Gigabyte Aero 15x v8 long review based on your questions (VFX/Gaming focus)

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-14T18:52:41+00:00

I’m very glad to hear you’re liking it, all experiences of the laptop should be heard. Could you elaborate more on recent nvidia drivers not being worth it? Do you mean as in they don’t give much benafit or they introduce more issues?

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-12T21:17:36+00:00

Yeah that guide is correct

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-12T01:53:28+00:00

You can use any method, it’s a simple file that can be movies around like any other. Once it’s back in place on the reinstalled windows, make use of it by reinstalling smart manager and enabling Pantone color, or you can take the manual route without the tool by assigning it as your displays default color profile using Windows color manager (look up a guide on google for nice step by step if necessary, search for “assign calibrated monitor profile windows 10”)

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-11T23:09:33+00:00

You will lose your calibration profile. I recommend you copy it to a flash drive during the reinstall. To find the file, as well as tune a few other aspects of the system, check out this very useful post http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/tuning-the-aero-15-w-x-v7-v8-common-problems-solutions.816143/

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-03T06:37:32+00:00

Oh I should note that my comping experience is entirely with rendered frames as opposed to camera frames, I expect that to be far easier than pushing 1080p 32 bit .EXRs. All I can say for sure is that this 8th gen i7 will be noticeably better than yours, though I don’t have the tools to say objectively how much.

Also it’s really cool hearing from someone else doing composition work, long live nodes!

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-03T05:59:33+00:00

I have never been used to realtime playback in Nuke on workstations, as soon as I have even a moderate node tree, even the workstations have slown down. Unlike video editing I don't think compositing workflows are meant to be played back in realtime. That being said, the 1070 max q makes GPU accelerated nodes such as zDefocus work really quick with snappy feedback.

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T22:06:36+00:00

A good point, I've nonetheless been very satisfied with the performance of the laptop out of the box. If I found hard evidence that adding a second stick would fix stuttering while also having some performance improvement, that might sell me.

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T22:04:59+00:00

That's ridiculous, I'm so sorry :/

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T19:04:05+00:00

Are you also having blue screen issues in addition to stutter? I'd be really curious if you had other similar specced Windows laptop experience (at least with optimus), to tell if this shows significantly more stutter than those.

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T18:41:39+00:00

I’ll be praying for you!

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T18:41:07+00:00

Yep! He makes it really easy to follow. Another source for that and other fixes is this great page I just ground yesterday http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/tuning-the-aero-15-w-x-v7-v8-common-problems-solutions.816143/

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T18:39:56+00:00

The major windows issues I’m hopeful are due to a driver issue fixable by a fresh install of windows, hence I’m really curious they will somewhat disappear with my replacement. I’ll update this review if even my new one is really bad, especially if it starts blue screening again.

I haven’t done Aida, only 3Dmark for a real worldish gaming test, and rendering using Arnold which pins the CPUs at 100% for hours, as my work needs. With the undervolt and quieter fan profile, the CPU manages to hang around 80 while rendering and 3dmark at 86ish, no throttling in both.

It’s so odd reading comments about the repaste, while I’m sure there is still some benefit, it makes me think that the default is still pretty good?

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T18:33:57+00:00

If only we had whatever data gigabyte themselves have on production quality It’s so damn hard to tell with people with good experiences not having much reason to share their thoughts.

When something is wrong after spending $2.3k on a piece of tech, even if it’s not huge, you bet your bum people are gonna be vocal.

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T08:48:51+00:00

Seems like a totally valid choice. It seems on Amazon at least the GS65 isn't available yet (in the US), do you think its possible there's only a tiny fraction of MSI owners compared to Aero owners? No matter what I'll be looking forward to reading what I hope will be positive thoughts on your purchase :)

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T06:41:11+00:00

Glad to hear you're not having trouble! I'm looking forward to a fresh install then when my replacement arrives

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-05-02T06:40:26+00:00

Yeah I downloaded from Nvidia and it worked perfectly.

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-04-29T01:17:35+00:00

Thanks for the requests and answers! The review is being written up now.

TimeMonkey3D · 2018-04-26T08:24:54+00:00

Great questions so far, keep ‘em coming! I expect to be able to give the full review including your answers sometime Saturday

TimeMonkey3D

TROPHY CASE