The Acer Triton 500 is a thin and powerful gaming laptop, but this combination generally
equals more heat, so does this result in any performance loss? I’ll be taking a detailed
look at thermals and seeing how much we can improve performance with some simple changes.
Let’s start out with the specs I’ve got in my unit, there’s an Intel i7-8750H CPU,
Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics, and 16gb of memory running in dual channel, so expect different
results with different specs. You can find examples of other configurations as well as
updated prices linked in the description.
On the bottom of the laptop we’ve got some air vents towards the back, while the rubber
feet lift it up a bit to assist with air flow. Air is exhausted out of the back left and
right corners, and from the vents on the left and right sides towards the back. There’s
also some ventilation holes above the keyboard. I wasn’t able to get a quick look at the
heatpipes, as the motherboard is upside down in this model so it would require further
disassembly to access.
The Triton 500 uses Acer’s Predator Sense software to control performance of the machine.
We can control fan speed and swap between three overclocking profiles, normal, fast
and extreme. I’ll be considering normal the stock setting, I didn’t find fast to
do anything, while extreme boosted the power limit of the GPU from 80 to 90 watts. Turbo
mode, or the extreme profile, also boosted the CPU power limit from 33 watts at normal
to 45 watts while under combined CPU and GPU load, though as we’ll see later this was
different under a CPU only load.
There’s a turbo button above the keyboard which basically sets the fan speed to maximum
and sets the overclocking profile to extreme. I didn’t find turbo mode to perform any
overclocking, however by default the GPU memory was always overclocked by 120MHz. With the
latest version 1.06 BIOS I also found the CPU was undervolted by -0.1v, this did not
seem to be the case with older BIOS.
Thermal testing was completed in an ambient room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, so
expect different results in different environments. At idle the temperatures were looking normal.
The rest of the results are from combined CPU and GPU workloads, and are meant to represent
worst case scenarios as I ran them for extended periods of time.
The gaming results towards the upper half of the graph were tested by playing Watch
Dogs 2, as I find it to use a good combination of processor and graphics. The stress test
results shown on the lower half of the graph are from running the Aida64 CPU stress test
with only the stress CPU option checked, and the Heaven GPU benchmark at max settings at
the same time to fully load the system.
Let’s start with the stress test results, in normal mode the temperatures are looking
alright, no thermal throttling at least, just power limit throttling. As turbo mode raises
the CPU power limit we’re seeing a hotter CPU, though the GPU actually lowers slightly
as a result of the higher fan speed introduced by this mode, despite the GPU also seeing
a power limit boost. My additional undervolt on the CPU didn’t change the temperature,
but we’ll see how this affected performance in the next graph. Keep in mind that with
the latest BIOS at the time of testing the CPU is already undervolted by -0.1v, so I’m
not actually changing it by too much more here. By adding the cooling pad the CPU temperature
dropped by 7 degrees while the GPU dropped by 4.
The gaming results didn’t see much differences, basically the temperature of the CPU drops
down as we make these same changes with not much difference to the GPU temperature in
this particular game.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. We can see an improvement
to average clock speeds of both the CPU and GPU with turbo mode enabled while under stress
test due to the power limit increase. Despite this we’re still power limit throttling.
While undervolting the CPU did improve the performance further, power limit throttling
is still preventing us hitting the full 3.9GHz all core turbo boost speed of the i7-8750H
in this worst case workload. The cooling pad changes nothing as thermals are not the limitation
here.
With the gaming tests the change to turbo mode boosts the GPU clock speed as the limitation
there was also the power limit, while the CPU undervolt again boosts the clock speed.
These are the average TDP values reported by hardware info during these same tests.
We can see at normal mode we’ve got the lowest numbers, as turbo mode increases the
limits. In the game test this didn’t really seem to matter for CPU performance.
These are the average CPU clock speeds while under a CPU only workload. With Aida64 and
just the stress CPU option checked I could only hit the full 3.9GHz all core turbo boost
speed of the 8750H once the power limit was manually raised. This is because of the power
limits, in a CPU only stress test I found both normal and turbo mode would cap out at
45 watts, pretty standard, but by raising the power limit this workload needed around
51 watts to achieve full performance. It’s worth noting I couldn’t raise the power
limit with Intel XTU for combined CPU and GPU loads that we saw before, only for CPU
only load. Raising the power limit does result in increased temperatures, as more power equals
more heat, though these were also lowered in turbo mode due to the increased fan speed,
and the additional undervolting at the bottom helped improve this further.
To demonstrate how this translates into performance I’ve got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks.
The results with turbo mode, which again is undervolted by default, and with my extra
undervolt are honestly quite low, again due to the power limitations. As boosting the
power limit did affect CPU only performance this was the best way to further increase
performance.
As for the external temperatures where you’ll actually be putting your hands, at idle it
was around the normal 30 degrees Celsius. While under combined CPU and GPU stress test
in normal mode it gets to the mid 40s at the hottest points, then while gaming with turbo
mode enabled it’s perhaps just a little warmer in the center and towards the back.
The keys were warm to the touch but I didn’t think they were hot.
As for the fan noise produced by the laptop, I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle it was completely silent, no fans at all. Whether gaming or under stress test,
with the fan at default it got to the same volume, so you’ve got the option of running
it quieter for a bit less performance. With the fan at max speed it is louder, but now
pretty much similar when compared to most other gaming laptops I’ve tested.
Overall the results aren’t too bad, the thermals are under control and its not getting
too hot. Even under these worst case scenarios I didn’t see higher than 88 degrees Celsius,
notably cooler compared to most other machines tested with the same specs. This seems to
be due to the power limits in place on the CPU though, and while this does prevent higher
clock speeds, the clock speeds that we are getting in these tests aren’t bad at all,
just a couple hundred MHz behind the max possible boost clock, at least in these specific workloads
that I always test. There are plenty of people who prefer this sort of limitation over a
hotter machine, so I think it’s a fair compromise. Many 2060 laptops don’t have the option
of boosting the power limit from 80 watts either, so this was a nice addition, which
as we’ve seen does directly result in better game performance.
If you’re on an older BIOS you’ll definitely want to consider upgrading for the default
undervolt on the CPU, without this I’d expect worse performance due to those power limitations.
These differences in performance shown aren’t hard and fast rules, there are different factors
which will vary results, primarily the temperature of the room you’re running in, application
of thermal paste, and even the specific hardware which comes down to the silicon lottery. You
may not be able to undervolt or overclock your hardware the same as me, it depends on
the chip and its specific power requirements, so don’t just blindly copy my settings and
do some testing to find out where your stable point is for best results.
It may be possible to further improve temperatures by swapping the thermal paste, however with
review unts that get sent back I’m not able to change the paste, otherwise the next reviewer
will unknowingly report different results due to what I’ve done.
Undervolting or using a cooling pad are much easier for most people to do than changing
paste anyway, and as we’ve seen these tweaks did help improve performance and temperatures
with the Triton 500.
Let me know what you thought about the thermals from the Acer Triton 500 gaming laptop down
in the comments, would you prefer higher temperatures but also higher power limits and performance
or do you think the trade off is worth it for a cooler machine? If you’re new to the
channel you’ll definitely want to get subscribed for the upcoming full review of the Acer Triton
500.