iTWire - Gigabyte G6 KF Budget Gaming Laptop Review

Over at High Performance Laptops, our review pile of shame has grown too big and so we're going to publish a bunch of laptop reviews here to smash through the backlog. First up is the Gigabyte G6 KF budget gaming laptop.

Design, Features and Ergonomics

The first thing we noticed was that build quality had not taken a significant hit: the chassis is solid and doesn't flex or creek. The lid doesn't flex much when a twisting force is applied and the subtle geometric patterns that appear on it are easily missed, yet they're enough to break up the lines of an otherwise all-black laptop. It's not super slim at 2.6cm thick, but we wouldn't expect a budget model to be.

Opening it up reveals the full-sized Scrabble-Tile keyboard which is comfortable and accurate to type and game upon for extended periods. It features a number pad and full-size arrow keys and there are plenty of useful shortcuts scattered among them. There's uniform backlighting but it can be set to any colour you want. It's not the brightest but it's enhanced by the white-wall keys. The trackpad is large, smooth, accurate and has a decent clicking action.

The 16-inch, Full HD screen is a basic IPS model. It's not the brightest, true-blacks are weak, performance is mediocre (with details in highlights getting washed-out quite easily) and colours aren't the most vibrant. There's noticeable stepping in colour gradients and monochromatic transitions get blocky. Video in general can struggle to appear sharp in some scenes. Still, it's far from unusable.

It has a reasonably fast, 165Hz refresh rate which tries to keep fast-moving objects rendered smoothly. It just about does a decent job here but it can't counter the slow pixel refresh rate which can mean some objects appear blurry. It's a mediocre screen but it's functional and what we expect at this level.

The twin, two-Watt speakers follow suit - they don't get particularly loud and there's minimal punch or bass on show. All content sounds rather hollow.

Above the screen is a decent HD webcam which does an OK job of fending-off noise in low light. The individual microphone works, but is a far cry from capturing the clear, noise-cancelling audio we've become used to.

Connectivity

Things pick up again when it comes to ports and connectivity. On the left is a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, a USB-A 2.0 port and two, 3.5mm audio jacks.

On the right is a MicroSD card reader, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port and a Gigabit LAN port.

At the rear is another USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, an HDMI port (version unspecified - we're checking) and a Mini DP 1.4 port.

That would all be impressive on a super-premium gaming laptop. There's also Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity. Nice. Full specs can be found here.

Ultimately, the Gigabyte G6 KF still doesn't score well for Features, Ergonomics and Design, but it is, at least, functional - Score: 2 / 5

Performance

Our SKU of the Gigabyte G6 KF had a 12th-Gen i7-12650H processor. It's getting a little long in the tooth but it's no slouch, with its six Performance cores and four Efficiency cores operating across 16 threads between 3.5 and 4.7GHz. There's also 16GB of DDR5-4800 RAM and a 512GB quick, NVMe hard drive.

3D power comes via the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 which has 8GB of GDDR6 RAM.

In our PCMark 10 general computing test, the Gigabyte G6 KF scored an above-average 6,496. In the Cinebench processor rendering tests, it scored 2,230 in the rapid R15 test and 12,294 in the longer R23 test. These are both just below average but still demonstrate that it can render better than many general-purpose, business and ultraportable laptops.

2D Performance Score - 2.5 / 5

In our 3D Mark game tests, the Gigabyte G6 KF scored 2,306 (average 23.1fps) and 5,280 (average 24.5fps) in the difficult Speed Way and Port Royal ray-tracing tests (respectively) meaning you'll have to drop settings to play the latest, eye-candy-rich games.

In the AAA-title-mimicking Time Spy and Fire Strike extreme tests, it scored 9,608 (average 57.3fps) and 11,250 (average 52.1fps) respectively. These illustrate that it should play most such games smoothly with most detail settings activated.

In the easier Night Raid test, the Gigabyte G6 KF scored 53,034 which is an average of 483fps. So, it will have no issues playing casual and competitive games.

Cooling comes via Gigabyte's efficient Windforce technology which has two fans, four heat pipes and four exhaust vents. For the most part the whole laptop runs cool and quiet, even when under load but you can force the fans to a loud-whoosh, maximum setting using the basic-but-useful Gigabyte Control Center app if you want to help fend-off thermal throttling. The latter can manifest as we saw when we ran our 30-minute version of the Cinebench R23 test and the score dropped almost five per cent.

3D Performance Score - 2.8 / 5

Portability and Battery Life

The Gigabyte G6 KF weighs 2.31KG which isn't light, but is natural for a 16-inch gaming laptop. The power brick and cables only add another 466g.

The 54Wh-rated battery seems small but it ran PCMark 10's Modern Office test for an impressive 9 hours and 13 minutes.

It's surprisingly well built and should survive being ported about, but it won't have undergone all the torture testing that its more-expensive brethren will have.

Portability Score - 2.1 / 5

Price and Availability

Our SKU of the Gigabyte G6 KF can be found for $1,599 which represents very good value. You can also buy it with a more-recent 13th-Gen processor for $1,999.

Value Score - 4.7 / 5

Overall: Should You Buy the Gigabyte G6 KF

If you're on a tight budget but want a laptop with some genuine gaming chops, the Gigabyte G6 KF is a great-value option. It's far from being a luxury model, but you'll always get compromises at this level.

Overall Score - 4.1 / 5

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