Getting started – The Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED XB, positive developments for this laptop with OLED screen

[ad_1]

6

Like other manufacturers, Gigabyte has updated some of its notebooks, taking advantage of the arrival of new components from Intel and Nvidia. Among the elected officials is the Aero 15 OLED, which we were fortunate to receive.

The Aero 15 is an old acquaintance. We have indeed been able to follow the evolution of this benchmark since its inception, and had even tested its first OLED version six months ago, when it had to be satisfied with a 9th generation processor and a RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics circuit. New year, new standards: this laptop is coming back to us today with brand new chips, namely a Core Intel i7-10875H (8 cores / 16 threads) for the CPU part and an RTX 2070 Super Max-Q for the 'display. And if the health situation prevents us for the moment from giving you the benefit of a full Review, we can already offer you this first overview on a few key elements.

Regarding the outer part of the chassis, it is clear that the changes are minimal. The camera has not changed position (just below the screen) and still has a physical cache. The connection offer has not been changed either, and no design element has altered the general appearance of the machine.

From there, you could say that what is not seen outside is seen inside … In fact, not really. From the positioning of the fans to the number and the estimated width of the heat pipes (which are cased) through the sizing of the battery, there are no significant changes (see the photos below). An astonishing point given that the main components, they have undergone a significant strengthening: remember that the TU104 GPU of the RTX 2070 Super Max-Q gains 11% on the number of CUDA cores compared to the non-Super version, while the Core i7-10875H is armed with two additional cores compared to a Core i7-9750H.

Armed with this observation, there is obviously one element that we checked as a priority: the temperatures and the operating frequencies under load. And, oh surprise, it turns out that they are excellent: 3,176 Mhz for the i7-10875H on a Handbrake encoding (eight cores requested, therefore), against 3075 on the same Review for the i7-9750H of the Aero 15 OLED 2019 edition. Good performance, especially considering that the chip stabilization temperature drops as a bonus by 3 ° C (72 ° C vs 75 ° C). Concordant element: this control of heat exchanges is also felt on the available operating profiles. While the previous Aero 15 OLED was struggling to silence its ventilation, the new version is less noisy, especially in "Quiet" mode.

Finally, if we focus this time on the GPU, the findings are quite similar: the Aero 15 OLED manages to maintain excellent operating frequencies despite a more muscular chip: 1,357 MHz on average over five games vs 1 297 MHz for the Aero 15 OLED in RTX 2070 Max-Q.

As it stands, it's difficult to know exactly where the Aero gets its very good thermal performance, especially on the CPU side. One can imagine a very slight increase in the section of the heat pipes or a revision of the elements that ensure the transfer of heat between the chip and the heat pipes … But usually, when a manufacturer significantly changes its cooling system, it does not hesitate to put it forward in its communication. That's not the case here. Our feeling is that perhaps the CPU / IHS interface has evolved, without Intel noticing. When the Coffee Lake Refresh processors for desktop PCs arrived (9000K series), which just signed the arrival of the first 8-core / 16-thread configurations, Intel had improved the interface between the die and its heatsink, from thermal paste to a soldered solution. Such an evolution would partly explain the good figures that we have just generated. While waiting for confirmation from the American giant, we can only rejoice at the consequences on our Review copy: the Aero seems able to develop excellent performance, while controlling noise pollution and component temperatures.

Another subject: one of the major arguments of this model is obviously its 4K OLED panel. As much as the relevance of such a definition will always have a hard time convincing us on a diagonal of 15 inches, as much it must be recognized that the image which results from it does not remain about it less sumptuous. The previous Aero 15 OLED simply showed a bit of neglect on its average DeltaE (5.3) despite a factory calibration. This new edition does not change anything, with a deltaE of 5.2. We note that in play, the upscaling from Full HD to 4K will be almost imperceptible (upscaling necessary since the RTX 2070 Super Max-Q will not be able to run a lot of game in native definition). The slab is still shiny.

There are obviously still many points to explore: heat dissipation on the chassis, quality of the audio part, autonomy, software support. But this Aero leaves us for the moment on a very good first impression, and corrects in particular the noise management which bothered us on the previous model. What allow him to recover the 5th star which had escaped him during his last visit to our laboratory? Response within a few days. Note that before that we will focus more specifically on the new Nvidia GPU and on this first 10th generation Intel H-series processor.

[ad_2]