GIGABYTE AORUS 16X (2024 Edition) Gaming Laptop Review

TweakTown's Rating: 91%

The Bottom Line

The AORUS 16X balances cost with a high performance system that has everything a mid-range gaming laptop needs!

Pros

• + Intel 14900HX CPU
• + DDR5 SO-DIMM memory
• + Dual Gen4 NVMe storage
• + Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 7
• + Dolby Vision and NVIDIA G-Sync at 165Hz

Cons

• - Limited VRAM on RTX 4070 (8GB)
• - Small trackpad

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

The 16X is part of GIGABYTE's lineup of AORUS gaming laptops, living as the standalone entry-level offering to the big brother, the 17X. That's not to say it doesn't pack some serious hardware, though, because this Intel 14th Gen offering takes advantage of the more powerful Raptor Lake SKUs over more recent offerings from vendors using the Meteor Lake Core Ultra 100 series. Adding to this, GIGABYTE has opted to outfit this 16" platform with a 1600p display with a fantastic 165Hz refresh rate complete with both Dolby Vision and NVIDIA GSync technologies and to button it up GeForce RTX 4000 series graphics.

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Getting further into the specifications, the 16X has two CPU choices from the Raptor Lake lineup: the 14650HX, which we don't see often, and the 14900HX. Our model includes the latter, as mentioned above. This gives us eight performance cores and sixteen efficient cores for twenty-four cores with hyper-threading enabled thirty-two threads. Base clocks come in at 1.6GHz for the e-cores and 2.2 GHz for the P-cores, while turbo clocks reach 4.1GHz for the E-cores and 5.8GHz for the p-cores. Memory support is over two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots; Our 16X was outfitted with 32GB of 5600MHz out of the box.

The AORUS 16X internal expansion includes two Gen4 NVMe slots and an m.2 Wi-Fi PCIe slot. Connectivity options include three USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two using the Type-A port and one using USB-C. Additionally, a single Thunderbolt 4 port supports USB4 and DisplayPort 1.4. It also features a single HDMI 2.1 port, RJ45 Wired Ethernet, and a UHS-II MicroSD slot.

The pricing of the AORUS 16X for 2024, as configured, comes in at $2099. At the time of writing, Amazon had it on special for 14% off at $1799.

GIGABYTE AORUS 16X (2024 Edition) Gaming Laptop

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$2011.61	$2011.61	$1999.26	-	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 10/8/2024 at 8:41 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.

Laptop Features

Overview

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The 16X was delivered in retail packaging, complete with AORUS branding.

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Chicony makes the power adapter at 240W.

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Unboxing, the 16X is deep metallic grey, with the AORUS logo on the lid.

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The left side of the machine offers the power input, followed by the wired ethernet, HDMI, and USB 3.2 port.

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The right side starts with the microSD slot, followed by the Type-C USB 3.2 and the second Type-A USB 3.2.

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The bottom of the machine offers a unique venting pattern with an embossed AORUS on the cover.

Keyboard & Trackpad

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Opening the 16X, we have a full-size keyboard with RGB backlighting. The trackpad is centered in the machine and offers a solid tactile click. While the feel of the trackpad is smooth, it's not quite as good as a Glass trackpad found on higher-end models, but quite good overall. As for the keyboard, we once again have that mechanical feel to the keys, though almost slightly shallow when typing but very smooth when playing FPS titles like Call of Duty, where you need quick movements.

Display

The display on this model is a 16" 2560x1600p offering, and it supports many of the latest technologies, including Dolby Vision and NVIDIA Gsync, while being 100% sRGB certified. The refresh rate peaks at 165Hz, offering smooth visuals. Color on this panel is pretty standard, with vivid colors - blacks are slightly muted, though nothing distracts. We did note some backlight bleed while in a dark room, something you can see in the image below.

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Cooling

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Opening up the bottom of the unit, we have the battery taking up the bottom half of the chassis with a massive 99Wh solution. Above that, we have room for Gen4 NVMe, Wi-Fi slotted between, and memory. Cooling takes up the top half of the chassis; GIGABYTE calls this solution Windforce Infinity, featuring a copper five heatpipe design and low turbulence fans, offers a more efficient cooling system with less noise, something we truly enjoyed when testing the 6X even with fans on full speed which kept this unit quite cool when going through our entire day of testing.

Upgradability

The 16X is fully upgradable out of the box, including the Wi-Fi 7 solution, which now uses a PCIe interface over CNVIO. Memory is quite good out of the box, with 32GB at 5600MHz, and both NVMe drives are identical, so those wanting to play around with Intel VMD could potentially pair them together for quicker storage, as the drives alone would be one thing we would upgrade.

BIOS/UEFI

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The 16X EFI is identical to what we find on AORUS Motherboard offerings; this offers an advanced mode, and the system page offers hardware information, including the BIOS version. Peripherals give access to Intel RST for VMD access. There's also the onboard device config for your USB and other onboard devices, followed by SATA and NVMe. Further down, we have controls for switching the GPU device between the Intel iGPU and RTX 4000 solution.

