Aorus 17 XE Review | PCMag

The launch of new mobile processor and GPU platforms is a perfect chance for manufacturers to refresh their flagship offerings. Gigabyte is joining the party with its Aorus gaming laptop line, introducing the Aorus 17 XE with Intel's 12th Generation “Alder Lake” CPUs and Nvidia's new GeForce RTX 30 Ti graphics. We tested the $2,449 base model, which leverages a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and a Core i7-12700H to great effect for both media tasks and gaming at peak image-quality settings. The system is bulky and heavy, and the build isn't much to write home about, but with a solid mix of connectivity, battery life, and gaming features (notably, a 360Hz display), the Aorus is a decent option in the high-end, big-screen segment.

A Power-Focused Design

While the Aorus 17 XE doesn't carry the flashy colors or garish design of gaming notebooks past, you'd probably still peg it as a gaming rig from its size alone. This machine is all about power, and while its engineers tried to trim its size as much as possible without impinging on performance, it still comes in at a ponderous 0.94 by 15.7 by 10 inches and 5.95 pounds.

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(Photo: Molly Flores)

Compared to 17-inch gaming laptops of past years, coming in under an inch thick is a plus, but this machine is still heavy. I'd easily believe it weighed a couple of pounds more than its actual weight, because it's downright hefty and unwieldy to lift. The system is best for people who'll primarily keep it at their desk and occasionally take it to a gaming party, not those looking to use it as a daily driver outside of the house.

To its credit, the Aorus is as sleek as you can get for its size, an all-black chassis with a smooth finish and minimal logo on the lid. The design won't win any awards, but it's stylish enough and feels well-made. Additionally, the power brick is no larger than your average laptop AC adapter, so it doesn't make a not-so-portable situation worse as many 17-inch systems' do.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

The keyboard is spacious, and the inclusion of a full number pad is always nice, but the typing experience isn't as satisfying as it might look. I found the palm rest to be a bit too big and the keys a bit too small considering the laptop's size (in part due to that numeric keypad). The actual keypresses feel okay—not mushy, with decent feedback—but it's not a standout experience. The touchpad is serviceable, but the keyboard deck overall shows some flex when you apply pressure.

Beyond performance gains, the other upside of the 17 XE's bulk is its roomy display. The 17-inch IPS panel combines full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) resolution with a 360Hz refresh rate suitable for fast-paced gaming. On such a big, pricey machine you might expect a higher native resolution, but manufacturers are sticking with 1080p in order to reach the ceilings offered by high-refresh panels. A 1440p or 4K display would be too demanding to approach 360 frames per second (fps) in most titles.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

The beefy chassis offers a good selection of ports, starting with the USB 3.1 Type-A port, HDMI and mini DisplayPort video outputs, and Ethernet jack on the left flank. The right edge holds one USB-C port with Thunderbolt 4 support and another USB-A 3.1 port. The connectivity is rounded out with Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and a Windows Hello-compatible face recognition webcam.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Components and Configurations

Our $2,449 test unit doesn't quite have the very top components available, but it comes close. It includes a 12th Gen Intel Core 7-12700H processor, 16GB of memory, a 1TB solid-state drive, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU. This base model is the only 17-inch option available at this writing, but Gigabyte says Core i9 versions are coming.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Manufacturers can set Nvidia's 30-series GPUs to a power delivery level that suits their design goals and thermal limitations, resulting in a range of differing wattages, even for the same GPU. In some cases, that means a higher-wattage RTX 3070 can outperform an RTX 3080, or that two different RTX 3070 laptops can perform very differently. It's confusing for shoppers, but means it's more important than ever to check our hands-on benchmark results. The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti in the Aorus is configured with a maximum power of 130 watts.

Performance Testing: ‘Alder Lake' Leads the Way

This is a mighty machine, which means some top-end competition. Below is the group of gaming rigs we'll compare against the Aorus 17 XE in benchmark testing.

These systems cover a range of CPU competitors from previous-generation Intel Core i7 chips to AMD Ryzen 7 and 9 offerings. We've reviewed one Ryzen 6000 series laptop so far, but it's a 14-inch compact so it wouldn't be fair to compare it to beefy 17-inch machines, so we'll leave it to the 5000 series to carry the AMD flag here. All of these machines cost over $2,000, so it's a level and expensive playing field.

Productivity Tests

The main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows, measuring overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage.

Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

We normally also run an Adobe Photoshop performance test, but for reasons unknown the script kept crashing on the Aorus 17 XE, so it's not among the charts here.

It's worth noting at the top that these were the results in the Aorus' Turbo mode, which you can toggle in the provided Gigabyte control panel software. We first tested the system in the default performance mode, and it posted competitive numbers, but it was clear the CPU wasn't being used to its full potential. The downside is that Turbo mode is loud (it pushes the cooling fans to full speed constantly), and some users may decide against it or forget to activate it. Even so, it doesn't feel fair to limit the machine considering most hardcore gamers would run it at maximum power when needed. We've found in many other systems that such modes' modest performance gains aren't worth the fan noise, but in this case the improvements are significant.

That caveat aside, suffice it to say that the 17 XE is a powerhouse at maximum potential, well suited to users who'll use it for content creation or professional work when not gaming.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).

In addition, we run three real-world game tests using the built-in benchmarks of F1 2021, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive esports shooter games respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (Valhalla at its Medium and Ultra quality presets, Siege at Low and Ultra quality), while F1 2021 is run twice at maximum settings, with and without Nvidia's performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing.

The Aorus' Turbo mode didn't boost scores here; it seemed to help the CPU tests more than the graphics-intensive games (the F1 frame rate, for instance, went up by only 2fps). A separate Gaming Mode didn't increase frame rates at all, so the scores reported here are from default mode. The latter keeps the fans from being super-loud for long stretches of gaming, unlike the shorter bursts you can tolerate in content tasks.

At any rate, the 17 XE delivered generally strong numbers here, even being the strongest performer in Valhalla, the most demanding title, at an impressive 82fps. Its results in the other two games were more in line with the competition. You can get super-high frame rates in Rainbow Six Siege, though even at low settings you won't come near the screen's refresh-rate ceiling. The Alienware x17 was the best across-the-board performer, but while a bit slimmer than the Aorus it's even heavier.

Battery and Display Tests

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

I was ready for the Aorus 17 XE to deliver middling battery life given its size and powerful parts, but its six-hour runtime is fine for a 17-inch gaming laptop. These aren't the most road-ready systems by any stretch, but when you do need to take your rig with you (or just want to use it on the couch) you won't need to run back to a charger immediately.

The screen's color coverage is just okay, but no worse than most of the others in this bunch—only the Alienware x17's display stands out in this regard. You can say much the same for the brightness; the Aorus' result is not the best but a maximum of 360 nits is serviceable.

A High-End Straight Shooter

The Aorus 17 XE is a straightforward offering in just about every facet—what you see is what you get. The build is big and simple, but it's visually sleek and not excessively heavy. The performance is great, as you'd expect from the component array; there are no real surprises or overachieving moments, though the 12th Gen processor is given room to fly with the fans at full speed. It's hardly the flashiest way to spend over $2,000 on a laptop, nor is it travel-friendly, but the Aorus largely delivers on its promises. The Lenovo Legion 7 and Alienware x17 just edge past it on the basis of performance and design in this competitive field.