NEW Aero 14 w/ GTX1060

AW13 with oled is great but oled and a second nvme were the only plus points for me

The battery is in a different league on the aero.

Imho the AW falls way short of 5 hours in real world use, I can a full days office duties on the aero and leave the power brick at home. The QHD ips is still a great screen and much better for work with no glare.

It's just so portable I wouldn't swap mine for a 13r3

Just my opinion mind we all have different needs really

 

I was referring to under load temps, ie during gaming. I already kill emptyproject11.exe, it definitely helps get proper battery usage during lighter load.

 

Isn't the emptyproject exe a workaround by gigabyte to prevent constant nvidia GPU usage? I remember that name often appears with optimus problems.

Different topic: Did you guys partition the 500GB SSD of the Aero? From an SSD point of view partitioning has no benefit. Or does a win10 re-install require you to wipe full C drive instead of C:\Windows?

 

I believe it's a workaround by gigabyte which actually forces constant nvidia GPU usage. I do think it's their approach to dealing with optimus problems, which has been blamed for causing some performance/stuttering issues (I know that's what some people thought was causing the stuttering issues I was seeing on the recent msi gs series..) That being said I don't see any problems in-game when the GPU is in use and rarely see any stuttering in Windows; so for me I'd much rather have optimus enabled so that I can get full use out of the battery when not gaming. It's the difference between 6 and 8-9 hrs of light usage.

 

I repartitioned the drive down by 200gb and made a storage d drive. I left the hidden recovery alone and I have done the system recovery a few times and it only overwrites the c drive and leaves my storage drive alone. Hope that helps.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Is this laptop available in the UK? I've enquired with 2 retailers that had it listed but now say it's "End of Life"???

 

It was purchased from a few people in the last few weeks from both Scan and Overclockers here on the forums. The UK model is very nice and has a NVME drive but odd it has 2 8gb sticks instead of 1 16gb stick.

I would check with them directly about future shipments. But if it is anything like the availability of the 970 model from last year those went quick and very few shipments ever happened.

So I wish you good luck finding one.

 

Do we know why this is the case? One retailer said they have only had 9 in and obviously all have sold at such few quantities. Do Gigabyte not want business?

 

I think the demand is high from people waiting a year or more for the Pascal version of this laptop to ship.

 

Optimus is enabled from stock, right? The Nvidia settings have a list of which graphics unit to use with each app. I didn't test yet if this is indeed enforced and the nvidia gpu is turned off under normal usage.

Oh, what happened that you had to use the recovery image/partition? So it basically clones the recovery image to C:\ purging all data? Mh, I guess I'll do a really small partition for temporary storage as I'll be using an external disk anyways for bulk data.

It's said they limited production of the Skylake version to push the Kaby Lake version in a few months. So they want to charge you more later for a small CPU upgrade .

 

Or they might do a 1050ti run of this model soon also. Just like there seemed to be more of the 965m versions of the original aero towards the end of its run.

http://techreport.com/review/31180/nvidia-unveils-its-gtx-1050-and-gtx-1050-ti-for-laptops

While the 1060 is a beast and is almost head to head with the aurous 13. I think gigabyte sees this as a cross over laptop and will see more sales with a 1050 in it. More productivity with light gaming than full gaming laptop. All speculation but if I were a betting man I would put money on it.

I admit I might have bought a 1050ti model with the rest of the same specs if it were available. But don't get me wrong I love this laptop to death so far and am not going to regret my decision to get the 1060.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The reason emptyproject11 exists is to keep the nvidia GPU active. Some elements of Windows seem to engage the nvidia GPU for rendering (like the battery status pop up) and if it isn't running you will see a brief freeze of the entire system when the nvidia GPU is switched on. This Optimus bug plagues is not limited to this specific machine. Others work around it by using some nvidia utilities to keep the GPU engaged full time.

 

I didn't notice any big activity of emptyproject. Is it working as intended on the aero?

Did any one else partition their SSD? I'm planning to make a small partition (<50GB) for important data storage such that it is not touched by a system recovery.

 

I'm going to partition it, but for the purposes of dual booting Linux. I'm going to do 100GB for LVM on LUKS (Arch Linux) and leave the remaining 400GB for Windows

 

Did use use windows disk manager or a 3rd party tool to resize?

 

Well they better crack on with releasing the Kaby Lake version as AW has announced their updated models for tomorrow!

