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00:00All right, so we're rolling into the year 2020 and one of the laptop trends that we've
00:07seen over the past few years is that high performance devices are getting thinner and
00:11lighter and just more portable, which is great.
00:13I think that's what people have been wanting, so it's great that laptop manufacturers and
00:18technology has allowed us to make these relatively portable devices yet still retaining great
00:24performance out of them.
00:25But there are still a lot of companies out there that make these big, like super thick
00:31desktop replacement thick boy devices.
00:34So companies like Acer, Asus, MSI, and this is the one made by Gigabyte.
00:38This is the Aorus 17.
00:40These are significantly bigger than like a regular laptop.
00:45I say regular, but just like the kind of trendy thin and light performance machines.
00:49And these tend to be better performing than thin and light devices.
00:55But I was sent this like a month ago and every time I ran a benchmark and just kind of tested
01:00it out, I always felt like, yes, it was better, but is it really worth it?
01:04Like does the extra weight and size actually provide a better experience than something
01:09that isn't so big and heavy?
01:11And that's what this video is about.
01:13So to give this some context, I guess we'll talk about this laptop real briefly.
01:18There's two things in the Aorus 17 that make it unique.
01:21The first is the keyboard.
01:23It's one of the better, maybe even the best mechanical keyboard I've seen in a laptop.
01:28And in order to implement a keyboard like this, you do need a device that's relatively
01:31thick.
01:32And the other thing that makes this device special is its performance.
01:34It is a very, very powerful laptop.
01:37In fact, this is the best performing laptop that I've tested this year, except for that
01:42weird Alienware Area 51 that used the desktop components inside a laptop chassis.
01:47So when it comes to just regular laptop components, this is the fastest one I've seen this year.
01:52So the keyboard is definitely unique.
01:55I've tried a lot of the mechanical keyboards that are available on laptops and the vast
01:59majority of them are cool and they're like kind of fun to play with and fun to try, but
02:04none of them really stuck out as being a keyboard that I would actually want in my personal
02:08device.
02:09This one is different.
02:10I really like how the keys feel and how it types, but you have to get used to how the
02:14entire keyboard is sunken in a little bit.
02:17If you look at how the keys sit relative to the palm rest, the whole keyboard is sunken
02:22in like a traditional laptop keyboard, and they have to do this so that the keys don't
02:26punch into the screen when you've closed the lid.
02:28And I feel like this positioning takes away from that mechanical keyboard feel, but the
02:33overall keyboard is clicky and has a good tactile response when you press the keys.
02:38In terms of performance, so this machine is running the 9980HK, which is unlocked, and
02:44the RTX 2080.
02:45It is incredibly powerful.
02:48Now to achieve that kind of performance, I had to set this computer to the max possible
02:51settings and the max possible performance, and the fans have to be cranked up to this.
02:58It is very loud to the point where if you're playing games, you actually have to have your
03:02headphones like slightly louder than normal to drown out the fan noise.
03:06Now you don't have to play your games and you don't have to have the system at that
03:11kind of fan noise, but that's what it takes to get the most out of this particular laptop.
03:17So this kind of fan noise is not unique to the Aorus 17.
03:21A lot of the thick boy performance laptops with overclockable CPUs and really powerful
03:25GPUs require really loud fans to hit that kind of performance, and it just begs the
03:30question of, is it worth it?
03:32Like are the gains that you get building a system like this or purchasing a system like
03:37this really worth it over something that's just much more modest?
03:41And I actually think that these big boy laptops are starting to become not really worth their
03:47investment.
03:48Like these things are twice as loud, maybe even three times as loud, and they're twice
03:52as thick, and you're certainly not getting double the performance of something that's
03:56a lot thinner and lighter.
03:58Manufacturers are getting better at cooling thin and light laptops properly, and some
04:02companies are even undervolting their CPUs right out of the factory, so you just get
04:05better temperatures from day one.
04:08And it's just the idea of a big, thick laptop has just, it's become less appealing to me
04:13over the years.
04:14The gains that you get from this are not as prominent as they used to be.
04:18Now you do get a way better port selection, so you're getting three USB-Cs, Ethernet,
04:23an SD card slot, you're just getting all the ports, but it comes at a pretty significant
04:28weight increase over something like this.
04:30Now I know a lot of my audience are interested in these bigger and more powerful devices,
04:35and it's obviously not for me, but for the people that do have a preference for these
04:38bigger, heavier machines, what is it that you do with it?
04:41Like I'm so interested to know what it is that you guys are drawn to in these more powerful
04:45machines.
04:46Okay, the screen, it's a 17-inch screen, it is dimmer than some of the other 17-inch screens
04:51we've seen on this channel, but it is more color accurate if that's important to you.
04:56But it's still a 1080p screen, so, which ties into the whole thing about performance, like
05:00These are still 1080p screens, I don't feel like the extra kick and performance that these
05:05systems provide really translates that nicely in terms of just actual performance in games,
05:11unless you're someone that plays like graphically intense open world games like Witcher 3.
05:16The internals are easy to get to, you have access to your two RAM slots, your three drives,
05:21your Wi-Fi card, and you can see the battery that gives a roughly four-hour battery life,
05:25which is not great, but in a system of this size and this caliber, it's kind of expected.
05:31But overall, this system is very powerful, it is literally the most powerful laptop-based
05:37device that I've had on my channel this year, but it is quite heavy and very loud when you're
05:42trying to get the best possible performance.
05:44Also, it requires two AC adapters to achieve that best performance.
05:49You can run this system off of one AC adapter, but it doesn't clock nearly as high, so you
05:54have to adopt the double-adapter life.
05:56But my advice is that if you're interested in these big, thick-boy laptops, check out
06:00these thinner ones first, and you just get like 80-85% of the performance for like half
06:06the weight.
06:07So, yeah, just be aware of what the market is like if you're interested in the big guys.
06:13Alright, hope you guys enjoyed this video, thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved
06:16it, see you guys next time.