Performance modes
It took longer than I planned, but we finally got our hands on an Aorus gaming laptop. Specifically, the 15-inch model set for 2023 with a Raptor Lake Core i7 processor and an Ada Lovelace RTX 4070 graphics card. This configuration may impress with a rather attractive price. But then again, in the fierce competition from ROG, MSI and Legion models, the Aorus 15 BSF won’t have it so easy.
Performance modes
In the Gigabyte Control center, the laptop offers the option to choose from Creator, Turbo, Gaming, Meeting or Silent (power saver) modes, or even leave the control to Ai Boost. We tested all available modes, so six types.
All the tests so far have been done in Turbo mode, but it’s worth taking a look at the differences each mode offers. We therefore compare the performance curves under combined load using 3DMark in the Fire Strike benchmark.
The CPU clock speeds during the test show that Turbo offers higher clock speeds in a close race with Gaming and Creator. In contrast, Silent and Meeting are noticeably slower. Ai is surprisingly somewhere in between, but closer to the more powerful modes.
The power draw shows us the differences between the modes in even more detail. Turbo clearly has higher peaks than Gaming and Creator, while Ai lags far behind on these points. Silent and Meeting are almost identical with an almost flat power draw curve.
Turbo shows its power at lower temperatures than Gaming and Creator, thanks to the fans running at maximum. Meeting, which along with Silent had lower clock speeds and power draw, has the lowest temperatures, a result that is to be expected.
What about the GPU? Surprisingly all modes are almost identical in terms of load, only at the end of the graph you can see a drop in Silent and Meeting modes compared to the rest.
GPU clock speeds are completely identical and without dips, unlike the load, here the different modes are indistinguishable.
Surprisingly, GPU power draw is almost identical between modes as well, although there’s a dip at the end here as well as under load in Meeting and Silent. Similarly to Blender, however, we don’t see the claimed 140W here either, and so the question is whether the settings were not optimal or the fault lies elsewhere and the laptop doesn’t achieve the claimed performance parameters on paper.
With GPU temperatures, you can see the maximum cooling effect of Turbo mode with the lowest temperatures, balanced Gaming, Creator and Ai modes, and conversely the highest temperatures in Meeting and Silent, where the fans run at significantly lower speeds, which also affects the cooling performance.
Expectations according to the progress charts are as follows: Turbo should be the best and close behind with minimal difference will be Creator and Gaming. Ai will be slightly weaker and the weakest will be Silent and Meeting. The predictions were almost confirmed, but with the difference that the winner is unexpectedly Creator and not Turbo, which was a surprise for me. However, the difference is only 3% and practically three modes out of six have the same values and are thus redundant. Ai mode lags 7-10% behind the top three, with Silent and Meeting on the tail, as expected, with a difference of just one percent. However, they lag up to 40% behind the top three, so they’re not really suitable for gaming and work.
- Contents
- Parameters and details
- Testing methodology
- Display tests
- Rendering and Geekbench
- 3D/PC Mark and Unigine Heaven/Superposition
- Gaming Tests – Dedicated GPU
- Encryption, encoding
- Memory and storage tests
- Temperature and battery life
- Blender – CPU, CUDA and Optix tests
- Performance modes
- Utility App
- Evaluation
