NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Graphics with 6GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM
15.6 inches Full HD (1920 x 1080) Widescreen LED-backlit IPS Display (144Hz Refresh Rate, 3ms Overdrive Response Time, 300nit Brightness and 72 percentage NTSC)
16GB DDR4 2666MHz Memory, 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD (2 x PCIe M.2 Slots; 1 Slot Open for Easy Upgrades) and 1 Available Hard Drive Bay
Backlit Keyboard; LAN: Killer Ethernet E2500 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN; Wireless: Killer DoubleShot Pro Wireless AC 1550 802. 11ac; 4th Gen All Metal AeroBlade 3D Fan
Product description
Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-52-78VL Gaming Laptop comes with these high-level specs: 9th Generation Intel Core i7-9750H 6-Core Processor 2.6GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 4.5GHz, 15.6" Full HD (1920 x 1080) widescreen LED-backlit IPS display, 144Hz Refresh Rate, 16:9 aspect ratio, 3ms Overdrive Response Time, 300nit Brightness, 72% NTSC, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti with 6GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM, 16GB DDR4 2666MHz Memory, 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD (2 x PCIe M.2 Slots | 1 Slot Available), 1 - Available Hard Drive Bay, Waves MaxxAudio sound technology, featuring MaxxBass, MaxxVolume, MaxxDialog and hyper-realistic 3D audio using Waves Nx, Acer True Harmony Technology, Two Built-in Stereo Speakers, Acer Purified. Voice technology with two built-in microphones, Killer Double Shot Pro Wireless-AC 1550 802.11ac WiFi featuring 2x2 MU-MIMO technology (Dual-Band 2.4GHz and 5GHz), Killer Ethernet E2500 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth 5.0, HD Webcam (1280 x 720) supporting Super High Dynamic Range (SHDR), 1 - USB 3.1 Type C Gen 2 port (up to 10 Gbps), 3 - USB 3.1 Gen 1 Ports (One with Power-off Charging), 1 - HDMI 2.0 Port with HDCP Support, 1 - Mini Display Port 1.4, Backlit Keyboard, Lithium-Ion Battery, Up to 6-hours Battery Life, 5.07 lbs. | 2.3 kg (system unit only) (NH.Q5MAA.001)
Product information
| screen Size | 15.6 inches |
|---|---|
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Processor | 4.5 GHz Core i7 Family |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Hard Drive | 256 GB Flash Memory Solid State |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 6 GB |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 4 |
Great for gaming, overall a lot of laptop for the price
Overview:This machine does a pretty good job living up to its advertised capabilities. This review is based on my impressions after a couple of days with the unit - I may update it later if anything relevant occurs long-term.
Testing Methodology:
I don't have a lot of sophisticated instruments for measuring the actual brightness, color gamut etc... In general, I stuck to software-based tests and my somewhat subjective eyeballs.
Construction:
The top (back of the screen) is metal, as is keyboard and palm-rest area, the screen bezel and bottom are plastic. This was a pretty good design decision as it keeps the bottom from turning into a hotplate in your lap. The hinge feels solid and moves very smoothly.
Screen:
The screen is rated about 300 nits. Just based on comparisons with others with similar ratings this screen seems like it might actually be a little brighter than it's rated. It's perfectly visible outside in daylight as long as there isn't direct sunlight on the screen. The 144hz refresh rate is a really nice feature and allows for some rock-solid motion. The contrast and color gamut are very effective and pleasing to the eye. I don't have a tool for measuring the colors so this could just be clever engineering, but nothing here feels like a compromise. The screen does suffer from uneven backlight blooming so on a completely dark image, there are bright splotches around the margin, but this is pretty typical for an IPS LCD.
GPU:
The GPU seems to be able to take just about everything I've thrown at it on the most insane settings and I haven't noticed any performance problems. The Witcher 3 and Darksiders Warmastered Edition look amazing in motion, with the latter running at a V-sync'd 144hz with no problems at all. It pulled a very respectable score of 14,000+ on the Final Fantasy XIV Stormbringer Benchmark with everything turned up to maximum and every optimization turned off. The laptop comes pre-configured with an overclock setting called "Turbo" mode which is activated by a button to the upper-left of the keyboard. You can, of course, create your own overclocking profiles.
