Acer Predator (Vega 56+Ryzen 2) Helios 500

This is nice, but what I would like to know is the CPU and GPU frequencies compared to their desktop counterparts. How much did Acer lower the frequencies with a TDP limit ?

 

CPU base clock appears the same, but if boost clock equals "peak speed" then it is tuned down to about 3.4 :-/ From the forums:

 

So Amazon now just says out of stock. As far as I can tell they never we're in stock in the US. I have heard that there is limited stock on the Ryzen 500 in Hungary and parts of India? What is the deal here? Was Acer not able to produce these and is now just trying to pretend they never existed? Why have there been no updates or news for release in the Americas?

 

The guy at the Acer forums has undervolted and overclocked a bit: "The first one with voltage 0.975 and core speed with 3.300 Mhz. That worked well. The second try was with 0.95 and 3.500. At that setting the system crashed. Third try was at 0.9625 and 3.425 Mhz. That worked well again but a little worse than the first try. I can't find a way to chagne the TDP. "

He has uploaded some more charts:





When OCing the processor his firestrike score actually dropped:





This video has some more details on benchmarks & overclocking. The quality is not great and because of the language it's incomprehensible to me, but it seems like the guy got a Cinebench score of 1514 and 1709 after OC. Temperature increases to 87°C until he turns on max fans, then temps drop to 80°C when running Cinebench OCed:

 

So this has to be the highest Cinebench score in a laptop to date ( Asus GL702ZC gets 1408 not-OCed).

 

+ the one below if you talk about stock clocks. Overclocked is another matter.

 

There isn’t any 95W Ryzen X chips in notebooks.

 

For these with this system (AMD or the Intel build): Does this chassis have support for 2.5' SATA drives?

 

Don't have one but yes: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Predator-Helios-500-GTX-1070-i7-8750H-Laptop-Review.308084.0.html

 

From Dave's 2D: the cinebench r15 multicore score is 1575. Definitely a new max on laptops but considering its huge size these are relatively small gains compared to slimmer 17" laptops.

I was honestly hoping for higher scores to justify the size and weight.

If somebody has it and or finds data on higher scores, please share!

 

It's still lighter than the Alienware 17 and with better cooling too.

If the BIOS/UEFI firmware is updated by Acer it should be possible to upgrade to a Zen 2/Ryzen 3xxx processor. If not hopefully someone will modify the BIOS to do it anyway.

I'd try to at least if anything is found - but there is little data out there. Still would like a picture of the insides.

 

It's a productivity monster to be sure. I'd love to see more Ryzen/Vega laptops come out with a workstation aesthetic as opposed to the gamer one that this has.

 

W70xDS ryzen version?

 

Confirmation that the CPU is socketed (did anyone believe otherwise?)
https://twitter.com/LinusTech/status/1055138445226430464

Edit: FFS, why didn't my searches turn up this review?!? Google is obviously not worth using anymore - crap!
https://www.purepc.pl/notebooki/test_acer_helios_500_amd_ryzen_7_2700_i_radeon_rx_vega_56

Edit 2: Soldered GPU confirmed (did anyone believe the MXM rumor?). USB C ports have the Thunderbolt symbol visible, probably just Acer not making an outer case specifically for the AMD version? OTOH Intel probably wouldn't be amused by someone using their trademark like that.

 

" Acer Helios 500 from the configuration of Ryzen 7 2700 and Radeon RX Vega 56 is a dream come true for those who would like to have an efficient gaming notebook with AMD components. Performance comparable to the Core i9-8950HK / GTX 1070, at a lower price and very similar power consumption."
https://www.purepc.pl/notebooki/test_acer_helios_500_amd_ryzen_7_2700_i_radeon_rx_vega_56?page=0,32

Nice.

 

Nice indeed! That is the first proper review of this machine I've seen and it paints a very positive picture.

 

Hmm...now I am really tempted to sell my Acer Aspire A717 and buy a Helios 500 with Ryzen 2700 o_o

 

Price drop to 1900 USD on Amazon.

 

"Usually ships within 1 to 2 months."

Has anything changed the past weeks or this model is still only in stock in Hungary and India ?

