aorus 3080 lcd screen not working free sample

AORUS - the premium gaming brand from GIGABYTE had launched a completely new series of RTX 30 graphics cards, including RTX 3090 Xtreme, RTX 3090 Master, RTX 3080 Xtreme, and RTX 3080 Master.

Besides excellent cooling and superior performance, LCD Edge View is another spotlight of AORUS RTX 30 series graphics cards. LCD Edge View is a small LCD located on the top of the graphics card. What could users do with this small LCD? Let’s find it out.

LCD Edge View is a LCD located on the graphics card, you can use it todisplay GPU info including temperature, usage, clock speed, fan speed, VRAM usage, VRAM clock and total card power. All this information can be shown one by one or just certain ones on the LCD.

Besides that, there are three different displaying styles available and users could choose their ideal one. However, not just GPU info but FPS (Frame Per Second) in the game or other application could be displayed through LCD Edge View.

The LCD Edge View can also show customized content including text, pictures or even short GIF animations.Users could input the preferred text to the LCD, also set the font size, bold or italic. It also supports multi-language so users could input whatever type of text they want.

About the picture, LCD Edge View allows users to upload a JPEG file to it and AORUS RGB Fusion software will let users choose which region of the picture should be shown. The support of short GIF animations is the most interesting part.

Users can upload a short animation in terms of GIF to be shown on the LCD so they can easily build up a graphics card with their own style. All of the customizations above can be done via AORUS RGB Fusion software.

There’s something more interesting with LCD Edge View: The little CHIBI.CHIBI is a little falcon digitally living in the LCD Edge View and will grow up as more time users spend with their graphics card. Users could always check their little CHIBI through the LCD Edge View and watch it eat, sleep or fly around, which is quite interactive and interesting.

In conclusion, LCD Edge View can display a series of useful GPU information, customized text, pictures, and animations, allowing users to build up the graphics card with their own style. Users can also have more interaction with their card via the little CHIBI, the exclusive little digital falcon living inside the LCD Edge View, which brings more fun while playing with the graphics card.

Only a small number of years back, it was both challenging and expensive if you wanted to play your favourite games in 4K. This was because few games supported the higher resolution and the hardware"s power was a primary limiting factor. Unless you had thousands of dollars to spend, 4K gaming was not a viable option.

When it comes to gaming, it is an absolute dream to play at a resolution of 3840x2160. You will notice details in the graphics like you never have before. These increased graphic details give you an overall more immersive and enjoyable gaming experience.

Video games, movies, and TV Shows are going all in on the ultra HD resolution, so the AORUS 4K display lineup will ensure that you can take advantage of future releases as they become available.

AORUS aims to make this selection process much easier by offering a large range of displays that all offer outstanding 4K quality and are suitable for all gamers and budgets.

When it comes to 4K content, one of the most important things to consider is the display that you are going to use. There is no point in outputting 4K video if the display itself is not able to handle it correctly.

Because of this, you must pay attention to the features and specifications when scouting for a 4K monitor. With this in mind, GIGABYTE AORUS has created a range of 4K display offerings that suit everyone"s budgets and requirements.

The product is among the most sought-out products from AORUS that sports a 4K IPS screen @ 144Hz. It"s built with 4K PC gaming and future and upcoming consoles in mind.

The FI32U supports FreeSync VRR to provide top-notch tear-free gaming moments anyone could ask for, delivering truly stunning image quality right out of the box.

Another display from AORUS that offers unparalleled 4K gaming performance is a monitor with a 10bit display plus 97% DCI P3 colour field. With this, you can benefit from richer colour gradation selections plus improved efficiency.

The M28U is another great 4K monitor with a 28-inch IPS screen. It delivers notable gaming features that enhance your entire experience. The monitor provides a very low response time of 1ms, providing lag-free gaming.

The optimised pixel density and spacious viewing allow it to function as a top-notch monitor for regular and gaming use. Being a smaller monitor than the others on the list, you won"t need as powerful hardware to take advantage of the 4K display.

The larger screen size makes it the perfect option for gamers who like to play PC games as well as console games, as it gives it a nice sweet spot between screen size and performance.

