Gigabyte Aorus X7 Ultra-thin Gaming Laptop with dual GPU

There aren't many thin gaming notebooks on the market outside of the Razer Blade, but it looks like GIGABYTE's new Aorus series will take care of that. GIGABYTE's Aorus is the company's new PC gaming hardware brand, which has started off with a new gaming notebook.

The new company’s first PC is the 17.3-inch X7 gaming laptop: an aluminum clamshell that crams dual Nvidia graphics processors into a (comparatively) sleek 0.9-inch body that weighs in at 6.39 pounds.

While the relative thinness of the X7 is great, 6.39 pounds is still way too heavy for the backpack set. But when you consider Dell’s Alienware 17 has a starting weight of 9 pounds, the X7 doesn’t seem so bad.

The X7 may be a lightweight when it comes to heft for a gaming laptop, but its insides prove to be quite capable. The device is rocking a quad-core 2.4GHz Intel “Haswell” Core i7-4700HQ and two Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M operating in unison with 4GB of total GDDR5 RAM dedicated to video alone.

You also have your choice of 4GB or 8GB of system RAM, 128GB or 256GB of SSD storage, or a 1TB hard drive rated at 5400rpm. For ports you get 3 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, 2x HDMI, mini-Display port, and an SD card reader. Networking includes LAN, 802.11AC Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0. For sound the laptop has two, two-watt speakers, and 2 subwoofers. There’s also a 1.3 Megapixel webcam.

Build quality appears to be good with a solid aluminum chassis and matte black finish. Design-wise, well, that’s a matter of personal choice but Gigabyte is going for an aggressive look accompanied by some tacky marketing speech: "The glass touchpad with fingerprint-proof coating denotes the commander’s clear vision through chaos and turmoil," and “the metallic silver eagle badge and 3 molded ridges symbolize fierce yet rapid attack from high above."

Gigabyte expects the Aorus X7 to ship by March of this year priced between $2,099 and $2,799.

Gigabyte Aorus X7 Specification

OS : Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1 Pro, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional
CPU  : 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4700HQ Processor (2.4GHz-3.4GHz)
Display : 17.3" Full HD 1920x1080 LCD backlight
System Memory : 4GB/8GB DDR3L 1600, 4 slots (Max 32GB)
Chipset : Mobile Intel® HM87 Express Chipset
Video Graphics  : NVIDIA GTX 765M SLI GDDR5 4GB
Storage : (Supports Triple-Storage System) 
               mSATA 128GB/256GB, 2slot 
               2.5” HDD 500GB/750GB/1TB 5400rpm , 1 slot
Keyboard Type : Backlit Keyboard
Optical Disk Drive : N/A
I/O Port : USB 3.0 x3, USB 2.0 x2, HDMI, D-sub, RJ45, Surround port, mini-Display port, SD card reader,microphone-in, earphone-out(SPDIF)
Audio : 2 watt speaker*2, woofer*2, Microphone, AORUS Acoustic + technology
Communications : LAN: Killer LAN Chip
                           Wireless LAN: 802.11ac
                           Bluetooth: Bluetooth V4.0
Webcam : 1.3 Megapixel
Security : Kensington Lock
Battery : Li Polymer 73.26Wh
Dimensions : 392(W) x 263(D) x 22.9(H)mm
Weight : 2.9kg (mSATA x 1 + SO-DIMM x 2 + Battery)
Accessories (optional) : Gaming mouse, keyboard, headset