Aorus X7 Pro Notebook Review: GeForce GTX 970M Gets Slim In SLI

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Combining the power of two GeForce GTX 970M GPU in a compact chassis, Aorus enables the mobile market with incredible graphics potential. Can its X7 Pro really live up to the firm’s claims of desktop-class performance?

Results: Adobe Creative Cloud And Productivity Applications

Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe After Effects is affected by several system factors, including the X7 Pro’s extra RAM and the GT60’s poor memory bandwidth. Between those extremes, the SBM machine has the X7 Pro’s memory bandwidth (good) with the GT60’s lower memory capacity (bad).

One might expect the X7 Pro’s GeForce GTX 970M to outpace the SBM machine’s Radeon R9 290X based on Adobe’s history of optimizing for Nvidia's technologies. That doesn't happen this time, but I believe that the slower notebook CPU is responsible.

MSI’s higher minimum Turbo Boost ratio appears to propel it through Adobe Premiere. But the X7 Pro’s matching maximum Turbo Boost ratio helps it catch up in our single-threaded Acrobat workload.

Productivity Applications

Mysterious 3ds Max results point towards the X7 Pro’s higher memory bandwidth or greater memory capacity as potential reasons for a performance lead over the similarly-clocked GT60 Dominator.

MSI’s older machine leads Aorus’ newer model in Blender, and that’s likely due to a higher minimum Intel Turbo Boost ratio.

The X7 Pro’s soldered-down CPU appears to take a slightly higher clock frequency hit when unplugged, hurting its overall standing in ABBYY FineReader. It does have a faster storage and memory subsystem though, and both help it along in our Visual Studio compilation times.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Nuckles_56
    A nice machine but I wouldn't consider buying one til Nvidia fixes up the issues that the machine is having with SLI
    Reply
  • blackmagnum
    Boo SLI. You create more miserly than happiness. Do yourself a favor and buy a top single-gpu gaming notebook instead.
    Reply
  • StarBound
    I'm assuming the screen is a 60hz making the SLI somewhat pointless. Still the machine is impressive but at the end of the day I cannot see myself getting something that lasts only 40min when performing its primary function (in this case gaming).
    Reply
  • eriko
    Certainly has my attention...
    Reply
  • Steveymoo
    Colour me impressed. This could be the first truly functional gaming desktop replacement! It's faster than my desktop, and my GPU is less than a year old. Wowzers. And such a slim package.
    Reply
  • AndrewBrodie
    Does the HDMI Port support HDMI 2.0? I would like to use it with a 4K TV and hope to exceed 30 FPS.
    Reply
  • xyster
    FYI: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M is offered also in 8GB capacities; not just 4gb. ie: MSI Dominator versions have it.
    Reply
  • npyrhone
    The performance figures are really impressive, but why on earth are the "idle" and "reading" power consumption levels so absurdly high?

    I mean, I can somehow even understand the zombie drain by the other gpu, but even so: how is it possible that if you just write a word document and read news from the internet, you get something like 2h of battery life.

    Obviously, the person who purchases this might not need even 1h battery life ever, but that does not change the fact that something seems to be wrong here, or even broken, when the previous gen laptop achieves 5-6h of battery life in such scenarios.

    I am like 95% sure that either the power saving options were not enabled, or they were not functioning properly or some component was flawed or some driver was misbehaving. Or then something else weird was going on.

    In any case, I am 100% certain that I can get 3-4h of battery life in a light use, non-gaming scenario with a properly built laptop even if it was sporting this kind of hardware (ie. i7-4870HQ, 970M SLI, 17,3" FHD...)

    Reply
  • sportfreak23
    Was thinking of purchasing this to replace my current Sony Vaio S as the dual core is starting to show its age. But the 1080p screen is kinda turn off when aorus offers a high res screen on its X3. Wish they made a high res 980M sli option to be purchased as this current 970m setup doesn't impress me much.
    Reply
  • hst101rox
    On page 4, it is not just the Aorus x7 pro that has an AC adapter with an efficiency rating of "V", but the Delta 180W of the MSI GT60/70 and most any other new laptop, and tablet/smart phone charger should also be at that efficiency rating.
    Reply