Gadgetory

hey guys Ibraheim connects and if you recall a few months back and video officially launched their max key technology which endeavored to offer desktop class gaming performance in an ultrabook size portable form factor the resulting designs we're a significant step forward in the notebook sphere but most importantly it also gave us a little glimpse into what the future had in store for gamers now Nvidia promised excellent gaming performance along with great battery life an acoustics and I was really curious to test out some of these new max key notebooks because I've been on a hunt to find a portable editing notebook ever since Computex and this is just perfect timing because CES is just a month away and I have these two notebooks to test out on one hand there's the rog zephyrus that features an i7 7700 HQ cpu 16 gigabytes of RAM GTX 1080 in its max Q design a 512 gigabyte Samsung nvme SSD 15.6 inch 1080p 120 Hertz g-sync IPS display that's wide my friends g-sync at 120 Hertz and it retails for $2,700 yikes but on the other hand we have the gigabyte arrow 15 X featuring the exact same specs except for the GPU in this case it comes with 810 78 Oshima and me me SSD and a 1080p 60 Hertz IPS display and this retails for $2,200 which is still expensive notebook now think about it this way these notebooks are designed and geared towards a specific type of audience the one who cares about performance Portability and efficiency in a compact form factor now there's obviously the argument that you can build a much better gaming desktop PC for less than half the cost of these notebooks but you know ultimately comes down to your preference if you really want performance and you know efficiency in a compact form factor there's gonna be a premium price to pay for that so let's take an in-depth look of the rog Zephyrs and the gigabyte air or 15x right after message from our sponsor the new master liquid all-in-one coolers are available in 120 and 240 millimeter stylish radiator sizes with air balanced fans included for best airflow and RGB sync on the pump and the fans that are controlled via this hub or through your motherboard check out the ML 120 ln 240 L down below all right let's get being soft with the ROG Zephyrus because it's a unique notebook in every aspect when compared to the competition the first noticeable difference is the design of this notebook when you open it up you'll notice that Asus had to make some structural sacrifices namely embedding a desktop class GPU into a thin and light chassis and as a result the entire keyboard had to move downwards that means most of the mission critical components are closer to the screen along with cooling intakes now organ Amma Klee the keyboard placement didn't really make any sense especially when placed on my lap it felt far too close to me and it was an uncomfortable typing experience moving the notebook further away isn't feasible either since it would partially hang off my knees same story goes when you're working off a desk make sure you have ample amount of vertical space to push the notebook further away but be mindful that could increase the viewing distance which may or may not affect visibility of the screen but generally speaking this is just a non design but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it in the comments quick mention on the keys they deliver excellent tactile feedback they don't require a lot of pressure to actuate and the keys are LED backlit plus they have received the RGB treatment and customization can be done through software the trackpad is surprisingly well thought-out and it's amazing too while the amount of lateral space is restrictive the dedicated left and right buttons are so much better than integrated buttons found on other notebooks the responsiveness is spot-on again this is thanks to the use of windows precision drivers and the trackpads inherent resistance ensures its learning curve is gentle asus has also implemented a numpad within the trackpad with the touch of this button in the upper left corner the LEDs light up and it works great the rest of the design language is pretty minimal Asus didn't go too fancy with the aggressive red and black accents although I do have to point out that the brushed aluminum material picks up grease and fingerprints easily so to keep that in mind the underside of the Zephyrs is pretty interesting as well the entire bottom plate lifts itself slightly off the tabletop at an angle once the lid is opened it's called the active aerodynamics system that allows the notebook to breathe a little bit better which should also theoretically result in lower temperatures because a souza is crammed a gtx 1080 inside this slim frame the included screwdriver can be used to remove bottom plate if you need to clean the fence but unfortunately getting to the rest of the components is extremely difficult since they're locked tightly in areas where you can't access them without that screwdriver now the implementation of a s is an excellent idea on paper but I feel like it could also cost longevity issues you see the bottom plate flexes and it's quite flimsy as well one wrong move could break the hinges at least in theory but I guess time will tell the IO is respectable on this notebook on the right hand side there's Kensington lock 2 USB 3.1 gen2 on ports and a USB 3.1 gen2 type-c / Thunderbolt 3 connector switching over to the left there is power in hdmi 2.0 2 more USB 3.1 gen2 and a headphone / mike jack now if you need to get a DisplayPort output from this efforts you can use a thunderbolt to display port adapter which unfortunately doesn't come with a notebook plus you sacrifice on the only type C Thunderbolt port so do keep that in mind the lack of an SD card reader is a bummer so is the exclusion of a LAN port but Asus does include a USB type a 2 rj45 adapter out of the box ok let's switch gears and discuss the gigabyte Aero 15 X and right off the