The M28U ARM Edition monitor from GIGABYTE is the latest display offering that not only offers stunning 4K image quality but comes with a unique feature.

The M32U ARM Edition is similar to the M28U ARM Edition, but it packs a larger 32 inch display which is perfect for those gamers that want a larger screen for more immersive gameplay.

The larger screen is also perfect for content creators and those that perform productivity tasks. The larger screen size ensures that visuals are crystal clear and that they look stunning.

A 4K-capable gaming PC requires a powerful video in order to render the 4K graphics correctly. The most popular 4K capable cards are the likes of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090, and AMD RX 6800 XT and RX 6900.

There is nothing quite like gaming from the comfort of your couch or slouching back in your computer chair and just enjoying that game that you are playing.

We have something special for you! We’ve tested the largest GeForce RTX 3080, which is even equipped with its own display. And at least as interesting are also the results with Resizable BAR, which are making their debut in our GeForce graphics card tests, so sit back and get ready for it. Those increases and decreases in performance compared to Radeon are worth it.

With the RTX 3080 Xtreme 10G, we are starting to test Resizable BAR on GeForce as well. It is already mandatory due to the extensive support. Nevertheless, it makes sense to still maintain and expand the database of results without ReBAR. There are more or less two reasons for this.

One is that not all Ampere RTX graphics cards have supported ReBAR until the end of March and from previous experience with AMD we know that the performance evolves differently over time – significantly more than without ReBAR, where the progress is relatively negligible due to various updates. This means that the results measured with ReBAR today can differ significantly from repeated measurements, for example, after a month, which must be taken into account not only in ours, but also in any other tests.

And the second reason why not to leave standard measurements (i.e. with Resizable BAR off) is that the increase in performance may not always be progressive and may be descending. We’ve also noticed this in AMD’s graphics cards, which have been supporting ReBAR for longer. In short, it is also good to know about situations in which ReBAR is not currently suitable. Radeons with ReBAR have been tested across all available GPUs from the RX 6000 series, and the RTX 3080 will now have its premiere from the GeForce graphics. This is probably the most appropriate choice for a start due to its high popularity. We have this RTX 3080 in a non-traditional version from Gigabyte.

The graphics card has the Nvidia GA102 core (200-K1-A1) with 8704 shaders, 16 GB of GDDR6X memory, which is connected to a 320-bit bus. It is also worth emphasizing the specified boost clock – 1905 MHz. In practice, it will traditionally be more, we’ll see by how much. Detailed specifications of Aorus RTX 3080 Xtreme 10G can be found in the table below.

The graphics card is huge. It is not only long (319 mm), but mainly thick. Its thickness is 70 mm, but only a double-slot blanking plate is still used. The height of almost two slots corresponds to a large chin under the PCIe plate. In practice, this is a four-slot graphics card with a weight of almost two kilos (1,872 grams to be specific, ~4.1 lb).

The power connectors are robust, there are three 6+2-pin PCIe connectors on the card. On the same side is a switch to switch between BIOSes. There are two of them, “OC” and “Silent”. In order not to limit the performance of the card in any way and to reach the highest possible performance in the tests, we use the “OC” BIOS during the measurements, but we also checked “Silent” to see if it lives up to its name.

The accessories are quite austere, but collectors will be pleased with the Chibi mascot figure and a metal sticker. This luxury suitcase box does not hide anything else. Unfortunately, there is no support bracket that would lighten the load on the PCI Express slot either (although this is not a challenge for the armour plated ones) and at the same time keep the card in a horizontal position in accordance with aesthetic rules.

The RTX 3080 Xtreme 10G is attractive and rare especially thanks to its video output selection. There are three HDMI ports (2× 2.1 + 1× 2.0) and the same number of DisplayPorts (1.4a). You can only use four of the six available connectors at a time, but that is also very meaningful, and this configuration gives you more freedom than other cards. Some may prefer HDMI, which is usually limited to a single connector.

The detail on the output panel reminds of how thick the card is. One might argue that this is not a pure four-slot card, but know that you will not put anything in the fourth slot. It’s completely covered.

