Acer Predator Helios 300 Gtx 1660 Ti Review

The field for entry-level gaming laptops is a vicious battleground: Legions fighting Predators with Blades, while Strixes and Stealths circle overhead. Modernistic graphics chips provide more ability to affordable machines than ever, and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU, in particular, provides groovy bang for your buck. That'due south what powers Acer'south Predator Helios 300. Its $1,199.99-as-tested price stretches the definition of a budget laptop, but the high frame rates and the features this laptop packs rival those of midrange models that toll hundreds more. In the end, gaming laptops are well-nigh gaming, and the budget tier is about value. The Helios 300 hits both of those marks better than whatever competitor on the marketplace right now, earning our Editors' Choice for entry-level gaming laptops.

Entry-Level Pricing Conceals a Powerhouse

The Helios 300's design isn't quite premium-laptop quality, but it's visually restrained, and physically solid for the price. Acer went with its relatively new black-and-teal color scheme—an improvement on the overdone blood-red-and-black combo used in the 2018 model, to my optics—and opted out of any flashy, garish artful choices.

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The lid is the most partisan part, with the discussion "Predator" and a logo dripping gaming attitude. They're pretty small, though, and some teal muscle lines moderate the look.

The chassis itself is sturdy, with a metal lid and keyboard deck that adds a quality touch. The screen bezels and the underside are plastic, so you don't get a super-premium, wraparound-metal experience, merely it'south fine at this toll. The dimensions are a like compromise: The trunk measures 0.ix past xiv.ii by 10 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.1 pounds. It's not overly slim or too thick, nor is it especially light or heavy, for a xv.6-inch-screened gamer. Once more, for the price: a "good enough" build.

In fact, it stacks up nicely to the competition. The Dell G5 fifteen SE, a less-expensive budget gaming laptop, measures 0.95 past 14.3 by 10.8 inches and weighs half dozen pounds, a heftier proposition. Our terminal-generation Editors' Choice, the Lenovo Legion Y530, came in at 0.95 past 14.4 past 10.2 inches and 5.1 pounds, very shut to the Helios 300. The Y530 was only $1,029 in our exam model and had a slightly nicer design, merely since we praised that system for its size, the Predator earns the same kudos. Our Editors' Option among midrange gaming models, the $ane,699 MSI GS65 Stealth, measures just 0.69 by 15.1 by 10.two inches and 4.4 pounds. Information technology includes very similar internal components; the extra money gains yous much better portability.

The screen bezels on this laptop are thinner than those on most gaming laptops of the past few years, only not as thin as they come. Trimmer bezels let manufacturers fit traditional-size screens into smaller overall footprints, and, of course, they likewise look sleeker. The new Helios 300's side bezels are pretty sparse, but the top and lesser ones aren't. It's a partway transition, versus what nosotros have seen on many other (admittedly, often pricier) systems.

The display nestled betwixt those bezels is average-quality. The resolution is 1080p/full HD (ane,920 by ane,080 pixels), and it'south a high-refresh gaming panel. It features a 144Hz acme refresh rate, too as a 3ms response time with overdrive. These are gaming-focused features, and the 1080p native resolution is the right pick for the graphics chip (more on that beneath).

Visually, the movie is skillful enough, if not remarkable. Information technology'southward roughly what you'd expect from an average laptop, with fine sharpness and colors, no more than and no less. A matte finish cuts down on annoying reflectivity. At this price, information technology'due south a win if the screen isn't a demerit, and the Helios 300 provides a serviceable display with useful gaming features.

Final just non least for the physical build: the keyboard and touchpad. Both are surprisingly good, particularly the keyboard. It has a balanced amount of key travel with a satisfying bounce, making for a pleasant typing experience. Our tester unit, sold on Amazon, has only blue primal backlighting as an selection. Other models allow for multicolor lighting that is customizable by zone. Every bit for the touchpad, the surface is fabricated of plastic, but it doesn't have that rough texture that tends to lend a distinctly "budgety" feel. The action is responsive and smooth, and so it feels less inexpensive than what's on our pricey Dell G7 xv model, even if it's not ane of the nicer, glass-surfaced touchpads plant on premium laptops like the Razer Bract 15.

That Dell G7 model, incidentally, is a rival of the Helios 300's, and indeed, a big takeaway is that the Helios 300's whole build exhibits the changed of the Dell G7 fifteen'south main issue: The G7 15 is a car with a upkeep-feel build that Dell lets you up-configure pretty far, making it feel cheap at higher configurations. The Helios 300'south build is higher up-average quality at the starting cost, and so information technology scales simply fine as a pricier laptop if you opt for a loftier configuration than what I have on manus.

Rounding out the feature set are some software goodies. The laptop comes with Acer's PredatorSense software suite, which includes component-temperature monitoring, fan command, and per-game settings profiles. Too in the mix is GPU "overclocking"—the scare quotes there considering y'all're really choosing between normal, fast, and farthermost clock-speed presets rather than manually overclocking the GPU.