 

Better than it was before, which was simply not available.

But yes, its still a slow return on purchase.

 

Found an answer for a top cinebench r15 multicore score.
Don't know what language he's speaking, but scanned for a cinebench test....

BINGO!!!
time: 7:37


1704!!!! I'd say that's getting interesting. If this starts nearing $1500, then I will upgrade from my msi gp73

 

At 1500 there wouldnt be any competition for it really...

Maybe on a sale it might drop down to 1700-1750 (Black Friday/ Holiday etc)

 

1 is available at Amazon USA for $1900! Get it while it last!

 

Holy Crap!! Amazon is holding it for ransom, you can only buy it if you buy / have Amazon Prime!!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B07GWX5X26/

 

You can just try out Prime for free.

I have checked around Europe, and Amazon Germany also has one! It is available without Prime.
Amazon Germany gives 2 years warranty and 16 gb RAM for 2160 EUR (If I add Hungarian tax and shipping)

Acer Hungary sells this laptop with 3 years warranty and 32 GB RAM for 2480 EUR.

+1 year warranty and +16 Gb RAM for 320 EUR ($365) does not sound to the best deal :/

Long story short: Amazon Germany has so far the best price for international customers regarding shops where this model is in stock.

 

That's all great info, thank you for taking the time to research and dig in and share it here. Links would be nice.

I realize you can get a trial for Prime, but more than likely after signing up you'll either forget to cancel or get caught up in Prime Video or some other Amazon service.

If you have Prime it's no big deal, and for a laptop it's really not that much more money for a year, but if you are trying to buy a small item like vitamins or clothes or some other important small item that is only available through the Prime Store, you're screwed.

That's pretty darned shady "dirty pool" if you ask me, shame on Amazon to stoop so low. Amazon is the only place to get things for many if they can't get it locally.

Everyone should be able to buy every item on Amazon without Amazon Prime membership fees, and I can't believe it's not illegal to do what they are doing, preventing people from buying items - ones that are otherwise not available - without a Prime Membership.

 

They also appear to be in stock at Newegg:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=2WC-000K-00040

 

So I just got this laptop, I've always had this issue with every AMD GPU I've gotten in the last few years. I can never run them at stock clocks, they're always down clocked and I get crappy performance. Memory stays at 500hz and Core clock ranges from 300-900 playing wow in 1080p on high settings i'm getting 20-30 FPS in places, not raids or large cites either.

With Green team they have a very simple,very easy way to make the GPU run at full speed...how the hell do I get this this Vega 56 to run and stock clocks, I would hate to return this bad boy...

 

Nvidia doesn't even really have a stock clock anymore lol

Start with using acer gpu drivers.

White list the game.

 

Forget about the clocks, I can't run this Vega at its intended performance. Its halving the ram speed and core clocks and I can't get the stupid thing to run at full speed. All you have to do with NV is go to control pannel and tab click on run at full preforamce mode and BAM! GPU runs at full speed ready to boost clocks as soon as yous start a game.

I have downloaded their drivers, I wouldn't be here asking this question if I haden't of done the simple things first but thanks for the advice.

The game is WoW as I said in my first post.

 

Well the simple things would be to use HWINFO64 to determine if any red flags come up, you havent even stated if the laptop is plugged in either, what drivers your using or what sBIOS firmware version is being used. You also havent stated core saturation levels either, regardless of clocks. I cant even say if your GPU is being utilized at all because no information.

You're just screaming on the forum and cant really help you if thats all you can provide.

 

Not screaming,

Look all I need to know is if there's a way to run the GPU full performance mode.... I have GPUZ and have been monitoring the GPU to see if there's any red flags, those red flags are clock,memory and usage along with temp and power draw, the card isn't clocking up and boosting like it should for some reason, its staying anywhere from 0-875mhz core and 167-500mhz memory depending on drivers and freesysnc. As far as drivers, and firmware being used I've been to Acers website and went through that before I even posted, I have the latest Bios and the up to date drivers from AMD, those drivers disable Freesysnc but they do get me up to 900-1100mhz on the core and 500-800hz on memory but they fluctuate so bad it causes stuttering and hitching. Only way to get freesync on this is to use Acers drivers but they don't clock up at all in WoW.

