Gigabyte Aero 15 review: A spunky gaming notebook with a touch of elegance
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Performance benchmarks
Test setup and performance
We put the Aero 15 through our usual suite of gaming and performance benchmarks to see how it fared against the competition. For comparisons, we turned to other notebooks equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, such as the Aftershock S-15, ASUS ROG Strix GL502, MSI GS63VR 6RF Stealth Pro, and the refreshed Razer Blade.
However, other than the Blade that comes with the 7th-generation Intel Core i7-7700HQ (2.8GHz, 6MB L3 cache), the other notebooks are equipped with 6th-generation equivalents, so the numbers are intended as just a rough guide.
Here’s a list of the benchmarks used:
- PCMark 8
- 3DMark
- VRMark
- Ashes of the Singularity
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
- Tom Clancy’s The Division
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PCMark 8
PCMark 8 attempts to measure the real-world performance of various test systems by putting them through real-world programs and productivity applications. However, because it is reflective of the average workload of a typical user, it does not really highlight the strengths of the respective gaming systems.
The Gigabyte Aero 15 performed more or less in line with the other extra-slim notebooks, but it also managed to edge out the Razer Blade across the board, something it continued to do in our gaming benchmarks.
The Blade has a nearly identical configuration, so it’s possible that the slightly larger chassis of the Aero 15 allowed it to pack a more capable cooling system that enabled better performance.
3DMark
3DMark is far more relevant in assessing gaming performance, and it puts the system through a range of graphics and computational performance tests at different resolutions, starting at 1080p and going all the way up to 4K.
In 3DMark Fire Strike, the Aero 15 was around 3 per cent faster than the Razer Blade, and it maintained its razor-thin lead for the other 3DMark benchmarks.
Performance differentials with respect to the other notebooks were also minuscule as expected, given that they are all equipped with the same GPU.
VRMark
Futuremark’s VRMark benchmark is designed to assess a PC’s ability to handle high-performance headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. If a PC passes the Orange Room test, it is ready for the latter two systems.
The Aero 15 passed the test handily, as did the other tested notebooks. It’s probably not worthwhile to quibble over performance differences either, since all the notebooks performed within a few percentage points of each other.
In other words, if your notebook’s got a GeForce GTX 1060, it’s pretty much ready for VR.
Ashes of the Singularity
Ashes of the Singularity is a demanding real-time strategy game that puts thousands of units on screen, and it’s capable of pushing even the most powerful GPUs.
The good news is that the GeForce GTX 1060 is quite capable of handling it at 1080p and High settings, netting you just over 50FPS. That’s not quite a blistering performance, but it is more than playable. The move up to Crazy settings will still get you a somewhat passable experience, but you take a 30 per cent performance hit.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Shadow of Mordor is starting to show its age, and even a mid-range GPU on a laptop can now take it on quite easily.
The Aero 15 went neck-and-neck with the Razer Blade, and also came within a few frames of the remaining contenders. Performance differences this small are hardly noticeable, and not worth picking at.
If anything, our benchmarks just serve to confirm that the Aero 15 is performing in line with the competition and living up to what the GeForce GTX 1060 is really capable of.
Tom Clancy’s The Division
Unsurprisingly, all the tested laptops were once again within a few frames of each other in The Division. The Aero 15 pushes out an average frame rate of over 60FPS at 1080p and High settings, further testament to its prowess at a 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution.
But given how similarly the Aero 15 performed compared to the other GeForce GTX 1060 notebooks, it’s clear that it’ll require more than good hardware to distinguish itself in a sea of laptops with near identical specifications.
At the end of the day, it’ll really come down to things like design, build quality and price to see if this notebook is a winner.
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