Aorus X5 V7, X7 V7, DT X7 all estimated for June release in USA

I like the track pad logo.
Way better then the super "THIS IS A GAMING LAPTOP" colored accents and bright trim.
Compared to other gaming machines I thought it was pretty low key.

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I'll admit, I was ok with the blue. Orange is a little too much for me. At least the X7 version is a little darker than the x5. I'm still looking to source an x6 trackpad and see if I can swap them out. Just waiting on gigabyte to respond.

 

My old X7 v7 came in blue and I didn't like it. Hopefully, my new one will come in orange. Are the colors random or it depends on your model?

 

If you're concerned with a professional look, MSI also has workstations that are based on their gaming line but are a little more subdued.

 

Weird, I thought all the v7 models were orange. I'm not sure.

If you get another one, I'll trade you.

 

As far as I can tell they are all orange.

 

.

Interesting mine from NewEgg was blue, maybe its due to that.

Hopefully, I get an orange from HID.

 

That might be it, I haven't seen a blue one here yet.

 

Sweet, that is good to know.

 

Looking at it a but more, officially the touchpad color "may vary" but that I think it's per retailer, that or it's coincidence.

 

Mine is coming from Newegg so I hope I get a blue lol.

 

You make it sound like most of the people with disbosable income have a really bad taste ^^

As far as I am concerned, I can tolerate the eagel logo on the Aorus, but I absulutely dislike the bling on Acer, Asus, MSI and Co.
If Clevo would have managed to buils something like the X5 or X7 d`d certainly buy from them only.
Unforutnately they are to conservative when it comes to putting high end hardware into a slim barebone.

Best regards

phila

 

Not at all, unless you have confused "something I don't like" with "something that's objectively bad". Some people like them, some people don't. I mentioned that there are MSI workstations that aren't as gaudy as their gaming models and still pack the same hardware (or more professional hardware like Quadro cards).

 

OEM's need to be like Sager and provide the ability to remove brand from their laptops at a minimal cost to consumers. Unless, I'm mistaken and that it's a retailer option.

 

Retailer option. Fairly easy to do yourself too, if you're so inclined.

 

The problem is not about "objectively bad" (which most things are not) or "something I don't like".
The problem in my oppinion is that there is no option to buy the same model with more decent look.
One simply can not chose to buy the Acer Predator without the ugly (my opinion only) logo.

I would not care about all those backlit logos, colored WASD key ans aggressive Brands (Predator, Dominator, ...),
if only there were a option that I do not have to have them on my machine.

Unfortunately you are completely right with your statement. As long as the majority of the people decide to buy those designs...
(which to me is a perfect example of bad taste) ...the only thing I can do is to buy the machine with the least ugly design.

Best regards

phila

 

my X7 DT V7 UHD was charged to my card last night and should arrive tomorrow?

 

Go Clevo, remove branding, and you've got a nondescript powerful system that doesn't look out of place in a boardroom. That and the MSI W series are the closest you'll get if you still want top performance.

 

BIOS update for X5 MD listed on http://resources.aorus.com/Product/Download/X5 MD !

Versions are FB0D FD0D & EC009, dated 2017-07-31, whereas the previous version was FB0B FD0B & EC007 2017-06-23.

My machine is boxed up and ready to return, but I'm going to give this a go first if time allows tomorrow.

 

My X7 v7 is arriving this Sat from HID.

 

Congrats!! Always nice to get a new system for the weekend!

 

Thanks, yes, it is going to be a nice weekend.

 

Got the x5 v7 4k, and here's some early numbers from Firestrike:
Default (GPU at shipped/stock 0 OC, CPU at shipped/stock 4/Max OC): 14050 (CPU hitting thermal and TDP limit)
GPU & CPU @ 4 OC: 14550 (CPU hitting thermal and TDP limit)
GPU & CPU @ 4 OC with CPU undervolted 85mV: 14770 (no more CPU throttling)

Samsung SSD: 3100MB/s read and 1600MB/s write (sequential, queue size = 32)

Screen looks great, but I do have light bleed in the bottom right and left corners; I don't see any issues like those mentioned in the v6 models. Kaby Lake's update to the hardware decoder does great with 4K content, using only 5% of CPU to stream 4k youtube videos (unless it's using the GPU instead..... not sure if the lack of Optimus allows the CPU to use the video decoders, or if it instead uses the GPU); UPDATE: unfortunately, due to lack of optimus, it looks like the CPU's hardware decoder isn't used, and instead it's the GPU.