Software

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Performance can be tuned through the GIGABYTE Control Center. This gives consumers access to GIGABYTE's AI Nexus suite for tuning the system's performance, the general page offering fan control, and additional settings off to the right.

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RGB Fusion allows control of the RGB on the keyboard itself. This includes a set of preset modes and the option to make profiles.

System & CPU Performance

Cinebench

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that Intel and AMD have relied on to highlight their newest platforms during unveilings. The benchmark has two tests: a single-core workload that utilizes one thread or 1T and a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU.

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In Cinebench 2024, the 16X demonstrated solid performance. It scored 125 points in single-core performance, placing it in the top half of the tested systems. The multi-thread performance was also impressive, reaching 1599. These results highlight the cooling system's effectiveness in maintaining high performance under heavy load.

BAPCo CrossMark

CrossMark is an easy-to-run native cross-platform benchmark that uses real-world application models to measure overall system performance and responsiveness. CrossMark supports devices running Windows, iOS, and macOS platforms.

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CrossMark picked up 2042 overall, again putting the 16X near the top of our charts.

AIDA64 Memory

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Memory performance was 86K read, 77K write, and 79 K copy. Latency was 83 ns.

Geekbench 6

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Geekbench scored 2888 in single-core workloads and 17684 in multi-core, second best to the Legion 7i we recently reviewed.

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The AORUS picked up 106K in OpenCL and 111K in Vulkan.

Graphics & System I/O Performance

PCMark

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PCMark Extended landed at 10819, the middle of the pack of all gaming laptops tested.

3DMark

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The CPU Profile for one and two cores has our 16X in the second spot in our charts, with scores of 1193 and 2292, respectively.

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Increasing the core counts to four, eight, and sixteen, we pick up 4372 at four threads and 7853 at eight. We finish with a score of 9631 at sixteen threads, sixth overall in our chart above.

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Storage landed at the bottom of the charts for the 16X at 274 MB/s throughput.

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Pushing into gaming benchmarks, we have Steel Nomad, which nearly matched the Legion 7i but fell short by two points at 2725.

Gaming Performance

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Getting into Cyberpunk 2077, the 16X scored a solid 119 FPS with the low preset, followed by 71 FPS at medium settings and 60 FPS with the high preset.

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Forza Motorsport came in at 109 FPS using the low preset. Performance held quite well moving into the medium setup at 91 FPS, and high settings finished testing at 70 FPS.

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With the low preset, Ashes gave us 117 FPS off the top. When we moved too high, that dropped to 109 FPS. When we cranked it up, we moved to the crazy preset, which gave us 74 FPS.

Battery Life

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We did run through the gaming battery life test in PCMark, though we aren't sure how many choose to run games in this configuration. The AORUS 16X managed nearly two hours of battery life in this scenario.

Final Thoughts

The 16X is our first look at an AORUS system in quite some time; our last look was in 2020 with the 15P. That being said, the 16X is certainly a massive upgrade in terms of hardware, where we have a solid 14900HX/RTX 4070 build that fits perfectly into the mid-range category and is priced even better than we expected. The build quality of the 16X is top-notch, with a rigid frame underneath, giving the laptop some weight, while external materials offer a fantastic aesthetic overall. The port count is on par with expectations, and everything you need for a hybrid gamer/productivity machine is there, including microSD and Thunderbolt 4; adding to this, GIGABYTE is one of a few vendors to offer both wired and Wi-Fi 7 in their 2024 system; many vendors sticking to Wi-Fi 6e.

In terms of hardware performance, the 14900HX is currently the best Intel CPU for mobile enthusiasts, with Meteor Lake H signifying a shift in Intel's market strategy as they transition to new silicon designs. We anticipate that the Arrow Lake H will further enhance performance, but only time will tell. The 16X delivered impressive results in Geekbench and CPU Profile, likely due to its excellent cooling system, enabling sustained high performance. It achieved chart-topping scores of 2888 in single-threaded performance in Geekbench and 1193 in CPU Profile. Moreover, it also performed well in full system workloads such as PCMark and Crossmark, with Crossmark achieving a score of 2042, placing it near the top of our charts, and PCMark delivering the best performance of any RTX 4070 machine we have tested.

Gaming was quite good on the 16X, too; as expected, we picked up solid numbers for Steel Nomad, once again, the best RTX 4070-powered machine we have tested. Cyberpunk, Forza, and Ashes all showed impressive performance, even at a full resolution of 1600p. Cyberpunk peaked at 119 FPS using the low preset, while the high preset wrapped at 60 FPS. Forza was similar, pulling 109 FPS using the low preset and 91 FPS in medium. The high preset finished up testing at 70 FPS. Ashes ran really well in both low and high, pulling 117 and 109 FPs, respectively, with the crazy preset pulling on the system a little, giving us 74 FPS.

As for pricing, the 16X has an ideal price range depending on the hardware build, as expected. As configured for our testing, the MSRP is $2099, nearly $300 cheaper than the Legion 7i of the same spec. That said, when writing this article, we noted that this unit has gone on sale for $1799 at Amazon, really upping the buying factor considering the performance and build quality.