Aorus X7 Review by HTWingNut

Nope, had it for only 5 days. But great for them to offer it nevertheless. They seem to care about the enthusiast community and hopefully respond accordingly.

 

Got one at 6:30 EST this morning at Newegg Woot!

 

Notebookcheck got their review out.

Back to the drawing board, Aorus. With gaming, the fans make 46dB and goes all the way up to 51dB under full CPU load.
The GPUs reach 88C and the CPU reached 98C during stress load. The notebook itself reach up to 50C which is not exactly cool to the touch.

 

A little late to the party there Cloudfire... I had similar results, lol.

Except only place I found 50C was on the bottom back center of the laptop where the CPU sits. Otherwise rest of laptop is well under 50C which isn't bad at all. I also got similar db measurements from my video. Did you even read my review!?

 

I did and you did a really good job, but I thought your unit had bad paste job remember? I asked you if you could repaste but you werent allowed. So therefor I wanted to cross check reviews. Now we have VR-zone, your review and Notebookcheck finding the same so that puts the final nail on the coffin.
There is something wrong when the fans go on full blast (51dB lol) and the temperature still reach 88C for the GPU that share heatpipe with the CPU, and the CPU reach 98C. I`m actually amazed that it doesnt catch on fire or melt the silicon

I thought the cooling design was kinda neat and sound. Don`t get me wrong, its still a decent notebook since NBC found no throttling in the CPU or GPU during gaming. Im sure during gaming you wont see so extremely high temps though. Plus the system performed like a GTX 780M. But that temperature measurements and the fan noise...I dont know man...

 

Well, wish I had more time to tinker but as I noted before, with -80mV drop, full fans, and propped, CPU temps dropped to the 70's. The fan noise really wasn't that noticeable to be honest. It wasn't a whine or annoying hum, just a loud woosh, like A/C in your car. Auto fans, loudest it got was something like 42db.

It's definitely not perfect, but a good start. I'm still holding out for a Maxwell variant as I'm fine with my Clevo W230ST for a little while longer. I miss the 17" screen though.

 

Well 42dB isnt bad. Actually respectable for a gaming notebook. Perhaps they only reached 48dB when doing the Prime95 thingy.

17"? I can`t go back to 17" now that Im used to this Alienware. It have ruined me. Started out with 15", then went with 17" and hated 15". Now with Alienware 18 its become my preferable size actually

 

Yeah. I am never happy with what I have, well usually for about six months I'm happy, before I want something different. Ideally I'd like a 17" laptop in as close to a 15" form factor as possible, less than 6 lbs, and have 780m capabilities. This X7 was as close as you could get until I realized they made an error with the measurements. If I ever win a mega lottery I'm going to design my own laptop and mass produce it and sell it for little profit. Just to see how well it does, and design it as I like!

 

Notebookcheck's "full load" scenario is furmark+prime95 if I'm not mistaken. That is not indicative of most gaming loads. Maybe Metro: Last light.

 

wow. just got home and remembered to look. SOLD OUT.

 

Wow. I just realized it comes spec'ed with 2x128GB SSD + 1TB HDD + 16GB RAM. That's fully loaded (well 32GB RAM would be) for $2100. Not a bad deal at all.

 

Very thorough, thanks. It was a good read

 

is there any way to get it with customizations (32GB, repasted, different SSD etc.) from Newegg or any other vendor?

 

never mind, I just found out... HIDevolution Aorus X7-CF1 NVIDIA SLI GTX 765M 17.3"

 

This is great review. Newegg TV on youtube posted a review also and their CPU was running 97c. That is just way to hot. I would definitely wait a while and see other reports before jumping in head first on a first model with these temps etc...

 

I want to see what happens if someone repastes the GPU's.

 

Planning on doing exactly that if the thing would arrive. Says by 8PM tonight Out for Delivery.

 

Nice! Please let us know your opinions.

 

Package is now deemed lost by both FEDEX and NEWEGG. Each one pointing at the other. Cant make it up. LOL

 

Wow seriously? That is messed up man :/

 

Lost? How pathetic. How do you lose a package like that.

 

fedex lost the differential to my s2000 years ago. took months for it to show.

maybes someone knew what the x7 was and it "fell off the truck".

cant believe they are sold out after hyping it up. its as if they only got in 50 of em...

