In the spring, Acer showed the world's first laptop with a mobile Core i9 on eight cores, moving a keyboard and a built -in gamepad. This Predator Helios 700 machine is called, and we were one of the first to test it in our country.
Keyboard
Let's start with the most interesting – with a shifting keyboard. It is called Hyper Drift and is arranged in the simplest way. The inner panel with buttons and a touchpad is separated from the rest of the case and planted on a slide. You pull the structure on yourself – and it gently leaves forward. In this case, the platform with a touch panel rises at a slight angle and turns into a wrist stand.
Built -in gamepad is an excellent idea, but the games for it are not particularly ready yet
Western reviews claim that the hand does not rest against the sharp edge of the case, as on ordinary models. But this is stupidity, it does not rest anywhere, but lies on the panel with a touchpad. But with such a keyboard you can push the laptop and not pull your hands to it, and in addition, a feeling of a conventional desktop keyboard with supporting your wrist is created.
It's early to talk about reliability, service life and stability of the mechanism to chips. But while everything is new – it works smoothly, clicks in extreme positions and is held by magnets in the collected form. Ah yes, even when opening, Hyper Drift makes the sounds of a spacecraft on the dispersal of a "hyperdrod". It looks stupid from the outside, but when you do it yourself, and even when you start the game … as if you can’t do it on the gas of gas in Ferrari!
The true dimensions did not hide – the laptop is very thick and heavy
And this, by the way, has some sense. The sliding panel opens additional ventilation holes and at the same time disperses the processor with the https://casigood-casino.co.uk/ video card. The idea is built on the use of Double Inlet turbines and air fence from below and from above. Such schemes are used in many laptops, but the lattices are placed not under the keyboard. To do this, the entire cooling system is shifted back, and behind the screen a characteristic protrusion is obtained.
Temperatures
The scheme is working, and if you plug the additional holes, the temperature under Prime95 grows by 4-5 degrees. The result in such loads is excellent, but against its background, maneuver is incomprehensible with acceleration. In the closed position, the laptop operates in Fast mode. The processor hangs in the range from 3.8 to 4.2 GHz, and the video card holds 1830 MHz. When you shift the keyboard, the Overclock mode is activated, the processor freezes at 4.4 GHz, and the graphics rises to 1935 MHz.
Despite the dimensions, the set of the Helios 700 connectors does not differ from small counterparts
It is strange that in a closed position high frequencies are programmatically blocked (supposedly not enough cooling). But if you open the keyboard and slam the screen – the laptop further works in increased modes.
Since they started talking about the frequencies … Helios 700 – a wildly productive machine. RTX 2080, desktop chip with 8 GB of memory is responsible for graphics. It works at a frequency of 1935 MHz – 50 MHz lower than that of 2080 in our test stand – and in games does not rise above 60 ° C.
According to the processor, the alignment is Intel Core i9-9980HK. Officially introduced it at the end of spring. And then Intel said that laptops on its basis should be called not just Gaming, but Muscle Book Muscle Car. As a result, this is a mobile copy of the i9-9900k: eight nuclei, 16 streams, 16 MB of the third level cache and maximum 5 GHz per nucleus.
Each key – its own color!
In the Games "Stone" holds 4.4–4.5 GHz. Rending rises to 4.3 GHz, and under AVX – up to 4 GHz. At the same time, the temperatures are modest. Above 80, they saw only on the experiment, under acceleration with an induced upper ventilation. On average, it turns out 65–75 degrees
Interestingly, the cooling system is built without separation of contours. The processor and video card are combined and sit on five heating pipes. Those, in turn, go to four radiators that blow out two Aeroblade 4th generation turbines. By the sound of the turbine is wayward. Up to 3,000 turnover they are not heard, but at extreme frequencies there is an unimaginable whistle.
Only three upper keys are programmed here
Inside the case is unusual. Processor, video card and all heat grips look up, and in order to get to them, you need to completely disassemble the laptop. This is done in three stages. First of all, the lower cover is removed, followed by two of the four memory planks, SSD, battery and hard drive. Then – the base hiding turbines and radiators. And finally, the motherboard, on the back of which there are a processor, a video card and two more memory planks.
Gamepad
WSAD zone on the keyboard can work as a stick on a gamepad. Called the MagForce chip, and it is arranged as follows. In the kit, in a hard case, there are four keys with a spring mechanism. You put them instead of membrane buttons – turn on the MagForce mode, and … the games see WSAD as a stick and take into account the depth of pressing. That is, in some Need for Speed gas and brake are more accurately controlled, and in Assassinʼs Creed-the speed of movement. The behavior of the buttons, as well as the clipping graph, is set up through the utility.
The keyboard is put forward in one movement
Games react to MagForce adequately, only get confused with hints. When you live a WSAD, they believe that the XBOX gamepad is in their hands, and sign the actions on the XYAB keys, and when you are closing neighboring buttons, they switch to keyboard notes. It's funny, but it doesn't bother playing.
