In August 2021, you will be able to buy the Acer Predator Helios 500.

INTRODUCTION

The review of the Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD

The Predator Helios 500 is a big deal from Acer, and it gets even more powerful.

As soon as you turn on the "big blue" Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD, you know you're in for some serious gaming. The 17-inch Helios 500 model we're looking at (PH517-61-R0GX) has RGB lighting that goes from the keyboard to the touchpad, and when you turn it on, its speakers make a swooping sound to let you know the Predator has come.

Acer Predator Helios 500 17 amd

This predator is the opposite of slim Max-Q gaming laptops like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15. It's big and heavy, which helps it reach its full performance potential by combining good thermals with full-graphics silicon. It has a second-generation Ryzen desktop CPU and Vega 56 graphics, which make it good for both gaming and work.

The specs for the Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD

Vega 56 8 GB HBM2 for AMD Radeon
A2700 AMD Ryzen 7 2nd Generation (3.20GHz)
256GB solid-state drive and 16GB of RAM
Free Sync, 144 Hz Refresh Rate, 17.3-inch 1920x1080 IPS Display, 72% NTSC
85″ x 11.73″ x 1.52″ 9.37 lbs.
1 x HDMI 2.0 1 x DisplayPort
2 Type-C USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps, DisplayPort over USB Type-C & USB Charging)

Design

Now you have a big, different-looking gaming machine. Most gaming laptops are black and red, but the Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD has a black body with hints of blue, and it has AeroBlade 3D fans to keep it cool. Aside from the blue color, everything else looks like a normal game.

We find it strange that the body is made of plastic, since competing laptops like the Razer Blade 15 and Asus ROG Zephyrus S have metal bodies. We always expect metal bodies on things that cost more than $1,000, but that's not the case here. It's not a big deal, though.

As was already said, the Predator Helios 500 PH517-61-R0GX is pretty big. Its height, width, and depth (HWD) are 1.5, 16.9, and 11.7 inches, which is still in the same range as other 17-inch gaming computers. Compared to the Helios 500, the 17-inch Alienware 17 R5 (1.18 by 16.7 by 13.1) is a little bit bigger and weighs almost a pound more at 8.82 pounds.

If you want to update an old gaming system, the Predator 500 is a good choice because it's small and has a lot of power. You can even take it to tournaments and other events.

Ports

Most of the time, a big laptop gives you a lot of port options, and the Helios 500 is no different. On the right side, there are two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, separate jacks for headphones and a microphone, and a Kensington lock slot.

The left side has an Ethernet jack, one USB 3.0 Type-A port, and two USB Type-C 3.1/Thunderbolt 3 ports. Around the back of the computer, there are HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs that let you connect up to three screens using HDMI, DisplayPort, and the USB Type-C port.

Surprisingly, there isn't an SD-card slot, which is something that media workers who use dSLR cameras and high-end camcorders but need to transfer extra data to their laptops like. Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0, and a wired Ethernet link are all ways to connect wirelessly.

The speakers on the Helios 500 are another plus. They make sound that is amazing, has enough bass to fill a room, and doesn't distort even when turned all the way up. There is also a 720p camera in the middle of the bezel right above the screen. It works well for video chatting, but it isn't a high-resolution camera like most others.

Display

Most gaming computers have screens that are pretty much the same. The only thing that might be different is the GPU engine, which can be either AMD or Nvidia. The Helios 500 has a 17-inch matte IPS screen with a 1080p resolution (1,920 x 1,080). The only things that stand out are AMD Radeon FreeSync and a 144Hz speed rate for the screen, both of which are great for high-end gaming.

Acer Predator Helios 500 17 amd

Because of the high refresh rate, these features let the screen show your games and other material at up to 144Hz frames per second (fps), and you won't see any screen tearing once you turn on AMD FreeSync.

In video games, tearing is a common kind of distortion that happens when a display tries to write a new frame to the screen before the last one is finished. This makes the screen look like it has two halves that don't match up. When both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync are turned on, the refresh rate of a screen can go up and down with the frame rate that the graphics chip is putting out. This makes tearing less of a problem.