No issues with the keyboard noticed so far. On the contrary, keyboard is great so far (haven't touched any of the lighting stuff). Only thing that I've noticed so far regarding the keyboard is that the spacebar is 'noisy' especially in comparison to the rest of the keyboards that are pleasantly silent.

Speakers are ok, about average. Bass is almost non-existant, but mids are fine and gets loud enough. I rarely use speakers so not a concern to me.

Trackpad has been pretty good so far; it tracks well, but it seems as though sometimes won't track immediately, but that might be palm rejection kicking in so I'll need to play with the settings there. Once it starts tracking, it does a great job. FYI, the x5 v7 4k from newegg that I received has the orange logo on the trackpad... can we refer to this logo as "Fist the Eagle"?much wow, so game.

Temps: played some (1-2 hours) worth of overwatch, which this thing crushes. Epic settings at 4k with in-game fps limiter set to 57 (for g-sync) and I never saw it go below that. The GPU temps maxed at a cool 77C, and I think the CPU hit low 80s C. This is with both at the 4th/max OC, and the CPU undervolted by 85mV in XTU. This was with the fans on MAX, which is quite loud (I play with bose qc35s noise-cancelling headphones, so don't really hear anything). When I had the fans set to 'Gaming' the GPU and CPU were a bit warmer, but not much and the fans were alot quieter, so the thermals seem to be in check on this laptop. The one thing that I will mention is that I switched from 'Gaming' to 'Max' because even though the components were cool, the palmrest and WASD keys were getting a bit on the warm side. If I keep this laptop (so far that seems like a definite), I plan on re-pasting both the CPU and GPU to see if the temps can be lowered even further.

Build Quality: Feels like a tank. The x5 is meant as a replacement for my msi gs60, which I thought had solid build quality, but I also have the new macbook pro 15 with that horrible touchbar uptop. The build quality is about midway between the two, so I would say 4.5/5 with the mac being a 5/5 and the gs60 a 4/5, and I think that's downplaying it. What I will mention is that I was not prepared for the extra pound difference of the X5's 5.5pounds vs gs60's 4.5 pounds; the x5 is significantly heavier. One last thing that I'll mention is that the x5 has an 'odd' lip in the back which causes it to be longer and makes it less comfortable to grip from the back.

On a side note, based on the bios, this thing seems to have a TPM so that's a nice perk if you're planning on doing hardware encryption (which I am).

 

Temperatures after Repaste

After repasting my notebook shows amazing temps after repasting with Kryonaut: 80°C max in wPrime 1024.

However this Temps do not stay as good. Happened twice that the temps went up to 88°C after about 10-14 days of use.

I documented this:

17-07-24 wPrime 80-70 (hottest and coolest core)
17-07-24 wPrime 82-73
17-07-25 wPrime 83-74
17-07-25 wPrime 81-72
17-07-26 wPrime 79-69
17-07-27 wPrime 81-71
17-07-28 wPrime 83-72
17-07-31 wPrime 84-74
17-07-31 wPrime 83-74
17-08-01 wPrime 85-75
17-08-02 wPrime 87-76
17-08-03 wPrime 85-73
17-08-04 wPrime 88-76

After repasting again today I again have 80-70

Could it be that the paste wears of that quick? My suspicion is, that the cooling plate is uneven, which will kind of pump the paste out of the sides.

Do you guys have any ideas/experiences in this regard?

Best regards

phila

 

It could be an uneven heatsink. Thats pretty typical, and is why they use cheap thermal pads instead of paste, when assembling these things. I'm assuming that's what you saw when you did your first repaste?

I'm curious, what kind of compound did they use on the other components besides the GPU and cpu? Any thermal pads?

 

Finally, should get the X5 V7 replacement within a week!

Do you think or tried cutting the connection to be compatible on X5 V7 ?
I'm wondering if getting an extra PSU (255W) could be a good idea. Even only the format seems much better.

From what I saw, I thought USA had blue logo and UK orange... (for x5 v7)

P.S. thanks all to point out that the eagle have a fist... I actually liked it before thinking of that... (maybe he's just riding on a sledge...? Well that doesn't help the case f****...)

 

I'm doing a bunch of testing on my X5 MD (which is due to be returned) ahead of that BIOS update I mentioned... but I've found something interesting I wanted to mention immediately.

Version 3.9.9 of Command and Control seems to nerf GPU overclocking.

On version 3.9.8, each point on the slider is worth 20Mhz, and so +4 equates to 1327. On 3.9.9, each point is only worth 10, and +4 equates to 1277.

YMMV, but I've gone back to 3.9.8, and it might be worth grabbing a download of it while you still can.

