Gigabyte G5 MF | Best RTX 4050 6GB Laptop under Rs 70,000? Full Review and benchmarks
I have been using the Gigabyte G5 MF (2023) for a few weeks now. Gigabyte is well known among PC builders and games for their Monitors, Motherboards, and Graphics cards. The G5 is one of their affordable lineup of Gaming Laptops. I’ve received the RTX 4050 variant paired with Intel i5-12th gen chipset for reviewing and here’s how are my thoughts on it after using it for a few weeks.
Pros
+ Minimal and subtle design
+ Single Zone RGB keyboard
+ Sturdy keyboard deck with almost no flex
+ Good full size keyboard layout
+ Solid build quality
+ Good pricing
+ Good Performance
+ 2 Year Base Warranty
+ Dual RAM and SSD slots
Cons
- Muddled speakers
- No 100% sRGB display
- Runs relatively hot
Contents
Specifications
CPU | Processor | 12th gen i5 12500H 12 Cores 16 Threads |
GPU | Graphics Card | Nvidia RTX 4050 6GB 75W TGP |
RAM | Memory | 2x 8GB DDR4 3200MHz Dual-Channel |
SSD | Storage | 512GB Gen 4 (Has 2x 2280 NVMe slots) |
Display Specifications | 15.6in IPS 144Hz - 45% NTSC Color Gamut |
Connectivity | Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth V5.2 |
Weight | 2.08 Kg |
Keyboard | Single Zone RGB Backlight |
Battery | 54 WHr |
Power Adapter | 150W |
Price | Rs 72,990 |
Build and Design
Right out of the box, the laptop has a minimal design with a bold Gigabyte Logo in the front towards the right (when viewed from the outside) and a subtle decal in the corner suggesting that this is no business laptop, although it is subtle enough to pass as one.
So for those of you who are planning to order a gaming laptop or simply a high-end laptop to carry to your workspace or university without it screaming that it is a gaming laptop, this is a good choice worth considering. There are 4 exhaust vents around the laptop. One on either sides and two in the rear.
Similarly, there is an extensive port selection around the sides and the rear. The intake vents are below the laptop, so you shouldn’t be ideally using it on your lap or your bed as this can block the air intake which would limit the airflow required to cool down the laptop. Ideally, keep your laptop on a flat hard surface with its rear raised or on a simple laptop stand.
There are 12 Screws at the bottom of the device which you’ll need to remove to access the internal RAM and SSD Slots. And unlike certain brands, Gigabyte won’t void your warranty for removing this panel.
The laptop feels very rigid and is well-built which is very welcome to see on a mid-range laptop. The hinges are sturdy and the display does not wobble while typing or gaming.
However, single-handed opening is not possible and you need to hold down the keyboard deck while opening the lid but this isn’t really a deal breaker and is common among budget laptops. The keyboard deck also feels very solid and does not seem to have any keyboard flex.
I really like how clean and minimal the keyboard layout is. This is a full-size keyboard with full-sized number pad and unlike some laptops, the arrows keys have not been shrunk either. The power button is also completely away from the keyboard on the top right corner. So you don’t have to worry about accidentally turning off or putting your laptop to sleep.
I also like that it has a right-click key beside the right control button which I find convenient.
However, one issue that I have had with the layout is that the zero key on the number pad is not below the Number 1 which is the standard layout. Hence, often times, when I have to enter 0, I end up pressing the right arrow key instead. But I think this may not be a major issue for most users and it is likely to be something that you would get used to after a while.
Input: Keyboard and Trackpad
The keyboard as mentioned before is full size and has a single zone RGB. This means, you don’t get to assign different colors for different zones on the keyboard and all colors move at the same time. Note that you get 15 pre-defined different colors and cannot set the lights to a custom color of your choice. But this is still better than the single backlight choice found in some of the competing laptops.
Internal Slots and External Ports
Internal Slots
The G5 gets 2x m.2 2280 NVMe SSD slots. This is again very welcome and something very simple which you would think every manufacturer would include but there are higher-priced laptops that still ship with just a single SSD slot. However, do note that one of these slots support Gen 4 while the other supports Gen 3. Now while Gen 4 SSDs are faster than Gen 3 SSDs, for the majority of users and for the majority of applications, there may not be any significant difference in performance. As for wireless card, you get an Intel AX211 which supports up to Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
The G5 also gets 2x DDR4 slots that support up to 64GB RAM and up to 3200MHz. Both of these slots are used by the dual channel 2 sticks of 8GB 3200MHz RAM. So, if you are looking to upgrade, you will have to swap one or both of them.
External Ports
I like the port selection here. There are lots of ports and they are placed around the laptop quite functionally.
