NEW Aero 14 w/ GTX1060

In real life things. Probably not. Only installation is faster and probably better for copying and moving files from and to another from drive that's fast.
For future proof and a minimal price difference. I'd get nvme. If I could of payed for mine again. I'd wait for a cheaper one.


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The default drive my v7 came with was a 512GB Lite-On SATA M.2 SSD. I replaced it with a 1TB 850 EVO that I had picked up cheap ($250) around Black Friday. You're going to pay about 2X $/MB for the 960 EVO and even more for the 960 Pro. It'd be useful I for editing 4K video or if you need a lot of IOPS (based on your questions, probably not).

The 8260 is what comes by default. I'd personally pick the 8260 over the 1535 - a lot more people tend to have issues w/ the latter (and I did w/ my Alienware 13R3 even after doing the suggested driver-only reinstall).

For cooling, I'd pay the money for a repaste (less for slightly better compound, and more since I'd trust Xotic to be a little more mindful/do a better job repasting than out of the factory).

Optimus doubles your battery life.

Throttling - the past several pages of posts (including a bunch of mine) include clocks and temperatures, why not read those?

Check out Xotic and Gentech's YouTube video reviews of the Aero 14 on YouTube, that will give you temps, fan noise, and a lot more details.

 

It's worth mentioning that (in the US at least) the 960s are basically 2X the $/GB, so "minimal price difference" for an NVMe drive is a somewhat hypothetical condition right now.

The cheapest NVMe drive around right now I think is the Intel 600p which I guess is closer in price to a SATA drive, but real world performance/reviews have panned it (when its SLC cache gets full you can apparently get 1/2s latency spikes, which is actually somewhat astounding).

 

I have had issues with Killer Wireless in one MSI laptop in the past. It wouldn't work when gaming, its like the heat would kill the module or something. After reading there are still issues with the Killer Wireless and the suggestion is to replace it with the Intel, this laptop having the Intel by default was a mark in the Pro column for me.

 

You shouldn't have to unplug the internal M.2 drive unless you're afraid of accidentally formatting it or something (I haven't installed desktop Ubuntu in a really long time but I can't imagine they'd do that without some warning). Otherwise you should just be able to F12 in the BIOS and select which boot device (USB installer) and pick the USB SSD as the install target. Assuming you are installing a Secure Boot compatible Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE all should be) to run Linux you can just select the device on boot.

If you're using something like Arch or some other unsigned kernel, you'll need to disable Secure Boot.

 

Yeah unplugging the drive would just be for extra assurance it wouldn't try to mess with that drive. I might see what happens when I try to install to see if its confusing.

 

is it worth upgrading to a NVME SSD over the stock m2 sata ssd? how noticable is the speed difference? is the stock ssd good enough? I'm currently using a Samsung 840 Pro on my desktop (i7 2600K), and want a comparable experience or better.

 

I would look at the cost of upgrading via a reseller vs upgrading yourself. If its cheaper to upgrade yourself than I would just buy it with the stock drive and see how it works for you. Its still and SSD and it seems pretty quick.

 

Literally nothing. There's been test on YouTube I'm sure. But I can't remember what I saw. But it did install faster. Like insanely quick. Can install a clean windows in like 5 minutes or something like that based on first hand use in my nvme right now.
I wouldn't say it's worth moving up to from what you got. Unless you need more space then sell yours get a bigger nvme.
I only had nvme because I used to own msata ssd which is pretty much same as yours but in a different form factor. But new laptop made me sell it on.


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Thank you for your detailed reply!

I'm wondering between why there are different configuration options from Xotic and GenTechPC. GenTech has the 8260 by default, whereas Xotic asks for an upgrade from some unknown wifi module.

 

It depends on what you use the computer for. If you are using it for just office, daily use (web, video, email), or gaming, you probably wouldn't really notice a difference. But if you are doing something more demanding on your drives, like 4K video editing, then it might help in more heavy duty uses. Sata's are still quick enough for most people.

Manufacturer's don't always specific what the default wireless card is, they just say "802.11 AC wireless with ..." and not a model number. Those can also change up from time to time. If a model does come with an 8260 stock, and you select an 8260 as an upgrade, we would inform you and refund that back to you. Once we do one of those swaps, we try to update the site to match the appropriate specs.

If you have any questions, just let me know!

 

Found and interesting issue with Doom and using Vulkan graphics. On battery it stutters really bad. Plugged in its fine. Its almost like it is switching from Intel to Nvidia and back constantly. I even forced it to the Nvidia card in Nvidia settings. When I switch back to OpenGL on battery everything is smooth. I wonder if its a Vulkan issue?

