At the end of May 2021, Acer launched its Predator Triton 500 SE, which can also be called a special edition of the Triton 500. The Predator Triton series is known for its breakthroughs, such as its slim and lightweight body with flagship performance. After changing the mold, Acer unveiled the all-new Predator Triton 500 SE (2021), which has been greatly improved in every aspect, including appearance and performance.
The Predator Triton series has always been at the forefront of mid-to-high-end gaming laptops, with advantages such as lightness, thinness, and performance. The Predator Triton 500 SE series starts at $1750 (for the base variant). The variant we chose to review is the high-end model (Core i9-11900H + RTX 3080), which costs $2,700.
Specifications
| Screen | 16″ WQXGA (2560 x 1600) 16:10 165 Hz IPS |
| Processor | Intel® Core™ i9-11900H processor, Octa-core, 2.50 GHz |
| Wireless Connection | Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i + Bluetooth 5.1 |
| Graphics card | NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3080 with 8 GB dedicated memory |
| Memory | 32 GB DDR4 SDRAM, 2 x SO-DIMM Slots |
| Storage | 2 TB SSD, 2x M.2 SSD slots, RAID 0 |
| Ports | 1x HDMI Output 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (Thunderbolt 4) 1x RJ-45 1x Kensington Lock Slot 1x DC-in port |
| Battery | 4-cell Li-Ion battery |
| OS | Windows 10 Home |
| Weight | 5.40 lb |
Design
The significant change in the Predator Triton 500 SE is the change in its mold design. It has been changed from the traditional black to the new grey, making the whole body more detailed. The entire body is made of aluminum alloy. The entire surface is also finely matte, providing a durable and refined experience.
While maintaining flagship performance for gaming purposes, the new Triton 500 SE remains uncompromising in terms of thinness and lightness. The laptop is only 19.9 mm thick (total dimensions: 358.1 x 261.7 x 19.9 mm) and weighs 2.4 kg. In terms of portability, it can easily give tough competition to other latest 2021 gaming notebooks (like ROG Zephyrus M16 or Alienware X15).
It is worth mentioning that the term portability plays a significant role in gaming notebooks, and it can be said that it is one of the evolutionary points of the Acer Predator Triton 500 SE. The average consumer can easily carry it without getting tired. The two hinges allow us to effortlessly lift and lower the screen with one hand and return it to a flat 180-degree position, which is quite helpful in a notebook.
Display
The Predator Triton 500 SE features a 16-inch ComfyView IPS LCD display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 2.5K resolution (2560 x 1600). It’s worth mentioning that the term ComfyView represents the anti-glare display in Acer laptops. As can be seen, the bezels of this display are very narrow, with a screen-to-body ratio of 87%. Not only that, but the higher 165Hz refresh rate makes the gaming experience smoother and greatly reduces the occurrence of lag.
The 16:10 aspect ratio is suitable for other tasks such as daily reading or office work. It also provides an excellent browsing experience. Through testing, we further found that the display has a 98% sRGB, 77% Adobe RGB, and 75% DIC-P3 color gamut coverage. Its brightness can be increased up to 500 nits, and it’s worth noting that BOE is the manufacturer of this screen. The display of the Predator Triton 500 SE is perfect for gamers who demand sharp display colors and a high refresh rate.
Keyboard
The new Triton 500 SE gaming laptop features the same RGB-backlit island keyboard as its predecessor, but still lacks a numeric keypad. As a gaming laptop, that doesn’t matter. It also has some media keys (located on the right side of the keyboard) that can be remapped via software. Gamers can set these media keys according to their needs.
The design of the keycaps has also changed compared to previous Predator series laptops. It now seems more basic and uniform. Due to the new keycap design, the overall keyboard experience is not as good as expected. However, the keyboard still gives a very premium feel while typing. It seems like typing on a slim laptop.
It is also worth noting that the keyboard features two light intensity levels for the three-zone illumination. These LEDs on the keyboard look bright enough and have consistent brightness. There are also some minor changes added, such as indicators for the Caps Lock and Mute keys (when the sound is muted), which were missing from Acer’s previous gaming laptops.
Below the keyboard area, there is a touchpad with an integrated fingerprint sensor on the top left of the laptop (which can be used for multiple purposes). It has been observed that the touchpad is made of glass and has a smaller area, but still supports multi-touch gestures.
Ports
The new Predator Triton 500 SE is fully equipped with the latest technology. It has a total of nine ports.
The left side of the laptop has five ports, including a DC-in port, an RJ-45 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. On the right side, there are an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, and an SD 7.0 card reader.
The specifications of the DC charging port will be discussed in the battery section. Additionally, HDMI ports are rare in laptops. However, the Triton 500 SE features this port and supports resolutions up to 8K at 60Hz (or 4K at 120Hz), which meets the ultra-high resolution requirements of designers.
It’s also worth mentioning that both USB Type-C ports are Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can help with different operations such as connecting multiple external displays, high-speed data transfer (up to 40 GB/s), Type-C fast charging (up to 100W), and connecting to an external graphics card. The new SD 7.0 card reader slot also supports data transfer speeds of 985 MB/s.
Battery, SSD, RAM, and Wi-Fi
The new Predator Triton 500 SE comes with a 99Wh, 4-cell 6360mAh lithium-ion battery, which seems to be a good battery for a 16-inch screen gaming laptop.
