New Gigabyte Aero 15

[Shortuse]

Was browsing Reddit and saw this beauty. After getting screwed over by Razer's CS this looks like a very tempting option for me. Can't wait to hear more about this on Monday which seems like the "official" release date. A pretty terrible rollout, the front page of Gigabyte's laptop page already is advertising an Aero 15 giveaway while they still have the countdown two clicks away from it.

 

Anyone else on here have additional details on this? 

[Pendragon]

Features look great. Wait for some reviews and teardown. If there's no glaring issue, it'll be okay. 

[Shortuse]

4 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Features look great. Wait for some reviews and teardown. If there's no glaring issue, it'll be okay. 

Yup very interested in the cooling system. In the video on the Newegg link the Gigabyte reps said it was a "content creating PC" rather than one made for gaming yet it has an RGB keyboard and a 1060. Well, either way I'm extremely interested in it especially if I could get an e-GPU running through thunderbolt. Would make a great workstation.

[Pendragon]

Just now, Shortuse said:

snip

EGPU is so flaky right now. If ur interested, there's tons of other forums dedicated to this. It's quite interesting. If u want a laptop to eGPU, macbooks are the most investigated and it seems like how apple routes their TB3 lanes on 15in mbp are more favourable arrangement at the moment. Also apparently, I thought I would never say this, but Razer has their shit together the most with their Razer Core. MOST other solutions need some huge firmware reworks because they aren't achieving full TB3 bandwidth. 

[D2ultima]

5 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

In the video on the Newegg link the Gigabyte reps said it was a "content creating PC" rather than one made for gaming

LUL no.

36 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

Was browsing Reddit and saw this beauty. After getting screwed over by Razer's CS this looks like a very tempting option for me. Can't wait to hear more about this on Monday which seems like the "official" release date. A pretty terrible rollout, the front page of Gigabyte's laptop page already is advertising an Aero 15 giveaway while they still have the countdown two clicks away from it.

 

Anyone else on here have additional details on this? 

Don't hold your breath.

 

I'd like to remind everyone that the Aero 14 with 6700HQ (far less 7700HQ which is decently hotter) with CLU on CPU & GPU barely handles stock performance under load, even propped up for better airflow. I understand the Aero 14 and Aero 15 are a bit different in size, but still, don't hold your breath. I don't expect it to properly cool a CPU-heavy, GPU-heavy game, especially with the stock gigabyte paste.

 

It might actually work for CPU-only loads if the heatsink is shared, but that's still a stupid kind of feature to call for design. You don't design a machine to only handle high CPU loads when a GPU is un-loaded and call it a content creation machine. Makes no sense.

 

Anyway, we'll have to wait and see, but let's be honest. If you must get a thin machine, GS63VR and Aorus X5 V(whatever the latest is) is most certainly what you want, if the P650Hx is "too thick" for you.

[Shortuse]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

EGPU is so flaky right now. If ur interested, there's tons of other forums dedicated to this. It's quite interesting. If u want a laptop to eGPU, macbooks are the most investigated and it seems like how apple routes their TB3 lanes on 15in mbp are more favourable arrangement at the moment. Also apparently, I thought I would never say this, but Razer has their shit together the most with their Razer Core. MOST other solutions need some huge firmware reworks because they aren't achieving full TB3 bandwidth. 

Yup still a very young and upcoming market. I am actually using a Razer Blade as a daily driver right now and it's great with amazing build quality for a Windows laptop but the QC and the fact that I've never heard of someone using a Blade without having to send it in for repairs at least once in the machine's life time is really off putting. On my second Blade and about to return it because of a damaged GPU and battery.

 

I've been debating whether or not to go for the Blade again and get a Core to pair with it being Razer Store exclusive sucks because if I have a problem the only people who can help me are the loons who work there. Thanks god I had enough sense to buy my Blade through Amazon or I would be in some deep trouble.