 

I know things get lost occasionally, seems though with their tracking system it should be easy enough to backtrack. But if it truly "fell off the truck" I've lost faith in humanity. Curious how Aorus packaged the laptop though. Anything that expensive should come in a plain brown box to not draw attention to it. In any case FedEx or Newegg should be replacing it, just how long will it take them?

 

I suspect this time its Newegg. 16 hours after I push purchase they are filming you tube videos of happy people in LA Playing with at least 5 of these machines in their new hybrid store Aorus event for the people. (LOL) When I talked to FedEx they claimed they received the label but never got the package. (Instructed to call Newegg) I call Newegg and end up at their Claims department and the gentlemen seemed to already know it was lost and, "Oh sometimes this happens". The odd thing is there was still an hour left at the time for it to be delivered if this was FedEx record keeping issues but the claims guy at Newegg was more than willing to refund the shipping money for next day business because "It definitely wont arrive tonight". He then goes on to say its more than likely FedEx never recorded the package properly and it will take 3-5 business days to figure this out. Then says, "Oh your a premium member, thank you for going premium." If this is a benefit of premium then I'm all set folks LOL.

The FedEx tracking this morning now shows N/A for estimated delivery instead of 02/28/2014 by 8:00PM so not one person I have talked to yet has even said, let me see if I can find this for you!

 

Another awesome fantastic review HT, that machine looks so promising now i wish i didn't get a digital storm desktop! lol I love to be mobile at all times.I can't wait for the prices to go down, and for the machine to have more extra options like the one's you listed and more choice for storage, etc..

 

Tracking Updated finally. They ship it today and its saying its halfway here. Looks like Monday is the day now.

 

Good review HT. My jaw dropped when I saw this thing come up on my facebook feed. I only wish they had waited til the 800 series vid cards were out

Won't have my Blade "paid off" until October. Wife only lets me upgrade every 2 years so I guess I'll have to stick with this thing until they do a refresh because by then there ain't no way I'll be buying any 7 series cards

 

Still have my Razer Edge but sold the Pro and Blade 14 recently. Have my order placed for this notebook. If Razer happens to announce a new laptop with appealing specs I may return it within 30 days. Would have to be an ips screen or something and better battery life because I just don't see an 8xx single card outpacing the aorus....

 

Glad to see you grabbing one of these johnnobts. I see an Aorus Maxwell in my future unless someone else competes with specs and price.

 

Keeping the price point down to $2099 sold me. They didn't give you any hints on when a maxwell refresh may drop?

Also I have 2x480gb msata drives I'm looking to put somewhere... Makes the 5400rpm 1tb drive seem unnecessary... Bw the aorus and edge pro I will be in titanfall heaven. Will have a "very unofficial review" of the x7 to go along with my blade 14.

 

No idea on Maxwell release date, although they'd be insane not to release it with a Maxwell update. Even if just a simple swap of 860m with 765m.

 

Excellent review as always!

Interesting that such a thin laptop can be so strong now a days. I'm mostly impressed.

 

lol hey john! Should have expected you to have one already!

I'm right there with you, I'm hoping Razer will counter with something similar. Sadly that would mean removing the SBUI for me...After having to live with it for so long now I will be SO happy to be rid of it. Really wish Razer made a 17" without the SBUI on it Soon as they do and offer a beefier GFX card in it I'll be sold again but when the Aorus being so suh-weet you can't pass it up! Blade should already have better B life though since it'll be a single GFX card and will be able to benefit from Optimus.

Competitive pricing + No SBUI is what is selling me. I love Razer to death (no really I do...my entire gaming area is lit up in Green and I only use their peripherals) but I just can not stand that stupid SBUI. It seemed like such a great idea but in practice it's nothing more than a gimmick for me that constantly breaks. If I was also on the road and only used the trackpad, yeah it'd be great then, but who doesn't use a mouse??