In order to more efficiently use power, conserve battery, and cut down on fan noise, as with most contemporary gaming laptops, the Predator Helios 300 uses Intel Optimus. In a nutshell, Intel Optimus switches dynamically between the considerably less powerful and less power-hungry integrated Intel GPU and the GTX-1660ti. The system will attempt to guess which GPU should be used for a given process, but you can deliberately control this in a couple of different ways. From the Nvidia Control Panel, you can set the GPU to use for a given application so that whenever that program (i.e. your games) is launched it automatically does so under the Nvidia card. Alternatively, you can tell the system to favor the Nvidia card for everything (not a great idea unless you want to listen to the fan all the time and watch your battery level drop before your eyes). And Lastly, there's a context menu item called "run with graphics processor" that lets you select which to use by right-clicking on an application before you launch it. So Optimus is pretty useful for balancing performance, but it comes with a couple of unfortunate tradeoffs. There is no "Display" option in the Nvidia control panel because Optimus dynamically manages those settings, and G-Sync and Fast Sync options are not possible though technically the GPU is capable of using them.
Keyboard:
The keyboard is, for the most part, great. The keys are spaced reasonably, slightly convex, quiet and just have a nice feel. I'm used to pressing harder so my fingers have a tendency to bounce and I wind up typing double letters occasionally, but it's nothing I can't adjust to. (I tried using the Windows "Filter Keys" setting to help with this but it's more of an accessibility option and is too restrictive) The width of the keyboard allows for the incorporation of a 10-key keypad on the right, however, the keys are much narrower than the rest of the keyboard, and the 0 key has been shifted to the center column to accommodate the arrow keys, so it's a bit of compromise. It's only really annoying when trying to type in a large string of numbers such as when entering a license key.
Trackpad:
The trackpad is generously large and very sensitive. There are no mouse buttons, but the bottom of the pad is clickable with the right and left corners representing the right and left mouse buttons.
Sound:
The laptop comes with a pair of down-firing stereo speakers that are okay for what they are. They're tinny and can't really get loud enough to overpower the fan noise when playing games. Noise-canceling or noise-isolating headphones are pretty much mandatory for gaming or anything that drives the GPU. That said, the virtual surround effect is surprisingly convincing.
Backlighting:
They changed last-year's red backlight to blue, which I think is somewhat more pleasing to the eye, but it's kind of a deal-breaker in the use-it-in-bed scenario because the blue light spectrum interferes with your ability to achieve REM sleep. It's a thing, look it up.
Battery:
It runs on a 3720mAh battery which is about 25% more capacity than last year's model. Trying to give an "it lasts this many hours" number is kind of pointless in my opinion because it's affected by background processes, screen brightness, what you're doing with it, the age of the battery, etc. Let's be honest though, no one is buying this laptop for its battery life. Nvidia has several settings which seek to improve battery life while gaming, but they all involve framerate throttling. If you want to game while not connected to mains power, then you're probably playing games that would work just fine on a laptop with a fraction of the power of this thing.
Webcam/Mic
The webcam maxes out at 720p30. That resolution also holds for still images so it seems like that's the geometry of the sensor itself. It works okay in relatively low light - with the brightness gain cranked all the way up, the glow of the screen is enough to allow it to capture a usable amount of detail in a dark room. In a normally lit room the image is a bit darker than what you would see with your eyes, and as with most webcams, colors are little washed out. And like most pinhole cameras, the brighter the lighting the clearer the picture and the more faithful the colors. This would be perfectly serviceable in a well-lit office, or outdoors. The stereo microphone picks up voices clean and clear.
Network:
The "Killer" WiFi chip in this machine is amazingly fast. My Internet service tops off at around 25MB/s, and this Wi-Fi card easily hit 23MB/s (that's bytes, not bits) when downloading games from GOG Galaxy. I was pleased to see that the laptop also maintains an RJ-45 for wired ethernet connectivity - it uses a clever hinged port to maximize space while there's nothing plugged in.
Hardware Accessibility/Upgrade difficulty:
Unlike last year's model, there are no quick access ports - if you want to get at the Wi-Fi, M.2, Memory or SSD area, you have to remove the entire bottom of the shell. Fortunately, everything important is within reach after you take out the 10 Philips screws and pull the bottom cover off.
Cooling:
This is by far the best-vented laptop I've ever seen. The heatsink fins and fans are clearly visible through the myriad slits on the bottom, sides and back. The fans are as noisy as any laptop I've ever used, but not worse, though when you hit that Turbo button to kick in the overclocking profile and those fans crank up, it sounds like a jet preparing to take off, so if you're doing any moderate to heavy gaming, noise isolating or noise-canceling headphones are not optional.