A dedicated push button (it has the Predator logo on it) above the number pad will bring up the PredatorSense software, but you tin can just admission it through your desktop, besides. Similarly, a Turbo button on the top left corner of the system switches the fan speeds from automatic to maximum, but y'all tin can do this manually in the software, and set custom speeds.

Ports and Configurations

The Helios 300 is well-equipped with ports, packing a niggling bit of everything and all of information technology applied. The left flank holds ii USB iii.0 ports, an Ethernet jack, and a headset jack. The opposite side has another USB iii.0, a Type-C USB three.one, a mini DisplayPort connection, and a full-size HDMI out.

There are multiple configurations for this model, and you should pay close attention if you lot're browsing through Acer'due south site. Concluding year's version is still being sold, virtually easily identifiable by the reddish-and-blackness colour scheme. The exact unit of measurement nosotros're reviewing here, model PH315-52-78VL, is included on Acer's list of configurations but is sold only through Amazon. The others are sold either directly through Acer, or through some combination of retailers (such as Amazon or Newegg).

With our $1,199.99 model, you get an Intel Cadre i7-9750H processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics, 16GB of retentiveness, and a 256GB kick SSD. The other 15-inch models include various combinations of component options, such as a 512GB SSD (along with the zonal central lighting) and/or GeForce RTX 2060 graphics. Acer also offers some 17-inch versions of this laptop, which can take up to a GeForce RTX 2070 and 32GB of memory. All units share the aforementioned display and processor.

Into the Testing Ring...

For functioning testing comparisons, I gathered a group of the well-nigh relevant recent gaming laptops, plus our reigning Editors' Choice from last twelvemonth. These laptops are either available for a similar cost or offer similar performance, and then y'all can see what y'all can become for each price. The cheat canvass below outlines each arrangement's base specs…

The concluding-generation Legion Y530 should be bested handily by the newer laptops, but its presence hither will give context for how far this generational jump brings the states. The Dell G5 15 SE is some other entry-level gaming laptop that will show what some step-down components and a lower price can deliver. The MSI GS65 Stealth and Dell G7 15 are midrange gaming laptops, but they are included to show how the Helios 300 stacks up to more expensive machines.

Spoiler: From a performance perspective, it's good news for Acer's machine. Allow's go into the results.

Productivity and Storage Tests

PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic operation suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark x examination we run simulates different real-world productivity and content-cosmos workflows. We apply it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such equally word processing, spreadsheet apply, web browsing, and videoconferencing. PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a specialized storage test that we use to assess the speed of the PC's bulldoze subsystem.

The Helios 300 did more than than hold its own on the PCMark 10 exam, topping the nautical chart (even if just barely). It shares a CPU with the two midrange laptops, so it's non surprising the results are clustered together, just information technology did beat these two more than expensive options.

Still, with margins then small, at that place is little to take abroad beyond the fact that these gaming laptops are more than than equipped to handle solar day-to-day home and office tasks with snap. The ii Cadre i5 systems do lag backside the Core i7 laptops, and while that means a bit less for gaming, take it into consideration if y'all plan to use your gaming laptop for everything.

The PCMark 8 results are fifty-fifty more clustered, as these are all snappy SSDs that deliver quick boot and load times.

Media Processing and Creation Tests

Next is Maxon'due south CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make apply of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads.

Nosotros also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing criterion. Using an early on 2018 release of the Creative Deject version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 circuitous filters and effects to a standard JPEG test prototype. Nosotros time each operation and, at the cease, add upwards the total execution time. This stresses CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, but information technology can as well take reward of most GPUs to speed up the procedure of applying filters. (Systems with powerful graphics chips or cards may see a boost.)

These more demanding media tests further demonstrate the difference between Cadre i5 and Cadre i7 CPUs, with the former falling particularly behind on Cinebench. The superior multithreading capabilities of these Core i7 CPUs permit them to meliorate handle these workloads, thus the results here.

This is to say that if you plan on doing any media work either professionally (in a pinch) or as a hobby, a Core i7-bearing laptop may be for you. In detail, the Helios 300 did very well on both tests, posting the second-highest Cinebench score and the fastest time on Photoshop. Again, being the second-cheapest machine in this batch...not bad.

Constructed Graphics Tests

Adjacent upwards: UL'south 3DMark suite. 3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-manner 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run 2 different 3DMark subtests, Heaven Diver and Fire Strike, which are suited to different types of systems. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, merely Sky Diver is suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Burn down Strike is more than demanding and made for high-end PCs to strut their stuff. The results are proprietary scores.

The following chart is another synthetic graphics exam, this one from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene and measures how the organization copes. In this example, it'south washed in the company'southward eponymous Unigine engine, whose dissimilar 3D workload scenario presents a second opinion on the machine's graphical prowess.