On the left side, you get a mic and an audio jack, one USB 2.0 Type-A, and one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port.
On the right, you get a MicroSD card reader, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, and an ethernet RJ-45 port.
Now on the rear, you get the DC adapter port (for power), a mini-DP 1.4 (for video output), an HDMI 2.1 out (for another video output port) and another USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C port ! I like how these ports are placed in the rear since video out and power ports are more likely to be connected for a longer duration and you can still have the sides of your laptop clutter and cable-free. However, there are no indicators on the top or on the keyboard deck to identify the rear ports without looking at it directly as seen on some high-end laptops.
Display
The G5 uses N156HRA-EA1 made by Innolux. It is a 15.6in FHD 8-Bit display with 144Hz refresh rate, 45% NTSC coverage, and 250 nits of brightness. Like most other laptops in this price segment, the colors are not accurate and can only display about 65% of the sRGB color space. So if you are planning to use this laptop for anything that requires color accuracy, you will need to rely on an external display. Around 100% sRGB display is the color gamut that you want to look for if you need a display with good color reproduction capabilities.
As for brightness, 250 nits gets fairly bright for indoor use and hasn’t been a concern for the most part. For a budget gaming laptop, this is a pretty decent display and the lack of 100% sRGB isn’t as bad as you might think. You can also tune your display using Intel Color Management and Windows Color Management to make the display more vibrant.
Connectivity
For network and bluetooth, the G5 is equipped with an Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6E network card as mentioned above. This is good to see since Intel network cards are quite known for their reliability and speed. Moreover, Wi-Fi 6E is not very common on gaming laptops in this price segment either. So, Kudos to Gigabyte for not cutting costs here. Note that you will also need a Wi-Fi 6E router to take advantage of the benefits of Wi-Fi 6E.
Storage Performance
The Storage performance in day-to-day usage runs great. The Windows 11 Home boots up in about 15 seconds from a completely turned-off state. The G5 uses Gigabyte’s own SSD AG4512G-SI B10. This is a 512GB Gen 4 SSD and here are its CrystalDiskMark Benchmark Results.
At over 4,500 MBps, the Sequntial Read speeds are fairly high while the Sequential write speeds are more along the lines of a Gen 3 SSD at slightly over 2,000 MBps. But don’t get me wrong. While this is not the fastest SSD, it is still plenty fast for the majority of applications and games as well as for your file transfers. At around 45c idle temperature this isn’t the lowest temperature that I have come across among the SSDs that I have used but on load the temperature is around 75c which isn’t bad and is comparable to other SSDs found on laptops.
Performance Modes
As for the different performance modes available in the Gigabyte Control Center, There are 4 modes available - Performance, Entertainment, Power Saving, and Quiet. You also get to choose between Auto, Max, and Custom Fan speeds where you can set your own custom Fan curve. In my testing, there wasn’t a significant difference in performance among the different fan modes, so I would suggest leaving it to the default Auto settings. Here's how different performance profiles performed in my benchmark tests.
CPU Performance and Temps
Even though this is a 2023 laptop, Gigabyte has opted for a 12th generation Intel i5-12500H and I agree with this decision if it has helped them lower the prices. This is because as you will see now in the benchmarks, there isn’t a significant difference in performance between 12th gen i5 12500H and other 13th gen i5 such as i5-13420H that you find at this price.
Cinebench 2024
In Performance mode with Auto Fan speed you get a single-core rating of 101 points and multi core rating of 691 points. With Max Fan speed, the points are quite close and don’t make a lot of difference. So you are better off just leaving the fans at Auto settings.
In Entertainment Mode, The single-core performance remains the same while the multi core performance takes a slight hit. So for general use when you will be just fine using the entertainment mode.
In Power saving mode, the single-core performance now takes a hit but it is still good enough for general use such as web browsing or streaming movies. The multi core performance is now significantly lower since the processor is running at a much lower power.
And finally, in the Quiet mode, you get identical results to the power saving mode along with similar power consumption. However, while it is not obvious here, the power-saving mode disables the dGPU - RTX 4050 completely.
Note that +/- 1% can be ignored as a margin of error.
Cinebench R23
In performance mode, you get single-core scores over 1,600 and multi-core scores over 11,500. In this test, there was a slight improvement in performance by leaving the fans at max speed with the multi-core score now crossing 11,500 points. Note that outside of these benchmarks, these scores don’t make any noticeable difference in your general usage.
Comparing the scores from the performance mode against other laptops, the Gigabyte G5 MF matches the single-core performance of the MacBook Pro 14 (2023) with M2 Max chipset while the multi-core performance is slightly higher than the 13th gen i5-13420H on the Acer Nitro V. The single core performance is also only marginally behind the 13420H found on the Acer Nitro V.