Gigabyte used the high profile of the card for mounting a 1.8″ display. It can display a variety of practical things such as clock speed, temperature or GPU usage, but you can also display any photo or GIF on it. Viewing angles are good, it’s an IPS panel. Still however, it is an LCD, so you will not miss the rectangular panel border because of imperfect black in the dark, but the backlight is pretty even.

We did not measure the image qualities of the display, but it’s going to be at least True Color. All customizations and content selection (for example, in the rotation of multiple pointers) can be set in the RGB Fusion 2.0 app. It is also used to work with the lighting provided by the RGB LED that is on the card from all sides. However, Gigabyte does not operate with it on too large of an area, and we can still talk about a fairly decent design.

It is noteworthy that the Silent BIOS also reduced the boost frequencies, from the original 1815 to 1770 MHz. 1905 MHz in OC mode remains intact. The reduction in clock speed (and with it the power draw limit) in the “quieter” BIOS suggests that Gigabyte wanted to reduce the cooling noise even more.

Unlike previous iterations, Unreal Engine 5 is now completely free to download and it also comes with a sample project based on the Matrix Awakens demo that was initially released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S last December. Thanks to VoxelPlugin creator Victor Careil, PC users can download the 17 GB Matrix Awakens UE5 project, but it looks like the new game engine is not particularly well optimized for the PC master race, as YouTuber AJ Gaming has encountered some glaring performance issues.

Some problems could admittedly be expected with low to mid-range GPUs, yet even the RTX 3090 is struggling to achieve 60 fps in the Matrix Awakening demo. And that is not even in 4K resolution. AJ Gaming ran the demo in 1440p on a system integrating an Intel i9-12900K + RTX 3090 combo and the fps counter barely goes above 50. The CPU does not get utilized too much either, meaning that the UE5 demo relies heavily on the GPU. Additionally, the experience becomes quite stuttery once the perspective shifts to 3rd person vehicle driving.

Hopefully, Epic can fix these problems before the first UE5 games hit the market later this year. Some notable upcoming UE5-powered titles include new Witcher, Tomb Raider, as well as Gears of War games plus a few MMORPGs like Ashes of Creation and Bellatores.

At first glance, the pricey, powerful new Gigabyte Aorus 17 is a bit of an odd bird. Boasting neither the most powerful Nvidia RTX graphics nor the highest-end Intel Core i9 processor, this seems like it might be a shoo-in for video editing and design work. With a 90% screen-to-body ratio, the footprint of this device would have been in the 15-inch class only a few years ago, making it TARDIS-like in its bigger-on-the-inside feeling.

The styling leans towards gamer chic, from its sharp angles to its RGB programmable keyboard to its ports. And then there’s the screen—Gigabyte put in a gloriously fast 1080p 360Hz IPS panel. You won’t be editing native 4K video on this screen, but if you’re a gamer who demands high high refresh rates on the go, the Aorus 17 is a competitive entry.

Our review unit has an Intel Core i7-12700H processor and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU. This combination makes it quite a capable gaming machine. It’s packing 32GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD as well. The display is a 17.3-inch HD resolution screen with a high 360Hz refresh rate. For further details, take a look at the spec list below.

The keyboard in this big 17-inch Gigabyte is surprisingly good and not just for gaming, either. With full-sized keys on the numpad and natural key spacing, I feel like this could be used to power through spreadsheets and term papers as well as anything. This keyboard makes the Aorus 17 a great pick for anyone who has to juggle numbers frequently. If I were to pick any nit, it’d be the slightly shrunken right shift key, which was a bit of an annoyance, but one I adapted to with practice.

The per-key RGB on the Aorus 17 is pretty stunning with some impressive built-in effects and super smooth transitions. Of course, it’s a quick key combo (fn + space) to flick it on or off as the circumstances require.

Despite its compact-for-a-17-inch billing, the Aorus 17 still makes room for some decent-sounding speakers. The DTS:X powered speakers can ably play podcasts or music. Bass is audible and the mids and highs come through strong but you’re going to hear some distortion once you venture past the 75% volume mark. Obviously, if you’re hoping to crank in-game audio, the speakers have to compete with the loud fans. Unfortunately, the fans will win out. You’ll want to get some headphones!