Storage:
A 256GB PCIe M.2 drive is installed. It tops off around 1.5Gbps which is a pretty respectable speed and pretty performant. It's not a lot of space though so it's fortunate that there's another M.2 slot to install another card later on. There's also a bay for a 2.5" drive, but the bracket and SATA connector kit comes with a warning that Acer no longer considers this a user-serviceable operation and implies that your warranty may be voided by attempting to install it yourself.
Instructions/Documentation:
The documentation for the hardware was honestly a little disappointing. It gives you a tour of the ports and the keyboard, but doesn't include anything about how to install M.2 devices, upgrade memory or install a 2.5" drive - these aren't exactly rocket surgery, but it still feels like an oversite that Acer doesn't want to show you what goes where. The SATA adapter for the 2.5" drive requires connection to a proprietary ribbon socket which they altogether fail to tell you how to locate on the motherboard.
Other Stuff:
I had to chuckle when I saw the "Turbo" button. I'm old enough to remember when that was a thing on the Intel 386 CPUs, and unironically it does pretty much the same sort of thing here.
The BIOS is about the most bare-bones affair I've seen recently, with no options for controlling and/or disabling the integrated GPU.
The system came with Norton Ultimate installed. Thankfully that's about the only piece of garbage that is installed by Acer. Microsoft's default "Windows Defender" is far superior to Norton and unlike Norton, it won't waste a ton of CPU cycles for no good reason. Windows Defender is already part of Windows 10 - just uninstall Norton and reboot to activate it. It's better protection and doesn't expire and beg for more money in a year.
I've attached an image of the installed applications to this review so you can see what it comes with.
Summary:
Pros:
- Looks and feels sleek and solid
- That 144hz screen is fantastic
- 300 nits is not MacBook bright, but it's usable in daylight
- Comes with fast PCIe M.2 Storage
- Wi-Fi is incredibly fast
- Powerful GPU
- Very effective cooling - I never saw it break 46C
Cons:
- Blue backlighting is bad for bedtime use
- Fans get loud when the system is under a load
- No option to disable Optimus and enable GSync (so no GSync)
- Norton Ultimate - seriously?
Troy-Bilt
This is a nice laptop, and gamer
I almost canceled my ordered when realizing the only reviews were all from Vine reviewers! I am glad I didn't. I have only owned 1 other laptop which lasted almost a decade. That and my PC's is what I have to compare it too. When I buy computer stuff I try to get the best for the money that will not be out of date for many years. In my mind, I try to buy things that will be good for 8-10 years.
After looking at many laptops from top brands, and reading reviews and articles from the PC world, I realized I wanted a monitor at or above 120HZ. This one is 144HZ amazing! My old laptop became no fun when the CPU was way passed it's prime, so I wanted no less than an I7 8th gen, this one is the 9th gen! When it came to the video I wanted a 1060 or faster. This has the 1660ti, yesterday's beast card. The last on my concerns were heating up while under load. I am still concerned with heating up under load, but at this point it seems to handle everything I have put at it so far. The Predator Key pulls up the CPU, GPU, and Laptop temps, which has not gone much higher than the mid-'70s. The 2 games my kids and I have played on it might not be the most demanding either at this point.
I like the way the keyboard feels also, and I use a wireless mouse. I can not say enough about the monitor, it is just great! I have only had the laptop for a week at this point and will update my review if something great or terrible comes to light. Best of Luck!
Troy
* 6-week update*
I am very happy with this laptop. It is a daily used PC, and it is fantastic. I'm unable to find any negatives at this time unless you're looking at the 2060+ video cards that have come out this year. so far the 1660ti has been great. I will update again with anything new. At this time this was a great and enjoyable purchase.
days garage
Best "gaming laptop" at this price point, full stop.
This is hands down the best laptop, or even desktop, I have ever owned.
That's coming from long-time AMD guy. It
pains me to say this, but AMD just doesn't exist in the mobile market at
this time. If you need real power in a laptop, Intel and Nvidia are the
only game in town now. I've started traveling more lately so I
needed a laptop that could essentially replace my desktop(s) and this Acer
has far surpassed my expectations in that regard. See the attached image.
The construction is solid, and it looks great, in my opinion...sleek
enough to pass as professional with just a hint of "gaming laptop" appeal.
