We test & benchmark the Gigabyte AORUS 15 gaming laptop, which comes with an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, Intel i7-13700H CPU, and 1440p display.
Updated: Jan 20, 2024 3:52 pm
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This 2023 variant of the Gigabyte AORUS 15 is the latest from this range which has been running for a good few years now, now with an updated chassis design and the latest Nvidia 40-series graphics cards. AORUS is Gigabyte’s ‘premium’ gaming line of products, though they’ve always aimed at a price point that is more affordable than their competitors, with slightly less powerful components (lower TGP graphics cards in particular).
The particular unit we were sent comes with an i7-13700H Intel 13th gen laptop processor, RTX 4070 laptop GPU, and 165Hz 1440p display, though other options are available. Let’s see how it measured up in our tests!
Pros
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Powerful GPU and solid CPU give great price/performance in games -
Great overall value for money -
Good thermal performance -
Great color gamut coverage & accuracy -
Looks great -
Decent overall build quality -
Fairly slimline
Cons
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Battery life could be better -
Fairly poor webcam & mic -
Onboard software demands constant updates & restarts -
Difficult to open up the laptop to upgrade
Pricing
The MSRP at the time of writing is around the $1,650 mark for this particular model, though it can be picked up on sale for a couple of hundred dollars less if you’re lucky. For this you get a 15.6-inch 165Hz 1440p screen, plus an RTX 4070 GPU and Intel Core i7-13700H processor. For a gaming laptop with this graphics card, this is a notably low price – being more akin to what you’d see an RTX 4060 machine, however, it should be noted that the graphics cards in Gigabyte laptops tend to be a bit less powerful than others with the same GPU SKU.
Additionally, there’s a variant that comes equipped with the more powerful Intel Core i9-13900HX processor that’s available for more money, or you can pick up the 17-inch Gigabyte AORUS 17 which apparently has similar specs, but with a higher 240Hz refresh rate, though we can’t say for sure what other differences there may be as we haven’t tested this model.
Overall Design
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Looks are obviously subjective to a degree, but we think that the Gigabyte AORUS 15 is a very nice looking device: striking a good balance between ‘gamer’ details and remaining a tasteful laptop for office use. The RGB backlighting on the keyboard is solid, and there’s a nice underlight beneath the display that shines downwards when you’re viewing the screen.
The laptop feels weighty but very well built overall, particularly considering the price point. The back of the lid and the bottom of the device are metal, with the upward facing surface of the chassis around the keyboard a more matte-feeling, plastic material. The rear of the laptop behind the hinges that houses the exhaust ports and rear sockets is made of a lighter plastic. There’s a fair bit of screen wobble when you move the laptop, but this isn’t really discernible when you’re just typing away, even if you’re pretty heavy handed, so shouldn’t pose a problem.
Laptop weight: 2.413kg/5.32lbs, Power adapter weight: 0.575kg/1.27lbs, Combined weight: 2.988kg/6.59lbs, Dimensions: 14.17″ x 10.7″ x 0.82″
3x 3.2 USB-A (Gen 1), 1x USB-C (Thunderbolt 4 with power delivery), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x Mini DP 1.4, 1x RJ-45, 1x audio combo jack, 1x SD Card Reader
If you want to upgrade the RAM or SSD on the laptop you’ll need a T6 Torx screwdriver to remove the 12 six-pointed star screws. We initially tried and failed to take off the bottom panel of the laptop by ourselves: after removing the screws, we simply could not find a seam to prise it apart despite much effort. After looking online for others who had done so however, we came across this video, found the best purchase point, and after liberally jamming in numerous plastic prying tools finally managed to wedge it open – in short, more difficult than it should be, and you need to make sure you have the right tools or you’ll likely damage the chassis.
The keyboard is your standard membrane offering but is of a decent quality. Larger-handed people may find it a touch on the cramped side but besides that there isn’t much to complain about it. The trackpad felt sturdy; a bit more slippery to the touch than we would have liked, but quick and responsive to inputs.