Typewriter and touchpad

On the computer, the arrow keys and the WASD keys stand out because they have blue paint around them. On the top deck, near the hinges, there is a row of hotkeys that you can programme to do anything you want, including auto-overclocking.

Also, the machine's built-in Predator Sense software lets you change the colour of the backlighting on the keys, but the keyboard, mouse, and six hotkeys, as well as the power button, all have a blue haze backlight by default. But the keyboard doesn't have customizable lighting for each key. Instead, it has four zones of RGB backlighting that you can change to any of 16.8 million colours.

As expected, the keyboard's feel doesn't let you down at all. Here, Acer uses a membrane keyboard, but the key presses are still deep and rewarding. For a moment, you might think the Predator Helios 500 has mechanical switches.

Performance

The Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD model we are reviewing is one of the first Helios 500 models to use hardware other than Intel or Nvidia. Instead, it is driven by high-end parts from AMD, and it will give Intel a strong run for its money. It has an AMD Ryzen 7-2700 processor that is meant for desktops. It has eight cores and 16 threads, and its base clock is 3.7GHz. When Turbo Boost kicks in, it can go up to 4.3GHz. The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics engine is compatible with the 8 GB of HBM2 RAM and Windows 10 Home.

This is a good configuration that can easily compete with Intel's Core i7-8700K CPU, which is found in high-end gaming PCs like the Dell Alienware Aurora and iBUYPOWER Pro Trace 928770, which both have good gaming and work scores.

With such a powerful CPU and a good graphics card, the Predator Helios 500 stands out as a great desktop replacement laptop that you can use for difficult productivity tasks like making media, using Photoshop, and playing games at the same time. The Acer Predator Helios 500 also has a solid-state drive with 256GB of space. (SSD). In 2019, a medium or high-end gaming laptop should have at least 16GB of RAM.

How well a game does

So much for the main parts. The speed of the games also goes up. Even though it is powerful, the Helios 500 does better in current games than its more powerful competitors, some of which use GeForce GTX 1080 graphics chips or pepper CPUs. It gets an average of 122 fps when playing Fortnite at 1080p and High settings, but drops to 109 fps when playing at Ultra settings. At the Medium settings in Grand Theft Auto V, the Helios 500 got an average frame rate of 103fps. At the High settings, it only got 82fps.

On a 60Hz screen, where the most frames per second that can be shown is 60fps, this wouldn't matter. But since this is a 144Hz screen, the goal (for gamers who specifically chose this machine for this function) is to get the highest frame rate possible.

Even though you can't really tune the AMD Ryzen 7 CPU (only the Core i9 version of this machine has an unlocked CPU), the PredatorSense software built into the Helios 500 makes it easy to overclock the GPU when necessary. It normally has three overclock modes—Normal, Faster, and Turbo—that you can use to get better frames per second. The Predator Sense software on this machine lets you control and customize everything about your gaming experience, from the lights to the speed of the fans to the game modes.

Even with usable frame rates, the Helios 500's 144Hz refresh rate display is rarely used to speed up a game. Most games will have frame rates between 60 and 130 fps, but less demanding games that aren't AAA should have frame rates above 144 fps even if the settings aren't changed.

Acer Predator Helios 500 17 amd

How long a battery lasts

The Acer Predator Helios 500 is a good replacement for a PC, and the fact that its battery life is not very long makes that clear. It takes about 2 hours and 46 minutes, which is much shorter than the Alienware 17 R5's 3 hours and 58 minutes. Imagine trying to work from a bar or coffee shop with this monster, only to find that there are no power plugs. It's hard to believe that a laptop's battery life is less than 3 hours, especially if the maker says it has "long battery life."

Verdict

The Acer Predator Helios 500 is a gaming laptop that runs on AMD and has a lot going for it. It's very powerful on the front, and its 16-thread Ryzen 7 CPU beats everything else in its class when it comes to multi-threaded work. It's also surprisingly quiet, given how much computing power it uses during games. It has a great screen with a high frame rate, which is made even better by AMD's FreeSync technology. If only Acer could do all of this and still have a good battery life, we'd probably be talking about a 17-inch gaming laptop Editor's Choice.