Review and testing of the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE laptop based on the Intel Core i7-11375H processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card

It’s time to meet another gaming laptop. This time, a compact productive “baby” from the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE line fell into our hands. The laptop successfully combines small dimensions and high mobility with good gaming performance. It takes up little space and is easy to carry around.

A laptop can replace a desktop computer and become a good travel companion. All the while, it’s a complete gaming device thanks to the combination of an 11-series Intel Core processor, GeForce RTX Ampere graphics, and a fast screen with a refresh rate of 144Hz.

 

Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51S)

Before us is a small lightweight device in a silvery metal case. The use of a 14-inch screen made it possible to achieve dimensions of 323×228 mm with a thickness of less than 20 mm. The declared weight is 1.8 kg, but in reality it is even less – 1.75 kg.

The configuration is based on the Tiger Lake generation Intel Core i7-11375H processor with Boost frequency up to 5 GHz. The mobile version of the GeForce RTX 3060 in the economical Max-Q variant is responsible for graphics processing. Installed 24 GB of DDR4-3200 memory, which operates in dual-channel mode. For data storage, a fast 1TB NVMe M.2 drive is used.

Full characteristics are presented in the table.

As part of the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE PT314-51S series, models with other Core i5 and Core i7 processors are available. In addition to the GeForce RTX 3060, there are options with the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti. Other memory configurations and 512 GB storage are available.

 

Delivery set

The laptop comes in a black cardboard box. Our test version turned out to be “mileage” and the box was a little wrinkled, which in no way affected the performance of the device.

Inside there is an additional hard box, which reliably protects against any trouble during delivery. The package includes an external power supply and cable for it.

The ADP-180TB F power supply is designed for a load of 180W.

 

Appearance

The laptop is made in a metal case. The combination of classic strict design and silver color looks nice and stylish.

A large number of holes for blowing air in the back indicates that the manufacturer tried to effectively organize cooling and air circulation.

There is a Predator logo on the top cover in the corner.

At the bottom, slots are made in the board area. A large rubber bolster towards the top allows the case to rise for airflow.

On the left side of the laptop there are Kensington Lock connectors, an external power connector, full USB 3.2 Type-A and USB 3.2 Type-C, which can be used as a Thunderbolt 4 and DisplayPort interface.

On the right side is another full-length USB 3.2 Type-A and HDMI. There is no Ethernet, which has become standard for compact laptops.

The screen opens 180 degrees.

It has narrow bezels, but the manufacturer has placed a webcam and built-in microphones at the top.

Metal work surface. Everything is made in the same color scheme with the outer case.

Island-style keyboard without numeric keypad. But on the right there are additional multimedia keys.

Above the keyboard in the case there is a perforation for air flow. The power button is located in the general row of the top keys. Nearby is the call key for the Acer PredatorSense application, below it are the volume and navigation keys for media players.

In the left corner is the Turbo button, which activates the maximum fan acceleration mode.

By default, the keyboard has a uniform blue backlight. It is possible to programmatically configure with individual glow parameters for the three zones of the keyboard.

The touchpad with buttons is made in the form of a single panel. The touchpad has a built-in fingerprint scanner.

 

Screen

The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE has a matte screen with ComfyView anti-reflective coating.

Used IPS-matrix Panda LM140LF-1F02 with a diagonal of 14 inches, Full HD resolution 1920×1080, refresh rate is 144 Hz.

The screen is measured to provide 92% sRGB and 66% Adobe RGB coverage.

Brightness is adjustable from 22 to 313 cd/m². Contrast ratio at 1020:1. All subsequent measurements were carried out at a brightness of 120 cd/m².

The color temperature is close to the optimal level of 6500K with a slight shift towards warm tones. The deviation of the gamma curves is small.

The screen shows high color accuracy with a DeltaE deviation of less than 2 units, which is a good result.

In general, the screen leaves a positive impression – high brightness and contrast, good color reproduction, high refresh rate. This screen is suitable for both games and content. Of the minuses, only a slight light in the lower left corner can be noted.