It used to mean that having a bezel-free screen meant putting up with a camera at an awkward angle. Gigabyte retained skinny bezels by putting the Aorus’s camera equipment up in a protruding lip—a nega-notch, if you will. This lets the HD camera be a bit bigger, pack in the requisite sensors for Windows Hello log-in, and even the microphones.

The camera does an acceptable job of putting your mug on the world wide web for all to see. It makes me look way more pasty than I actually am. Additionally, even in bright light, this 720p unit annihilates detail in a way that makes me think of a skin-smoothing beauty mode. It’s better than nothing (ahem, MSI), but it’s a far cry from what’s available as an external attachment.

Like many computers in the gaming category, the choice to stick with a matte black plastic does a lot for a laptop. Sure, it doesn’t feel as premium as aluminum or magnesium, but it’s durable, doesn’t get hot to the touch, and tends to age well. The only major downside is that like on most black gadgets, you’re likely to see fingerprints build up, in this case most noticeably on the Aorus 17’s keycaps and trackpad.

The Aorus feels solidly built, although its blend of thinness and big deck size definitely feels less rigid than something with a smaller footprint. Thankfully, the plastic chassis keeps the keyboard in check. Even when typing vigorously, I never noticed keyboard deck flex–you’ll have to press mighty hard to notice any kind of deformation of the top case.

Ports are placed on either side of the computer, with nothing along the rear edge. It’s nice to see a fully-featured Thunderbolt 4 port here, especially one that can use USB-C PD for charging. Unfortunately, your other charging option is a chunky right-angle DC barrel plug, which protrudes quite a bit on the right hand side. While southpaws will likely never notice, the majority of gamers might be annoyed. I certainly was, as it ate into valuable mousing area on a smaller desktop.

Part of the Aorus’s near-6 pound weight is due to its massive cooling system. Six copper heatpipes make sure heat is dissipated quickly and huge vents ensure airflow is never an issue. In one of its standard modes, you’ll definitely hear the fans whirring away thanks to a mild high-pitched whine that’s noticeable whenever there’s air on the move. Thankfully, if you activate the quiet/battery saver performance mode in the Gigabyte App, the Aorus 17 becomes as mild-mannered, well-behaved, and chill as an ultrabook.

The headline feature here is Aorus’ 17.3-inch, 360Hz screen. While it’s only a 1080p panel, it’s IPS and has a claimed 72% NTSC color gamut. Viewing angles are solid with little to no color shift found off-axis.

I found that in more recent AAA games—like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5—you’ll get nowhere near the top framerate out of this screen. If those are the kinds of games you play, it might make sense to go for something with a lower refresh rate, say 120Hz. But, if you’re into esports titles, you’re in for a real treat here. 360Hz in Rocket League was an eyeball-tickling experience on the Aorus 17!

If there’s any area where this screen is a letdown, it’s the brightness. We measured only 250 nits peak brightness, making it way dimmer than other laptops in this category. If you mostly use your computers indoors under controlled lighting, that might not matter. But if you’re hoping to enjoy this matte 17-inch screen outdoors or near windows, you’ll quickly find that there’s not quite enough brightness to cut through the glare.

Like many 12th gen Intel-based gaming laptops, the Aorus 17 has a bit of room to grow. Although it has a capacious 1 TB NVMe SSD as standard in this configuration, you’ll find another unpopulated M.2 slot waiting for more storage. The stock configuration has socketed ram as well, featuring 32 GB of DDR5-4800 RAM on two 16 GB DIMMs. I think that many people will never need much more RAM than that, but it might put you at ease knowing this machine can accommodate up to 64 gigs in the future.

Let’s start with Maxon’s Cinebench R20, which uses the company’s Cinema4D engine to push the CPU to its limits. This test favors more powerful CPU cores. With 14 cores and 20 threads, the Gigabyte’s i7-12700H processor has plenty of oomph to handle multithreaded tasks. Although other laptops in this price class feature a slightly faster Core i9, the Aorus shows is no slouch.