bat this thing looks like a normal notebook unlike the zephyrus it's a lot more compact and space-efficient than Asus offering since gigabyte has managed to fit a 15.6 inch matte display in a smaller footprint and the end result ultra thin bezels along with maximizing the keyboards horizontal space across the entire chassis and visually this thing is thin and lighter than the Zephyrs it can pull double duty as a gaming station or a mobile creative power horse which is kind of what I'm looking for in the first place I also like the design of the Aero 15 X it's pretty simple without any gamer elements added to the body and I appreciate that on a gaming notebook simple on the outside beastly on the inside the keyboard is fantastic to type wood seriously it's one of the best that I've come across in a notebook they exhibit great tactile feedback plus there is good amount of child distance which almost makes it feel like typing on a hybrid mechanical keyboard and I really enjoy my time with it but the trackpad is downright atrocious now don't get me wrong the surface is super smooth for navigation and the integrated buttons are no but it's the parable eland drivers that come out of the box now supposedly you could replace the existing eland drivers with Windows position drivers and I'll leave a link to Dave today's video in the description down below where he walks you through the process of updating you know existing elion olson attic drivers to windows position i followed the exact same procedure for the arrow 15x and it was a day and night difference like honestly the e line drivers that come out of the box are absolutely horrible again this is where you know hardware and software comes into play if you have good hardware and the turbo software it's just not gonna work well but if you decide to update that software and make it a little bit more efficient say you know taking advantage of those gesture controls within Windows 10 it's just an awesome experience but do bleep be mindful though this is completely at your own risk I tried it on the air 15 X and it just works fine so I'm just gonna you know leave that as a disclaimer the keyboard also features RGB lighting and can be controlled through the fusion software there's a lack of lighting cohesion with some keys glowing much brighter than others and the outwards glow is only visible at certain angles upgradability on the arrow 15 X is someone easier than the Zephyrs but it still voids your warranty plus you'll need a Torx screwdriver to access the bottom but if you'd like to add more storage to the unit there's a spare m2 slot that supports nvme drives as well taking a look at the i/o this notebook offers a lot more than the Zephyrus so on the right hand side we had Kensington lock a pair of USB 3.1 gen2 a USB 3.1 gen2 type-c / Thunderbolt 3 port and a full sized SD card reader Thank You gigabyte switching over to the left there is a LAN jack USB 3.1 gen2 on HTML to buy no a mini DisplayPort 1.2 connector with native g-sync support and a combo headphones - mic output so there's a lot of i/o on the arrow 15 X that content creators and gamers can take advantage of which is awesome now I do want to spend some time and talk about the displays on both the Zephyrs and the Aero 15 X both are equipped with 15.6 inch 1080p IPS screens but from a gaming standpoint the Zephyrus does have a distinctive advantage with its 120 hearts and gsync display more importantly that notebook won't have any problem maintaining frame rates that take full advantage of the hundred Hertz refresh rate gigabyte on the other hand seems to have geared this display to appeal to prosumers and gamers alike it comes calibrated straight out of the box with Pantone certification and a number of presets revolving so users can you know pick and choose the optimal color space where lacks is in the refresh rate Department and sixty Hertz it's definitely not gonna give users a smoother gameplay experience like the zephyrus but stunning rich colors make up for it color uniformity was very consistent throughout both panels the arrow 15x does have a slightly richer color hues and a more robust color space but when properly calibrated the Zephyrs can display very similar outputs however both panelists couldn't reach adequate brightness output in relative violence so you may have a tough time viewing the displays outdoors given both screens or IPs the color reproduction is fantastic with good contrast ratio gigabytes enhance color depth did look slightly better than the Zephyrus but if you prefer a display with the highest refresh rate along with support for g-sync asus is the way to go okay so I think it's about time to move on to the performance segment and compare both these notebooks kicking things off with synthetic benchmarks the results show that the notebooks run neck-to-neck with only a few variations here and there in some cases certain slight changes in hardware or the reaction of the CPU memory GPU can contribute to the variations nonetheless they aren't significant in the least the drive speeds are just insane on both these notebooks but gigabyte takes a lead here there Toshiba nvme SSD simply blows the doors off Samsung's offering within this Efes it isn't even close as a matter of fact this happens to be one of the fastest storage subsystems I've ever seen in the notebook running the GIMP benchmark that zephyrus shows a very small lead which is likely due to the fact that gigabytes notebook has a ton of bloatware installed whereas a SUSE device has a relatively but not completely clean Windows install handbrake and WinRAR involve some storage subsystem intervention and as expected the Aero 15 X and it's insanely fast Toshiba SSD leap to the forefront switching gears to some gaming performance and this was pretty much a foregone conclusion the GT X 1080 wins by about as much as it would on the desktop I do want to point out though then the Aero 50 nexus