Windows 10 with the latest Nvidia drivers
available from Gigabyte, so let’s see how well it runs!
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature. The graphs can be a little confusing when
there’s so much data, so I’ll spend some extra time covering this one. Basically I’ve
got the setting levels used along the side, so low, medium, high and epic settings. The
blue bars represent dual channel memory, while the purple bars show single channel memory.
While this game was easily playable at all settings with single channel memory, dual
channel was giving a 23% improvement to average FPS at epic settings.
Overwatch was tested playing in the practice range, and in terms of average FPS at epic
settings there was only a 7% improvement, however this was much larger at lower settings.
For example with low settings dual channel was averaging 37% higher average frame rates,
but again the game was easily playable at max settings with either configuration.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode and not in multiplayer mode, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run. I apologize for the rainbow colours, but there’s
not much you can do when trying to display so much information. In this case the purple
and green bars were tested with RTX on, and it wasn’t really playable at ultra or high
settings, with averages in the mid 30 FPS, medium and low were ok though, both averaging
above 60 FPS. In my personal opinion ultra settings with RTX off both looks better than
lower settings with RTX on and performs better too.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, and this test was
able to average above 60 FPS even with the highest settings in single channel, but going
to dual channel did improve average frame rate by 22%, with up to a 43% improvement
seen with the lowest settings.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical benchmark, and this test saw a huge difference between
single and dual channel memory. With all settings maxed out there was a 42% improvement to average
FPS with dual channel, shown by the blue bar right at the top of the graph.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark, and again there was a fair improvement
with dual channel memory here, though realistically very high frame rates from the X9 in either
case. At ultra settings there was a 35% improvement to average FPS with a dual channel memory
configuration, and interestingly the 1% low with dual channel was around the average FPS
from single channel.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the built in benchmark, and the results were quite decent
for this game, once again with a fair improvement from the dual channel configuration shown
by the blue bars. At ultra settings there was a 16% improvement to average FPS with
dual channel memory.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was another that was tested with the built in benchmark, and
although I don’t think this game typically needs a high frame rate to play, at ultra
high settings dual channel was improving average performance by 32%, with a smaller 15% improvement
to 1% low.
Watch Dogs 2 is a demanding game, but even with single channel at ultra settings I found
it playable, however we can significantly improve the average frame rate with dual channel.
At ultra settings there was a 38% improvement to average FPS, and a much larger 54% improvement
to 1% low.
Ghost Recon is another demanding game and was tested using the built in benchmark. At
ultra settings there was less of a difference to average FPS, but a fairly large 32% improvement
to 1% low, then the gap in average FPS between single and dual channel widens as we step
down in settings, presumably as these are more CPU demanding and this is where we tend
to see more improvement from the dual channel setup.
The Witcher 3 was tested with Nvidia hairworks disabled, and it played fine on the X9 with
either single or dual channel memory, even with ultra settings, although it was possible
to improve average frame rate by 22% with dual channel.
DOOM was tested using Vulkan, and this game generally runs quite well on anything. It
played very smoothly on either single or dual channel memory, however the 1% low of the
dual channel configuration is around the average FPS for single channel, a nice improvement.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and like most other games tested it was perfectly
playable with max settings even with the single channel memory configuration, however it was
possible to boost average FPS at ultra by 16% with dual channel memory in use.
The i7-8750H and 2070 Max-Q graphics are giving us pretty good results in these games, they’re
all easily playable with good settings no problem. The X9 version of the Aero 15 is
also available with an i9 CPU, so expect different results there.
As we have seen there is a fair difference between single channel and dual channel memory,
it really makes me wonder why they don’t sell it with 16gb in dual channel rather than
single channel only. Most of the difference in performance was due to that rather than
because one configuration had 16gb while the other had 32gb, you can check the card in
the top right for a video where I test single and dual channel memory with the same sizes
if you want to the difference with same sized memory.
Let me know what you guys thought about the performance from the Aero 15 X9 down in the
comments, and don’t forget to subscribe for the full review of the Gigabyte Aero 15
X9 laptop, AI and temperature testing, and of course future comparisons to see how the
2070 Max-Q graphics holds up against other options.