Gigabyte Aero X16

I don’t understand Gigabyte’s Aero X16, I really don’t. Actually, come on, I don’t understand the broader gaming notebook market these days. At least not now. I’ve looked at the test results here multiple times over the past week and, well, to say this isn’t the best gaming laptop is an understatement. Quite the damn opening paragraph, especially as a hardware journalist with a reputation to uphold and all, but I digress. I have beef and it’s with TGP, i.e. total graphics power.

This is the Gigabyte Aero X16 co-pilot. Take a look at the specs list and you’ll see that it’s full of some seriously impressive hardware, or at least that’s what it would seem. There’s one of AMD’s latest Ryzen AI 7 350 processors based on the Krackan Point architecture, a well dose of 32GB of DDR5 memory clocked at 5,600 MT/s, a nice 1TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD storage, and, perhaps more importantly in this whimsical argument, an RTX 5070 8GB mobile graphics card. But there’s a catch: it’s narrow to just 85W.

This is the same 85W power limit that Gigabyte used on the Gaming A16, which I tested earlier this year with the RTX 5060. The same 85W limit that I found to be the main culprit for this particular breed of 16-inch gaming notebooks, lags behind the likes of the much more powerful Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 10. And here it is, rearing its ugly head once again, but this time tied to instead, one of the best RTX 5070 cards from Blackwell, a graphics processor whose computer counterpart is supposed to have a maximum power of 250 W, and the mobile one is theoretically narrow to 100 W (at least if the manufacturer has no other plans). Oh, it can’t be that bad, right? I hear you asking. Well, dear reader. Yes, that’s really true.

First, let’s compare the Gigabyte Gaming A16 directly with this one. Both have 32GB of DDR5 memory, both have a 1TB SSD, both have a 16-inch display (though at slightly different resolutions), and both have similarly impressive processor configurations (the A16 with the older Core i7 13620H and the Aero with the aforementioned AMD unit). The difference, of course, is the RTX 5070 GPU and the resulting $100 price raise for the Aero.

For that extra $100 you get “better” gaming performance that is brutally average. At 1080p in Cyberpunk, A16 reaches 33 fps, Aero 32 fps. In Baldur’s Gate 3, A16, 65 fps, Aero 63 fps. Black Myth Wukong, Aero wins from 53 fps to 52 fps, and the last two titles are miraculously won by Aero (I suspect due to newer AMD CPU optimizations beating the older Intel chip), hitting 60 fps compared to 50 fps in F1 24 and 66 fps in Metro Exodus to 59 fps in X16. Overall, this equates to an average performance gain of just 5.7% with subsequent GPU improvements. Does this seem right to you? Because it certainly doesn’t apply to me. To be clear, the RTX 5060 in Lenovo LOQ outperforms it on average, and that’s all because the TGP is much more generous.

But Aero is more than that. Let’s not focus on nonsense GPU advertising strategies here. There’s no denying that this thing is stunning. It bridges the gap between a high-performance gaming notebook and a professional office machine that you can take to your weekly push-the-needle seminar without looking like a huge nerd. The aesthetic is extremely tidy. There are no edged engraved lines or outrageously backlit logos. The bezels are skinny, the 16-inch 2560 x 1600 screen is beautifully edged, and although there’s a gaming font on the key switches, the metallic, satin exterior looks like it just rolled off the Porsche Taycan production line.

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The keyboard isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s comfortable to type on, is backlit, and has plenty of travel and subtle actuation for a well dose of tactile feedback. The ports are also plentiful and the speakers are surprisingly good considering it’s a laptop.

Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get back to the negatives of this upside-down compliment sandwich. Namely, the rest of the performance… yay. First, the SSD drive. It is Kingston OM8PGP41024Q-A0. It’s a 1TB PCIe 4.0 drive and, well, it’s not good; it’s by far the slowest drive I’ve tested so far, offering almost half the performance of the Gigabyte AG450E found in the Gaming A16. Then there’s the processor, which also, while relatively impressive in multi-core, performs dismally in single-core tests, averaging just 78 points on Cinebench.

It does improve it in Blender, but it still won’t compete with its desktop counterparts, and considering its main competition is a questionable Intel chip from three years ago, well, I expected better.

Moving on, battery life was, while not particularly low, disappointing, certainly compared to the A16, as it only lasted 109 minutes compared to its cousin’s 183 minutes, and image generation was also solid, although again problematic compared to the much better powered RTX 5060 found in the Lenovo LOQ.

The only advantage is that thanks to the much more powerful ray tracing and Tensor core configuration compared to the RTX 5060 line in the Gaming A16, it actually takes advantage of the better ray tracing and scaling performance of DLSS 4. This is very helpful when you are playing at the native resolution of 2560×1600.

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Well, how do we sum it all up then? Overall, the Aero X16 won’t win many accolades here. It certainly won’t make our list of the best gaming laptops. Just no. The devastating effect of this 85-watt TGP is rather astonishing. The fact that it can’t even keep up with cheaper Gigabyte models with weaker GPUs isn’t exactly ideal, especially since it’s such a key selling point. Yes, there’s a more newfangled processor here, AI-optimized of course (although really comparing these NPUs to a dedicated graphics card for AI performance is like sewing with a broken needle: pointless), and yes, there’s a higher resolution screen here too, but is that really enough to justify the absolute confusion resulting from this cacophony of TGP nonsense? I’m not so sure about that.

It’s a lovely thing. This is. Okay, the SSD is a bit weaker and the processor performance is average, but the build quality, design and software are all at a high level. It’s just a shame we have to deal with this TGP nonsense; otherwise it could have been something truly amazing.