Inside Of The Aorus X7 Pro
Though I still question the amount of space saved by removing the batter tray, I must admit that Aorus does a great job of packing the front of its X7 Pro with cells.
Around back, we find that both GPUs are mounted directly to the main circuit board, along with the CPU. The only serviceable parts are the three mSATA slots (two filled), four DIMM slots (two filled) and 2.5” drive bay (empty).
The entire unit is powered by a 200W Level V power brick. Efficiency ratings for external power supplies include the energy consumed at zero load. At higher loads, Level V is supposed to be at least 87% efficient (about 80 PLUS Bronze spec, as a minimum).
Aorus includes a master settings menu with a few controls that you won’t find elsewhere, such as keyboard lighting. Some of the other settings should never be used in our experience. For example, clicking the “Enable Slave GPU” icon caused the second GPU to disappear until after the driver was reloaded. That last issue appears to be specific to this software and driver configuration.
Aorus System Gauge is also among its Command & Control features. Though it appears accurate, we continued to use third-party apps through our tests.
The X7 Pro keyboard incorporates a row of macro keys, and the system includes a menu to configure their settings. The “G” key in the macro section selects between five modes for each of the five macro keys.
Aorus is still part of Gigabyte, so it continues to include the company’s backup software. Other software on our system included PowerDVD, Killer Network’s control panel for its integrated GbE controller and a custom “Power Button” applet.
The X7 Pro is powerful enough to serve Nvidia Shield clients and record/broadcast your gaming sessions using Nvidia’s included applications.