Specs on this card are: 1300mhz on core and 800mhz Memory

Looking to see if this is normal, or if there's a fix for AMD cards? When I run my gtx's/rtx's they can be put in performance mode, then they boost to stock clocks, then when you play a game they boost up even more. This card seems to never boost and stays in this low power mode. Max power draw i'm getting when its gaming is 94W and the max Load on the GPU is 90%, Voltage max is 0.8688V. Now that's with them pushing the card as hard as I can, sliders all to 10 and raising the res to 4k, If I lower it to 1080p or the settings the clocks and the memory will down-clock in the 500's on the core and 167 on the memory and get lower FPS in the 30's when I should be getting high 60's at the least with this setup while not in raids or in large towns.

Not trying to come across as a crass or mean, I'm just not here to waste my time or anyone elses. I've done all the normal driver/bios/reformat/tech support/Acer Forums before I even posted because that's proper forum edict. =)

 

The drivers from AMD are for 200W+ Vega 56 cards. They wont work with a static 120W TDP mobile variant.

You are on a pilot system, growing pains is par for the course. If Acer cant resolve it then get your money back or exchange the system.

 

"The drivers from AMD are for 200W+ Vega 56 cards"

Yeah have to wait for Acer/AMD to get the drivers worked out, I'll roll back to stock and keep looking for a fix. I was told by an Acer rep to try these drivers as well.

"They wont work with a static 120W TDP mobile variant."

Worked better then the stock ones.

"You are on a pilot system, growing pains is par for the course. If Acer cant resolve it then get your money back or exchange the system."

Well of course, I know that's part of the reason I didn't just pack it back up and instead came looking for help/insight. No need to be condescending either....you replied to me, I didn't reply to you.

I guess you don't know of any program/tool or fix that can help me then, with keeping the GPU at full performance?

Good, have a nice day and take care!

 

Its a new computer, who would have tools for a system that for a while now couldnt be sourced to begin with?

Your estimation of "worked better than stock" still didnt work at all. As you stated the clocks kept spiraling back and forth, this is due to power throttling due to the vBIOS limit of 120w TDP. Which would've likely sent a flag on HWINFO64 unless that application hasnt been updated.

 

Are you sure its a driver issue?
Seems PurePC used Adrenalin 18.10.1 for their test for this laptop.

 

What are the stock clocks on the mobile Vega 56? Haven't seen any data at all.
Have you checked the temperatures? Could perhaps be a temperature throttle.

 

Please don't reply to me anymore.

"ts a new computer, who would have tools for a system that for a while now couldnt be sourced to begin with? "

Its an AMD gpu that we're talking about here, this isn't a new GPU nor is AMD a new chip maker....I used to use ATI Tool back in the day on my Radeon 9700 pro....

Are you trolling for being purposefully ignorant?


"Your estimation of "worked better than stock" still didnt work at all."

Worked excpet for FreeSync and as the poster below you said others used it as well and it worked.

"power throttling due to the vBIOS limit of 120w TDP. "

Its not power throttling at 1080p on medium settings...just go away please you're not helping at all and I don't feel like arguing with some person online. Even when i was stressing it in WoW it never got close to the 120w TDP on the chip .....

 

I've tired both, Acers just let me enable FreeSync but the newer ones disable it...but give better performance. For some reason in WoW the game/drivers/settings won't let the card boost even on low load and its just causing the game to chug on 1080p when it should be flying in this setup.

Nah its not Temp related at all, this thing runs really cool and I have the fans pushed up to make it even cooler. I've never seen the GPU get above 60c and the CPU get above 70c while playing WoW.

Don't think its ready for prime time, to bad cause the specs are great for the price and its the only one of its kind besides the Vega 56 in the Imac Pro.

 

You again misunderstand.

When I say it's a new computer, it's a pilot system. And assuming you read the thread thus far you would see how it basically wasn't available to anyone that was interested world wide until maybe 2-3 days ago. You are one of the first to have it on this forum. Unless you developed software for it, it would not exist.

