You will have a difficult time finding a portable workstation as powerful as the Gigabyte Aero 17 (2021), one of the first laptops to be released this year with the new mobile Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs. It’s simply one of the top laptops available right now for graphic design and video editing.
The Gigabyte Aero 17 provides creative professionals with exceptional performance starting at a midrange price and scaling up to one of the most powerful mobile workstations for graphics cards, video editing, and 3D rendering we’ve seen thus far, all while keeping the price from absolutely running away with all of your money.
It does this by pairing a powerful, 10th-gen Intel Core i7 or i9 CPU with the most recent RTX 3060, RTX 3070, or RTX 30 Although it is clearly not an Ultrabook, this device is amazingly slim considering the amount of hardware it contains. While it is not as portable as some of its competitors due to its weight, it may still fit easily under your arm as you travel around the house or office.
Design
The Gigabyte Aero 16 is completely different in appearance from the company’s earlier all-black models. Still understated in appearance, it boasts a silver chassis with a black keyboard and trackpad for some contrast. When the laptop is turned on, the Aero logo on the lid lights, matching the all-white illumination behind the keyboard.
The 720p webcam is housed in a type of reverse notch that protrudes from the lid and makes it simple to open the laptop. For a 16-inch laptop with a discrete GPU, the system is relatively thin (0.88 inches). It measures 5.07 pounds in weight.
Keyboard and Touchpad
Even though they aren’t very stunning, the Aero 16’s cheap keyboard and touchpad are reliable. The keys seem to hover only a hair above the body, yet they actually go a remarkable distance. We enjoy a laptop keyboard with long travel, but the Aero 16 has a hollow, almost spongy sensation.
We are delighted with the quality and never had any problems typing, but we like the keyboards on the XPS models from Dell and even the one on the Razer Blade 15. The trackpad isn’t really exciting. We were able to navigate webpages and different windows using gestures because it supports Windows Precision drivers. The Aero 16’s trackpad is functional and does the job, but it can’t compete with the MacBook Pro’s luxuriously huge trackpad.
Display
The Aero 16 joins a select group of laptops, like the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED, that have received the Display HDR 500 True Black certification from VESA. OLED is the secret phrase. The OLED display on the Aero 16 is incredibly brilliant and vibrant and has genuine black levels.
Gigabyte claims that the 16:10 display’s 3,840 x 2,400 resolution fully complies with the professional DCI-P3 colour scheme. However, my colorimeter only detected 73% of DCI-P3. Even stranger, the display was factory calibrated by Gigabyte, however in my initial tests the calibration drastically changed the colours. The display reached a Delta-E value of 1.5 after we switched back to the default colour setting, which is acceptable for colour work.
Audio
The audio output from the mics is also below par. They make voices sound like they are underwater while trying to block out background noise. Even worse, the mics picked up the fan noise. Remember that this is the sound of rotating fans, not fan noise.
Graphics and Gaming
With an Intel Core i7-12700H processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU, we evaluated the Gigabyte. In spite of the Aero 16’s appearance as a workplace laptop, we examined the device as a gaming laptop due to its potent specifications and aggressive marketing. However, Gigabyte’s version of this GPU, which comes with 8GB of GDDR6, has a max graphics cards power of just 105W, which is significantly less than some gaming laptops. This could account for some performance concerns we encountered, particularly at 4K.
The beginning section of Grand Theft Auto V had a lot of screen tearing and a slowdown throughout when we played it on Very High. The game itself appeared flawless on the screen, however it didn’t quite function perfectly with the default settings. The slowing halted even after we reduced MSAA from 6x to 4x in order to lessen the stress on the machine, but the stuttering persisted. Performance ranged between 40 and 50 frames per second at this configuration, where we was using 100% of my GPU and 70% of my VRAM.
Performance
The Intel Core i9-12900HK processor, which is unlocked, is the highlight of the Aero 16. It has 14 cores, 20 threads, and a maximum boost speed of 5GHz, which is a tremendous speed for any laptop. The version in the Aero 16 stands up; we’ve only had a chance to evaluate this chip in one other laptop, the MSI GE76 Raider.
The Aero 16 performed nearly indistinguishably from the Raider GE76 in all of the benchmarks we ran. The CPU is pushed to its absolute limits in Cinebench’s multi-core test, which is the lone exception. The Aero 16 displays its form-factor-related power limitations by failing before the Raider GE76.
When compared to AMD, Intel is far superior. It doesn’t feature the top-tier Ryzen 5000 mobile CPU, but the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Pro is so far behind the Aero 16 that it hardly counts. However, AMD’s Ryzen 6000 mobile CPUs could restore Team Red’s lead if they become available.
Battery Life and heat
The battery life of the Aero 16 is insufficient. For any serious work, it is advisable to leave it plugged in; only for quick and simple tasks should it be removed from the charger. The largest battery you can take on an airplane, a 99-watt-hour battery, comes with the Aero 16. However, it is still inferior to machines for quick and easy jobs. However, it is still inferior to machines using the same hardware.
In our web browsing test, the Raider GE76, which serves as a benchmark for 12th generation Intel CPUs, lasted about 6 percent longer. The Aero 16 took only three hours and 11 minutes. The Aero 16 performed poorly in our local video playback test, lasting only four hours and one minute. If battery life is an issue, Apple is the better choice. The MacBook Pro with M1 Pro lasted an impressive 23 hours in this test.
Price
The MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro, however, is what makes this situation unique. The Aero 16 we evaluated is around $2,000 more expensive, thus the M1 Pro is incredibly close in comparison. Even though the M1 Max version is about $1,000 more expensive, it is far superior to anything else. In terms of pure CPU performance, Apple is currently quite appealing.
Pictures are a another matter. In contrast to the Aero 16, the MacBook Pro does not support discrete RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards. Since the Aero 16 is an Nvidia Studio laptop, it updates with Nvidia Studio drivers tailored for creative applications rather than the GeForce drivers you’d find on gaming laptops.
Conclusion
If the Aero 16 we tested is within your budget or your employer’s and you work in a creative field, then we can easily recommend it as a workhorse. The display is brilliant, and performance for non-gaming tasks is good. However, if you’re looking for a gaming laptop that impresses with its performance for both work and play and uses the latest generation of Intel chips, we’d wait until more laptops hit the shelves.
