Gaming Performance & Overclocking!

There are two questions to answer when it comes to the graphics performance of the X5 v7. Nosotros know the GTX 1070 is a highly capable GPU at 1080p, merely does the extra CPU power of the i7-7820HK improve performance significantly compared to more typical i7-7700HQ laptops? And secondly, is the GTX 1070 with this CPU expert plenty for mobile gaming at 4K? After all, there's a 4K display on this laptop, so if the GPU is capable I'thou sure you'll want to use it.

So let's respond that start question to begin with. Across a range of more recent games, the extra CPU power no doubt has a pregnant touch on gaming operation. This doesn't e'er manifest itself in terms of improved average frame rates, but frequently you'll get much meliorate minimum frame rates with the power of the i7-7820HK.

Eight of ten games I tested at 1080p ultra detail settings achieved noticeably better minimum frame rates on the X5 v7 than a GTX 1070 laptop with an i7-7700HQ. In many cases, average frame rates weren't significantly better, as well-nigh games ran above 60 FPS at these settings on average. But at that place were some times where minimum frame rates increased by more than than ten FPS, sometimes taking the game from a sub-30 to over-xxx FPS minimum.

CPU-strained games similar Hitman, Civilization VI and Watch Dogs ii all benefitted nicely from the extra CPU power in both average and minimum frame rates.

Game Settings Avg. - Min. FPS
Watch Dogs ii 4K Ultra Preset
4K Medium Preset		 25 - 20
50 - 39
Mass Issue Andromeda 4K Ultra Preset 26 - 19
Grand Theft Machine Five 4K Max
4K High		 27 - 20
86 - 59
Rise of the Tomb Raider 4K Max
4K High		 ten - 8
34 - 25
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 4K Ultra
4K High		 22 - 19
28 - 24
Hitman 4K Ultra 46 - 34
Civilization VI 4K Max 51 - 38

As far as gaming at 4K is concerned, the GTX 1070 isn't powerful enough to comfortably say 4K gaming is possible in every game. There are certainly times where the Aorus X5 v7 tin can push decent frame rates at 4K, simply the most intensive games in my test suite were merely too much for the GPU at decent quality levels.

Equally y'all tin run into from the table, but Hitman and Civilization VI were playable at 4K ultra quality with minimum frame rates above 30 FPS. The Aorus X5 v7 has a K-Sync display, so the feel with this sort of functioning is decent.

In other titles, you lot'll need to play around with reduced quality settings to hit playable functioning at 4K. The good news is that for the about function, yous don't need to reduce quality levels too far to hit a minimum frame rate above 30 FPS. Some games were very playable on high details at 4K, while others required dipping downwards to medium details instead.

The bang-up thing virtually having a 4K display on a laptop similar this is y'all can cull between high resolution gaming, and high performance gaming, depending on the game and your preferences. If you prefer ultra quality and want 60 FPS, yous tin can play at 1080p without much hassle. But if yous want a native 4K experience, or you're playing a game where the GTX 1070 has no trouble at 4K, you have the power to push up the resolution for much sharper gameplay.

The main downside to the Aorus X5 V7's performance are the noise levels from the cooling solution. This laptop isn't quiet, particularly under load, and it has a tendency to run its fans at an audible level even when the workload is light. Headphones are a must for gaming.

Temperatures are reasonable though non fantastic. After xxx minutes of gaming in Spotter Dogs 2, the CPU was sitting at a toasty 88°C from approximately 70 pct usage, while the GPU saturday at 85°C. There is some thermal headroom as the fans can spin upward higher than they were under this test, though it'south clear Aorus has designed the laptop for the mill overclock they've gone with.

Information technology's also worth mentioning that some areas of the laptop's chassis can become pretty hot. The WASD keys get a bit hotter than I'd normally similar, and the upper parts of the magnesium trunk probably shouldn't be touched during lengthy usage.

Overclocking

While both the CPU and GPU inside the Aorus X5 v7 are overclockable, y'all might exist a bit disappointed with the results yous can get aside from what Aorus has managed out of the box.

Starting with the CPU, information technology's worth reiterating that the X5 v7 is factory overclocked from a maximum turbo frequency of 3.9 GHz up to 4.ii GHz. The Aorus Command & Control eye allows for a further overclock up to iv.iii GHz, which is a decent 400 MHz gain here. Naturally, I wanted to see how far the overclockable Core i7-7820HK tin be pushed, and then I installed Intel'due south Extreme Tuning Utility and got to work.

Unfortunately results weren't much better than through Aorus' utility. An OC to 4.5 GHz wasn't stable, so I could only achieve 4.4 GHz at best, which is just 100 MHz higher than what Aorus allows with their utility. Yet, in some respects getting a 500 MHz total overclock is not a bad result.

With this OC applied, the 7820HK consistently runs into a ability limit during all-core workloads, so the CPU doesn't hitting 4.four GHz regularly. Instead I typically saw around four.0 GHz or thereabouts, sometimes lower, which was only slightly in a higher place the 3.8 GHz I achieved with the default manufacturing plant overclock. This was despite the all-core multiplier sitting at 44x, every bit Intel's utility consistently warned me of a power limit.

The adept news is that in single-core workloads, the CPU did hit 4.4 GHz, which provided effectually an extra 7 per centum more performance in Cinebench's unmarried-threaded test over the factory overlock.

Things are a bit more dire on the GPU overclocking front. Aorus' Control & Control utility supports a mediocre 50 MHz overclock, so naturally I wanted to button the system a bit harder than that. However, I apace discovered that overclocking the GPU doesn't pb to fantastic results.

Pushing +100 MHz on both the GPU and retentivity was doable and stable, nonetheless due to Nvidia'due south GPU Boost technology, the real-earth gains in clock speed weren't significant compared to its default level. By default, in a GPU heavy game like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, the GPU sabbatum around the 1683 MHz mark, which is 38 MHz higher than its rated boost clock. Pushing +100 MHz on the GPU led to a 1721 MHz clock in the game, which is just a further 38 MHz proceeds here, and well beneath the boost value I set up for the GPU.

I besides tested Rise of the Tomb Raider and saw a 63 MHz proceeds when set to +100 MHz, from 1557 MHz to 1620 MHz. This provided ane.six extra FPS, or a 5 percentage proceeds, which is okay simply nil amazing. Bumping the heave to +150 MHz delivered a clock speed of 1658 MHz and a total performance gain of six percent in Rise of the Tomb Raider, while +200 MHz crashed the system.

Due to the power limits while overclocking the CPU and GPU, temperatures were largely unaffected and saturday only a few degrees college (if that) relative to their default levels.