Just recently, Gigabyte launched their Nvidia RTX30-series gaming laptops out into the market which included the Aorus 15P KC. Sporting the Nvidia RTX3060 GPU, an Intel Core i7-10870H CPU, and so much more, it’s a powerful device with an aesthetic that just screams classy portable power.
We review an early sample of the Aorus 15P KC, which came directly from the Gigabyte HQ. There may be some slight deviations from the actual retail sample of this device.
Build Quality
Make no mistake – The Aorus 15P KC has a design aesthetics that is definitely Gigabyte gaming. With its sharp lines, rubberized textures, and aggressive cooling system, the Aorus 15P KC is laser-focused on proving its worth in the sea of gaming notebooks.
While the body is made of heavy plastic, its rubberized coating gives off a very comfortable feel to the entire device. However, it is a definite oil and dust magnet.
It’s not as heavy or thick with measurements of 14.0(W) x 9.6(D) x 1.06(H) inch. This puts it still comfortably within portable range.
The full-sized keyboard (yes, it includes a keypad) on the Aorus 15P KC just feel nice. It’s not too clicky and has a relatively softer tactile feel compared to other gaming keyboards. It also uses an RGB lighting per key tech which means users can fully customize the lighting options based on Gigabyte’s AORUS RGB Fusion software.
Although we weren’t able to pry open the laptop, inside the chassis is a five-heatpipe WINDFORCE full-copper cooling solution, with two 12V fans and 4 outlet vents. This kept the laptop at manageable temperatures during gaming. It’s as beefy as it can get compared to other solutions out there in the market. The copper heatpipes definitely bring better thermal conductivity to the entire device.
Display
The Aorus 15P KC has a 15.6-inch FHD (1920×1080) IPS-Level screen that has a 240Hz refresh rate (!!). Simply put, it’s a stunning panel that’s perfect for gamers. It’s amazing that they managed to squeeze in their X-Rite™ Pantone® Certification on the laptop. This means that each panel is factory calibrated since Gigabyte makes sure that what you see on the screen is near to the “real” colors that it should have. Display was crisp and clear even during bright sunlight. Gaming on the laptop itself was a mind blowing experience due to the clarity of colors and the blazing fast refresh rate.
While some might nitpick that it’s not a 2K or 4K display, it’s not really important at this point for this notebook. It’s a gaming notebook at its core and the goal really is to provide great performance at 1080P gaming, which we will talk about in a while.
Bezels on the edges of the display are razor thin and impressive considering that the Aorus 15P KC is a beast of a machine. Kudos to Gigabyte for being able to design a complete gaming notebook without having a thick bezel. Design aesthetics was definitely a priority when building this notebook. This means, however, that the webcam is located near the keyboard.
Connectivity
Ports
The right side of the laptop has two USB3.2 ports, a Type-C Thunderbolt port, a multi card reader, and the power port.
The left of the Aorus 15P KC has a full HDMI port, a mini displayport, another USB 3.2, and the combo audio jack. A full ethernet port is also included.
Wireless
The laptop has an Intel® AX200 Wireless (802.11ax, a/b/g/n/ac/ax compatible) network card which supports the newest WIFI-6 standard to deliver data rates up to 2.4GBps. It also has Bluetooth V5.0 + LE.
Storage
For the configuration that we got, the laptop was loaded with a 512GB Samsung PCIE 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD, which performed brilliantly. This will, however, vary greatly depending on localized configurations. Based on Crystaldiskmark, the sequential read/write speeds were rated at 3469MB/s and 2801 MB/s. However, random read/write performance were at 187 MB/s and 144MB/s. Given the load of this particular test on the SSD, it was understandably lower than expected.
Audio
Simply put, all audio that comes out from this laptop is unbelievably loud and clear. The audio blasts from the 2 2-watt speakers found on the bottom-left and bottom-right parts on the laptop (those 4 lines near the corner). Powered by Nahimic 3 software which boosts the gaming audio and vocal performance on computers, the speakers push out a satisfying level for any usage.
Hardware Performance
Cinebench R23
Running the Cinebench R23 benchmarking tool to test the Intel Core i7-10870H CPU, it posted a score of 7189 points on the Multi-Core test and 1146 points on the Single Core test, which is only a smidge lower than the Intel Core i9-9880H. However, this doesn’t tell the whole real-life performance about the CPU. This is because the newer 10th gen CPU does have a lot of other features which the previous generations are not capable of, such as more focus on AI, WIFI-6, among others.
3DMark Benchmarks
Testing the Aorus 15P KC using 3DMark on high performance power setting, both on high fan and normal fan performance yielded some noticeable differences. We can see that high fan settings does give out a minor boost in performance. Although with fans turned on high, it did give out significant noise and sounded like a jet engine at 70+ decibels.
Overall, the 3DMark benchmarks showed surprisingly great results and almost similar to what Gigabyte has shown publicly. The great combination of specifications – CPU, GPU, and DRAM etc has given the Aorus 15P KC the right to be called a gaming powerhouse for its price level.
For the Raytracing feature test, the Aorus 15P KC scored 19.61 FPS for a measurement of pure ray tracing performance. For most third-party testing, it puts it almost on the same league as a desktop-class previous-gen RTX2080 and higher than an 8GB RTX2070 SUPER.