 

If the Aero has full TB3 compatibility I'm going to buy it in a hard beat and wait until another good eGPU comes to market. I'm still getting over the Dell XPS 15 not having deciding to only use two bandwith lanes but maybe it's for the best since I've heard about them having a lot of QC issues as of late also.

[Pendragon]

1 minute ago, D2ultima said:

I don't expect it to properly cool a CPU-heavy, GPU-heavy game, especially with the stock gigabyte paste.

LOL. I expect it to be barely usable after liquid metal. I just hope it's around the same range of temps to performance as gs63vr. 

[Shortuse]

4 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

LUL no.

Don't hold your breath.

 

I'd like to remind everyone that the Aero 14 with 6700HQ (far less 7700HQ which is decently hotter) with CLU on CPU & GPU barely handles stock performance under load, even propped up for better airflow. I understand the Aero 14 and Aero 15 are a bit different in size, but still, don't hold your breath. I don't expect it to properly cool a CPU-heavy, GPU-heavy game, especially with the stock gigabyte paste.

 

It might actually work for CPU-only loads if the heatsink is shared, but that's still a stupid kind of feature to call for design. You don't design a machine to only handle high CPU loads when a GPU is un-loaded and call it a content creation machine. Makes no sense.

 

Anyway, we'll have to wait and see, but let's be honest. If you must get a thin machine, GS63VR and Aorus X5 V(whatever the latest is) is most certainly what you want, if the P650Hx is "too thick" for you.

Sadly need a compact laptop with a decent port selection and TB3 compatibility. Sucks about the cooling of the Gigabyte as I've heard good things about the Aero 14 but in the thin and light notebook market it still seems like Razer is king. At least the Blades cool semi-decently. I'm a niche customer a building a PC wouldn't work out sadly, as I need power on the go. The Aorus is next up on the list for laptops to look into but I'm still not going to steer away completely from the Gigabyte until I see some temps.

[Pendragon]

2 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

snip

Oh u misunderstood me. The core's firmware and drivers are up to date. Not the qc. And the blade is a nightmare. A couple of us at the office considered it for the second laptop for computational tasks and it couldn't get through a full day of full load without issues popping up. Don't get the blade. Return it. Thin and light just don't go well with high performance. 

 

If you strictly want to eGPU, macbooks aren't a bad choice.

 

@D2ultima have u been following the eGPU scene. I swear the core is the only thing right now capable of full TB3 bandwidth. 

[Shortuse]

3 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Oh u misunderstood me. The core's firmware and drivers are up to date. Not the qc. And the blade is a nightmare. A couple of us at the office considered it for the second laptop for computational tasks and it couldn't get through a full day of full load without issues popping up. Don't get the blade. Return it. Thin and light just don't go well with high performance. 

 

If you strictly want to eGPU, macbooks aren't a bad choice.

 

@D2ultima have u been following the eGPU scene. I swear the core is the only thing right now capable of full TB3 bandwidth. 

Hah, what about bootcamp? Heard it's a pain in the ass. Got any experience with it?

[Shortuse]

I'm still going to put some faith into the Aero 15 and hope it can handle everything I throw at it. Other laptops I'm looking at are the Aorus V5, Alienware 13, and MBP 15" (if it can by some chance provide a solid experience via bootcamp and eGPU).

[Pendragon]

50 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

bootcamp

Yep. I have a macbook lol. Don't use it anymore. Because there is 0 optimization on Bootcamp. My battery life goes to shit. Trackpad is not as good as windows precision, tons of functionality lost. 

 

Its good for gaming though. I can see the appeal of using macos for certain creative work and Bootcamp and eGPU when u want to game. Unfortunately the software I work on and the level of functionality I require is missing on Mac OS. And I'm not that strong in cs to edit macos because it is built on Unix and for people with strong technical skills in this area, macbooks can be pretty customizable. 

