Acer Predator Triton 500 (i7-8750H, RTX 2080 Max-Q) Laptop Review

While the Triton 700 from 2017, which also measured 15.6 inches, was only able to convince us to a limited extent with its wide display bezels and the unusual placement of the input devices, the Triton 500 offers a much better impression even at first glance. This begins with the extremely slim display bezels that reduce the footprint of the notebook from 39.3 x 26.6 cm (15.5 x 10.5 in) to 35.9 x 25.5 cm (14.1 x 10 in). Not only does this make the device look better, but it is also easier to carry.

In terms of the weight, instead of 2.39 kg (5.27 lb), the Triton 500 only weighs 2.14 kg (4.72 lb) which is also a relief on your arms. A small drawback of the slimming regimen is the mediocre stability. Particularly the lid turns out to be not very warp-resistant. However, this is a problem that various competitors also struggle with.

In terms of the workmanship, the 15-incher does not show any weaknesses. In our test unit, the transitions between most surfaces were very clean. Thanks to the use of metal, the Triton 500 also looks very high-quality. The elegant, and at the same time subtle, design also earns some positive marks. With the exception of the blue border around the logo on the lid and the blue-colored cooling elements, Acer forgoes all the color gimmicks. Only when you turn it on, does the Triton 500 show its real nature, with the arrow keys and the WASD area being emphasized by the blue illumination.

Acer could still improve a bit on the hinges. Although it is laudable that the display can be opened to a whole 180°, the display lid drops down fairly quickly in our shake test. However, the case makes a good impression overall.

Connections

The word "good" is also fitting for the connection equipment. Acer has equipped the Triton 500 with almost all the connections you could hope for in a gaming notebook in 2019. Despite its slim height of 1.8 cm (0.6 in), the 15-inch notebook offers an RJ45 port. Buyers should also be satisfied with three classic USB-3.0 ports (Type-A) and one modern Thunderbolt-3 port (Type-C). External displays can either be connected via the HDMI port or the mini-DisplayPort connection. In addition, there are two audio connections (headphones + microphone) and an opening for Kensington locks. On the other hand, it is unfortunate that Acer has foregone a card reader.

The positioning of the connections is also a bit unfortunate. Since many of the ports are positioned in the front half of the case, this can create some obstacles to moving a mouse around. 

Acer did not fall asleep in terms of the WLAN performance. With the Killer Wireless-AC 1550i, a brand-new Wi-Fi chip handles the wireless connections. In our WLAN test (at 1 m distance from the Linksys EA8500 reference router), the Triton 500 reached almost 700 Mb/s when sending as well as receiving – which is a very good result that is at the same level as the competitors.

In terms of the accessories, our test unit only included a power supply. At a size of about 14 x 7.5 x 2 cm (5.5 x 3 x 0.8 in), the power supply turned out to be surprisingly compact, while the offered power is also limited. 180 watt is borderline even for a Max-Q notebook. For comparison, the Aero 15 X9 with the weaker RTX 2070 Max-Q includes a 230-watt power supply.

The limited maintenance is one of the largest disadvantages of the Triton 500. If you remove the 10 Torx screws from the case bottom and lift the bottom plate out of its bracing, you only get access to the fans, the Wi-Fi module, and the battery. The rest of the components are either covered by a black foil, or they are even on the other side of the motherboard. 

The insides remind us strikingly of the MSI GS65, which could also hardly be maintained. The Razer Blade 15 and the Gigabyte Aero 15 show how this can be done much better, allowing access to the working memory and the storage solution. The same was also the case for the Acer Triton 700 earlier.

The warranty lasts for two years. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties article for country-specific information.

While the touchpad of the Triton 700 that resembled glass was hardly usable and quite annoying in practice, Acer has equipped the Triton 500 with a significantly more conventional model that - as is the case in most laptops - is placed below the keyboard instead of above. The smooth finish ensures great sliding characteristics. There is also hardly anything to complain about in terms of the precision. We particularly like the multi-touch support. Two-finger gestures such as zooming and scrolling work very smoothly. The size of the touchpad is about 10.6 x 6.6 cm (~4.2 x 2.6 in).

Like most of the gaming competitors, the Triton 500 is equipped with a Full HD IPS display. 144 Hz and G-Sync ensure an extremely smooth image - provided there are the corresponding FPS values. The panel used in our test unit is called AU Optronics B156HAN08.2 and is therefore slightly different than that of the Triton 700 (B156HAN04.2).

The hexa-core CPU and the high-end GPU promise ample power for current games. Fitting to that, Acer has equipped it with a fast SSD duo and more than sufficient RAM for the next few years. 

The standard clock speed is 2.2 GHz, which can be increased up to 4.1 GHz via Turbo Boost. However, the Core i7-8750H only reaches this value in single-core load. In multi-core scenarios, the clock speed varies between 1.7 and 3.9 GHz, which indicates temporary throttling. But if you look for the "Config TDP Level" item in the Windows power-saving options (hiding under the "Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Settings") and adjust the setting to 2.2 GHz, you can prevent the throttling (at least in most applications). The clock speed will then vary between 2.2 and 3.9 GHz.

According to our endurance test with Cinebench R15, the performance settles at the level of the MSI GS65. The Asus Zephyrus S fares slightly better, whereas the Razer Blade 15 comes in last in terms of the CPU. The following chart lists the results after a cold start without previous load.

The SSD RAID helps the Triton 500 to place first among the comparison devices in the system tests. The 15-inch notebook manages a first-rate 5883 points in PCMark 10. Subjectively, Windows also boots up very fast and is very responsive. The load times in (well-optimized) games are pleasantly short.

As we mentioned before, Acer has combined two 256 GB PCIe SSDs into a lightning-fast RAID assembly. The two NVMe drives from WDC (PC SN720 model) together achieve more than 2000 MB/s during sequential reading and writing. While the single Western Digital SSD of the Asus GX531 is significantly slower, the Samsung SSDs of the Razer Blade 15 and the MSI GS65 achieve similar overall scores in the AS SSD benchmark despite slower sequential values.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q is currently the second most-powerful graphics card from Nvidia's Turing portfolio for notebooks. Compared to the regular RTX 2080, mainly the clock speeds were reduced. Instead of 1380 - 1590 MHz (150 watts TDP), it is only 735 - 1095 MHz (80 watts TDP) in the Max-Q version. The amount of shader units remains identical at 2944. The video storage also includes the usual 8 GB GDDR6, but with a speed of only 6 GHz instead of 7 GHz.

As our performance test has brought to light, due to the strongly reduced clock speed, the performance follows more the GeForce RTX 2070 than the RTX 2080, which makes its labeling appear a bit unfortunate, particularly since not all shops list the Max-Q ending on their product pages (even the box of the notebook only says "RTX 2080").

During the 60-minute test with The Witcher 3 (Full HD, Ultra), the behavior of the Triton 500 remained inconspicuous. Thanks to GPU Boost, which works similarly to Intel's Turbo Boost, the GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q settled at 1215 MHz and 78 °C (172 °F) on average. The CPU ranged between 80 and 90 °C (176-194 °F).