The world of gaming laptops is pretty crowded, and every manufacturer needs a unique angle to stand out. For the new Gigabyte Aorus 16X, that headliner is AI. Yes, I rolled my eyes too, but AI is legitimately becoming a mainstay in laptops, largely due to Microsoft’s insistence on its Copilot AI and the introduction of Neural Processing Units (NPUs) in CPUs.
The $3000 Gigabyte Aorus 16X is the first gaming laptop I’ve encountered that has added a dedicated Copilot button for quick access to Windows 11’s ChatGPT-powered assistant. Besides that, it features Gigabyte’s AI Nexus suite of tools designed to manipulate hardware to eke out the best performance on and off battery power.
Take away the AI, and you’re left with a rather generic 16” gaming laptop with a QHD, 165Hz display, Intel Core HX processor, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU that performs as well as any other. But do the AI additions make it a standout gaming laptop, or is it just more gimmickry? Read on to find out.
Design and Build
The design of the Aorus 16X is somewhat typical of gamer aesthetics. The chassis is made from a combination of metal and high-quality plastic, which gives it a sturdy, though not exactly premium, feel. The build quality is solid, with a robust hinge mechanism and minimal flex, ensuring durability and longevity.
Design elements like the ‘Team up, fight on’ slogan and the Aorus wordmark RGB lighting give it a distinctive look. It’s not my favorite design of the year—that honor goes to the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16—but it’s comparable to the Alienware m16 R2 in its understated approach.
Fortunately, the laptop is relatively slim at 27mm in thickness and weighs just 2.3 kilos, making it portable enough for gamers on the go. There are numerous vents around the sides and back feeding into the Windforce Cooling system, which effectively keeps the 16X cool under load. The bundled power brick isn’t too big and won’t add much weight to your bag.
The chassis accommodates plenty of ports on either side, including a MicroSD card slot and a Thunderbolt 4 with Power Delivery, allowing you to use it on a compatible monitor for video and charging. However, the power port on the side features a straight connector, which sticks out uncomfortably and complicates cable management.
Of course, there is plenty of RGB lighting on the keyboard but also underneath the display hinge is some extra lighting. Even more interesting is the projection of the AORUS logo out the back of the laptop which should turn some heads while also announcing the gaming nerd you are.
Display
The 16-inch screen on the Aorus 16X is somewhat disappointing for a laptop of this caliber in 2024. It’s an IPS panel with a 165Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. While the QHD resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio ensure it’s sharp and clear, a higher refresh rate like 240Hz would have been more appropriate.
The brightness is good, with an advertised 400 nits, though some sources claim it can hit over 500 nits. This results in vibrant colors and excellent visibility in various lighting conditions, enhancing the overall gaming and viewing experience.
The color accuracy is good with 100% sRGB coverage, though there’s no mention of its DCI-P3 or Adobe RGB coverage, which are arguably more important to creative professionals. Nonetheless, colors look good for content consumption, gaming, and video editing.
The screen’s real estate makes working on the 16X pleasurable, with excellent text clarity and contrast needed for productivity work. The display is also TÜV Rheinland certified for low blue light emissions, which is handy for extended use in dim environments.
Above the display is a 1080p webcam with Windows Hello support for biometric authentication. It works well enough but has a rather short range, requiring you to hold the laptop about a foot away from your face and stay still. This inconvenience makes it debatable whether it’s worth the hassle compared to typing a PIN. Personally, I’d prefer a fingerprint scanner embedded into the power button, similar to those on Apple MacBook Pros.
The speakers on the 16X are decent, offering enough body to the sound without being tinny. They get loud enough for watching movies or listening to music, though I wouldn’t rely on them for great game audio. However, for casual games, they should work just fine.
Keyboard and Trackpad
The keyboard on the 16X is designed with gamers in mind, featuring distinctive and translucent QWERASD keys that stand out from the rest of the keyboard, especially when backlit with RGB lighting. However, this design choice can work against usability as the RGB shines through the keys, making them illegible. While this isn’t a problem for experienced touch typists during gaming, it can be inconvenient for others.
Thankfully, since all the keys are individually backlit, you can adjust the lighting for better visibility. Overall, the keys have a decent amount of travel and provide tactile feedback, suitable for both gaming and typing. Though I’d prefer a more clicky feel like Cherry MX Low Profile switches, this setup works fine. The per-key RGB lighting allows for extensive customization, letting you create your preferred lighting setup.
The trackpad is impressive as well—larger than those on most gaming laptops, with a smooth, responsive glass surface that offers precise control and smooth navigation. While most gamers will likely use an external mouse, this trackpad is one of the better ones I’ve used on a gaming laptop.
Specifications and Performance
Under the hood, the top-end Aorus 16X model comes well-equipped. The CPU is a 24-core Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, offering ample processing power for multitasking, gaming, and content creation. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU brings ray tracing and AI capabilities, delivering great frame rates and smooth gameplay at the native QHD resolution.