 

Yes I just used windows disk manager. Was quick and painless. I have included a screenshot of where to start you just shrink the c drive then make a new partition in the empty space.

 

The gigabyte recovery partion wipes the c drive and loads their stock image. You can also do an windows refresh with wipe or no wipe. But I made sure to make a full backup of the recovery on a usb drive just in case. And wanted to ensure a disaster recovery can be done to just c drive, leaving my d drive alone. And im glad to say gigabyte does this well, not every manufacture plays well with this and sometimes will do a partition wipe dance of everything besides the recovery and build it to full size. This has hosed me in the past and wanted to test it out early.

 

Thanks, I had to disable hibernate, swap, and system protection to shrink it under 250, but this has worked great!

 

While me are talking about recovery images and such. I did some searching and found an answer from Gigabyte on a forum verifying that the Smart USB Backup tool copies the recovery partition to a Bootable USB drive. It says it should be larger than 32GB, but the recovery image is only 11GB so I'm trying it to a 16GB drive.

 

It worked on my 16gb stick. It just took forever. I'm guessing it would be faster for a larger stick. Because I think it has to offload files to uncompress. I ended up putting it on a 32gb stick because I wanted to do extra stuff on it like drivers only.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Looks like the prices came down a little on the AW 13 (for now) with the Kaby Lake upgrade. I was able to price one at around $250 more than the Aero 14 (tax sucks) and that is with the OLED. As I understand the Aero still probably wins in battery life. Is the OLED worth it? Anyone owned both and can chime in?

 

Pro: Touchscreen on the AW13
Con: Bigger, heavier, smaller screen, uglier.

 

Amazon has a listing for v7
https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Aer...=UTF8&qid=1483628614&sr=1-16&keywords=aero+14

• Display: 14" QHD IPS 2560x1440 Wide Viewing Angle anti-glare display LCD. | Battery: 94.24Wh Huge Battery Capacity for Full-Day Productivity
• Processor: 7th Gen Intel Quad Core i7-7700HQ (2.8-3.8GHz) | GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GDDR5 6GB (NVIDIA Optimus )
• RAM: 16GB (=16GB*1) DDR4 2400MHz Memory | Storage: 512GB M.2 SATA SSD | OS: Windows 10 Home 64 Bit
• Keyboard: Auto-Adjusting Backlit Keyboard Individual Macro Keys | USB 3.1 Type-C | HDMI 2.0 | Exclusive Software: XSplit Gamecaster + Broadcaster, System Gauge, Fan Tweak, TriDef SmartCam
• Dimension: 13.19 x 9.84 x 0.78 inch | Weight: 4.19 Ibs | Warranty: 2 years global warranty | Unique Aesthetics with all aluminum robust body

Looks like just a change in CPU.

 

I've found aw ugly but after owning the new models for 1st time. It's anything BUT ugly.
In pictures the aero wins. But hold the aw13. Whole different story. I wouldn't say it's better now. If the aero was as cheap as the aw13, I'd of purchased it to at least see it.
If the battery could match the aero. It defo would be favoured choice.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Oh, aero is USB-C only? Go for the AW then.

 

Really wish the Aero supported egpu via thunderbolt. Without it I have to go for the Alienware 13 just for the longevity of the dual egpu options and the 2 ssd slots. Sigh.

 

Hello, if you need the thunderbolt 3 but need lightweight mobility, large battery and storage. Could the upcoming xps 15 9560 be appropriate for your need?

 

I'm not entirely sure the mobility is that important at this point. I just would rather have a laptop that isn't thick and (to me) not attractive. It's why I was automatically pulled towards the Aero 14 and not the Alienware 13 R3.

The XPS 15's size is larger than I'd like but given that it's really small for a 15" I definitely considered it. Just not sure I'm willing to pay a premium for the lightness if I won't be utilizing it outside my apartment that much. The egpu and user replaceable ssd and ram on it are great though.

I'm in no rush at the moment and won't be upgrading until around april anyway so we'll see how prices look by then.

 

I ordered on Dec 6, still hasn't shipped yet. I don't mind waiting for a computer, but I'm pretty disappointed Gentech wasn't up-front about their stock. I probably would have selected a different shipping method and configuration (I kept it factory) if I had known it would take this long. First time I've ordered from them, and it will likely be the last. Most resellers would have the courtesy to at least send an email about the delay.

