ChrisR's Aorus X5V8 and HIDevolution Review

I bought the new Aorus X5v8 after much deliberation. I’ve never bought a new gaming laptop, I’ve always bought used older models. When I went through the things I wanted in a high-end gaming laptop, this computer ticked all the boxes. In my research, I’ve found many Aorus X5 owners finding issues and even though I sat on this information, I decided to go for it anyway. In my one week of use, I’ve been surprised at what this computer can do. I purchased this computer stock with the help of Donald from HIDevolution and I will comment on my experience buying from them for the first time.

SPECS:

CPU: Intel Core i7-8850H (2.6-4.3 GHz)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB GDDR5)

DISPLAY: 15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), 144 Hz, IPS + G-Sync

STORAGE: 512GB NVMe SSD + 1TB HDD + 1 NVMe/SATA slot

RAM: 16GB DDR4, 2666 MHz

I/O: Thunderbolt 3.0 x 1, HDMI 2.0 x 1, mini DP 1.4 x 1, RJ45 x 1, USB 3.1 Gen.1 (Type-A) x 3,USB 3.1 Gen.2 (Type-A) x 1, USB 3.1 Gen.2 (Type-C) x 1, Audio Jack : Earphone (HiFi / SPDIF) x 1, MIC in x 1, SD Card Reader (UHS-II) x 1, DC Jack x 1

Audio: 1.5-watt speaker *2, 2-watt woofer *2, Microphone, ESS Sabre Hi-Fi Audio DAC, Dolby Atmos® Audio

KEYBOARD: AORUS per-key RGB, N-key rollover, individual macro keys

NETWORK: Killer™ LAN Chip, Killer™ Wireless-AC 1535 (802.11ac, a/b/g/n compatible), Bluetooth V4.1

BATTERY: 94.24 Wh

ADAPTER: 200W

WEBCAM: 720p

DIMENTIONS: 15.4(W) x 10.7(D) x 0.9(H)inch

WEIGHT: 2.50 kg (5.5 lbs)


OVERVIEW:



The laptop is the sexiest one I’ve owned, and I love the design. It feels like a gaming laptop but looks moderately innocuous. I don’t mind using this in class. The metal they use on the lid, wrist rest, and bottom panel feels premium. It has a very appealing texture, but it does attract fingerprints easily. The screen is surrounded by about an inch of bezel on the sides and more bezel on the top and bottom. The screen can be opened with one hand easily. While the trackpad looks great, I find trackpad with dedicated buttons to be more useful. It was slippery when I first used it but after installing Windows precision drivers it has grown on me. The trackpad tracks well with a light touch. The 200W power brick is flatter than my old GS43 brick but it is bigger overall. Not too heavy. The laptop weight + brick feels good in my backpack, but it is almost doesn’t fit. My laptop slot is for up to 17.3in laptops.

There are plenty of ports on this laptop. On the right is and SD card slot, two USB 3.0 slots, HDMI out. The back has two more USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet jack, and power input. One of the USB ports is 3.1 Gen 2, but I can’t tell which one. The left has TB3 port, USB-C port, mini-display, headphone jack, and mic jack. The front has nothing except status lights on the right side.

Accessibility:

To access the bottom panel, you will need a T6 screwdriver to remove the panel but with a spudger, the panel comes off easy. Be sure to note which screws go where because some are different sizes. Looking at the internals, the keyboard doesn’t seem easy to remove. The hard drive supports a 7mm drive and RAM slots are easily accessed. The SSD slots, battery, screen cable, wifi card, are within reach.

The cooling consists of 7 heat pipes, 3 on each and a shared pipe. There is a single fan for each. The vents are placed in the back and outputs air out the sides and rear. Air intake is from the bottom, front vents, and top of the keyboard.

Screen:

My old laptop had a 1080p eDP “IPS-level” display and when I went to compare with this laptop I noticed how more color accurate the Aorus screen is. It is a 144HZ IPS display with G-SYNC with X-rite Pantone color calibration. Colors are supposed to be near 100% RGB out of the box. Viewing angles are great as expected. There is backlight bleed on my model, but I would not call it horrible. I’ve noticed the bleed looks worse on the startup screen than when I’m watching a dark video.