[D2ultima]

1 hour ago, Shortuse said:

Sadly need a compact laptop with a decent port selection and TB3 compatibility. Sucks about the cooling of the Gigabyte as I've heard good things about the Aero 14 but in the thin and light notebook market it still seems like Razer is king. At least the Blades cool semi-decently. I'm a niche customer a building a PC wouldn't work out sadly, as I need power on the go. The Aorus is next up on the list for laptops to look into but I'm still not going to steer away completely from the Gigabyte until I see some temps.

Where in the hell did you find that Razer cools well? Razer is worse than trash, it's sub-trash. It's literally beyond trash. I'd take a gigabyte Aero over a blade ANY DAY OF THE UNIVERSE.

 

As for needing thunderbolt, seriously, look at aorus. Gigabyte makes Aorus, you'll literally be looking at gigabyte.

 

1 hour ago, Pendragon said:

 have u been following the eGPU scene. I swear the core is the only thing right now capable of full TB3 bandwidth. 

TB3 max bandwidth is 32Gb/s limited by the DMI 3.0. You can never use the full 40Gb/s bandwidth of TB3 on intel. It is physically impossible, by design of intel. Anybody claiming that it does is lying.

 

The problem with TB3 eGPUs is the conversion from TB to PCI/e. If you use a custom M.2 NGFF adapter it doesn't have any performance issues, straight up to a 1080. You can't use that anymore though because nVidia blocked it in drivers. Because fuck working eGPU solutions.

 

It's also still using Optimus, so don't forget that.

[Shortuse]

1 hour ago, Pendragon said:

Yep. I have a macbook lol. Don't use it anymore. Because there is 0 optimization on Bootcamp. My battery life goes to shit. Trackpad is not as good as windows precision, tons of functionality lost. 

 

Its good for gaming though. I can see the appeal of using macos for certain creative work and Bootcamp and eGPU when u want to game. Unfortunately the software I work on and the level of functionality I require is missing on Mac OS. And I'm not that strong in cs to edit macos because it is built on Unix and for people with strong technical skills in this area, macbooks can be pretty customizable. 

For what you get from a Mac for the price I'd say it's not worth it; especially after the bootcamp optimization stuff, I'll pass.

1 hour ago, D2ultima said:

Where in the hell did you find that Razer cools well? Razer is worse than trash, it's sub-trash. It's literally beyond trash. I'd take a gigabyte Aero over a blade ANY DAY OF THE UNIVERSE.

 

As for needing thunderbolt, seriously, look at aorus. Gigabyte makes Aorus, you'll literally be looking at gigabyte.

Razer has shit QC, I'll give you that. Cooling, however isn't "sub-trash". I mean, sure, it gets pretty warm but with the fans on full throttle it's absolutely fine to use. Razer isn't the only brand with issues you know.

 

Don't think I'm a Razer fanboy, after my experiences with them I'm done but it frustrates me to see them as the only laptop maker that gets hate.

[Pendragon]

13 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

frustrates me to see them as the only laptop maker that gets hate.

LOL every manufacturer gets hate. 

@D2ultima link him ur breakdown of all the manufacturers. It's a solid rant. 

[D2ultima]

28 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

Razer has shit QC, I'll give you that. Cooling, however isn't "sub-trash". I mean, sure, it gets pretty warm but with the fans on full throttle it's absolutely fine to use. Razer isn't the only brand with issues you know.

 

Don't think I'm a Razer fanboy, after my experiences with them I'm done but it frustrates me to see them as the only laptop maker that gets hate.

Razer cannot hold full stock performance. If you stress the CPU and GPU together in a demanding game that'll provide moderate to heavy loads on the parts, it does not function at stock (I.E. throttles, along with all the other bad design issues and limited storage capacity etc). The issue is that not only does it do this, and prevent repastes with say liquid metal to help due to bare heatpipe on the die for the cooling solution to save $$ on putting a contact plate and also to make it (uselessly) thinner, but that Razer charges through your anus for it. It is essentially the same price as a "premium" machine like an Aorus X5 v-whatever-version-we're-at-now, which even has a better video card. In fact, I just checked.

