Gigabyte Aorus 16X review

Our VerdictFor an RTX 4070 gaming laptop in 2024 the Aorus 16X is solid. You’ll pay a lot more for any more power, and with its bright 16in screen (even though it’s not an OLED) it’ll play anything you can throw at it for years.

Our Verdict

For an RTX 4070 gaming laptop in 2024 the Aorus 16X is solid. You’ll pay a lot more for any more power, and with its bright 16in screen (even though it’s not an OLED) it’ll play anything you can throw at it for years.

ForGood power to price ratio165Hz refresh rateRestrained design, for a gaming laptopAgainstOdd keyboard choicesHeavyStraight power plug

ForGood power to price ratio165Hz refresh rateRestrained design, for a gaming laptop

AgainstOdd keyboard choicesHeavyStraight power plug

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This may not be a big deal, as touch typists and those who play games with the keys will rely on muscle memory to find the key. But if you ever look down to see which key you’re about to press then the letter can be hard to see. Conversely, if you turn the backlight off, it becomes clearer. Lit-up WASD keys aren’t a novel idea, but the implementation of them here is distinctly questionable.

Elsewhere, you’ll find the kind of laptop that’s great to play games on. With a 14th-gen i7 CPU and an RTX 4070 GPU, it’s well set up for high detail levels and frame rates at the 165Hz display’s 2560x1600 native resolution. It’s bright too, with my colorimeter showing the supposedly 400-nit screen putting out 573 of the head-itching brightness units at its peak.

There’s a bit of typical gaming laptop design in the ‘Team up, fight on’ slogan printed right under where your hand rests when typing, the plethora of vents, and the way it lights up the Aorus word mark onto your desktop from the rear of the chassis in the same way some cars project their manufacturer’s logo on the ground. It’s kinda nice, while simultaneously being the sort of thing you’ll turn off immediately.

Aorus 16X specs(Image credit: Future)CPU:Intel Core i7-14650HXGPU:Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (140W)RAM:32GBStorage:1TB SSDScreen:16in 2560x1600 IPS, 165HzConnectivity:Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, 1x USB4/Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x micro SD, 1x Ethernet, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x headset, 1x DC inDimensions: 35.6 x 25.4 x 2.7cmWeight:2.3kgPrice:$1,649|£2,097

Aorus 16X specs

(Image credit: Future)CPU:Intel Core i7-14650HXGPU:Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (140W)RAM:32GBStorage:1TB SSDScreen:16in 2560x1600 IPS, 165HzConnectivity:Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, 1x USB4/Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x micro SD, 1x Ethernet, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x headset, 1x DC inDimensions: 35.6 x 25.4 x 2.7cmWeight:2.3kgPrice:$1,649|£2,097

(Image credit: Future)

Gigabyte Aorus 16X gaming laptop

CPU:Intel Core i7-14650HXGPU:Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (140W)RAM:32GBStorage:1TB SSDScreen:16in 2560x1600 IPS, 165HzConnectivity:Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, 1x USB4/Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x micro SD, 1x Ethernet, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x headset, 1x DC inDimensions: 35.6 x 25.4 x 2.7cmWeight:2.3kgPrice:$1,649|£2,097

The bundled power adapter showcases another curious design decision, as it plugs into the side of the laptop but doesn’t have an L-shaped connector, so it sticks straight out to the left instead of neatly running to the back of your desk. The 99Wh battery gets you around six hours of use in a charge, however, which is good for a gaming laptop though will drop considerably if you push its GPU hardallthe time.

Does that i7 make a big difference compared to the i9-equipped machines? Not that much, where it counts. If you look at the Cinebench R23 results, which render the same scene using a single CPU core, then again using all of them, the i7-14650HX in the Aorus 16X manages 117 points less than the i9-14900HX in the £3,600 Razer Blade 16 in single-core mode. As a 5.2GHz i7 against a 5.8GHz i9, you’d expect a difference, but it’s not huge.

Image1of5(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

Image1of5

(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)

(Image credit: Future)

Gigabyte Aorus 16X gaming laptop

(Image credit: Future)

Gigabyte Aorus 16X gaming laptop

(Image credit: Future)

Gigabyte Aorus 16X gaming laptop

(Image credit: Future)

Gigabyte Aorus 16X gaming laptop

(Image credit: Future)

Gigabyte Aorus 16X gaming laptop

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The Verdict

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Our Verdict#

Our Verdict