 

Internal device

Let’s disassemble the laptop. The bottom cover has many anchor points and flexible grommets to avoid deformation and bending of the case.

The cooling system uses three heat pipes, two of which are of increased diameter. One tube is shared between the processor and graphics chip. The tubes are in contact with the plates that cover the graphic memory and power elements.

At the corners are two fan trays with AeroBlade 3D design, which includes a large number of specially shaped thin blades. Each such fan blows over two radiators, blowing hot air through the side and rear openings in the case.

The laptop is designed with directional airflow for optimal cooling of components and the outer case.

A 60 Wh battery is used.

Stereo speakers are located in the lower corners of the case.

The board has 8 GB of RAM. A 16 GB DDR4-3200 Kingston bar is installed in the additional slot. The total volume reaches 24 GB.

Installed 1TB NVMe M.2 Western Digital SN730 SDBQNTY-1T00-1014 drive with 4x PCI-E 3.0 interface.

The Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless interfaces are powered by the Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i 201NGW controller.

The full specifications of the laptop are presented in the screenshot of the HWiNFO utility.

The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE PT314-51S uses the Tiger Lake Intel Core i7-11375H mobile processor on a 10 nm process technology. It has four cores with Hyper-Threading, which allows you to process eight threads, TDP up to 35W. DDR4-3200 memory operates in dual-channel mode with delays of 22-22-22-52-1T.

The processor has integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. It is used at low load in 2D mode. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 video card is responsible for processing graphics in 3D. The mobile version is based on a GPU106 with 3840 CUDA stream cores versus 3584 CUDA cores in the desktop GeForce RTX 3060. At the same time, the mobile video card operates at low frequencies with a greatly reduced TDP. In this case, we have an economical version of Max-Q. Declared power 60 watts with a maximum value of up to 90 watts. Base GPU clock 817 MHz with Boost Clock 1282 MHz. GDDR6 memory runs on a 192-bit bus at a frequency of 11740 MHz, the memory capacity is six gigabytes.

 

Software

Like all Acer gaming laptops, this model has extensive software options for configuring operating parameters. The Acer PredatorSense application helps with this, for which a separate key on the keyboard is provided. The first tab displays temperature monitoring data with a choice of backlight profiles and operating mode.

In addition to the standard “Default” mode, quiet, extreme and Turbo modes are provided. Quiet reduces the speed of the fans with a decrease in maximum performance. Extreme mode provides for “overclocking” by slightly increasing the power limits and speeding up the working algorithms of the fans. Turbo mode switches the fans to maximum speed for maximum system performance, a quick start is possible through a separate key on the keyboard. It also provides the ability to separately adjust the speed of the fans and detailed monitoring of temperatures with graphs.

The backlight provides several fixed presets with separate adjustment for the three zones of the keyboard. The user can select static base colors or several dynamic effects. There is also the possibility of manual settings, where you can change the standard effects and set any colors on the palette.

All settings in Acer PredatorSense can be linked to a specific application so that the laptop switches to this mode only when a specific game or program is launched.

Other Acer PredatorSense features include Acer TrueHarmony audio mode switching. There are also DTS Sound Unbound and DTS:X Ultra licensed applications pre-installed, which allow you to activate surround sound effects and select the optimal sound mode for different games.

The Acer Care Center app lets you control system and application updates, provides quick access to recovery services and some other features.

 

Cooling efficiency and noise level

Now let’s talk about operating temperatures and check the frequency indicators in the load.

The laptop was tested in a room with a temperature of 21 ° C. First, let’s test Acer in game mode. To simulate a long gaming load, a looped 3DMark Time Spy stress test was launched.

In this mode, the GPU temperature reached 75 ° C at Boost frequencies of about 1500 MHz. The Intel Core i7-11375H processor peaked at around 90°C, although average operating temperatures were closer to 70-80°C. The cores showed overclocking above 4 GHz, peak values ​​up to 4.7 GHz. The maximum speed of the CPU fan did not exceed 3900 rpm, the GPU fan spins up to 4100 rpm.

Now let’s look at the options in “Extreme” mode.