So, you’ve got plenty of cores to push around. How about single-core performance? Thankfully, the R20 benchmark measures that as well. This benchmark give you an idea as to how the Aorus 17 will perform when using standard general computing apps like web browsers or Microsoft Office. As you can see in the graph above, the Gigabyte scores about the same as other laptops with Core i7 12th-gen processors. The MSI GE76 Raider has a little more power due to its Core i9 12th-gen processor.

Thanks to all its cores and ample cooling, the Aorus 17 chews through video encoding like a kid devouring celery and peanut butter at snack time. For our standard video encode test, we use Handbrake to crunch down a 1080p Blu-ray rip for use on an Android tablet. In the graph above, a shorter bar is a better result. The Aorus encoded a video in just 16 minutes, which is nothing short of impressive. These 12th gen machines are great for video encoding, making it perfect if you keep a Plex library as a hobby.

Let’s take a look at 3D gaming performance, shall we? To start, we ran the 3DMark Time Spy 1.2 benchmark. Thanks to its Nvidia RTX3080 GPU, the Aorus kept pace. However, it was marginally slower than similar models, likely because of its lower-than-average 130W TGP power envelope. The only recent machine to outperform the Aorus 17 was the MSI GE76 Raider, which has a faster-clocked Nvidia chip and an i9 processor to boot.

In our older Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark, the Aorus 17 was more than up to the task. It scored 149 FPS in the 1080p/Very High test, which was only a bit lower than the other RTX3080 Ti-equipped machines.

In our intensive Metro Exodus benchmark, the Aorus came in a bit behind the pack, but not by much, showing that the slightly weaker GPU still can still put up a fight. We found that it didn’t rack up higher numbers when running in a dedicated gaming power mode—that’s because the computer’s default AI Boost rather deftly switches modes without user intervention. This is awesome because it’s one less thing users need to fiddle with. You’ll see great performance if you simply keep the computer’s default setting.

Unfortunately, despite its big 99Whr battery, the powerful components and big display are a drain on the Aorus 17. During our standard battery rundown test, in which we run a 4K video on loop, the Aorus 17 barely made it to six hours of runtime. While you’ll probably get more time working out of the battery if you’re careful, don’t count on watching movies on a long-haul flight without your charger. Anecdotally, under a light workload, I lost around 10% every hour. That’s with a bunch of Edge tabs open, OneNote running, and a YouTube video playing in the background.

The latest Gigabyte Aorus is far from a disappointment. Although on paper it might not seem as impressive as its peers with its lower-wattage Nvidia GPU and i7 instead of an i9. In reality, this package still packs a wallop. Its big screen is a bit dim and the port layout’s a bit of a mess, but on the whole the Aorus 17 is a competitive laptop that shines when it comes to gaming. You’re getting a big screen, high refresh rate experience on the go.

B550 AORUS PRO motherboard uses an True 12+2 phases digital power design which includes PWM controller, doublers and DrMOS. These 100% digital controller offer incredible precision in delivering power to the motherboard"s most power-hungry and energy-sensitive components, allowing enthusiasts to get the absolute maximum performance from 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ processors.

With the optimized daisy-chain routing, the B550 AORUS motherboard provides a proven speed of up to DDR4-5400+ MHz with high density memory modules*. Optimized daisy-chained routing eliminates the stub effect, pushes the one DIMM per channel

* Product specifications and product appearance may differ from country to country. We recommend that you check with your local dealers for the specifications and appearance of the products available in your country. Colors of products may not be perfectly accurate due to variations caused by photographic variables and monitor settings so it may vary from images shown on this site. Although we endeavor to present the most accurate and comprehensive information at the time of publication, we reserve the right to make changes without prior notice.

* Product specifications and product appearance may differ from country to country. We recommend that you check with your local dealers for the specifications and appearance of the products available in your country. Colors of products may not be perfectly accurate due to variations caused by photographic variables and monitor settings so it may vary from images shown on this site. Although we endeavor to present the most accurate and comprehensive information at the time of publication, we reserve the right to make changes without prior notice.