 

Wow this is way sexier in person than the web pictures do it justice

 

hey hemo, yeah, i stayed up till 2am central (as i did with the blade pre-order launch) to try and place an order, but apparently missed it later in the morning (got up at 7am and sold out in 2 hours). i have one backordered, and am ready to drop my 2x480gb msata ssds inside. need some diamond thermal paste and i'll be all ready for when it shows up (estimate newegg to have more friday or saturday supposedly). meanwhile gonna play south park the sick of truth on my razer edge pro.

i just don't see razer producing a laptop that will best the aorus in terms of performance. the next 17" pro will maybe have an 865m or 860m, can't compete with 2x765m cards. still love razer products, holding out hope for an edge pro refresh with maxwell on board.

 

you got yours blue?

 

Yes I did. Typing on it now. I backed it up and took note of the software and drivers and then updated the drives and ram. I put in 32 GIG Corsair Vengeance and a Samsung 840 EVO 1 T SSD Plus 2 x 1 T Samsung 840 EVO MSATA's. ( Think they need to change their site to 3 terabyte's instead of 2 on the storage ra ra page LOL) Anyway, everything was seen fine in the bios and I just got done loading Windows 8.1 Pro X64. Aorus did an awesome job on the engineering of this as well as the Utilities and Drivers disk they made these custom apps for. They rock! The Driver update utility is really nice showing what version you have and what the new version is and it installs the new stuff just by clicking on version. I'm loading a boat load of games and apps, and then backing it up one more time. Have to work early so I wont be able to try paste until tomorrow night. I also love the Power switch software utility. Really nice machine. Its almost pitch black aluminum which I think HT eluded to in review but I just wasn't expecting this black. Its stunning. Ok Ill be back tomorrow night. Does IC Diamond have a two day period before its accurate or is it within a few hours of the paste?

 

IC Diamond doesn't have a "set in" period at all. You get what you get after you apply it. Maybe a degree or two drop at most after an hour of hammering it to let it all settle.

 

I'm curious to see your temps...

 

Thanks HT!! I will load a couple games as soon as I get home take temps and then re-paste so we can see the difference. This is on a Zalman 17 inch laptop cooler which also props the back of the laptop up naturally so I will try it with and without the cooler.

 

Hmm making me want to snag one now!

 

Received my RBP yesterday and FedEx is delivering my RB 14 today. I will be placing an order for the Aorus today to compare them directly. This looks like a very promising machine if the support for the product is there. I like supporting companies that are willing to make a machine like this that is why the RB 14 will be my 5th Razer laptop. For all those waiting keep in mind if they don't sell enough machines there won't be a refresh.

 

Mine is shipping out tomorrow

 

Aorus ordered. Now the waiting game as its on back order. Can't wait to try it out.

 

I just hit that dreaded "Place Order" button!

4th Generation Intel Core i7-4700HQ Processor, 2.4 GHz (Max Turbo Frequency 3.4GHz), 6MB Smart Cache
IC Diamond on CPU + GPU - INSTALLED BY HIDevolution - $35.00
Genuine Windows® 8.1 Pro, 64bit, English - $100.00
Recovery USB Flash Drive - $25.00
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M with 2GB GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI® mode
17.3" 1920 x 1080 Full HD (16:9) LED Backlit Antiglare Type 72% NTSC Color Gamut Display
1 Year Zero Defective Pixel Guarantee (perfect panel guarantee) - $85.00
Kingston HyperX 32GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1866MHz (4 x 8GB) - $305.00
2TB RAID 0 (2 x Samsung 840 EVO 1TB mSATA SSD) - installed by HIDevolution - $1,150.00
Empty HDD bay (with caddy/adapter) - -$50.00
Generic External Bluray read DVDRW drive - $80.00
Backlit Programmable - U.S. English
2 watt speaker*2, woofer*2, Microphone, AORUS Acoustic+ technology
1 AC Power Adapter (supports 100-240V)
Killer™ Wireless-N 1202 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO for Gaming - installed by HIDevolution - $25.00
Bluetooth 4.0 Included
2 Year Limited Warranty, LIFETIME HIDevolution Technical Support

 

Congrats, but that end price...

 

Shipped today should have it Monday. These are now showing back in stock at Newegg.

 

cant create a working backup drive using the installed app. htwingnut, any special steps to get it working?

 

Anyone have a review yet on the laptop?

 

Eh? First post of this thread...

Beamed from my G2 Tricorder