Operating temperatures have dropped a few degrees. There are no obvious changes in frequencies, although performance is slightly improved. Fan speed increased by 100-200 rpm.

Now let’s test the laptop under extreme load. For this, the AIDA64 stress test was used. At first, a test was run only for the processor and memory subsystem, then a full test with an additional load on the video card. In both cases, standard performance mode was active.

In the first test, the temperature of the processor cores reached 80–90 °C (up to 95 °C at the peak). The cores showed a boost to 4 GHz and above, but the average frequencies were around 3.5 GHz. With an extreme load on all components, the processor heats up, which led to a decrease in the core frequency to 3 GHz. The graphics chip warmed up to 78 °C at frequencies of about 1600 MHz. The fan speed in the hardest temperature mode was at the level of 4000 rpm.

A prolonged load noticeably warms up the body in the central part, but this does not cause discomfort.

 

Overclocking

Traditionally, we decided to test a mobile video card at higher frequencies. But first, let’s take a closer look at the features of its operation in the standard mode. Below is a screenshot of monitoring under continuous load in Cyberpunk 2077 and Far Cry 6. In the first game, the GPU frequencies are at the standard level of 1500 MHz, and the frequency of the CPU cores is about 3.3 GHz. In the second game, the video card shows a boost above 1700 MHz, and the processor shows frequencies of 3.5-4 GHz. The memory frequency of the video card steadily drops to 5410 MHz (10820 MHz).

Switching to “Extreme” mode helps to stabilize the memory frequencies of the GeForce RTX 3060. And the overall improvement in temperature conditions increases the duration of high GPU and CPU frequencies. We went a step further by further boosting the graphics card’s clocks via MSI Afterburner and tweaking the fan speeds.

Acer does not have a smooth adjustment of the working algorithms of the fans. The settings in Acer PredatorSense are set to a fixed speed. But at an initial speed of about 4300 rpm at peak moments, monitoring showed up to 5000 rpm. Turbo mode provides 5900 rpm, which is already too loud.

The base frequency of the GPU is increased by 140 MHz, the final memory frequency is 13000 MHz.

With the selected settings with the accelerated fan mode in the 3DMark Time Spy stress test, we got GPU frequencies of about 1600 MHz at temperatures up to 71 ° C. The processor showed a boost of about 3.6 GHz.

That is, when the video card is accelerated, there is a slight decrease in the frequencies of the Intel Core i7-11375H. But it all depends on the application, for example, in Far Cry 6 we got GPU frequencies of 1700 MHz with a CPU boost above 4 GHz.

It is also worth noting that the combination of “Extreme” mode, manual fan settings and overclocking through MSI Afterburner did not always work consistently. Sometimes the frequencies of the video card were reset after some application. And a long load with warming up led at some point to a drop in performance. The very idea of ​​overclocking is doubtful here, the laptop is not designed for this. But if you want to get a little speedup, use only the provided modes in Acer PredatorSense.

 

Test results

Overall Performance

PCMark 8

PCMark 10

The graph shows the overall result of the extended test and the results of individual groups of tests as part of this benchmark.

The laptop outperforms the AMD Ryzen 5 5500U-based Acer Aspire 7 A715-42G in PCMark, but the more powerful graphics also make a difference.

CPU-Z Benchmark

The performance of the Intel Core i7-11375H is minimally different from the Core i7-1165G7.

Cinebench

And again, minimal differences from the Core i7-1165G7, with a serious lag behind the Ryzen 5 5500U.

Geekbench 5

The result of the multi-threaded test is comparable to the results of a laptop based on AMD Ryzen 5 5500U. But the competitor worked with single-channel memory, which to a certain extent reduced its potential.

V-Ray 5 Benchmark

Below are the rendering results of different test scenes on the processor and GeForce RTX graphics card.

The processor test results are 21% lower than AMD Ryzen 5 5500U.

x265 HD Benchmark

The laptop shows the expected results.