Coming from a 60Hz screen the 144Hz jump was incredible. When I first turn on the computer, I thought something was wrong with my mouse. There is no input lag or blurriness when scrolling web pages. Gaming at 144Hz is also incredible coming from 60Hz. I feel like my aim is more responsive and natural when going for the kill. G-SYNC is nice as well, I’ve tested it with some games at less than 30FPS and the smoothness it adds is worth it to me.

Storage:

The storage includes a 512 GB Toshiba THNSN5512GPU7 NVMe SSD and a 1TB HDD. There is another free NVMe/SATA slot. The Toshiba SSD idles at 70C. The performance is good, and windows loads fast.

Software:

Aorus includes some bloatware but for the most part, I find all their utilities useful. I don’t find the XSplit stuff useful but its easily removed. Dolby Atmos for gaming is included and the features are useful.

Performance:

The CPU is an Intel i7-8850H overclockable processor. Aorus provides one-click overclocking of the CPU and GPU in their control panel. I’ve gotten up to 4.6 GHz with their control panel but I’m sure it can be pushed higher.

The GPU is a GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5 which has aged well and its capabilities are well known. There is no Optimus so the GPU is always running.

Gaming and Temps:

CPU idle: 45C Plugged In

Personally, this temp when wearing pants is warm. I was able to sit with it on my lap for 4 hours. Some may find this to be too hot, but I found it as the upper range of comfortable.

Temps are max recorded temp

Fan mode: Normal

GW2: 70C CPU 60C GPU 120FPS High

Fortnite: 94C CPU 88 GPU 144FPS High

BF4: 90С СPU 68С GPU 144FPS High

World of Tanks: 88C CPU 78GPU 142FPS High

Fan: Gaming

Destiny 2: -131.8 mV 70C CPU 83 GPU 110 FPS Medium

Dark Souls 3: -131.8 mV 70C CPU 72C GPU 60FPS High

The GPU and CPU can easily reach 144Hz but they get hot when pushing those extra frames. I noticed the temps went down a bit after switching to 60FPS. The games were tested about 30min apart to allow for some cooling. Running the games with a CPU undervolt helps temps bit as well.

Fan Noise:

The fans when in normal mode are audible but not louder than me typing this on my keyboard so that’s good. When gaming, the fans get quite loud and in some games; they may be louder than the game at 144 FPS. This is with Sennheiser HD558 Open-backed headphones though. The fans at 60FPS aren’t that bad when it comes to noise. If you’re not going for 144 FPS there is a quiet mode which makes the fans near silent and sometimes silent when using the desktop. When gaming in quiet mode, the fans stay quiet while delivering 60-67 FPS when I played a full game of Fortnite.

Battery Life:

Gaming battery life is not impressive about 1.5-2hrs. When using the desktop on lowered brightness and on quiet mode you’re looking at about 4-5 hours and six is possible with the correct settings and undervolt. That’s not bad for a gaming laptop!

Keyboard:

I’ve typed this whole review on this laptop. I haven’t missed a keystroke so far. The keyboard will take some adjusting coming from a 14in centered keyboard. Also, the macro key location takes getting used to as well as I found myself hitting them early on. Compared to my old GS43VR SteelSeries keyboard, I’d say the Aorus keyboard is softer to the touch but firms up by the end of the keystroke. I would say this keyboard is just as good as the SteelSeries one. The backlighting has been consistent on each key unlike what I’ve heard about the Aero 15X.



Audio:

This computer comes equipped with a decent number of speakers and woofers. I haven’t tested them yet as I’ve only been using headphones. The laptop comes equipped with an ESS Sabre Hi-Fi Audio DAC and Dolby Atmos® Audio. The DAC like a 144Hz screen was something I didn’t know I needed until I had it in person. Audio sounds noticeably clearer and crisper than on my older P35X v3. I can hear more subtleties in my music without having to crank up the volume. The Dolby Atmos audio is a nice touch as it offers several audio modes and a Dynamic mode which detects the type of audio you are listening to and adjusts accordingly.