The 3D tests just brand the $1,199.99 Helios 300 look better. Before I become into the details, the lesser line is that the GTX 1660 Ti at this cost is tough to beat in terms of performance. The GS65 Stealth uses ane too, for instance, but it'due south a $ane,699 laptop because of its sparse-and-light design, plus other accoutrements. Merely the $i,803.99 Dell G7 15 and its RTX 2060 perform ameliorate, and it's not past a large margin, especially considering the cost gap. Since the RTX 2060 isn't an ideal power match for the ray-tracing features only possible on the RTX GPUs, the GTX 1660 Ti is a much better value for pure performance.

Does this concur true in actual games? On to the adjacent tests.

Real-World Gaming Tests

The synthetic tests to a higher place are helpful for measuring general 3D aptitude, only it's hard to beat full retail video games for judging gaming performance. Far Cry 5 and Ascent of the Tomb Raider are both modernistic AAA titles with built-in criterion schemes. These tests are run at 1080p on both the moderate and maximum graphics-quality presets (Normal and Ultra for Far Weep v; Medium and Very High for Rise of the Tomb Raider) to guess performance for a given laptop. Far Cry 5 is DirectX eleven-based, while Rise of the Tomb Raider tin be flipped to DX12, which we do for that benchmark.

Again, the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and Helios 300 prove their mettle. Averaging 81 frames per second (fps) and 90fps on these titles at total settings for a laptop of this toll is no joke, and represents a great value. You'd exist handily over the 60fps target for AAA games, and can fifty-fifty leverage the high refresh rate of the 144Hz display, to some caste. With settings turned downwards, or in less-demanding competitive multiplayer titles, you can make fifty-fifty fuller apply of that fast panel.

Take, for example, Rainbow Six: Siege, a sterling example of a lighter-elevator multiplayer title. In Siege's built-in benchmark, at the maximum (ultra-quality) item settings, the Helios 300 averaged 165fps, topping out the console refresh charge per unit. Furthermore, in all tests, activating the turbo fashion is worth at least few actress frames (varying by game). The fans do get quite loud forced to maximum rpm, even so, so it may not be worth the dissonance and heat, specially since the laptop is already hitting its target frame rates.

This laptop falls just a single frame behind the much pricier G7 15 on each test, despite the roughly $600 price difference. Other features contribute to the G7 15's price premium, too, but if you're looking for a good deal on ability alone, the Helios 300 is a tremendous ane. And yes, to answer the burning question, the Dell G5 fifteen and G7 15 tin can be configured with a GTX 1660 Ti, but the GTX 1660 Ti configs that lucifer the Helios 300 cost more.

Elsewhere, the Helios 300 ever-so-slightly edges out the pricier GS65 Stealth, besides. (To that machine's credit, it is roughly equally fast while being much slimmer.) The Dell G5 15 SE shows y'all how much of a step downwardly you have in going from a GTX 1660 Ti to a GTX 1650, though information technology volition save you a couple hundred dollars.

The Helios 300 may not be thin and light, nor offer a ton of storage, but for raw power it matches or exceeds pricier systems for gaming. And that's arguably the almost important thing in this class of laptops.

Battery Rundown Test

Finally, the battery-life testing. After fully recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-salvage way (as opposed to balanced or high-operation mode) and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in training for our unplugged video-rundown test. (We as well turn Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop in Aeroplane mode.) In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the Blender Foundation short film Tears of Steel—with screen brightness set at 50 percent and volume at 100 pct until the organisation conks out.

Alas, bombardment life proves to exist this laptop's Achilles' heel. Simply over three hours of runtime is the shortest in this grouping and among the shortest of whatsoever gaming laptop in this form we've tested lately. Existence able to last just three hours off the charger (or less, with heavier utilise) makes information technology difficult to rely on this laptop for travel, or even just for lounging and browsing in your living room untethered.

It's not the most portable motorcar, simply information technology'south totable enough. The subpar bombardment result undercuts that, and yous may think twice conveying it frequently. That's a shame, since it'southward otherwise competent all around.

Rival Gaming Laptops? Fearfulness This Predator

To put it only: The Acer Predator Helios 300 is a superb value. The build and design are solid enough, but the performance is the star. That's largely down to the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti itself, and Acer'southward pricing for this model makes it a standout. The simply real downsides are the storage capacity (bumping up to the 512GB SSD takes the machine to $1,449.99) and the bombardment life, but both are manageable depending on how you use your automobile.

The Helios 300 is the best bang for your buck in this price range correct now, and it competes well with midrange machines closer to $2,000 than $1,000. Though it'south at the outer edge of what we'd call upkeep pricing, this is today's best upkeep-gamer value if you tin swing a lilliputian extra dough.

Acer Predator Helios 300 (2019)

Cons

The Bottom Line

Performing like a pricier machine without skimping on build quality or features, Acer's 2019 Predator Helios 300 delivers excellent value. It's our new top choice among entry-level gaming laptops.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/acer-predator-helios-300-2019

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