As Acer claims, this laptop has a battery life of 12 hours. However, they don’t mention the setting to get 12 hours of battery life. In addition to the 99Wh battery, the laptop also comes with a 230W AC adapter for charging.
It is worth mentioning that the laptop also features NVIDIA Optimus technology, which extends battery life without compromising the immersive, tear-free, and stutter-free gaming experience provided by G-SYNC. In short, the system will intelligently determine when an application needs a dedicated GPU or integrated graphics.
The variant we have selected for the Predator Triton 500 SE comes with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. The 32GB of memory is a dual-channel memory (2x 16GB) with a high frequency of 3200MHz. It can be upgraded to a maximum of 64GB of memory with 3200MHz frequency, allowing gamers to get maximum power gain while gaming.
The laptop has 2TB of storage (2x 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD) with RAID 0 technology. With the Core i9-11900H and PCI Gen4 SSD, the benchmark scores on the Triton 500 SE are expected to be impressive. Testing the SSD with the CrystalDiskMark application, we found that the SSD has a read speed of 12709 MB/s and a write speed of 10298 MB/s.
The Triton 500 SE gaming laptop features the Intel Killer E3100G Gigabit Ethernet LAN and Wi-Fi 6 Killer AX1650i modem to provide a robust network environment while gaming.
CPU and GPU
Acer Predator Triton 500 SE comes with the latest 11th Gen Intel Core i9-11900H CPU. The CPU has a total of 8 cores and 16 threads with 24MB of L3 cache. The maximum frequency of the CPU is 4.9 GHz on a single core. This seems to be a perfect combination with the RTX 3080 GPU. We also did a short benchmark. Here are the benchmarks and their results.
CPU-Z (v17): 597 points for single-core and 5822 points for multi-core
Cinebench R23: 1123 points for single-thread, 10328 points for multi-thread
In addition to the Core i9-11900H CPU, the Triton 500 SE is powered by the latest NVIDIA RTX 3080 mobile GPU, which is based on the GA104 core and has 6144 CUDA cores. The GPU has 8GB of DDR6 memory. The GPU can reach a maximum frequency of 1345MHz. It was also revealed (via the NVIDIA control panel) that the maximum power consumption of the GPU is limited to 110W. As a thin and lightweight gaming laptop, it is acceptable. We also did the GPU benchmarks as follows:
3DMark Fire Strike: 23,216 Points
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme: 12,390 Points
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra: 6,839 Points
3D Mark Port Royal: 6,545 Points
The test results show that both the CPU and GPU perform well in terms of performance.
Heat Dissipation and Stress Test
The new Predator Triton 500 SE features a new fifth-generation 2x 3D AeroBlade metal cooling fan consisting of 89 ultra-thin bionic blades. It increases airflow by 55%. Additionally, the laptop features vapor chambers and large heat pipes for improved heat dissipation.
The notebook also has air vents at different locations, four of which are located at the bottom, while two others are located on the left and right sides. The central air intake is located under the notebook. The entire scene enhances the cooling system on the Triton 500 SE.
To stress-test the laptop, we used AIDA64 FPU and FurMark to stress both the CPU and GPU. After 20 minutes of testing, the CPU power consumption is 25W, and the GPU power consumption is 100W. It has been observed that performance releases are relatively conservative.
Gaming Test
As a gaming notebook, it is necessary to do a gaming test on the Acer Predator Triton 500 SE. We also did a short gaming test in which the two most popular games (at present) were tested.
As a gaming notebook, it is necessary to do a gaming test on the Acer Predator Triton 500 SE. We also did a short gaming test in which we tested two of the most popular games (at the moment).
Tomb Raider: Shadows: We used the game’s built-in benchmarks to test the game. With the following settings: 2560 x 1600 resolution, texture quality set to high, and ray tracing turned off, we achieved an average of 125 fps, with GPU usage at 42%.
Cyberpunk 2077: As the latest game, the new Cyberpunk 2077 supports ray tracing and DLSS. It also requires substantial specifications for refined gameplay. We turned on the effects for testing, turned off ray tracing, and used MSI Afterburner to record the FPS while playing. With these settings, the average frame rate is 75FPS, and the experience is smooth. Then, we turned on ray tracing and light tracing and set the DLSS mode to automatic. At these settings, the frame rate can still reach 60FPS. It’s worth mentioning that turning on ray tracing will slow down the smoothness of the game. However, setting the quality of DLSS to automatic doesn’t result in a significant loss of detail in the picture. The overall gaming experience of Cyberpunk 2077 was satisfactory.
Summarize:
First of all, the new Predator Triton 500 SE is presented to gamers in a gorgeous form, featuring a new mold design that provides a whole new experience. Second, thanks to the ultra-high cooling efficiency of the new 5th Gen 3D AeroBlade fast-cooling metal fan, the new Triton 500 SE delivers near-perfect cooling performance, allowing the RTX 3080 mobile GPU to unleash better performance for a superior gaming experience.
In addition, the laptop’s powerful specifications, including a Core i9-11900H CPU, RTX 3080 GPU, 32GB RAM, 2TB NVMe SSD, and a high-quality display with a higher refresh rate, make it a strong contender in the mid-to-high-end gaming market.