 

Do you have Nvidia Geforce Experience installed? It will lock fps to 30 on battery unless you disabled it.

 

Yes it is running and I know it will be capped at 30, but there should be some smoothness. It was like the pointer was jumping around, very jittery. But once I switched to OpenGL with the same settings and same 30fps cap, it was smooth, not jittery at all.

 

Oddly enough, I have the exact same thing while plugged in (haven't tried on battery, only play relatively light games on battery).

 

There is something strange with the Nvidia drivers. The version that came with the laptop is 375.86. Looking at Nvidia's site there isn't an entry for this version. When I run Friestrike on this version I get 9500. Geforce Experience tells me this is the latest driver. I then manually loaded the latest 379.93 from Nvidia's site making sure I selected the Notebook 1060 in the search terms. Running Firestrike with this driver I get a lower score of 9300. So I went back to the Gigabyte driver. What driver are others using?

 

It's a very random monopoly "drivers" are. Whilst some give you lower scores. It gives better performance in the games that was optimised in it. I'm using the latest. But I'm sure that wasn't it and I've only had mine a few days. (Aw13 still uses the same drivers on the website) I got 178. I think. But got a decent score. But I'm with Kaby lake...


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I used the latest driver but you have to remove GeForce experience to improve your score and performance.

 

So what are the thoughts of hibernation vs. sleep for lid closing. I noticed it defaulted to hibernation. It takes longer to come back but it seems like it barely uses any battery.

 

It's not a bad idea. I wanted to do something similar by installing Linux on an SD card for my aero so I tried the install on another computer and it ****ed that computer's windows 7 partition :/

 

I actually did end up installing on my USB drive with the M.2 still in the system. I made sure to create the partitions on the USB Drive, except i did not make a /boot parition which could be the cause of my next issue. Anyway I made sure the boot loader pulldown had the USB Drive selected. Did the install and rebooted, it went into the GRUB command line. That was with the USB Drive disconnected to make sure I could get into Windows. Turns out it still installed GRUB *with* the Windows bootloader. Just needed to change the boot order to Windows Boot loader first. Then when I plug in the USB drive I have to hit F12 on boot to have it boot into GRUB and all is well.

 

I can sort of confirm it doesn't work. I tried mini display port to display port into my monitor and I couldn't get it working. It was tearing on the desktop and in Overwatch. Not really sure if there was anything I was supposed to do settings and drivers wise. I was able to set it to 144hz though

 

Here are some quirks I found with my Aero 14, curious to see if anyone else ran into something similar:
-Wireless network card (Intel 7260) sometimes becomes inaccessible after waking from hibernation, resulting in no connectivity options. In those circumstances I've been unable to find a way to get it back without restarting. It's as if Windows doesn't recognize the card is there.
-Certain parts of the space bar don't respond when I press the key, particularly the top left and top right corners of the space bar. Makes me a little more careful about thumb positioning.

About screen wobble:
-When typing with the laptop in my lap, the screen wobbles around from my forceful typing. When it's on my desk or similar surface, there is no wobble.

 

I haven't had any issues with wifi connectivity, and I hibernate almost daily. However, I did have a few issues with bluetooth when first pairing devices. I found using the bluetooth hotkey or going through the smart manager sometimes caused connection issues. Enabling/disabling through Windows seems mostly okay, but the connection still seems a little touchy when first being established in comparison to how my Blade connected to the same devices.

I've seen the same, and was able to confirm when typing this post. It's not where I normally press the space bar, but if you do hit it on the left or right extreme, it seems the keypress is missed sometimes.

Have not done much typing on my lap, but there is a little play in my screen that would probably do the same thing.

My other complaint after having used the laptop for a bit is the touchpad. The sensitivity is a little lacking, and I think I'd prefer buttons to the rocker action. Overall, I'd still pick the Aero over the Blade every time. But the laptop does have a few quirks.

 

I bought the Aero after returning the Blade 2016. The annoying fan control was the main reason I returned the Blade (the stupid backlighting not highlighting alternate key functions but offering 16.8 million colors, short battery life and flimsy touchpad buttons being the other reasons). First few days I was very happy with the Aero but now after two weeks I also see a couple of issues:

1) The touchpad is really not great, or to be more precise... it is bad... I can live without dedicated buttons and actually prefer that but the precision of the pad doesn't live up to my expectations.
2) The fan in gaming mode has a annoying pitch. I don't care the noise level that much but the pitch of fan noise on the Blade was much more easy to the ear
3) Even resuming from sleep mode the Aero takes quite long... I was used to the Blade's (had the Blade 2015) "MacBook style, open it up and be ready before the screen was even opened more than 30 degrees" mode. Can live with it and probably can be tweaked somewhere.
4) The surface is not really made for frequent travels. After two weaks and a dozen airport security screening the laptop is already full of scratches. The Blade is much more scratch and dent resistent.
5) I'm not getting along with the keyboard... still got a lot of typos by mistyping or the keyboard not registering some keystrokes. Really annoying.