If the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 represents the very best of what gaming laptops have to offer in 2021, then the Gigabyte Aorus 15G is probably what you"d call the next step down. It still has one of Nvidia"s powerful new RTX 3080 graphics chips inside its slim black chassis, but it"s the 8GB variant rather than the top 16GB one you get on the Scar. It also only has a 1920x1080 resolution display, albeit one with a higher 240Hz refresh rate, and its CPU is a fraction older as well, with Gigabyte choosing to stick with Intel"s still very fast Core i7-10870H instead of opting for one of AMD"s shiny new Ryzen 5000 chips. That"s still a formidable set of specs, of course, and it"s a potent combination for those after a top-notch 1080p gaming experience that will last for many years to come.

It also means the Gigabyte Aorus 15G is quite a bit cheaper than the Scar 15, and while £2300 / $2000 is still a sizable chunk of change for a gaming laptop, it is at least a tad bit friendlier than the Scar"s current asking price of £2700 / $2700. Indeed, it"s unlikely you"ll find an RTX 3080 laptop for much less at the moment, as $2000 was the initial starting price set by Nvidia when these laptops were first announced back in January. The Gigabyte Aorus 15G is very much an entry-level RTX 3080 gaming laptop in that sense, but it"s still got more than enough oomph for playing the latest games on max settings if you"re not that fussed about having a higher resolution display.

Indeed, its Intel Core i7-10870H CPU and 32GB of RAM still offer plenty of processing grunt for everyday desktop tasks and light photo editing, and its Cinebench R20 scores of 370 for its single core performance and 3369 for its multicore performance were pretty much bang in line with what I was expecting. Yes, those results might be 21% and 31% slower respectively compared to the Scar 15"s Ryzen 9 5900HX chip, but unless you regularly work with large video files or use a lot of intense creative applications in your day to day computing, then I"m not convinced you"re really going to notice the difference.

Indeed, the impact they have on the laptop"s 1080p gaming performance is pretty minimal. The Gigabyte Aorus 15G was often a couple of frames behind the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 when it came to playing games at 1080p, but not enough to create a discernibly different gaming experience. Without the aid of a frame rate counter, both laptops felt pretty much identical at 1080p, offering near 60fps speeds on max settings in today"s most demanding blockbuster games and well into the 80s, 90s and 100fps regions on games from the last couple of years.

In Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, for example, the Aorus 15G managed an admirable 87fps average on Highest settings with its tough SMAA x4 anti-aliasing setting switched on in the game"s internal benchmark, which is just a single frame behind the Scar 15. The Scar 15 proved slightly more capable at running the game with its ultra ray tracing settings switched on, admittedly, finishing with an average of 66fps, but the Aorus 15G"s score of 58fps with the same settings was still perfectly playable and felt just as smooth moment-to-moment.

Likewise, the way both laptops handled Total War: Three Kingdoms" benchmark felt nigh-on identical to me, with the Aorus 15G finishing with an average of 79fps on Ultra settings versus the Scar 15"s 82fps. Both laptops proved equally capable of running Monster Hunter: World, too, with the Aorus 15G"s average of 87fps on Highest feeling just as smooth as the Scar 15"s average of 89fps.

It was a similar picture in Cyberpunk 2077 as well. The Aorus 15G"s averaged a smooth 63fps on Ultra settings running around the crowded streets outside V"s apartment building, which to my eyes felt pretty much the same as the Scar 15"s average of 67fps. It was only when I swapped over to the game"s RT Medium preset that the Scar 15"s beefier innards started to make themselves known, as while the Asus was able to maintain a smooth average of 60fps with ray tracing switched on, the Aorus 15G only managed an average of 53fps. Still, we"re not talking a huge difference overall.

Indeed, the Aorus 15G actually edged a couple of frames ahead of the Scar 15 in Forza Horizon 4, finishing its benchmark with an average of 134fps compared to the Scar 15"s 132fps. To all intents and purposes, though, you"re still looking at pretty much identical performance.