The speakers produce a loud peak volume, with okay sound quality though not amazing – there was some detectable fuzziness on the higher frequencies. Overall, we’d say the speakers were slightly above average for a gaming laptop, though this isn’t a particularly high bar. In terms of the microphone the audio quality was fairly poor, being quite muffled, and the webcam picture, despite being 1080p resolution, was not great either, though it does at least come with InfraRed enabling the Windows Hello security feature.
Screen
The display measures 15.6” diagonally in the traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. This is the classic gaming laptop monitor size, which doesn’t have the headroom of the increasingly common 16:10 models which are particularly useful for general productivity, but it’s still a decent size.
The 2560 x 1440 resolution on our particular model creates a very nice, crisp image, and the 165Hz maximum refresh rate is solid for a 1440p model like this – good for single player titles or fast-paced online gaming.
Gigabyte claim the display has 100% sRGB and 100% DCI-P3 coverage, so let’s see what our testing found:
As you can see above, we recorded a 100% sRGB and 100% DCI-P3 gamut coverage, which supports Gigabyte’s claims. Besides this the laptop also covers 89% of the Adobe RGB space.
We recorded a color accuracy of 1.39 deltaE*00 variance, which is very good – well within the sub 2.5 ΔE* range you want to aim for when doing color-accurate work on a screen.
Additional visual data points were tested for accuracy as shown in the chart above and summarised below.
The peak recorded brightness was 311.6 nits i.e. 311.6 cd/m², which is about middle of the road for a gaming laptop of this price – not great, not terrible.
Ideal values for the other measurements are as follows:
6500K (White point), 0/m² (Black point), infinity:1 (Contrast ratio), 2.2 (gamma).
The recorded results at 100% brightness were:
6400K (White point), 0.26 cd/m² (Black point), 1210:1 (Contrast ratio), 2.2 (gamma).
To summarise, the Black Point and Gamma are very good for a laptop in this price range. The White Point is solid and the Contrast Ratio is pretty decent for an IPS panel.
Battery Life
We conducted our usual battery test on the AORUS 15, which begins with two hours of continuous full-screen YouTube playback, with the remaining time browsing the web and typing up documents. The laptop’s brightness was set to 50% with ECO mode switched on. Battery-saving settings were activated in Windows, Bluetooth was switched off, but Wi-Fi remained on and in use. Additionally, the RGB lighting on the keyboard was switched off.
In this test the laptop lasted to about the 4 hours 30 minutes mark, though you could likely squeeze an additional hour out of it if you didn’t watch the full screen video. This is a fairly mediocre result, and compares particularly poorly against the recent Ryzen-powered laptops like the HP Omen 16, which achieved a ridiculous 14 hours, but is even beaten by the Intel-powered Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 which got 7 hours (though this has a less powerful GPU).
Software
The onboard software for the gaming laptop is the Gigabyte Control Center, which you’ll need to download if it isn’t installed already, as things like the function key shortcuts for the brightness controls won’t work without it.
As far as this kind of software goes it’s pretty decent – with a design that’s uncluttered by the bloat you often see on some ASUS laptops for instance. You get your standard RGB controls, and four Fan Control pre-sets (Power, ECO, Turbo, and Normal), the MUX Switch, and battery charging controls. More unique to Gigabytes devices however is the AI Nexus section with AI Boost and AI Generator functions. The AI Boost effectively acts like an auto overclocking feature that manually sets voltage allowances plus fan speeds, thus cannot be used in conjunction with the other pre-sets.
One thing we did find irritating however was that the software seemingly demanded updates for various features almost every time we opened it, which also seemed to prompt the laptop to restart of its own accord if left idle for a short while. Hopefully this will not continue throughout the laptop’s life, but we are unable to comment on this, given the limited time we had to test the device.