 

Razer Blade:

- 7700HQ

- 16GB 2400MHz RAM

- 512GB SSD

- 1080p screen

- No gsync

- 1060N

- $2099.99

 

Aorus X5 V6 (from gentech):

- 6820HK

- 16GB 2400MHz RAM

- 256GB NVMe SSD

- 128GB M.2 SSD

- 1TB 7200RPM HDD

- 1620p screen

- Gsync

- 1070N

- Free T-shirt

- Free Liquid Metal thermal paste

- $2099.03

 

Edit: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834725037 this too; 120Hz 1080p panel, minus the LM (but can do yourself) and extra 128GB SSD but + Xsplit broadcaster license

 

I mean... let's be truly honest here. Which machine is the better buy? The Aorus is LITERALLY CHEAPER, with a better GPU, switching 128GB of SSD storage for a 1TB HDD. I mean... please.

 

I'm not a person who only bashes Razer. I just bashed Gigabyte's Aero 14 earlier, and am prepared to bash their Aero 15. I bash ASUS all the time. But the blade is a machine that WILL throttle under a moderately heavy load (not even an actual heavy load... games ARE NEVER A HEAVY LOAD) and simply doesn't hold stock. And more to that, it's fucking overpriced to no end. And reviewers gloss over this and don't rip it apart like it should be.

 

Their notebooks simply shouldn't be purchased, period. It's not even that if someone might not have an issue due to the nature of their intended workload... it's that on the whole principle of the matter, they need to be hit where it hurts, the sales, for a notebook that sub-trash, especially for its price and marketing.

 

13 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

LOL every manufacturer gets hate. 

@D2ultima link him ur breakdown of all the manufacturers. It's a solid rant. 

Oh yeah, that. Here @Shortuse read this:

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/668791-new-razer-blade-2016-gtx-1060/#comment-8628901

 

[Shortuse]

19 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

Razer cannot hold full stock performance. If you stress the CPU and GPU together in a demanding game that'll provide moderate to heavy loads on the parts, it does not function at stock (I.E. throttles, along with all the other bad design issues and limited storage capacity etc). The issue is that not only does it do this, and prevent repastes with say liquid metal to help due to bare heatpipe on the die for the cooling solution to save $$ on putting a contact plate and also to make it (uselessly) thinner, but that Razer charges through your anus for it. It is essentially the same price as a "premium" machine like an Aorus X5 v-whatever-version-we're-at-now, which even has a better video card. In fact, I just checked.

 

Razer Blade:

- 7700HQ

- 16GB 2400MHz RAM

- 512GB SSD

- 1080p screen

- No gsync

- 1060N

- $2099.99

 

Aorus X5 V6 (from gentech):

- 6820HK

- 16GB 2400MHz RAM

- 256GB NVMe SSD

- 128GB M.2 SSD

- 1TB 7200RPM HDD

- 1620p screen

- Gsync

- 1070N

- Free T-shirt

- Free Liquid Metal thermal paste

- $2099.03

 

I mean... let's be truly honest here. Which machine is the better buy? The Aorus is LITERALLY CHEAPER, with a better GPU, switching 128GB of SSD storage for a 1TB HDD. I mean... please.

 

I'm not a person who only bashes Razer. I just bashed Gigabyte's Aero 14 earlier, and am prepared to bash their Aero 15. I bash ASUS all the time. But the blade is a machine that WILL throttle under a moderately heavy load (not even an actual heavy load... games ARE NEVER A HEAVY LOAD) and simply doesn't hold stock. And more to that, it's fucking overpriced to no end. And reviewers gloss over this and don't rip it apart like it should be.

 

Their notebooks simply shouldn't be purchased, period. It's not even that if someone might not have an issue due to the nature of their intended workload... it's that on the whole principle of the matter, they need to be hit where it hurts, the sales, for a notebook that sub-trash, especially for its price and marketing.

 

Oh yeah, that. Here @Shortuse read this:

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/668791-new-razer-blade-2016-gtx-1060/#comment-8628901

 

Of course the Razer is a worse buy, you pay a lot for a build like this. But you know what, you have a better point than me and I accept that.

