Gigabyte Sabre 17 GTX 1060 Gaming Laptop Review

Gigabyte Sabre 17 GTX 1060 While laptops certainly have their uses, they can also be quite limited. Particularly when it comes to weight, performance and screen size. The Gigabyte Sabre 17 promises to deliver a solution for all of those issues. With an Intel i7 7700HQ processor, Nvidia GTX 1060 and a whopping 17.3" display, there is very little on the surface to suggest that this isn't practically the perfect laptop. Suitable for either the home user or gaming enthusiast, this laptop seems to have it all. Specifications Packaging As with any Gigabyte product, you know you are dealing with quality and even the packaging is no exception. The cobalt steel combined with high black gloss make the box understated, but not underwhelming either. Internally the laptop is well packaged in some excellent foam spacers and in addition, the power cables and block are very neatly set to the side. The laptop itself comes set in a nice quality canvas sleave which on the go should protect it from any scratches. The system also comes complete with a full manual which is far more detailed than you usually see. In addition to this, you also get your warranty cards to register the product and a CD with installation drivers. The CD is a little contradictory since the laptop doesn't have a CD-drive and perhaps this was a minor oversight. A USB would have made far more sense. The laptop does have a removable battery which is easily inserted and removed. It is nice to see the removable battery as this is a feature which many laptops do not include so obviously or easily to remove. A Closer Look Upon removal of the protective sleeve you are struck by two factors initially. Firstly, it is quite notable light, despite its size and secondly the screen. If you have been using a standard 15" display on your previous laptop, those extra 2 inches are going to look instantly better for you. The Gigabyte logo is very nicely embossed in silver on the top. The laptop has a nice high-gloss black finished and with the silver logo embellishments look highly professional. On the left side of the laptop, you will find the majority of the connectors which include; power input, Ethernet, Kensington lock port, 2 x mini display ports, HDMI port, USB 3.1 port and a flash memory card reader. In what is a nice touch as well, the flash memory card has a blank card insert so the port can not get dirty while retaining a nice plush finish. On the right side things are a bit simpler with; headphone and mic inputs, a USB 2.0 port and a USB 3.1 port. With only a total of 3 USB inputs, more would have been nice, but 3 is plenty for most peoples requirements. Interior The Gigabyte Sabre 17 has a nice LCD back-lit keyboard with nice firm, responsive keys in a full standard layout. A minor criticism would be the lack of any obvious indication that caps-lock is on, but this is a minor issue and while in operation, you are prompted when it is turned on/off. The mouse scratch-pad is located slightly off centre to the left and with 2 separate operation buttons works very nicely. Just above the keyboard is the main top vent which is set in a 'Firebird' style design which although understated, is very pleasant to look at. A nice quality webcam can also be found in the immediate top centre of the monitor. Testing & Methodology To test each system or notebook, we want to stress every component of the system to check stability and performance, giving us an idea as to why those particular components were picked for this particular system. We use a wide variety of applications to gain a broad spectrum of results for comparing diverse aspects of system performance. Games Used All games are tested at both 1920 x 1080, 2560 x 1440 and 2160 x 3840 (4K). Please note that for systems which do not support a particular resolution, such as 1080p laptops, we will not test the higher resolutions on those devices. Rise of the Tomb Raider (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Pure Hair Off Deus Ex (Steam) DX12 Medium Preset Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Uplay) Medium Preset Turf Effects Off Far Cry Primal (Uplay) Normal Preset Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download) FireStrike (1080p) Benchmark Unigine Superposition (download) 1080p Extreme Benchmark PCMark 10 Professional (download) Express Benchmark WPrime (download) 32M and 1024M CineBench R15 (download) CPU Multi CPU Single Handbrake (download) Custom MP4 to MKV 4K conversion (details below) AIDA64 Engineer (download) CPU-Z (download) HWMonitor (download) Handbrake To stress processors to their absolute limit and accurately judge their performance in video editing workloads, we transcode a 7.7GB compilation of gaming footage; this particular file is freely available from here. The captured footage is 22 minutes and 12 seconds long, it has a bit rate of 50.1 Mbps and it uses the Advanced Video Codec. Additionally, the video runs at a constant 30 frames-per-second and opts for a 3820 x 2140 (4K) resolution. Once loaded into Handbrake, we then transcode the 4K MP4 to an MKV file using the "normal" profile. Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark Firestrike For CPU and GPU performance combined, the Gigabyte Sabre 17 did excellently. This was almost certainly in no small part to the Nvidia 1060 this particular model comes equipped with scoring only slightly below the ASUS ROF GL702Z which in itself was excellent, but powered by a Ryzen 7 instead of an Intel i7. Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme Moving onto a GPU based score, the laptop scored a highly respectable 2057 and once again competes with similar products from ASUS, Chillblast and Aorus. PCMark 10 The CPU scoring in PCMark 10 was surprisingly high and performed much better than many of its competitors. That, of course, is in no small part to the i7 7700HQ processor. Despite this, however, given that this is the same processor seen in the MSI GP62 models, the moderately faster speed is pleasantly surprising. WPrime 32M and 1024M In this instance, figures were slightly lower than we expected. This, however, based on the majority of the other results is the only instance in which the Sabre 17 came below par. Cinebench R15 No one would necessarily expect any laptop, within reason, to be a video processing powerhouse. That being said, the Sabre 17 gave some very respectable figures. Handbrake MP4 to MKV Conversion 4K The Handbrake conversion score was a little lower than expected, but for 4k video conversion, totally within an acceptable remit. Storage Write The main M.2 SSD gives some excellent figures and although not strictly a part of our benchmarking, the results are backed up by a start-up time of about 6 seconds. Also coming with a standard 1TB HDD the results for that were perfectly reasonable and as per expectations. Read Write Gaming Performance As this laptop only utilises a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080p, our usual 1440p and 4k benchmarks have not been included. Despite that, with the Nvidia 1060 and 6GB of VRAM, this system is clearly no slouch. This laptop proves itself entirely capable of gaming and at a good performance. The i7 CPU and Nvidia GPU excellently combine to even beat systems such as the Zotac Magnus Zbox which had a Nvidia 1070 GPU, albeit a Ryzen 5 1400 processor. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Ghost Recon: Wildlands Far Cry Primal Power Consumption and Temperatures Temperatures The CPU temperatures are exactly where we would expect them to be, with perhaps the exception of the peak temperature which was a lot lower than many other competing laptops. The GPU is similarly impressive, with a temperature which clearly demonstrates that even under pressure, the Gigabyte Sabre 17 keeps its cool. In addition, it should be noted that even under heavy load, the laptop was remarkably quiet with the fan volume never interfering with my usage; something not often seen in performance laptops. CPU GPU Final Thoughts Pricing Coming with an Intel i7 7700 processor and Nvidia 1060, this isn't an inexpensive model. Then again, given the excellent build quality and design, there's no reason why it should be. The model we have, which includes the Nvidia 1060 graphics card, retails for circa £1300. A less expensive alternative would likely be found in the Sabres Nvidia 1050ti model, but there would obviously be a significant drop off in performance based on the two graphics cards. Overview This is certainly one of the better laptops I have come across in regards to being an 'all-rounder'. The processor and the GPU gave excellent gaming performance while the design clearly speaks volumes about a quality product. There are a few things that I would prefer to have seen differently in the design, but nothing from a standpoint that makes any major detraction. Furthermore, the 17" screen was an absolute delight. Clean, crisp and a fantastic size. Performance The Intel i7 7700HQ and the Nvidia 1060 (6GB) are an excellent partnership and that is reflected in some very impressive benchmarking results. While it is perhaps more suited to gaming and general usage rather than say video processing, it still manages to be more than competent at that job too. Design The understated nature of the design combined with the LCD backlit keyboard (which also manages to not be garish despite all the colours of the rainbow) makes this a professional looking product. The build quality is undeniable and while I may have preferred perhaps 1 more USB input, it's hard to find fault in any particular regard. I particularly found the 'Firebird' intake above the keyboard very stylish. Gaming and Something Working Equipped with the Intel Core i7 7700HQ, this laptop will give you no problems in general day-to-day tasks. Whether it be photoshop, Word or general internet browsing this will handle it all without breaking a sweat. The Nvidia 1060 also gives you the power to start playing once work is finished. Pros Understated and quality build design. Excellent gaming performance. SSD and 1TB HDD giving plenty of storage options. Surprisingly quiet when under load. Top packaging and highly informative instruction manual. Based on performance and quality - You get what you pay for. Cons The supply of the chipset drivers on a DVD is not unusual, but the lack of a DVD player is somewhat contradictory. Neutral Speaker quality could be better. The lack of an obvious caps-lock light is a little strange.