HIDevolution Experience:

My thought process for ordering this laptop was that I wanted to try a laptop with a 144Hz screen. I was between this and the Aero 15x. I went with this laptop because it had more features that I wanted, primarily the ESS DAC, Killer networking, GTX 1070, and GSYNC. I knew I would be trading battery life and weight, but it was worth trading for me personally. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories online about Aorus/Gigabyte but this laptop is was my dream laptop and I wanted it so bad feedback or if it arrived DOA wasn’t going to stop me.

4/27/18-I contacted support around 1:30 PM CST I wanted to know how long it would take for the laptop to get to me with rush build. I was in a chat with Donald to discuss my options and he said it would be easier to explain my options if he called me. We talked about the options I had selected weren’t that important (Killer 1550, Remove HDD) and that if I bought it stock it would be able to ship that day if I ordered soon. I agreed and bought It after the chat closed.

5:30PM-I received an email that my order shipped. I paid for Priority overnight, so I could get Saturday delivery.

4/28/18-I picked up my order from the FedEx store and inspected the box.

The Aorus protective shell seems a little thin to me and was even cracked in one spot. I was afraid that my laptop was damaged in shipping despite the fragile and do not drop stickers. After I inspected it the laptop was in perfect condition. The new rice husk packaging looks kind of flimsy but at least it has a nice smell. Inside is some literature and a USB with the utility drivers.

Donald was amazing over the phone and explained each choice I made and adjusted my cart for me. I’m glad he was there to help! Also, he was knowledgeable about the parts too! It didn’t feel like he was just reading from the spec sheet to you. I would love to order from HID again!

 

This is not normal unless you happen to live in an oven. Under sustained writes/reads that SSD could easily reach over 100C and fry the NAND cells. This would mean all of your data would be permanently lost.

 

Thanks for the write-up. Agreed, a 70c idle SSD is a red flag.

My Toshiba XG3 (OCZ RD400 rebrand or the other way around) loads at around 72c and it is considered one of the hotter drives on the market.

 

In not sure why yet but I'll look into it. First I'm gonna try unplugging it and putting it back. I definitely don't want it to get so hot I lose my data!

 

Those seem like load temps. They are supposed to get hot under load (and have insulation pads for that reason) but not just sitting there. Unless there's some background process that's constantly reading/writing, but I'll assume it wasn't.

 

Wanted to chime in about the SSD temps. I'm currently rocking a toshiba 256 NvMe SSD, Samsung pm961 NvMe ssd and a crucial m.2 sata 3 ssd inside my gt83vr6re. I noticed the temp for my toshiba NvMe ssd sometimes hit around 65c. I measured the space between the ssd and the hood of my gt83vr6re. I had enough room to squeeze in 2mm heatspreaders on top of the ssds with .5mm thermal pads without touching the hood. They generally lower temps by 10c-20c. Try measuring how much space you have to see if you can squeeze in some heatspreaders to lower your temps. I think it's worth it for laptops more than desktops due to higher laptop temps due to chasis/cooling configurations. There are some 2mm copper heatspreaders on ebay and some 2mm heatspreaders on aliexpress. There are also thicker options available that also have built in fans, however, you will need to be able to plug the fan in(To my knowledge, i don't think any laptops give you this capability).

 

Hi ! Could you upload a temp screen of the laptop (cpu + gpu) after a PUBG game ?

Thanks!

 

Just realizing the battery life when not on heavy load, thats not bad at all!

 

Congrats on your purchase!

 

Only have X7 V7 but love these laptops had a blast. Enjoy man and congrats.

 

You've had the laptop for a while now - any chance you could let us know how things are going? Still loving it?

 

I don't mind giving a quick update. I started a new job in May so I've only been using the laptop on weekends. I'm still loving the computer. I have had no problems so far. In the beginning, I was a having some buyers remorse b/c of the high cost. I had never bought a device of this price before. Physically, the laptop is in perfect condition, I cant notice any wear and tear moving it from storage on weekends. Gaming performance has been solid and I haven't experienced any slowdowns or hardware-related crashes. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask them.

 

yeah thermal pad (or heatspreader) on SSD is important. I assume there's one attached on the SSD in every notebook shipment we have....