VRS (Variable Rate Shading), which is a rendering technique used by Nvidia, basically boosts GPU performance by allowing the GPU to use varying amounts of processing power within the same frame to render different parts of the image. For the Aorus 15P KC, the RTX3060 posted a VRS performance gain of 42.3%, which spells a huge performance boost for playing most rendering-heavy games.
Gaming performance
Powered by the latest Nvidia RTX3060 GPU, the Aorus 15P KC is a gaming beast. It features 6GB of GDDR6 VRAM with a boost clock of 1605Mhz. Furthermore, it also has a MAX-Q design, with a maximum power output of 115watts. The Aorus 15P KC also has a Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU for non-gpu intensive usage.
There are multitudes of ways to run gaming benchmarks but the usual way we like to do things is to find the best possible combination of graphics settings that results in great visuals and at least 60 FPS performance. Nonetheless, we’ll still be putting here the results of some of our testing based on different games.
For game testing, fan speed was turned down to “normal” because turning on high fan mode was impractical and not comfortable to the ears at all. Performance mode for power was also turned on.
Metro Exodus
Running Metro Exodus, which is a very CPU-intensive game, was not a big problem for the Intel i7-10870H + RTX3060 combination on the Aorus 15P KC. The most optimal setting for 1080P gaming would be on Ultra settings with ray tracing set to high and vsync at half which could churn out 71 FPS. With vsync turned off, it is still quite a visually enjoyable and smooth playing experience at 91 FPS.
Jedi: Fallen Order
Jedi: Fallen Order which is also a more GPU-intensive game was also not much a problem for the Aorus 15P KC, and at 1080 Epic graphics settings and vsync on, it could still comfortably produce 81 FPS even during rabid fight scenes and full lighting.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Using the built-in benchmarking feature of Shadow of the Tomb Raider produced an average of 61 FPS for 1080P gaming with vsync and temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) turned on, which produces significantly better visuals. Without a doubt, the Gigabyte Aorus 15P KC can run the game comfortably well without compromising visuals.
Overall, gaming on the Aorus 15P KC was definitely a great experience. There was no need to even turn the fans on high, the laptop already produced more than sufficient gaming power to for 1080P gaming for most triple-A titles available on the market. Entry to mid level games such as DOTA 2, CS:GO, and Valorant also played really well on the Aorus 15P KC.
Full Specifications
AORUS 15P KC
| OS | Windows 10 Pro / Windows 10 Home |
| CPU | 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-10870H (2.2GHz~5.0GHz) |
| Display | 15.6″ Thin Bezel FHD 1920×1080 IPS-level Anti-glare Display LCD (240Hz, 72% NTSC) *X-Rite™ Pantone® Certified, individually factory calibrated. |
| System Memory | 2x DDR4 2933MHz slots (8GB/ 16GB/ 32GB, Max 64GB) |
| Chipset | Mobile Intel® HM470 Express Chipset |
| Video Graphics | Intel® UHD Graphics 630 NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3060 Laptop GPU 6GB GDDR6 Boost Clock 1605 MHz, Maximum Graphics Power 115 W Supports NVIDIA Max-Q Technologies: Dynamic Boost 2.0, Resizable BAR, and Advanced Optimus™ capable Technology. |
| Storage | 2x M.2 SSD slots (Type 2280, supports 1x NVMe PCIe & SATA/ 1x NVMe PCIe) 512GB Samsung NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD |
| Keyboard Type | AORUS Fusion Per-key RGB Keyboard |
| I/O Port | 3x USB 3.2 Gen1 (Type-A) 1x USB 3.2 Gen1 (Type-C) 1x HDMI 2.1 1x mini DP 1.4 1x 3.5mm Audio Combo Jack 1x UHS-II SD Card Reader 1x DC-in Jack 1x RJ-45 |
| Audio | 2x 2W Speakers, 1x Dual-Array Microphone, Nahimic 3 |
| LAN | RTL8125-BG REALTEK (2.5G) Ethernet |
| WLAN | Intel® AX200 Wireless (802.11ax, a/b/g/n/ac/ax compatible) |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth V5.0 + LE |
| Adapter | 230W |
| Battery | Li Polymer 99Wh , Windforce infinity cooling system Dual Fans + 5 Heat Pipes + 4 Exhausts |
| Dimensions | Weight 357 (W) x 244 (D) x 27 (H)mm, ~2.2Kg / 14.0(W) x 9.6(D) x 1.06(H) inch, 4.8 lb |
| Thermals | Windforce infinity cooling system Dual Fans + 5 Heat Pipes + 4 Exhausts |
Final Thoughts
Simply put, The Aorus 15P KC is a really well-thought out laptop and blew our expectations out the window. It’s amazing how the RTX3060 and i7-10870H performed while playing some triple A titles, and the enhanced cooling on the Aorus 15P KC made it a comfortably cool experience. Our only gripe so far with the device is the extremely noisy fan during heavy loads or when manually set to high. Of course, with all the AI tech on the Aorus 15P KC, there will be some times where this will automatically trigger, so it’s really recommended to use the laptop in a cold room or improve the bottom cooling. Battery life was also on the average with most gaming laptops of this calibre, and the presumed “8 hours” battery that Gigabyte defined might be a bit difficult to achieve on a daily basis.
Given all that, the Aorus 15P KC is definitely a heavyweight contender in its category – with its sheer amount of raw power, an impressive screen, massive connectivity and configuration options, and great build quality, there isn’t really much more to look for in any other gaming laptop at this price range. The Aorus 15P KC probably has all of them, and grab one now if it’s on sale.