That said, there were still a couple of games where the Scar 15 established a firmer lead over the Aorus 15G, with the frame rate gap widening to around 8-10fps. Again, though, my eyes weren"t nearly adept enough to be able to tell the difference between the two a lot of the time, but others may feel differently. In Assassin"s Creed Valhalla, for example, the Aorus 15G ran at a very respectable average of 63fps on Ultra High settings in the game"s internal benchmark, and while the Scar 15 is arguably a touch smoother at 72fps, it wasn"t enough to make me feel like I needed to pay another £400 / $700 to make up for the shortfall.

It was a similar picture in Final Fantasy XV as well. Here, the Aorus 15G managed a wonderfully smooth average of 84fps on Highest running up and down the hills of Duscae, which to my eyes was much the same as the Scar 15"s average of 93fps. Likewise for Metro Exodus. On Ultra settings, the Aorus 15G came in with an excellent result of 71fps in the game"s demanding benchmarking tool, which in practice really didn"t look that different to the Scar 15"s average of 80fps. The Scar was once again a bit better at ray tracing than the Aorus 15G, but the Aorus still managed a very playable average of 54fps with ultra ray tracing thrown in, while the Scar 15 came in with an average of 64fps.

Again, though, I doubt most people will think that"s worth paying another £400 / $700 for, especially when such problems are easily rectified by dropping down the overall quality settings a notch. Plus, when you compare the Aorus 15G"s gaming performance to my previous favourite gaming laptop, the almost identically priced RTX 2080 Super-powered Lenovo Legion 7i, we"re still looking at significantly better speeds across the board for the same amount of money, with the Aorus 15G often offering at least another 10fps on top of the Legion 7i, if not closer to 20fps.

Of course, maybe it"s hypocritical to say the Aorus 15G is "significantly" better than the Legion 7i when I"ve just been saying that 10-odd fps makes little to no difference to your overall gaming experience. But you"re getting more than just extra performance with the Aorus 15G, as this laptop also comes with a much higher 240Hz refresh rate display compared to that older Legion 7i model, which topped out at 144Hz (although I should note that Lenovo will be refreshing their Legion 7 laptops to include higher refresh rate RTX 30 models as well very soon). Sure, the games I"ve just tested might not be able to fill that kind of frame rate, but it does give you significantly more headroom if you"re into competitive online shooters, and 2D indie games look absolutely sublime at 240fps as well.

The quality of the Aorus 15G"s 15.6in, 1920x1080 IPS-grade display is pretty much just as good as the Legion 7i as well. My X-Rite DisplayPro i1 calibrator showed it was displaying an impressive 95.2% of the sRGB colour gamut out of the box, for example, which is only a fraction down from the Legion 7i"s score of 99.4%. I also recorded an excellent contrast ratio of 1138:1 for the Aorus 15G, and combined with its low black level of 0.27cd/m2 (the closer to 0.00cd/m2, the better), there was plenty of dark shadow detail on show in games and photos alike. Its peak white level of 315cd/m2 also provided more than enough brightness for everyday use, and should be able to accommodate for a variety of different lighting conditions.

The Aorus 15G"s 1TB NVMe SSD is nice and nippy as well, and its random read speeds are up there with the best laptop SSDs I"ve tested in recent months, coming in at 48MB/s in AS SSD"s 1GB 4K random speed test. Its random write speeds aren"t quite as fast as the competition sadly, but at 94MB/s, it"s still perfectly adequate for everyday use.

The Aorus 15G also comes with a good supply of sensibly placed ports and display outputs, including an HDMI 2.1 output and a mini DisplayPort 1.4 output for connecting it up to an external display. This gives it a bit more flexibility than the Scar 15, which only came with a single HDMI 2.0b output.

Really, the only major hurdle I encountered with the Aorus 15G was its keyboard. Perhaps it"s because I"ve just come from the wonderful opto-mechanical keyboard of the Scar 15, but typing up long word documents on the Aorus 15G was definitely a much less pleasurable experience overall. Its very flat island-style keys, their limited amount of travel and their compact spacing (this is one of the few 15.6in laptops I"ve tested recently to come with a built-in number pad) meant I was constantly making mistakes and putting my fingers in the wrong place when I first started using it. This did improve over time, though, and after a couple of days of intensive use I eventually got back up to my usual typing speed. I also didn"t have a problem playing games on it, but if you"re going to be using this for both work and play, then there are definitely better, less frustrating keyboards out there.