But hey... you can't have everything. I'm happy that the Aero is silent during office work and punches enough power for gaming. So I just accept the issues. I really hope Razer will address their issues with the 2017 model and I might be back.

 

I intend to buy a customized Gigabyte Aero 14 v7. This is going to be my first experience of customized laptop, and I need people's opinion on where to get it.

My primary choices seem to be XoticPC and GenTech PC. Xotic seems to offer better return policy (30 days on customized PCs and no restocking fees) whereas Gentech asks for a 15% restocking fees and is limited to 15 days.

My concern is after sales support. Specifically, will either of these 2 boutiques help with warranty (I have read complaints that some Aero 14's have flickering screens, sensitive keyboard keys) i.e. within the first 30 or so days, would I have to RMA directly to Gigabyte or will the vendors help with it? It does seem that Xotic seems to have a lot more complains.

Where have you had a better experience? What would you recommend? Are there other options?

Thanks!

 

@GenTechPC : you offer both IC diamond and Liquid ultra options in configuration and both of them can be selected. Does that mean that both are applied?

 

I bought my aero 14 from Gentech, and they offer a good service overall. I customized mine with 8x2 ram, IC Diamond with dead pixel warranty. They will keep their promise to ensure that if there is a problem with the product, that they will fix it. Mine had no screen issues such as flickering or backlight bleed.

 

XoticPC likely has more complaints because of higher volume of customers than GenTech. Xotic is more widely known and their business is larger, so you'd have to look at the ratio of bad reviews to the total number of customers for a fair comparison. I've bought laptops from both and it was a positive experience both times, so you'll be in good hands either way.

 

Have you guys tried enabling enhanced pointer precision in the mouse properties? I set up a simple macro to toggle it on when I'm using the touchpad and off when I'm using an actual mouse. improves the touchpad experience for me significantly!
I've also set the pointer speed to 6.

 

Thanks for trying this out! I guess I won't be plopping down cash for a new screen.

 

I had my original order in with gentech, they took quite a while to fill it and wasn't all that great about letting me know the status of the order. Had this laptop on order for three weeks with them and cancelled. They were friendly about the whole process but seemed overworked at the time. Ended up ordering the bare-er bones model from Xotic and got it in 2 weeks. Very good about updates. I felt like I got a much better deal too. $1450 for the computer and bought an evo960-500 nvme drive and a 8gb stick for $300.

 

Enhance pointer precision turns on mouse acceleration, which I really don't like. I always turn that off and put the pointer speed to maximum on any computer I use, either touchpad or mouse. Mouse acceleration has the effect of making the touchpad seem more precise because it greatly reduces the amount of cursor travel relative to how much you move your finger on the touchpad, unless you swipe really quickly (it's speed-based). Turning off acceleration makes the cursor always move at the same ratio, regardless of speed.

 

I ordered my Kaby Lake model from GenTechPC on January 19th with a promotional IC Diamond repaste (didn't want the Coollaboratory Ultra because of drying out over time) and it arrived in 12 days. Phsyically the laptop has no defects and temperatures went from 90 C to 80 C after some curing - I'm going to wait to see where the IC Diamond settles before making a conclusion about the repaste. I will try to overclock the 1060, as well.

 

Just received mine today...Just wondering if the backlight from the LCD that is visible through the bottom part of the webcam is normal

 

Mine has the same. A bit irritating but can live with it. The backlight bleeding at the bottom part of the screen is much worse.

 

That's weird... I can only see the backlight from the webcam if I'm looking from an almost vertical angle to the screen. From any normal viewing angles, I can't notice anything.

 

IC Diamond's product page specifies that it normally takes two hours to cure, but possibly up to a week to cure if there is not enough heatsink pressure.

When I run Prime95 (small FFTs) with no undervolt, it goes up to high-80s, hitting 90 C.
When I run Prime95 (small FFTs) with a 140mV undervolt, it goes up to high 70s, hitting 82 C.
When I run Prime95 (small FFTs) with a 140mV undervolt simultaneously with Heaven 4.0, the cores go to between 92 C and 98 C.

I've been stressing the computer for well over two hours, so it looks like the following could be happening:
1. This computer does not have the cooling potential to manage 100% load on the CPU and GPU
2. IC Diamond is crap
3. GenTechPC did a bad repaste job (Core differentials were 10 degrees...)
4. A combination of the above

I am going to eventually repaste with Kryonaut and see where it goes.