The fans can get loud when you're hammering on it, that's true. There is no
free lunch, a laptop must have compromises when they are stuffed with
this kind of hardware. That said unless you run it in Turbo (read
overclocked) mode all the time I find the fan noise more than reasonable. I
have not found a game, or CPU workload, that required me to use Turbo in
order to have a good experience. It's just stupid fast. In my opinion, you
can't find a better laptop for the money, period.
As you can tell, I love it. Now, I'll answer some of the questions I had
before buying it since there seems to be some confusion. The following
information is from my own experience, if Acer changes things up in the
future I can't help you.
The is no RGB on this (the 1660ti) version. The keyboard is blue backlit
only. For me, this is a pro as I’m tired of red, and I think RGB is a silly
overplayed gimmick. If you go to Acer directly, there are different
versions with different features.
The RAM (16gb total) is 2x8gb sticks of Kingston 2666mhz...it is in dual
channel. It scores well in the benchmarks that I have ran and from my own
experience, 16gb is more than enough for 95% of people out there. It's
enough for 100% of the gamers.
The included 256gb M.2 style SSD is also from Kingston and seems to
perform quite well. There is an additional empty M.2 slot in there. I didn't use it, so
I have no idea what will or won’t work in that slot. I decided to use the open 2.5
inch HDD/SSD space for my storage needs. (Please, for all that is sacred,
don't you dare put a regular 2.5 HDD in there and hamstring this fine
machine). I opted to stay with the Kingston memory theme and stuck a 1tb
Kingston 2.5 SSD in there. So, as of this writing, I have 186gb free on my
C: Drive (it's got all the normal stuff loaded up), and I'm loading my
giant Steam library and other big programs onto the 1tb D: Drive. This, in
my opinion, is the way to go.
The CPU is an Intel last-gen refresh (you know 14+++++ lol). That said,
it's a good one. 6 cores, 12 threads at 45 watts it tough to
beat...actually, I don't think anyone is beating it right now. AMDs mobile
Ryzens are topping out at 4 core, 8 threads as of the time of this writing.
I'm sure higher core count CPUs make their way into the laptop market in
the next few years, but for now...this is the best game in town. Also, it's
2019, you don't want a quad-core, no matter who makes it. Trust me.
The 1660ti is a beastly little thing. Nvidia's naming scheme is clearly
insane, but this guy is sweet. It's based on the new Turing
architecture and performs quite well. It will smoke a GTX1060 and spit at
the heels of a decent desktop Vega 56...and all the while using way less
power. For desktops, it's a hard card to love, but on a laptop it's
brilliant.
The battery is fine for what it is. People wanting 10-hour battery life
and 144 frames per second in their games, pull yourself together people.
Sacrifices must be made for mobility. When on battery the laptop
automatically switches over to the Intel IGP and doing regular (non-taxing)
stuff will get you 4-5 hours. You can force the 1660ti to play ball
while running on the battery through the Nvidia control panel...but I hope
you don't plan on a long gaming session...maybe 1.5 hours. Pro tip: You
want to game? Find a wall outlet.
The "Killer" WIFI and internet stuff...actually works. I was getting
stupid fast wireless downloads at distances away from the router that
shocked me. I'm not even going to run an ethernet cable unless I'm playing
a FPS. Blazing-fast connection and rock-solid so far.
Sadly, you will have to remove Norton (duh) and Windows 10 comes with the
usual fluff that nobody wants...it is what it is. Took me about 30
minutes to remove all the silly stuff and download all the stuff I actually
needed. Keep the Predator App, I think they will be
useful (Update: It is, see below update). When I was setting up this machine, I did log it into my Microsoft
account, and it appears I have Office installed. Not sure if that's because
I have Office on another machine registered to my account...or if this
comes with Office. Your mileage may vary.
The "Turbo" button...here's the deal. It only works when plugged in and
above 40% battery. It basically raises the voltage limits of the machine,
while turning on the fans full blast. This results in the CPU auto boosting
on more cores and higher than usual. Oh, and it also overclocks the 1660ti!
Yes, yes you read that right...basically, it's an "overclock button".
Normally I would laugh at such silliness, but I have to say...it works. It
sounds like a small jet, but it goes like one too. I use it for
benchmarking and playing around...but you could game with it in Turbo,
provided you have headphones. All that said, I'm getting like 62 fps in
AC Odysseus on Very High WITHOUT "Turbo". If you're familiar
with this painfully un-optimized AAA title you will understand how
impressive that is, lol. Love that game though...don't judge me.
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