 

Razer charges extra for the portability and convenience of a laptop of this size but I understand it needs a price cut and an actual person making sure the thing isn't a hunk of black garbage that doesn't power on with a nice picture of a snake threesome on the back. Their QC is so bad I bet they'd send out a machine with a dead GPU. Oh wait, they did do that. Twice. If I worked customer service at an electronics company and a customer asked for a new product because the one they received was defective, I would personally pick out a working machine for them to prevent a sour taste in their mouths. Razer doesn't do that and I remember some reviewer saying like, one in five machine from them is defective. I thought he was lying but I think he's probably right. After everything Razer has gone through they still don't give a shit, when you think about it they've only really been refreshing their laptops with new CPUs and processors, not really any new innovations other than it getting a little bit thinner every other year.

 

I'm not buying a Razer product again until they straighten out and I think you understood it as I didn't realize how overpriced they are. I must say, compared to how they used to be they were a lot worse but I wouldn't give them credit for that, the industry has lowered prices ever since Apple started overcharging all their products by $500, even freaking Alienware's prices are going down.

 

I read your rant and it is indeed very solid. The sad thing is, not many laptop brands are left after singling out those. In your super critical, temperature obsessed book (no hate, I understand where your coming from) what are some good laptops out there? I'd genuinely like to know.

[Pendragon]

3 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

snip

For what you're looking for. Aorus X5 v7. It'll finally have a tb3 slot and if u buy it from gentech, you can have liquid metal applied to it greatly lower temperature. 

 

Its due to be released in about 1 week as the v6 model has just come off the shelf. 

[Shortuse]

4 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

For what you're looking for. Aorus X5 v7. It'll finally have a tb3 slot and if u buy it from gentech, you can have liquid metal applied to it greatly lowering temperature. 

 

Its due to be released in about 1 week as the v6 model has just come off the shelf. 

The X5 is a 15" laptop correct? Other than size what are the main differences between it and the X7? Overall that sounds good, especially getting an overclocked Kaby Lake processor and the paste. If I get it I'll make sure to get a heat gun (or whatever those heat sensor thingies are, I think a heat gun would make it worse actually) to make sure it is @D2ultima approved 

[Pendragon]

9 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

main differences between it and the X7?

Size, screen, gpu. 

[Shortuse]

3 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Size, screen, gpu. 

Well then I guess I'll do some more research and wait it out but the Aorus looks like the best option for me at the moment. I see in your signature you have an Alienware 15 r3... How do you like it? Would you recommend the Aorus more so than the Alienware?

[D2ultima]

32 minutes ago, Shortuse said:

Of course the Razer is a worse buy, you pay a lot for a build like this. But you know what, you have a better point than me and I accept that.

 

Razer charges extra for the portability and convenience of a laptop of this size but I understand it needs a price cut and an actual person making sure the thing isn't a hunk of black garbage that doesn't power on with a nice picture of a snake threesome on the back. Their QC is so bad I bet they'd send out a machine with a dead GPU. Oh wait, they did do that. Twice. If I worked customer service at an electronics company and a customer asked for a new product because the one they received was defective, I would personally pick out a working machine for them to prevent a sour taste in their mouths. Razer doesn't do that and I remember some reviewer saying like, one in five machine from them is defective. I thought he was lying but I think he's probably right. After everything Razer has gone through they still don't give a shit, when you think about it they've only really been refreshing their laptops with new CPUs and processors, not really any new innovations other than it getting a little bit thinner every other year.

 

I'm not buying a Razer product again until they straighten out and I think you understood it as I didn't realize how overpriced they are. I must say, compared to how they used to be they were a lot worse but I wouldn't give them credit for that, the industry has lowered prices ever since Apple started overcharging all their products by $500, even freaking Alienware's prices are going down.