Performance & noise levels
As with every laptop we benchmark, we conducted our tests with the maximum fan and power pre-sets enabled, which in this case was Turbo mode from within the Gigabyte Control Center. You may be able to get additional performance from the AI Boost function, but as this becomes a variable outside of our control that can fluctuate within the same game or between games, we manually set it to Turbo mode.
As is often the case, on this maximum setting the fans were too loud to be useful in an environment with other people around, but if you’re gaming alone with some headphones on then they might be tolerable. For everyday productivity use the Normal and ECO settings were perfectly fine, being barely audible unless the laptop was put under strain.
GIGABYTE AORUS 15 temperature results
The internal temperature results you can see above were pretty impressive – both for the CPU temps and the GPU. Average CPU temperatures in particular were very low, and the only title which may have displayed a bit of thermal throttling was Doom Eternal with its low 90°Cs max CPU temps. These results are well below the level that would cause degradation to the internal components over time though, which bodes well for the longevity of the laptop.
In terms of external temps, we had no issues with the keyboard getting too warm during our playing time. Some warmth was noticeable on the chassis after an extended session, however we’d say this was below the average of what you’d typically expect from a gaming laptop, so another good result.
GIGABYTE AORUS 15 gaming benchmarks
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The above results were impressive considering the asking price of the laptop at the time of writing; although a more powerful RTX 4070 laptop GPU may have performed better in some titles, they would almost certainly have cost significantly more.
Comparing the results of the gaming benchmarks against those of other laptops we’ve tested in a similar-ish price range, they were revealing about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the device. In particular comparing them to the Acer Predator Helios 16 with RTX 4060 and Intel Core i9-13700HX is useful. In Doom Eternal, a particularly GPU-heavy game, the Gigabyte AORUS 15 performed between 31-47% better with Ray-Tracing switched off, with the difference widening as the graphical pre-sets and resolution was turned higher. With Ray-Tracing on the gap became even wider, with the RTX 4070 machine achieving an uplift as high as 56% at 1440p resolution on Ultra settings. In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, a somewhat GPU-intensive game, the difference was also impressive in favour of the Gigabyte Aorus 15, though less pronounced. The uplift compared to the RTX 4060 Acer Helios 16 was only 10% on the lowest settings at 1080p, but increased all the way up to 1440p at max settings, with an impressive 32% improvement.
In the more CPU-intensive titles the AORUS 15 performed solidly but was less impressive: in Far Cry 6 the Intel Core i7-13700H Gigabyte machine performed around 5% worse than the Helios 16 across most graphical pre-sets, with the Acer machine having a slightly more powerful i7-13700HX. At 1440p resolution on the highest pre-sets however, the AORUS jumped ahead with a 15% uplift, perhaps indicating a bottlenecking effect of the weaker GPU on the competing device. Although we didn’t test CS2 on the Acer machine as the game hadn’t come out at that point, we did in our recent HP Omen 16 review (a RTX 4060 laptop available for a similar price). Compared to this laptop, which comes equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS processor, the AORUS 15 performed between 7-19% better across the various settings.
Should you buy this GIGABYTE AORUS 15 with RTX 4070?
For the price point, the GIGABYTE AORUS 15 is one of the finest gaming laptops we’ve reviewed in 2023; it’s not without its flaws, in particular the battery life, webcam & mic quality, plus the reboot issues we had with the onboard software, but in the core areas that matter most to gamers, namely the in-game FPS performance and the vibrancy of the display, it excels. If you’re after something with a bigger screen, high peak brightness, and superior battery life we’d recommend the aforementioned Acer Predator Helios 16 instead, though the RTX 4060 version that’s priced similarly will be trounced by the RTX 4070 Gigabyte AORUS 15 in GPU-heavy games, plus runs a lot hotter than this impressively cool device. Indeed, you’ll struggle to find another laptop this powerful for the money. Put simply, the GIGABYTE AORUS 15 is a great gaming laptop, well worth a buy, and we highly recommend it.
