The Acer Swift 3 SF315-41 Review: Ryzen Meets Laptop
by Brett Howse on May 3, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Acer
- AMD
- Ryzen
- Ryzen Mobile
- Raven Ridge
Wireless
Acer has outfitted the Swift 3 with a wireless NIC we’ve never tested before, at least not with this branding. The Qualcomm QCA6174A is a 2x2:2 802.11ac network adapter with MU-MIMO support and Bluetooth 4.2 It’s also the basis of the Killer 1535, which we’ve seen in plenty of devices.
The performance in terms of bandwidth is fine for the Qualcomm NIC, but much like the Killer 1535, it suffered from several reliability issues during our testing. Several times the NIC would drop off completely, and the machine would have to be restarted to get it to see any access point again. This happened during two battery life tests, and a few other times as well, and is awfully similar to issues we saw with the Killer version of this adapter. Unfortunately we’re at a point in the PC space where there’s not a lot of choice for a quality NIC right now. We did reach out to Acer and they said they’ve not seen this issue, but this is an issue that’s plagued devices with the similar Killer 1535.
Speakers
Acer uses the Acer TureHarmony technology for their speakers in the Swift 3, and the laptop has stereo speakers, but compared to many other laptops, they have a sound that is richer than many other laptops we’ve tested, and there’s plenty of volume as well, with a maximum SPL of 84.5 dB(A) on our test track.
Thermals
With a 15-Watt TDP processor in a large 15-inch laptop, there’s going to be benefits for cooling, and that definitely plays out. The Swift 3 stays cool under all scenarios, and never gets loud.
Running the laptop under the load of Tomb Raider shows that even when gaming the system never gets excessively hot. The CPU doesn’t even get to 80°C after an extended session.
Even better, the sound level of the fan never gets excessive, with a measured SPL of just 42.3 dB(A) measured 1-inch over the trackpad. That’s very quiet when gaming.
Storage
The Swift 3 comes with just two drive options. The 2500U model features a 256 GB SSD, and the higher tier 2700U model comes with 512 GB of SSD. In the review unit, that’s the Micron 1100 SSD, which features 3D TLC with a SATA interface.
The SATA slows down the maximum performance compared to an NVMe drive, but regardless, the larger included drive in the review unit, without the normal massive price increase we see on most laptops, is very welcome.
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Flunk - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
Or it hits a point where it can't fit the frame-buffer into the cache memory and has to draw it in main memory instead. I think that's pretty likely, there is only so much you can do with 128MB of memory, this is the same problem the Xbox One suffers from. Performance falls off a cliff once you overflow the eDRAM cache.IntelUser2000 - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
Nope, which is why I talked about Notebookcheck's result.MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
OK "IntelUser2000". It's great to have your objective input.IntelUser2000 - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
Okay Mr. Objective.oynaz - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link
The Internet. The place where usernames like "FartsOnChickens" are more trustworthy than ones like "IntelUser"Krysto - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
Throttling maybe?DanNeely - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
those're certainly interesting configurations. The only way to get a 512GB SSD is AMD, the only way to get 16GB of ram is Intel. The latter's especially sad since the AMD configuration's more powerful GPU is capable of using more of the system memory for VRAM.I'll second the comment about the 3 column num-pad being an awful idea. If you're part of the majority of people who don't use one, it adds to the BOM and is guilty of putting the main keyboard and trackpad off center. If you do want a numpad, you probably touchtype it and the truncated layout means you're not able to on this one anyway.
The 15.6" laptop numpad needs to be limited to models that are either thick enough to do ports under the keyboard or that have so few ports that they can put them all in the hinge area and still run the keys out to the edge of the chassis. Or using oldschool inch thick chunky bezels I guess; but if you're making the chassis that large you might as put a slim bezel 17.3" screen in instead.
Targon - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
And due to the nature of these things, a bad keyboard is going to keep people from buying a given laptop. This is all about Acer, and really the few companies that are releasing Ryzen based laptops not really being focused on sales. What are the deal breakers when it comes to laptops? You have keyboard, you have screen, and you have battery life. If you don't provide good choices for these things, people will not buy the laptop, even if the CPU is amazing.Some of this may have to do with the NVIDIA GPP and companies really trying not to get cut off by NVIDIA, or there is another reason.
LarryTempleton - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
What is it then? Sheer incompetence? Why can’t a laptop PC maker ever get all the parts right at the same time? Is there an in-built insecurity to actually challenging Apple with a truly thought through design?Even when Apple really drops the ball (as they have with their current MacBook Pro) PC laptop makers still can’t even figure out a functional keyboard option... It’s embarrassing.
Jimster480 - Monday, May 28, 2018 - link
its called being paid by intel to make sure a specific set of components never ends up in a laptop. As the DIY market has shown.... everyone is choosing Ryzen over inferior Intel chips riddled with bugs, exploits, slowdowns and other nonsense. And Intel giving everyone the finger in terms of fixing these bugs..