 

I read your rant and it is indeed very solid. The sad thing is, not many laptop brands are left after singling out those. In your super critical, temperature obsessed book (no hate, I understand where your coming from) what are some good laptops out there? I'd genuinely like to know.

The final thing about the Razer is how they keep cutting quality. Note that the Razer's RAM is soldered; you can't change that 16GB out for a better kit. You can't get 32GB. You can't do this, you can't do that. The only thing change-able in that is the M.2 drive and if you change it you void your warranty for the whole laptop.

 

Like, don't get me wrong. I get the aesthetic value of the laptop. It's just that aesthetics don't mean anything to function, which is where the Aorus comes in. It doesn't look as sleek and macbook-ish I suppose, but that's all, really. I get that it's thicker, but there needs to come a point where the laws of physics work, and Razer is trying to operate outside of those laws. Aorus isn't. I'd even say Aorus is impressive, because it gets the job done (at stock, with slight CPU overclocks) once repasted.

 

In terms of the rant, I had to generalize a lot. There are some decent enough machines out there, however you now understand the annoyance I feel when I have to recommend a notebook; it is a VERY small pool I am allowing myself to pick from. I want to make it clear before I start listing some, though, that all I care about for these machine is the fact that they handle stock performance. I don't care if they can overclock if they don't come with an unlocked CPU; stock is all the manufacturer needs to guarantee. If a machine is throttling turbo boost on the CPU, it is not functioning at stock (see my mobile CPU guide). If a GPU is throttling heavily without it being TDP-related, then it's thermal related, and that's an issue. For example, the lowest I've seen my video cards go due to heat (in the 80s range) is 1795MHz. I've seen other machines throttle 1070Ns to under base clock. I've seen 1060Ns and 1070Ns struggle to keep 1500MHz in boost. If this is due to temps, and there is a higher power limit for the notebooks allowed, then the notebook is not functioning properly. I care about "stock" as a baseline; most fail to run stock. I could legitimately not care less whether the Aorus X7 could overclock its 1080N or not... as long as it only ever throttles that card due to TDP, I'm pretty much fantastic as far as it's concerned, and it'd get my recommendation. The reason I complain so much about temps is because games are not a heavy load. Get a system with a CPU that has a CPU only cooling system. Run a CPU-heavy game like The Division or Witcher 3 in Novigrad. Note the high loads and the temps. Then try using Handbrake to encode a x264 video that's about 10 minutes long, or run Prime95, or run OCCT Linpack. If the CPU is hitting 95c in the games I listed (where it isn't even hitting 100%), it's going to literally die in the x264 encode, or any of the other benches I listed. Yes, they aren't indicative of gaming, and I would go so far as to say I don't need a machine to handle Linpack to consider it cooling properly, but it should handle something like video rendering (which Handbrake x264 encoding would cover). There was a time that Crysis 3 set my CPU load to max, actually. Literal 100% on all 8 threads. It happens in a certain area of the game; one that Digital Foundry loves to use in their CPU tests. An Aero 14 (literally a gaming class machine) would likely thermal shutdown. I'm not even kidding. Far less a blade (also gaming-class machine).

 

Anyway, onto the decent notebooks I know of:

 

- ASUS' G702VI with the 7820HK and 1080N is not bad for what it is, especially once repasted (and you plug in the CPU fan). I may consider other machines, but its price point with the raw hardware it has is very good, and the cooling potential is great.

- ASUS' GL502VM is also not so bad. No real issues overall I think. Not the best, but it isn't bad, so I consider it acceptable.

- Aorus X5 and X7. Once repasted properly, all of gigabyte's machines generally experience a 20c drop in temperatures. The aorus is no exception, and using LM on it from Gentech PC proves very useful. I don't know about the X3 so much. Note that Gigabyte's support is pretty bad generally, but gentech should help.

- GT72VR, GT73VR, GT62VR, GS63VR (especially the barebones one from HIDevolution), GS73VR, and 16L13 (GT62VR variant with LGA 1151 socket; sold by Eurocom and HIDevolution) are all good stuff. Need little cooling modifications, GT73VR has the best single 1080N on the notebook market (200W TDP limit). Svet mods unlock BIOSes for MSI.