With 32GB of DDR5 RAM, multitasking is seamless, and with two 1TB NVMe SSDs, you get fast load times and plenty of storage for games, applications, and media files. These specifications place the 16X at the forefront of midrange gaming laptops, offering significant value for the price.
Performance-wise, the Aorus 16X excels. With an impressive score of 26002 in Cinebench R23 and 8458 in PCMark10, it rivals the more powerful Asus Strix Scar 18, which costs almost twice as much. Productivity and creative tasks like video editing are smooth and fast on this laptop, with no complaints about its capabilities.
The 16X delivers exceptional frame rates in AAA titles, easily hitting over 60fps with the highest settings and ray tracing. In games like Far Cry 6 and Red Dead Redemption 2, it approaches 100fps at 1600p. Games run smoothly, maintaining consistent frame rates, and the Nvidia RTX 4070 allows you to take advantage of DLSS3.5 and Frame Generation in compatible titles, pushing frame rates over 160fps.
Thermal performance is also excellent. The 16X maintained an impressive 60-65C on the CPU and 70-72C on the GPU when gaming in the AI Boost Gaming preset. The chassis remains very cool to the touch but I wouldn’t game with it on your laps. It can get cooler if you choose the Turbo profile but that will be extremely noisy. Fan noise is much more bearable with the Gaming preset.
AI Nexus Technology
A significant contributor to the 16X’s performance is its AI technology. Dubbed the GIGABYTE AI Nexus, it automatically optimizes power management and performance based on the detected scenario. These AI features allow the laptop to adapt to your usage patterns, leading to a smoother, more responsive experience whether you’re gaming or working on creative projects.
The AI Nexus includes three key subsystems: AI Power Gear, AI Boost, and AI Generator. AI Power Gear manages laptop power to maximize battery life without compromising performance. Essentially, when you unplug the laptop, the AI kicks in to monitor activity, automatically turning off the Nvidia GPU, RGB lighting, and throttling the CPU to extend battery life. This function mirrors Nvidia Optimus, offering no substantial AI-specific benefits.
AI Boost manages CPU and GPU clocks and fan speeds to provide optimal performance when plugged in. If you start a game, the AI recognizes this and boosts CPU/GPU performance while adjusting fan curves and RGB lighting. If you switch to a less demanding task, it adjusts accordingly. The laptop includes a few presets, but you can also set it to auto mode.
However, the AI’s mode-switching can cause noticeable system freezes, lasting about 5 seconds. This delay is frustrating when switching between applications frequently, like from a video editor to a word document.
Lastly, AI Generator includes image generation tools like Stable Diffusion for on-machine creativity, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness in generative AI applications. Gigabyte plans to add more language models to leverage the laptop’s power.
Despite its promising name, AI Nexus is more of a machine learning algorithm than true AI like ChatGPT. It’s designed to manage performance profiles without manual tweaking. In tests, Gigabyte’s claims of a 7-10% performance gain held true, which can make a difference in gaming frame rates.
Additionally, the 16X features Windows Copilot—Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered AI assistant accessible via a dedicated button. While useful for tasks like product research and image generation, it’s not a game changer for daily use. The dedicated key feels redundant given the taskbar icon’s presence.
Overall, the AI features on the 16X are more of a novelty than a compelling reason to choose this laptop. While they offer some performance gains, they don’t deliver a significantly enhanced gaming experience.
Battery Life
Battery life is often a concern with gaming laptops, but the Aorus 16X performs admirably in this area. Equipped with a 99Wh battery, it offers around 5-6 hours of use on a single charge under normal conditions, which is respectable for a machine of this caliber. During heavy gaming sessions, battery life will naturally decrease, but for general use, such as web browsing and media consumption, the 16X manages to hold its own.
However, results will vary depending on usage, and the efficacy of the AI Power Gear in extending battery life is inconsistent. Sometimes the laptop died after about 4 hours of web browsing or Netflix, so don’t leave home without your charger.
Conclusion
The new Gigabyte Aorus 16X is a great gaming laptop that excels in performance and design, offering excellent value for money. At $3000, this top-end spec is respectable and provides more than the competition. However, I would recommend saving $500 and opting for the i7-14650HX and RTX 4060 configuration. My biggest complaint is the IPS panel—I’d prefer a 240Hz QHD OLED panel for its superiority in gaming and content creation.
The AI features, while interesting, don’t live up to the hype. Gigabyte should have marketed them as a power management tool rather than a groundbreaking AI. Despite these minor shortcomings, the Aorus 16X is a great laptop, well worth considering in its price bracket.
Gigabyte Australia kindly loaned the Aorus 16X to PowerUp! for the purpose of writing this review