AIDA Cache & Memory Benchmark

It is interesting to compare the results of this configuration with a system based on Intel Core i7-1165G7 and LPDDR4X-4266 (Acer Swift 3X SF314‑510G). In this case, the cache speed is slightly higher, and the memory bandwidth is lower.

Disk subsystem

The Western Digital SN730 SDBQNTY-1T00-1014 drive performs well in all tests.

Game apps

Testing was carried out in standard mode and when overclocking the GeForce RTX 3060 with manual fan settings.

3DMark

First, the results of Time Spy in normal mode are shown, then in overclocking.

Quite expected result for such configuration. By comparison, the GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q has a 12% higher GPU Score (ASUS ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED).

In the ray tracing test, the difference between the GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q and the GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q is over 16%.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

In Valhalla, the graphics quality is set to maximum while reducing the quality of anti-aliasing and the quality of clouds by one step. The average result is more than 60 frames, but periodic drawdowns are possible.

Cyberpunk 2077

At standard Ultra-quality without tracing, the laptop produces about 40 frames in a rich urban scene. Overclocking allows you to increase performance by 8%. But for comfortable fps, you need to lower the settings or turn on DLSS.

Activating the DLSS quality mode allows you to get a performance of more than 50 frames.

Days Gone

The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE does an excellent job with this game without any reservations – you can safely turn on Ultra-graphics.

Deathloop

In this game, the laptop shows about 70 frames. Given the simple test scene, you should expect lower performance. But the combination of Core i7-11375H and GeForce RTX 3060 can handle Ultra quality. We were unable to enable tracing, although it worked fine on a laptop with GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q.

Far Cry 6

Acer performs well in regular Ultra mode, with tracing performance closer to 50fps. Overclocking provides an acceleration of 5%.

Horizon Zero Dawn

In this game, you can also enable Ultra-quality.

Mafia: Definitive Edition

Great results in the Mafia remake.

Red Dead Redemption 2

At normal Ultra settings, the laptop averaged 50 frames with overclocking 7% better. DLSS allows you to reach 60 frames, but drawdowns to 50 and below are still possible.

Resident Evil: Village

Without tracing, the laptop shows a high frame rate that will suit the most demanding gamer.

With medium quality tracing, performance is choppy with heavy drawdowns and occasional events at 12fps. Although the average fps is quite good.

The Outer Worlds

Another great game. Acceleration accelerates by 8%.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The laptop provides high performance in The Witcher at maximum quality settings with all effects.

War Thunder

The built-in benchmark “Battle for Berlin” is enabled.

Extremely high performance that will suit the most demanding gamer.

Watch Dogs: Legion

In the normal Ultra mode, the performance is below 50 frames. Acceleration accelerates by 6%. DLSS allows you to win a few more frames. The weak point here is the processor. And even at the Very High settings, we got the result at the level of 50 fps.

Battery life

To test the battery life, we ran some tests with dedicated benchmarks in PCMark. The Modern Office test simulates a combined office workload. The second test measures the operating time when playing Full HD video. Screen brightness is fixed at 120 cd/m² to compare results with other laptops. Keyboard backlight is off.

The laptop lasted about 7 hours in both tests, which is an excellent result. However, pauses with downtime in standard PCMark tests must be taken into account. Heavy workload or high screen brightness will reduce battery life.

 

Conclusions

Acer Predator Triton 300 SE is suitable for those who prioritize gaming performance, but at the same time compactness and autonomy are important. The Intel Core i7-11375H and GeForce RTX 3060 provide good performance in many games. If a laptop can’t handle Ultra graphics, it can handle high quality. At the same time, there is support for all NVIDIA technologies, which allows you to use DLSS, and in not the most demanding games, you can use ray tracing. The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51S-75JM) also comes with plenty of RAM and a fast NVMe M.2 SSD. The laptop has a 14-inch screen with good color reproduction and a high refresh rate. There is a customizable keyboard backlight and additional multimedia keys. Temperature and noise characteristics are standard for a gaming-class laptop, and it would be strange to expect something outstanding from a small format device. With a weight of up to 1.8 kg, such a small laptop will be a good companion if you lead an active lifestyle and often change jobs.