GIGABYTE AORUS 16X gaming & creative laptop: first-look
We take a look at the hardware and AI features of this exciting new Gigabyte laptop which supports WiFI 7, a particularly fast SD card reader, and an impressively bright screen
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The Gigabyte AORUS line has typically filled the niche of value gaming laptops, where you get a lower TGP graphics card and a more budget overall standard of construction, but for a very reasonable price. This Gigabyte Aorus 16X, equipped with up to an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU and Intel Core i9-14900HX and is overflowing with other features that you’d typically find in a more premium device. Let’s take a look at what this machine offers.
- CPU: Intel Core i7-14650HX / i9-14900HX
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 / 4070 (8GB)
- RAM: up to 64GB DDR5 5600MHz (2x SO-DIMM slots)
- Storage: up to 4TB (2x PCIe Gen4x4 MM.2 slots)
- Screen Size: 16.1”
- Max Refresh Rate: 165Hz
- Resolution: 2560 x 1600
- Panel Type: IPS
- Touchscreen?: No
- Webcam: 1080p
- Weight: ~2.3 kg / ~5.07 lb
- Ports: 2x USB3.2 Type-A Gen2, 1x USB 4 Type-C (DP 1.4 & power delivery 3.0), 1x USB3.2 Type-C Gen2 (DP1.4), 1 x RJ-45, 1 x HDMI 2.1, 1 x MicroSD (UHS-II), 1 x audio combo jack
AI Capabilities
The CPU options in the AORUS 16X belong to the 14th gen Raptor Lake Refresh line of mobile processors, rather than the 14th gen Meteor Lake line that are based on the completely new architecture. This means they don’t actually come equipped with an NPU (Neural Processing Unit), so you’d be forgiven for thinking that they don’t have much in the way of AI processing, but that’s where you’d be wrong!
Although as NPUs increase in power and the technology develops, they will likely become the linchpin of a computer’s AI capabilities, at present the majority of AI processing is actually still done by the GPU, and the latest Nvidia RTX 40-series graphics cards the AORUS 16X can be equipped with have ample power to run various AI processes.
The following are AI-driven utilities you can use on this Gigabyte laptop, which collectively are known as the ‘AI Nexus’:
- AI Generator: the latest generative AI tech is fully integrated with the GIGABYTE AORUS 16X, including tool support of Stable Diffusion, which produces AI-created imagery.
- AI Power Gear: this uses AI to switch optimally between the integrated and discrete GPUs depending on your task, to maximize battery duration.
- AI Boost: when enabled this actively allocates power to the CPU, GPU, and fan configuration to best improve gaming performance.
Main hardware features
Looking to the hardware now, and the AORUS 16X is an impressive piece of kit.
The screen
The IPS display has 2560 x 1600 resolution, which is the 16:10 QHD+ aspect ratio that we prefer, as it gives you more vertical headroom (useful for web browsing and viewing documents and the like) compared to a conventional 16:9 1440p display.
The 165Hz max refresh rate is great for either single-player titles or competitive online shooters, and the inclusion of G-Sync is very welcome, as this is the best VRR out there for removing screen tearing.
Gigabyte claims 100% sRGB gamut coverage and Pantone validation, meaning that you should be able to do any color-based creative work to an accurate standard in the sRGB space (it will certainly be great to game on).
Finally, and most excitingly, the display is rated to between 400-500nits of brightness (depending on when HDR mode is enabled or not), which is way above average for a gaming laptop and means (along with the slight matte finish to the screen) that you should be able to comfortably use it outside as an everyday productivity laptop.
The battery
The 99 Watt-hour battery on the AORUS 16X is pretty hefty: typically on a laptop of this size you’d expect something closer to a 73 Watt-hour battery, so this is a nice upgrade. Although we haven’t yet had the chance to test it ourselves, we’ve seen other reviewers with the highest spec (and therefore highest battery draining) model getting 7 hours or more out of it, which is well above average for a gaming laptop and once again speaks to the usefulness of this device as a general productivity machine outside of gaming.
The battery is also capable of fast charging up to 50% (when the laptop is turned off) over 30mins time.
Fast memory card reader
For creatives, the MicroSD (UHS-II) memory card reader is a great feature that will massively simplify any workload involving transferring camera pictures/footage or similar. This is one of the faster models out there, so is capable of impressive transfer speeds when copying across data to your laptop or off it and onto the MicroSD card itself.
WiFi 7
WiFi 7 is the new standard for wireless connectivity, and though it’s still not fully supported yet, over the course of the next year it will be rolled out, so having a laptop that can take full advantage of it is a nice way of future-proofing yourself.
Exchangeable/Expandable RAM
Considering the power under the hood, the GIGABYTE AORUS 16X is a relatively slimline machine, which with other laptops often means you cannot upgrade the RAM as it’s soldered on: not here however! Although you can equip the laptop with up to 64GB of DDR5 at the point of purchase (which should be enough for anyone’s needs), if you started of with less memory but later fancied an upgrade this is as straightforward as unscrewing the back, gently prising it off, and then swapping out the memory sticks yourself from the two SO-DIMM slots.