The keyboard itself is large soft buttons, a clear feeling of pressing and supporting any combinations. The backlight is tuned regardless of each key. You can choose your color for a glass panel under the screen. But the touchpad only burns in blue. By the way, the sensory panel itself is large, correctly drowned into the housing and equipped with separate buttons. Although with such dimensions a laptop does not matter.
The camera not only sends the picture to chats, but also monitors your position and twists the sound picture in headphones
At the top of the keyboard – three keys on which you can assign any action, up to your own macros. While they support up to three profiles. Ordinary buttons, unfortunately, are not programmed.
Display, sound 5.1 and games
As for the rest of the components, the memory in our version was 64 GB – four planks for 2666 MHz. Under Windows stood two terabyte solidocurrences – NVMe from Western Digital, moreover in RAID and a total speed of 3.5 GB for reading and 3.2 GB for recording. Well, conditionally, for games there was a hard drive for 2 TB.
The case is made of plastic
The display is assembled on an IPS matrix. This is Full HD with a frequency of 144 Hz, with a brightness of 300 kD/m2 and a coverage of 90% SRGB. The matrix is fast. UFO test for delays passes without lubrication, and the scatter on colors is filed in 0.26.
We note the sound. Acer talks about 5.1-channel setup. Two speakers stand under the screen, three more – on the front edge, from below – subwoofer. Sounds loudly and without wheezing, but this is not 5.1, but just a good laptop sound. It is much more interesting that the access to the headset serves software from Waves NX. He lit up on Triton 500, and through the webcam he monitors the position of the head and twists the sound picture. That is, he turned his head to the left – the sound of a duck into the right speaker, to the right – in the left speaker. It feels like you are not sitting in headphones, but with ordinary columns.
In blue, the radiators are painted only at the edges.
Performance
And a few words about performance in games. The minimum we saw 69 fps. And this is Metro Exodus in extreme mode with the disabled Ray Tracing! Borderlands 3 on "crazy" settings went at 78 frames, the last Total War gave 80 FPS, The Division 2 – without a frame a hundred. At the same time, we received more than 660 frames in the World of Tanks at low settings-the level of our i9-9900K in the test stand. It's funny that games hardly react to acceleration and keyboard shift. Maximum – plus 4-5%.
We do not know how, but Acer made one of the best cooling systems in the market!
Helios 700 is another flagship laptop with a price exceeding 300,000 rubles and high performance. But, unlike competitors, he is interesting. The idea with the keyboard is wonderful, we want the same on more affordable models. Built -in joystick is also a sound idea worthy to go to the masses. Well, let's say separately about cooling: seventy -five degrees on a processor with eight cores – a great result.
Technical characteristics
Display : 17.3 inches, 1920 x 1080, IPS, 144 Hz
CPU : Intel Core i9-9980HK (8 nuclei, 16 streams, 2.4-5 GHz, 45 W)
Memory : 64 GB (4x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 (SK Hynix HMA82GS6CJR8N-VK)
Video card : Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 (1380-1590/ 14,000 MHz, 8 GB GDDR6)
Disk subsystem : 2x 1 TB NVME SSD (WDC PC SN720 SDAQNTW-1 TETS), 2 TB HDD (WDC WD10 EZEX-07M2NA1)
Connection : 2.5 Gbit Ethernet (Realtek Killer E3000), Wi-Fi 802.11AX (Realtek Killer AX1650X), Bluetooth 5.0
Connectors : HDMI, DisplayPort, 3x USB 3.0, 2x USB 3.0 type-C, RJ-45, 2x 3.5 mm Jack
operating system : Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Dimensions : 43×29,9×4.2 cm
Weight : 4.9 kg
Price for October 2019 : 330,000 rubles ($ 5070)
Game tests (AVG. FPS / 1% / 0.1%)
Acer Helios 700
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
Ultra 73/55/50
High 91/63/54
Low 130/92/85
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
All Max + RT
All Max 90/42/40
High 97/48/45
Min 133/73/66
World of Tanks Encore
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
Ultra 197/137/112
High 324/190/159
Low 662/342/256
Metro: Exodus
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
All Max + RT 51/42/37
All Max 69/49/47
Extreme 88/68/65
Ultra 119/93/85
Medium 141/112/105
Far Cry New Dawn
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
Max 95/65/59
High 105/78/70
Min 124/91/79
The Division 2
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
Max 99/62/40
High 128/82/66
Min 195/124/85
Control
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
High+RT 84/68/37
High 138/104/61
Medium 142/97/44
Low 140/90/26
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
Ultra 80/65/60
High 106/82/71
Low 256/147/119
Borderlands 3
Acer Helios 700
1920×1080
Ultra 78/60/40
High 82/61/23
Low 113/94/68