Hey guys! Welcome back to Tech NoLogic. Today, we will be taking a look at the Gigabyte Aorus 7 SA. Is this 17-inch gaming laptop for you? Continue reading to find out. Let’s go.
The Aorus 7 SA is a mid-range gaming laptop designed by Gigabyte. It weighs about 2.5kg, and has a thickness of just under 3 centimetres.
Now, Let’s look at the specs of this machine. There are two versions of the Aorus 7. Both have GTX1660Ti graphics cards, but have different CPUs. These are the available models:
The Aorus 7 SA has a 9th gen intel i7-9750H processor,
And the Aorus 7 SB has the latest 10th gen intel i7-10750H processor
Both CPUs have 6 cores and 12 threads, while the 10750H has slightly faster clock speeds.
You can check them out in the links in the description.
The model I have here is Aorus 7 SA with the 9th gen processor
It has 16GB of 2666MHz Samsung DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB NVME SSD.
You can also configure the Aorus 7 with up to 64GB of RAM and up to 6TB of storage thanks to its dual M.2 drive slots and a Hard drive bay.
Next, let’s look at some games and benchmarks. I ran all these tests while plugged in, and in highest performance mode for maximum performance. I ran 2 CPU benchmarks, and 3 games. I calculated the fps of the games using the MSI afterburner software.
First up, we have Cinebench R20. I could get a good multi-thread score of 2500, as the Intel i7-9750H has 6 cores and 12 threads. This kind of performance is good enough for most 1080p games on high settings, as we will see later.
Next up, we have the corona 1.3 benchmark. I could get a good render time of 3 minutes and 6s and a good score of over 2.7 million rays per second. The CPU stayed at a decent 3.4GHz on all cores while running the benchmarks and stayed cool at about 67 degrees Celcius with maximum fan speeds.
Next up, we have the games. I ran the in-game GTA V benchmark with max settings and these were my results. The average frames per second was over 110fps. We can achieve this kind of performance because of the 6GB of fast GDDR6 VRAM found in the GTX1660Ti. I would say that this graphics card is a good value for the price.
Next, we have Valorant. Valorant is not exactly a demanding game, so I got high fps on this game on high settings. With Vsync turned on, the FPS stayed at a solid 144Hz throughout. With Vsunc turned off, I could consistently get above 200FPS. It was a smooth gaming experience. The CPU and GPU stayed at a cool 70 degrees Celcius while managing to get this fps too.
Finally, we have Fortnite. On high settings, I could consistently get over 105fps throughout the game, occasionally getting more. It was a great smooth gaming experience. Here is some gameplay footage taken on the Aorus 7 SA. It is notable that the CPU actually got quite hot when I was playing Fortnite. It stayed at about 90 degrees Celcius, but I didn’t notice any significant performance dips when gaming. The keyboard did not get too hot to the touch too.
Next up, let’s look at the hardware and features.
The Aorus 7 has a huge 17.3-inch 1080p 144Hz display. It gets bright enough, and viewing angles looked good as it is an IPS panel. It has a good colour accuracy of just under 100% sRGB, and a wide colour gamut of 72% NTSC. The response times were excellent too, at about 6.4ms according to the UFOtest website. Gaming on this screen was a game-changer. Its large size gave me a very immersive gaming experience, especially for a laptop. Overall, the display is great for both gaming and other tasks such as photo and video editing.
The Aorus 7 has decent build quality, with a full plastic chassis. Even though it is made of plastic, the palm rest and keyboard felt surprisingly sturdy. There was little flex when pressing down on the keyboard and palm rest.
Fingerprints are not very visible because of the plastic finish but are easy to clean using a cloth.
There is some screen flex due to the plastic lid, but it does not wobble during normal use.
I could not open the lid with 1 finger, as the battery is at the back, making the laptop lighter at the front. The hinges felt sturdy when using the laptop.
Overall, it has a decent build quality, especially for a full plastic build.
The Aorus 7 has a relatively small 48.96WHr battery, but it is easily removable and swappable. This is an amazing feature to have, and most other laptops don’t have it. It does come with a 180W power supply to keep it running at full power. The 48.96WHr battery lasted me for about 3 and a half hours with power saving enabled with a continuous 1080p video loop on youtube at 50% brightness.
The webcam on the Aorus 7 SA is well positioned at the top bezel. It is a 720p camera, and is good for general skype or zoom meetings.
Next, let’s look at the keyboard. It is a good membrane keyboard that feels great to type and game on. It has a good layout, but the number pad is a bit compressed. It is also not too loud when typing. It also has RGB lighting that can be configured in the LED keyboard settings app. It gets decently bright at max brightness. The trackpad has windows precision drivers, is decently sized and is responsive. The left and right-click buttons felt a bit mushy though, but you will probably use a mouse if you are going to game.
The Aorus 7 has a wide selection of ports. On the right, we have a full-size SD card reader, a mini display port 1.2, a USB3.1 gen 2 port and an air vent. On the left, we have another air vent, a USB 3.1 gen 1 port, a USB 2.0 port, headphone jack and microphone jack. On the back, there is 1 more air vent, a USB type c port without thunderbolt or charging, a HDMI 2.0 output, RJ45 ethernet jack and the charging port.
Overall, I think that the Gigabyte Aorus 7 SA is one of the best 17-inch gaming laptop for this price. It has good internals, a large screen and many ports. This laptop is for anyone who needs an affordable, large gaming laptop that can run most games well. I will leave some links in the description below if you want to check out this laptop.
Do let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below my video, and I will see you in the next video. Bye!