GPU Performance and Temps
For analysing the GPU performance, I’ve run various synthetic benchmarks and gaming benchmarks. Here are the results.
3D Mark
I ran a couple of tests in the 3D Mark Benchmark suite and here are the TimeSpy and Fire Strike Benchmark results. The 3DMark Time Spy Graphics scores are slightly lower by about 2% as compared to an RTX 4050 6GB Acer Nitro V. This is likely to be within the margin of error and for all purposes these scores can be considered as identical in terms of performance. The RTX 4050 6GB on the Gigabyte G5 is over 47% better than an RTX 3050 Ti. This is a sign to avoid all RTX 3050 laptops if you are looking for GPU performance around the Rs 65,000 price segment.
For Fire Strike, we see a similar trend but now the RTX 4050 6GB here outperforms the RTX 3050 Ti laptops by over 57%. It also outperforms the RTX 3060 6GB by 9%.
Control
Here are the benchmarks of Control at various graphics settings. I’d suggest playing at High Preset with RT and DLSS enabled for an optimal experience. When compared against other laptops, the G5 holds up quite well against other RTX 4050 6GB laptops and performs as expected. When DLSS is enabled it performs better than full sized RTX 3060 6GB 140W laptops. For a 75W RTX 4050 6GB, it offers very reliable performance for FHD Gaming at good graphics settings and FPS.
Cyberpunk 2077
In Cyberpunk 2077, The G5 is able to achieve close to 60FPS at High settings on Cyberpunk 2077 at High settings without any DLSS and Frame Gen enabled. This is slightly slower than Nitro V ANV15 (2023) as seen in the graph but the Nitro V also costs more at the moment of publishing this article.
When DLSS Quality settings and Frame Gen is enabled, there is a significant boost in performance that outperforms the native performance of an RTX 4070 8GB Legion Slim 7! This is exactly why in 2024, you should get an RTX 4000 series GPU if it is available within your budget. The DLSS and Frame Gen capabilities will ensure that your GPU should be able to handle upcoming games at good quality settings in the long run.
Note that for the presets graph, the ones without RT utilizes FSR and Frame Gen while the ones with RT utilizes DLSS and Frame Gen.
Noise Levels
The Fan speeds top out at a little under 6,000 RPM making this a relatively quiet laptop even at full load. However, this also means that the temperature is not as good as some of the competing laptops such as the Nitro V which is up to 10c cooler when running games.
But on the brighter side, as mentioned before, there isn’t any stuttering in games usually caused by thermal throttling even at those temperatures. While I did experience some stuttering at once, I wasn't able to reproduce it again. During general use such as web browsing or office work, you can barely notice the fan and it runs very quiet even in performance mode. This is usually not the case with othe laptops as the fans start to immediately ramp up at the slightest load in performance mode.
Webcam
There is a white LED indicator on the top of the display that turns on when your camera is on. The quality is what you would expect from most laptops. This is a 720p webcam and these are just good enough for video calls. (Preview to be updated later)
Audio
The speakers are pretty bad. The audio sounds muffled, lacks detail, any kind of bass and it just sounds cheap and I wouldn’t prefer using these speakers unless absolutely unavoidable.
Battery Life
With an Intel H series CPU and a relatively small 54 WHr battery, the Gigabyte manages a few hours (2-3 hours) of casual use at low brightness. I haven't tested gaming on it since the GPU TGP is around 30W on battery. Either way, I wouldn't expect more than an hour of gaming on battery. For the best performance, it is always ideal to keep the laptop plugged in to ensure maximum power delivery and consequently, performance.
Verdict
The Gigabyte G5 MF is a good mid-range gaming laptop that competes directly with Acer Nitro V and Lenovo LOQ 15 among others with an RTX 4050 6GB graphics card under Rs 75,000. If you are looking for a sleek, well-built mid range gaming laptop, the G5 offers a strong competition at its price. The Intel i7 12650H variant with an RTX 4050 6GB is currently selling at Rs 70,990 at the time of writing which makes this an excellent gaming laptop worth considering.
However, if you have a higher budget at around Rs 75,000+ and need a better display for editing or other usage that require a color accurate display, then the Lenovo LOQ 15 offers a 100% sRGB display.
Buy Now
i5-12450H / RTX 4050 6GB GIGABYTE G5 MF-F2IN313SH (2023) - Rs 65,990
(Reviewed) i5-12500H / RTX 4050 6GB GIGABYTE G5 MF-E2IN313SH (2023) - Amazon | Flipkart | Rs 72,990
i7-12650H / RTX 4050 6GB GIGABYTE G5 MF-G2IN313SH (2023) - Amazon | Rs 70,990
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