You also misunderstand how power throttling works. Regular AMD drivers will install because all the checks are in place, but it will not work correctly because the stock AMD card is still at a higher power consumption than a full tilt Vega 56 from acer. Acer being the peopreitary solution here, and likely your issue.

Again you are basically the first to have one here on the forum, you caught me on a bad day I'll admit but still not a single screen shot of anything in the system we can't make any diagnosis without it on a system that has no history.

 

ScreenShot stock drivers, sliders at 7 and 1080p with no AA ,Vsync is disabled same with trip buff and reduced input lag, DX12 no tess and 100% Res.

Driver

 

Fair enough, we can start over. =)

"When I say it's a new computer, it's a pilot system."

Then you need to say that, I can only interpret what I read.

"world wide until maybe 2-3 days ago."

Oh wow been on Newegg for a week or so...

"Regular AMD drivers will install because all the checks are in place"

No, I have Acers dirvers loaded and the new ones from AMD aren't installed, I can screenshot you if you want.

"Again you are basically the first to have one here on the forum, you caught me on a bad day I'll admit but still not a single screen shot of anything in the system we can't make any diagnosis without it on a system that has no history"

I can give you any screenshot you want, I really just wanted to know if AMD had a setting for clocks like NV and if not if there was a program to run them at full clocks.

 

What options are available to you in your sbios?

Anything like cool n quiet or other power saving feature enabled?

Also are you using throttlestop? I can't remember if that program works with ryzen or not.

 

Thanks for reminding me about the Bios, I checked and nothing really there pretty bare only thing I see that might be the issue is AMD-IOMMU and AMD-SVM? Both are enabled never seen them before, been a while since I had an AMD system, since the amd athlon 64 x2 4200+ lol

I haven't seen any power saving features besides Windows and i'm at full performance on my own custom plan, is there one in the AMD suite that's hidden or i'm blind and can't see?

Never heard of throttlestop, I'll be sure it check it out though!

Thanks!

 

ThrottleStop doesn't currently support AMD, and I think @unclewebb has said he isn't interested in adding support or doing another tool for AMD, he's been doing Intel for a long time and I'm sure that keeps him very busy.

So AMD's tools are it, and you can post on their community forums for support as well as on the Acer forums, but be patient as it's a new laptop with a new AMD platform support so I am sure Acer wants to provide what is needed, but it takes time.

It can take weeks / months to get everything needed sometimes, I had an Acer laptop model that was the first Haswell Intel CPU Acer laptop, and it took weeks / months to get settings in the BIOS to enable VM CPU options, and the defaults wouldn't work with VMware / Virtualbox for optimum performance.

It's the way of the cutting edge (bleeding edge) hardware roll out.

 

"It's the way of the cutting edge (bleeding edge) hardware roll out. "

Oh for sure, it might even just be WoW and be on their end. I'm gonna load up some other games and try them out. Its just been so long since i've used AMD products on the Windows side my wife has the Imac with the 580 and that thing balls out at 5k I am way impressed by that chip.

I just wasn't sure if there was some kind or fix/trick/software that would allow AMD GPU to run and full clocks/full performance mode.

So I think I'm just not used to the way AMD gpus/cpus work, just have to adjust, I put the CPU in gamer mode and up it up to 4ghz and it seems to be running better, I can get stable 1200 core and 800 on WoW now without freesync on and shadows/Depth of Field/SSAO disabled and some other settings on low with Res pushed up to 200%.

 

Everytime I see complaints about WoW performance I always cringe, as it's so performance twitchy anyway - update to update - video driver to video driver - Windows 10 update to Windows 10 update, I usually recommend going to the source and googling directly to the product support site:

site:battle.net wow performance problems
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:battle.net+wow+performance+problems

Usually the solution(s) are solved by fixes / tweaks posted there vs a problem with the laptop / computer that we can solve here.

Yup, checking it out in other apps / games to help characterize the problem - or show it's not happening in other apps / games is a good thing too.

Usually the poster just wants to get back to WoW without problems, and battle.net is the place that can get you there the quickest... usually.

 

Those are both virtual machine related items, is the sbios restrictive?

Normally you would have more to look at but I haven't used an acer machine before so I wouldn't know what's their m.o. With bios