- Clevo N850Hx, N870Hx, P6xxHx, from pretty much anywhere (recommend LPC-Digital who resells Sager, or HIDevolution for these in the US, Eurocom is good for Canada, Scan UK and mySN is good for UK, mySN is good for EU, as well as OBSIDIAN-PC, among many other places. Metabox for Australia).

- Clevo P7xxDMx and P870xMx. These are different, and are absolute trash out of the box. The CPUs need delidding, they run close to 100c on the CPUs a lot, there is a literal heatsink lottery, and contact is often bad between the CPU and GPUs. Why are these on this list? Because HIDevolution (EVOC systems) for US, Canada, and worldwide (they actually have a worldwide warranty service where they pay international shipping), and OBSIDIAN-PC for UK and EU, go above and beyond, and are the actual gold standard for OEMs. They re-pad the systems for best GPU contact, both delid the CPUs and apply liquid metal underneath (for the LGA models), they use shims (OBSIDIAN welds/solders theirs, HID binds with another method) to improve contact where necessary on the CPUs, OBSIDIAN laps all non-vapor-chamber contact points for their heatsinks for perfect cooling, HID overclocks all 7700Ks to 4.7GHz out of the box for users (for free), HID is a Prema partner, OBSIDIAN offers Prema mod voucher tickets for notebookreview members... these become the cream of the crop for laptops. You want high end, you buy from them, and there is little more you would want. Period. HID is a bit more expensive than other NA sellers, and OBSIDIAN is based in portugal so many users may not want to use them for price reasons for the models in the line above, but I would never recommend these models without getting from these users.

- ASUS has one or two other models whose names I can't remember that aren't bad either (once they work of course). Not the GX800 though; I don't count this because it NEEDS its watercooling dock to function properly, effectively making it a glorified eGPU system of sorts. It doesn't even provide enough power for itself when off-dock, far less its cooling potential.

- Acer's predator 17 is not that bad either, as far as I know. There's other choices out there, and I wouldn't recommend this really, but if you happened to own one, I wouldn't say anything.

- Alienware 17 R4 and Alienware 15 R3 (kaby lake versions) both have fixed the contact issues to the point where stock performance is held easily. You STILL need to bend the heatsink to fix contact if you want to get the machine up to its full potential, and on PRINCIPLE I don't recommend these because they won't fix the god damn heatsinks (I don't care if it costs them $5 million in R&D, they should not have greenlit the original design in the first place), but in the sense of it holding stock performance or not, they qualify (now).

 

Note that I didn't list the Acer 21X? It's because it does not appear to hold proper stock perf. Firestrike benchmarks from it max out under 36K GPU score, though my system cracks 42K without issue. This means it cannot function properly, and thus is a $9000 paperweight as far as I'm concerned. Its CPU and GPUs are also soldered... it can screw off. The GT83VR is impressive in theory, but they basically did the minimum amount of work over the GT80S, and thus the CPU cooling is woefully inadequate, and it does not satisfy its price/size/form for the CPU cooling performance. I don't know about its 1080N SLI cooling performance, though I know its GPUs are 180W instead of 190W (like the Clevos) or 200W (like its own GT73's single GPU model). So it's just not really worth it, even if it did function well enough.

[Pendragon]

6 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

The reason I complain so much about temps is because games are not a heavy load. Get a system with a CPU that has a CPU only cooling system. Run a CPU-heavy game like The Division or Witcher 3 in Novigrad. Note the high loads and the temps. Then try using Handbrake to encode a x264 video that's about 10 minutes long, or run Prime95, or run OCCT Linpack. If the CPU is hitting 95c in the games I listed (where it isn't even hitting 100%), it's going to literally die in the x264 encode, or any of the other benches I listed. Yes, they aren't indicative of gaming, and I would go so far as to say I don't need a machine to handle Linpack to consider it cooling properly, but it should handle something like video rendering (which Handbrake x264 encoding would cover). There was a time that Crysis 3 set my CPU load to max, actually. Literal 100% on all 8 threads. It happens in a certain area of the game; one that Digital Foundry loves to use in their CPU tests. An Aero 14 (literally a gaming class machine) would likely thermal shutdown. I'm not even kidding. Far less a blade (also gaming-class machine).