 

One other possibility is that your heatsink is uneven.

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During the dual stress test your cores were hovering between 92 and 98C? What was your multiplier at during that time? What fan setting did you use? What was the ambient temps? During my 30 minute stresstest using furmark/prime, my temps never went that high even with full turbo and no undervolt. The cpus all hovered around 81-86c during the test without such a huge disparity between the cores. Stock paste too. Running just prime with no undervolt I saw temps between 68-74c. I was going to repaste but figured I'd hold off since thermals looked fine. Sounds like you might have a bad pastejob.

 

Would the uneven heatsink be something caused by not screwing in the heatsink correctly? Or are you suggesting it's a manufacturing defect? I have uneven heatsink PTSD from the Alienware 15 R3 haha.

I had the fans on the "gaming" profile, all four CPU cores were running at 3.38 Ghz, which means no throttling and a 34x multiplier, and the ambient temps I'm not sure because I'm in a college dorm, but it's cold enough not to be stifling when wearing two layers.
Yeah when I do repaste, I'm going to take pictures of Gentech's pastejob.

 

It could be either, but a manufacturing defect is more likely IF it is a heatsink problem.

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Interesting. Well I'd say your "problem" was from the CPU running in near full turbo (full would be 38x for kaby) the whole time. Even if the chip was running at 26x (28x for kaby) multiplier, I wouldn't call that throttling since the chip wasn't designed to run in full turbo all the time. I think this may be some kind of difference between the Kabylake and Skylake upgrade. My chip is not nearly as aggressive with the boost clock since it likes to sit around 29-30x and temps in the low to mid 80s. Even running just prime, my skylake only sits at 31x with temps in the mid to low 70s.

It seems to me that your Kaby is actually working as intended, pushing the clock to the thermal limit. Probably pushed a bit higher since you undervolted as well. I personally disable my turbo in my laptops most of the time. I don't really see the need for that kind of CPU power and heat. Seems bad for the life of the computer for little gain.

 

Max turbo multipliers:

• Kaby Lake
  • four cores: 34x
  • single core: 38x
• Skylake
  • four cores: 31x
  • single core: 35x

While I don't know whether or not these chips were designed to sustain max turbo multipliers, I will say that in Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, there are settings for both normal Turbo and "Short Turbo Max" setting which sets a temporary, unsustainable turbo.
Based on what I've read, other laptops, like the current lineup of Alienware laptops (provided you win the lottery by getting a non-defective unit), are able to sustain 3.1 Ghz/3.4 Ghz with reasonable temperatures of 80 C or under. Desktops are able to sustain their max boost clocks at 70 C or under.

Of course, the Aero is thin and light and probably not designed with unrealistically high loads in mind. Despite that, I think it might be possible to get the Aero to sustain 3.4 Ghz with temps under 80 C. I'll try my best with the repaste.

 

Has anyone else had trouble disassembling their Aero 14? Hahaha I unscrewed all the screws on the bottom (and quadruple-checked to make sure I didn't miss any screws), but the bottom cover wouldn't budge at all, no matter how much force I used. I tried pulling from the USB port areas, from the ventilation, and from the edges, although there was no grip at the edges. Dave Lee's review video of the Aero 14 shows him casually lifting the cover off from the USB ports at 1:07 as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Maybe someone glued my Aero 14 together? The cover is on so tight, I feel comfortable putting the laptop through daily portable use without its screws. I've also noticed that GentechPC half-stripped two of the thirteen cover screws.
@Dahn626

 

Definitely not easy to lift the cover. I thought I was going to destroy the cover when I was lifting mine off. I'd start at the rear corner near the hinge. It's on there with some tension snaps so just take your time and apply pressure. I used an automotive plastic panel removal tool (looks like a tiny plastic pry bar) to help get it started.

The 4 long screws go in the center/rear of the case. Maybe gentech tried to jam those into the perimeter holes?

 

Anybody knows where to get a spare part? I would really love to change my keyboard from DE to US layout.... Had to buy DE since my local shop (which I need to use due to company policy) only carries the DE version.

Gigabyte Support wasn't that helpful

 

That sucks, the gentech PC guy told me to call gigabyte to get parts, maybe they could order a replacement keyboard?

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Thank you for the advice. I don't have a pry tool, so after reading your post, I ordered a spludger from iFixit. I will report back on the repaste in around 10 days, hopefully.

 

Maybe the kabylake just run a little bit hotter than skylake? I remember seeing one of the previous user lhl posted his cpu/gpu usage and the temperature while running some games. In one of the games the CPU went up as 90 degrees. I am not sure if that is because of the kabylake or other issues however. (around pg 58)