Just checked, and their build tool still says "In Stock and ready to ship with stock configuration, 5~10 business days for custom build".

 

And now they are listing the Kaby Lake machines.

 

I'd cancel and order the kaby version.

 

Xotic PC also has the Kaby version for pre-order. Anyone had experience ordering from them?

 

Just gave them a call, I guess I'll have to give Gentech a pass on this one...

They said it's shipping Monday and it will be the Kaby Lake version.

 

I'd probably cancel the order at this point if there's an updated model with kaby lake imminent.. Edit: never mind sounds like you're getting the kabylake, well good for you then I'm jealous! I knew it'd be coming but decided not to wait since (hopefully) it's not supposed to be that big of a difference from skylake.. I'd obviously still prefer having the latest processor though lol, grats

 

So the GentechPC has them in stock? Mine was shipped and will arrive early next week .... Should I return the item and purchase 7700 HQ? It will be another long wait due to the distance across the continent.
Haha I can't decide...

 

From what I understand there will be negligible performance differences for the aero 14.

It's a huge gain for the Intel IGP because it has hardware video decoding, but the nvidia in ours does that. I don't think there's any less power consumed by the CPU but I haven't looked into it enough because I don't want to have any regrets

 

But the question is, does the Kaby Lake version have thunderbolt 3 ???

 

Gigabyte website says no

 

My orange aero 14 (16 gb, 512gb ssd, no repasting) arrived a few days ago. My previous machine being ASUS UX32vd, it's bigger and heavier than that one.
I bought it for computations applications than gaming. So this is perfect.
Zero fan under light web browsing and document editing work. For long compilation and computation work, fan turns on and off intermittently, where the fan speed is
at the lowest level. It seems the cooling is very efficient.

One problem I have is that charging from the USB charging ports which are said to provide up to 2.1A (one in the AC adapter and one on the right side)
seems slower than charging from a 1A rated port from my dedicated charger. I wonder if others have similar experience.

 

Did anyone with an Aero 14 (v6/7) notices some degree of screen flickering even at full brightness? I see flickering especially on grey backgrounds.
An easy test/example is heading this grey image or to https://www.dropbox.com/ and click on Sign Up (or change the language). Most of the screen is greyed out around the window that pops up and flickering is pretty noticeable.

The screen model in mine is LP140QH1-SPF1 which is apparently a known offender.

 

How do I check my screen model? No flicker here

 

I used HWiNO64. in case you have the same model, what intel igpu / NVidia drivers are you using (version)?

 

I have the skylake version, same screen model as yours.

Intel driver is 21.20.16.4534
Nvidia driver is 21.21.13.7633

 

Just wondering, I'm on battery at the moment, that might impact it.

Also, I notice some flicker here in other apps, but only because I'm using Windows DPI scaling. If I turn off scaling the issue goes away.

 

PWM flicker is usually an issue at lower brightness levels, but shouldn't happen at full brightness.

Do you have adaptive brightness enabled? I've encountered that issue on a lot of laptops, where it makes the screen flicker as it continually changes brightness when on battery.

 

Scaling shouldn't cause flickering. The option is default on 200% anyway, right? Flickering occurs under battery as well. I hve the same driver version as you. What's your bios version? I updated mine to FB03 (from 02)

It appears that the LP140QH1-SPF1 isn't even a PWM panel. Makes sense as I see no coupling to brightness.

It is sometimes more, sometimes less noticeable, especially with grey backgrounds. When looking at this picture, for example, I always see a very fast flickering: ( http://www.sanjeev.net/colors/color-storm-grey.jpg)
From my testing it doesn't seem to software related but hardware. I hope the panel is not defective :/
Please test the upper

 

hi. I have now asus ux303ln, thinking to buy the aero, one question: how is aero's keyboard compared to asus?
Im a software developer so keyboard is very important to me

 

I think ux303ln is similar to ux32vd regarding keyboard. aero has more travel and more solid feel. And as other reviewers noticed, it does require slightly more force to press the keys, but I didn't miss any keystrokes because of this. Dedicated page up, down, home, end keys and bigger cursor keys are certainly welcome. Macro keys are also quite useful, not just for gaming. keyboard backlighting is better as well, in my mind.

 

Just checked and I have the same panel with no flickering on any of the examples you provided.