 

This. When people tell me it runs fine on Call of Duty or something. LOL. Same thing when you run like CUDA accelerated computational tasks. Goes to shit if it doesn't have a good cooling system. 

 

1 hour ago, Shortuse said:

Well then I guess I'll do some more research and wait it out but the Aorus looks like the best option for me at the moment. I see in your signature you have an Alienware 15 r3... How do you like it? Would you recommend the Aorus more so than the Alienware?

 

 

9 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

- Alienware 17 R4 and Alienware 15 R3 (kaby lake versions) both have fixed the contact issues to the point where stock performance is held easily. You STILL need to bend the heatsink to fix contact if you want to get the machine up to its full potential, and on PRINCIPLE I don't recommend these because they won't fix the god damn heatsinks (I don't care if it costs them $5 million in R&D, they should not have greenlit the original design in the first place), but in the sense of it holding stock performance or not, they qualify (now).

1

Not completely. NBC still got a broken ass AW 15 R3 (Kaby) for their review. Basically, I got mine when it first came out. I literally have a custom config that was made in extremely limited orders 15in 1070, 6820HK, 1080p screen, MUX switch. Worse computer I've ever received stock. Ran to 98C easy on OCCT alone. Told tell about it, told me TJMax was 110C. So you spend hours slowly bending the heatsink, repadding, repasting to get the right contact and I'd say it's OKAY now. Not the best it can be mostly because of the insanely cancerous process that it requires to take apart. Going to RMA it before my warranty expires on some bullshit and get a freshly fixed machine from Dell and start the process again (but more probably saying fuck it and sending it to mobius1). It was EASILY the worse stock machine I've ever gotten and there still is a chance that occurs now, just much rarer. And you still need to actual HARDWARE mod it to get the right fit. 

 

If you get an Alienware I'd highly recommend asking them for a non GSync screen because if not, it's battery goes downhill and the added weight is not worth it over an Aorus. If you want a 15in heavy ass GSync laptop I would go with the MSI 16L13 instead. 

[D2ultima]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

Not completely. NBC still got a broken ass AW 15 R3 (Kaby) for their review. Basically, I got mine when it first came out. I literally have a custom config that was made in extremely limited orders 15in 1070, 6820HK, 1080p screen, MUX switch. Worse computer I've ever received stock. Ran to 98C easy on OCCT alone. Told tell about it, told me TJMax was 110C. So you spend hours slowly bending the heatsink, repadding, repasting to get the right contact and I'd say it's OKAY now. Not the best it can be mostly because of the insanely cancerous process that it requires to take apart. Going to RMA it before my warranty expires on some bullshit and get a freshly fixed machine from Dell and start the process again (but more probably saying fuck it and sending it to mobius1). It was EASILY the worse stock machine I've ever gotten and there still is a chance that occurs now, just much rarer. And you still need to actual HARDWARE mod it to get the right fit. 

 

If you get an Alienware I'd highly recommend asking them for a non GSync screen because if not, it's battery goes downhill and the added weight is not worth it over an Aorus. If you want a 15in heavy ass GSync laptop I would go with the MSI 16L13 instead. 

I was considering currently-selling models which I've gotten enough information from that they should come just fine, even though they can hit 90c under stress on a couple CPU cores, they generally will not hit thermals at stock.

[Pendragon]

2 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

I was considering currently-selling models which I've gotten enough information from that they should come just fine, even though they can hit 90c under stress on a couple CPU cores, they generally will not hit thermals at stock.

 

hmm interesting. i guess that's fine for the 7700HQ.