benchmarks certainly aren't anything to sneeze at either the first one out gaming benchmarks show that both systems are able to throw out some impressive frame rates despite being thin and light notebooks we are talking about substantially more than 60 frames per second in every title even at their highest detail setting the second set of tests show much more of the same but in even more impressive fashion since both the Aero 15 X and Sepphoris easily post playable framerates in Warhammer 2 one of the Suites most graphically intensive titles honestly if you're playing at their native 1080p resolutions either notebooks will be perfectly suitable for gaming but what happens if you choose to output to a secondary monitor say 1440p well maintaining playable frame rates at this high resolution is certainly a challenge but both competitors seem more than up for it now with Warhammer 2 we'd see a minor slip for the gtx 1070 and of the GTX 980 max-q since it requires a copyist amount of system resources to run even at lower resolutions other than that gigabyte and asus continue to deliver great overall results all right let's move on to battery life and what you're seeing here isn't anything wrong with the Zephyrus it really is that bad however there's a lot going on underneath those numbers since the Zephyrs very capacity is nearly half that of gigabytes and it doesn't actually have optimus enabled supposedly the extra trace routing and components necessary for that feature needed to be left off to save space in my opinion and based on the battery life that was a bad decision since that gtx 1080 is always on gigabyte on the other hand has delivered on the very essence of what max q was designed to offer high strength gaming performance and with amazing battery life results of 5 and over 6 hours in these two tests are usually reserved for true ultrabooks which don't come equipped with discreet GPUs let alone one that would give most desktop cards a run for their money the hits continue here for gigabytes and Socrative test doesn't really make use of the GPU but once gaming is factored in the era 50 Nexus larger capacity and more efficient graphics card still allow it to lead by a significant amount now meliha to some temperatures we have to remember that these are thin and light notebooks with limited cooling assemblies but they're also packin GPU cores that are pulled from the desktop arena that means that neither really runs cool but it does look like gigabyte manages to the thermal load just a little bit better even though it doesn't have aces his fancy push up air intake assembly I also noticed the Zephyrs GTA X 1080 ended up hitting lower clock speeds more often than the gtx 1070 in the air or 15 X this was likely due to temperatures but it didn't really show up in any of our gaming results since the 1080 has more than enough graphics horse power to overcome slightly lower operating frequencies okay so I think it's about time to wrap up my thoughts on the ROG Sepphoris from Isis and the arrow 15x from gigabyte now both of these notebooks are fantastic the zephyrus is just it just blazes through gaming performance because it's got the GTX 1080 in its Massacre design and you've got 120 Hertz IPS juicing display so overall you're gonna get a much smoother gameplay gameplay experience in that ultra slim chassis or the problem of the ACEF res is the battery life and just the way how asus is just designed a notebook in general the keyboard is in an odd placement you're definitely it's ergonomically just not gonna work out that well if you decide to take it with you to school or just work in general but I guess you know it's some of the downsides that you'll have to give when you decide to pay that premium for gene Kings to an AV inside that's not slim chassis now switching gears for the gigabyte air 15 X and I think this has won me over in a lot of ways for one the Isle is pretty much loaded it's got an SD card reader I can definitely take advantage of that for events like Computex and CES but most importantly that it's it's a fully functioning laptop the keyboard is right exactly where it needs to be the trackpad is well out of the box it doesn't come out that great after updating to Windows position it was just usable and it was great it was a day and night difference the gaming performance while I'm not significantly looking forward to gaming on it that often I think it should blaze really well through video editing and I'm really looking forward to using that throughout my trips in the upcoming future but you know what's even interesting is the display on the gigabyte I just prefer having bezel to screens it's just hard to go back to a notebook with thicker bezels like this zephyrus because you know from an aesthetic standpoint I would prefer the gigabyte arrow 15 x over this is that first any time of the day and the design is also a lot simpler on the air 15 X compared to the Zephyrs lastly the battery life the air a 15 X destroys the Zephyrus it's just a lot better than the ACS notebook so if you're looking for a Mac secure notebook with the best possible battery life pick the gigabyte air 15 X it's just a much better option compared to the Zephyrus and obviously it's also a lot more cheaper than the Zephyrs as well so I'd love to hear your thoughts on the gigabyte air or 15 X and the ROG Zephyrus from Asus what do you guys think about the design and the performance that it brings to the table but most importantly which one would you and why now don't start commenting on you can build gaming desktop PC but I just wanted to put that out there which of these two notebooks would you pick or are they any alternatives that you might want us to take a look at that feature this new max cue architecture again let us know in the comments down below I need bar with hurricane X thank you so much for watching stay subscribe for more similar content and we'll see you in the next one