Gigabyte Updates Aorus X5 Gaming Notebook With Skylake And Fusion Keyboard

Gigabyte’s gaming-focused wing, Aorus, claimed that its X5 is the "world’s most powerful" 15-inch notebook, and though that statement is debatable, the current model is still a very powerful piece of portable gaming hardware. It's available with up to Nvidia GTX 965M SLI graphics and an optional G-Sync display. For CES, Aorus announced an updated v5 version of the X5 that uses Intel’s 6th gen Skylake processors. With this upgrade, Aorus is hoping that the X5 can retain its "world’s most powerful" title.

Aorus X5 v5 Specifications

As you can see, Aorus was pretty light on the specifications. We don’t know its dimensions or weight, connectivity options, battery size, and so on. In fact, the picture at the top of this post is actually of the current X5 laptop, so we aren’t even sure if the new model retains the same design (although we’d be very surprised if it didn’t.)

Of all the X5 v5’s new features, the one that Aorus is most excited about is its optional Fusion Keyboard, which it calls a “game-changer.” When it says “per-key backlight,” Aorus means that each key can be set to be lit or unlit, which allows for animated illuminated effects, or having select keys (such as WASD) lit when gaming. This is a keyboard feature previously only found on desktop backlit gaming keyboards, although we do expect to see this feature on other OEM's upcoming gaming notebooks, too. The information provided to us did not make it clear if the Fusion Keyboard allows for different backlight colors.

We don’t have any pricing or availability information about the Aorus X5 v5, but with a well-equipped (i7, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, G-Sync, GTX 965M SLI) current X5 going for close to $3,000, we expect this new model to be priced similarly.

Alex Davies is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware and Tom's IT Pro, covering Smartphones, Tablets, and Virtual Reality. You can follow him on Twitter. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.