 

Any performance increase with new bios? What change log was mentioned for Bios?

 

What would be the best DIY solution if you have an uneven heatsink between CPU / GPU?


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Think I must have been wrong about the bios... both before and after applying it (the one which claimed to have been updated on 2017-07-31), the BIOS line in Driver Updater said FB0D EC09, so I think I already had this update. Firestrike scores overall both before and after, with both OC sliders set to full in Command and Control, were pretty similar, around 14100, occasionally a little higher - but I think basically I already had that update. So I tried the earlier one, dated 2017-06-23 - and scores increased a bit, up to 14400 or so, which it's been steady at (with full OC in C&C) since. In real world terms that is translating to about 27fps at 4k in Witcher 3, ultra everything and hair works, which is low enough to make me feel a bit nauseous - I'm very susceptible to that. Dropping res to 1440p I get closer to 40fps which is ok for me, and in that particular game, I don't mind the non-native res. In Star Citizen though (yes, I know, anything you could say, I know, but it's my addiction), non-native res is terrible as text is very blurry - and 4k in SC, I'm getting about 19-21fps.

So - all told I think I'm going to return the X5 MD and get an X7 DT V7 CF2 (the QHD screen).

 

No there was no thermal pad but an absolute abundance of what I thought to be MX 2 (only guessing from the colour and the shimmering).

Are there thermal pads worth considering?!

Best regards

phila

P.S.: A pitty that one can not strap the heatsink to the CPU / GPU a littel tighter.

 

@Derek712
The plastic thing on the side of x7 v7 / x5 MD seems strange because I could swear the x5 v7 I first got was metal as I was actually impressed about that!

Was it you who made a review of the x5 v7 as well or was it another Derek ?

 

That's me

 

And you had plastic on the side part ? On x5 v7 (non MD)?

 

Thermal pads tend not to conduct heat as efficiently, they are mainly used because they're cheap and will completely fill an uneven space. I don't recommend them though, a thicker paste like ICD will do the job.

 

Oops, no, that wasn't me. What review was that? Afaik, both models are identical.

 

Was actually trying to find it again (EDIT: i may be mistaken about this review)

Nevertheless I'm absolutely sure mine was "full metal" as I scratched the vent part with my nails thinking that was really cool. I would be very disappointed to find out that my replacement unit comes half plastic...

Maybe it have to do with the blue/orange logo... but mine was orange as well.

 

I had great results with k5 pro replacing the stock pads.

 

Anyone got an X7 DT v7 yet? Any benchmarks or other opinions? I've seen @Derek712's preliminary findings (FS - Stock 15824 / Graphics 20676, OC'd 15935 / Graphics 20939). Or from v6 owners too.

 

Mine is out for delivery now. Will post back later after setup and first test.

 

got the system like 20 min ago, still setting things up but ran one firestrike on stock.

Temps were max 81 cpu 78 GPU Fan noise very tolerable not as quiet as the Zephyrus but no where near as bad as the RBP.

Overall system is built amazing! Love the keyboard and the UHD screen looks as good as the RBP screen which I thought was the best look of any 17inch I have seen.*This was just my personal opinion and if I did not have the 120hz screen in the Zephyrus then I would have probably went qhd*

@ Derek712 mine has no gaps and cannot see any lights from top view.

Doing updates and will post back later, need to swap out the drives and put the intel 8265 card in.

 

Please keep your ears open for any thermal expansion noises on the bottom cover. For me, it's a single sharp click and it happens on both heat up and cool down when under heavy load. I've narrowed it down to the cover because it doesn't happen with it off. I just want to know if it's just me.

 

@ Derek712 will do.

 

This is after OC on both GPU and CPU. Fan profile *Gaming*

Lots of playing to do and more testing, overall I could not be happier with my purchase.

 

Here is cpu OC at 4.0 GPU at Max OC Level and -100mv.

 

@Darkhan

Is this stock paste or you've repasted? Grats on a best of a machine.

 

All stock, at this point I am going to wait a few weeks before I do a repaste I am pretty happy where the temps are at.

Basically just swapping out the 512nvme for a 960 1tb and replacing the spin drive with a 3.8tb 2.5 ssd. And swapping the killer card as well.

Thanks! Hope yours is perfect as well!

 

good to hear you have a keeper and beast of a machine. so jealous of that 4TB SSD.

 

Great scores for a slim 1080 laptop!, much better than those Max-Q 1080 laptops

 

I would still have a hard time choosing the zephyrus or the X7, that's why I will keep both lol.