Overall, while the Gigabyte Aorus 15G"s keyboard is probably too much of a stumbling block for me to give it a full recommendation, it"s proof that you don"t necessarily need the full 16GB version of Nvidia"s RTX 3080 chip to get the best performance. The Aorus 15G still has plenty of horsepower to deliver an exceptional gaming experience at 1080p, and its top notch display makes everything look pretty darn lovely in the process. Its SSD also has plenty of storage, and its sleek and subtle chassis isn"t going to raise many eyebrows if you get it out in public (apart from its RGB back-lit keys, perhaps, which you can always turn off if you prefer).

As I said earlier, if you"re buying this primarily as a laptop for playing games, then the keyboard may be less of an issue for you, in which case the Aorus 15G is probably worth considering as a cheaper alternative to the Asus ROG Strix Scar 15. However, if, like me, you want a gaming laptop for work and play, then I"d suggest looking elsewhere, as this will likely frustrate more than it delights.

2. It"s VERY power hungry (and therefore pumps out enormous amounts of heat under load). Under synthetic load (3DMark Timespy) it happily sits at 450w+! Problem is that it does the same under any high load scenario! F1 2021 at max settings, 1440p? 450w+! Even at idle (doing nothing at all) it reports 125w and a consistent 49c! Excluding the 3 fans on the card I have 9 140mm fans in my system!! That said: I"ve not seen the card get hotter than 76c even at 100% sustained load so the the cards cooling solution can cope!

3. I"m really not convinced by the build quality... no doubt it"s heavy as mentioned but that doesn"t equal solid... the shroud around the screen moves and creaks for example and the only external, metal component is the backplate. If I hadn"t spent so much on this (even at MSRP) I"d be ok with it all but at this price point, I don"t think "solid" is too much to expect.

4. The software is terrible. Auros Engine might be functional, but the UI is awful. Use MSI Afterburner instead. Unfortunately, you can"t avoid using RGB Fusion if you want anything but default RGB or indeed the default display. I haven"t had issues with changing these elements through software (as others have) but Fusion does not play nice with Corsair iCUE... every time Fusion loads iCUE crashes!

It"s hard to conclude on whether this card represents "a good purchase". Being able to buy a card of this type at MSRP is a complete novelty so I"m led to forgive its faults! At the end of the day, it represents one of the fastest 3080 Ti cards available (and therefore one of the fastest GPU"s available) and I guess that"s what matters most...

There are a couple of ways to test this. First, restart your computer and watch your GPU fans. On boot, your system usually runs all your fans at full speed for a brief moment to check that they"re working. If your GPU fan doesn"t spin during this process, it indicates a problem.

Second, if your GPU requires power beyond the motherboard (and if it"s a modern/gaming card, it surely will), ensure that you have plugged all the necessary cables from your power supply to your graphics card. Refer to both your PSU and your GPU manual for this. It"s easy to accidentally not connect all the necessary PCIe power cables. Be aware, you must use the cables that came with your PSU.

Even if you"re certain that all the cables are correct, take them out and plug everything back in; something might not be as firmly connected as you thought.

While you"ve got the case open, take this opportunity to dust the GPU. A large buildup of dust could cause your GPU fans to not spin. Obviously, skip this step if your card and/or system is new.

If you can, take your GPU and try it on another system. This will help you determine whether the fault lies with the graphics card or the other components in your system. For example, perhaps your power supply is on the fritz and not sending enough power to the GPU, causing the fans to not spin.

If the card does work on another system, you have a tricky task ahead of figuring out what component in your original system is causing the fault. It"s likely either the PSU, the PCIe cables, or your motherboard. If possible, replace these and see if the GPU fans start working.

If all else fails, it"s highly likely that your GPU is simply faulty. You could try replacing the GPU fans yourself if you feel comfortable with that procedure, though it"s not a guaranteed fix. Instead, hopefully your GPU is still within warranty so that you can return it to the manufacturer for a replacement—or your money back, so you can buy something else.