The Acer Swift 3 SF314 Notebook Review: Swift Gets Swifter With Ryzen 4000
by Brett Howse & Andrei Frumusanu on May 5, 2020 8:00 AM ESTDisplay Analysis
Acer offers just a single display option on the 14-inch AMD based Swift 3, which is a 1920x1080 IPS display. Considering the price, this is the right option, although it is interesting that they are offering a 13.5-inch 3:2 Intel based Swift 3 in the SF313-52. The 3:2 works quite well for productivity, although less-so for gaming where 16:9 generally suffers from fewer issues.
There is no touch capability with this display, which is a bit of a shame, but also understandable with the other features offered. Acer did well to hit their target price range, and they made overall good decisions on where to invest. Touch is a nice to have, but not a necessity, although when you are used to having it, it is amazing how often you try to touch the screen.
To see how the display stacks up, the laptop was tested with Portrait Display’s CalMAN software suite. For brightness and contrast, the X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter was used, and for color accuracy readings the X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer was employed.
Brightness and Contrast
The Acer Swift 3 does not get off to a great start. In a budget notebook, displays tend to be one of the first things on the chopping block. Luckily, we’ve moved past the era where these types of notebooks would offer 1366x768 TN panels, but Acer’s 1920x1080 IPS choice doesn’t offer very good black levels, and their backlight is somewhat weak. It is an inauspicious start.
Grayscale
Grayscale measures the laptops ability to display white levels, from 0% (black) to 100% (white), and the Swift 3 performs quite poorly here. The blue levels are far too strong across most of the range. Gamma is also way off of the expected 2.2 level.
Gamut
Windows 10 is still an sRGB system first and foremost, so proper sRGB gamut support is required for proper color accuracy. The Acer Swift 3 unfortunately does not cover anywhere near the sRGB gamut, which means that the LED backlighting was likely another area where some money was saved. Although grayscale can be salvaged with some ICC profiles, without full sRGB backlighting this laptop would likely suffer further if an ICC was applied because it simply cannot cover the entire sRGB spectrum.
Saturation
The saturation test covers the primary and secondary colors, but unlike the gamut where they are just measured at 100% level, we test them on 4-bit steps from 0% to 100%. Since we’ve already determined the laptop can’t hit the full sRGB gamut, it is no surprise to see the saturation sweeps suffer.
Gretag Macbeth
The Gretag Macbeth tests colors off of the primary and secondary axis, including the important skin tones, but with a display that can’t reproduce the entire sRGB range, the Acer Swift 3 naturally performs quite poorly on this test.
Colorchecker
Finally, we have the colorchecker, where you can more easily visualize the color errors with this display. This is a relative test, since any errors in your own display will influence the result, but on the bottom of the swatches is the color requested, and the top shows the color produced by the display. It is not pretty.
Display Conclusion
Overall, despite the poor showing here, the display is in-line with expectations at this price point. Over the last couple of years, there has been a push for better displays, and laptop makers have made the jump to 1920x1080 IPS panels pretty much across the board; so even though this display is poor compared to better IPS-based laptops, it still does offer the good viewing angles an IPS panel enjoys, and 1920x1080 works very well on a 14-inch screen size.
The very poor backlighting really does hamper the capabilities of this notebook. If you wanted to use it for editing photos or video, the internal components like the CPU, memory, and GPU, really would help, but the included display with its lack of sRGB coverage would certainly hinder the work. For basic office tasks, or even gaming, most people who are looking at a laptop at this price point will likely not be too concerned about the display, but just be aware that this one is deficient in several areas.
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lightningz71 - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
It appears that the Acer Swift design philosophy just doesn't translate for anything that requires a high steady-state power draw and thermal load. The Swift had the same issues with the 2XXX and 3XXX series chips as well, so this is nothing new. This is something that Acer has deliberately chosen to make a design trade-off for: sacrifice some thermal dissipation ability to keep the product in the size class that it is intended for.It will be interesting to see the benchmarks on the 4500U in this platform. It was shown in benchmarks of previous versions of the swift that lower end APUs actually performed better in gaming than the top end parts because the system was better able to manage the thermal output and the APU was better able to keep consistent clocks. While the absolute performance was still lower than notebooks with better thermal management implementations, it was a better gaming performer than the top end SKU.
neblogai - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
Generally, you are not complaining about Acer, but about U-series chips from both Intel or AMD. The philosophy of laptops with ~15W chips is that these chips are used in ultrabooks that are responsive and fast in short boosts, and not made for steady power (even if there are some premium devices that offer both).fmcjw - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
The 2019 Swift 5 and LG Gram series were matched to the thermal promises of Intel 10nm chips that took 2 generations to arrive, and maybe 5nm AMD SoCs in 2021 since AMD decided to rush to market with last generation GPU architecture in early 2020. Perhaps with software or AI based optimization, there can be a more optimal mix of processes split between the CPU versus the GPU for best performance within thermal constraints. Not every task is as clear cut as gaming routines, where more of the work is performed more efficiently on the GPU. I'm not sure that will happen though, as such software optimization has the least return on investment outside cloud and data center applications. Not even Apple wants to do it for the 2020 Macbook Air, thermally crippling a fine Intel chip and resolving the issue by sticking a more powerful cooling solution in a Macbook Pro (and charge more).For 2020, Acer managed to get the Swift 3 down to 1.2kg from 1.45kg of the 2019 model through the use of aluminum AND magnesium (not just aluminum as the article states). The 2020 Swift 5 maintains a 1kg weight while including a rare-breed matte touch screen. The Swift 5 is the model you want to get for 100% sRGB at a $300 premium. I think the only reason these fine machines sell for $600 to $900 for a mid-range configuration is the thermally constrained performance of the more stubbornly ambitious SoCs.
Which if they can think outside the box can easily resolve by selling a fan-assisted cooling dock and unleash the full potential of the SoC we already paid for (and charge more).
Fulljack - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
while Vega here is based on GCN 5 and not RDNA, it doesn't mean it's an outdated architecture. AMD did enhance the Vega arch for Ryzen 4000, with 56% improvement over Vega arch found in Ryzen 3000. overall, with enhanced arch, reduced core count, and higher clock, AMD did deliver 2020 Vega 8 that performs 28% better than 2019 Vega 11.https://www.anandtech.com/show/15324/amd-ryzen-400...
Oxford Guy - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
All irrelevant when the laptop's cooling is so pathetic:"The laptop really struggled with its thermals, dropping the framerate into single digits often. The device attempted to run at around 18 Watts of power draw, slightly over the 15 Watt TDP, but in fact only averaged around 8 Watts during this run."
csp4me - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
Acer Swift 3 and 5 are in the market for lightweight, cool & quiet laptops within thermal constraints, thus ~ 18W tdp, and throttling under stress test.For the same budget of Acer Swift 5 ~ $900 you can find laptop models with the same quality display or better and also better thermals ~ 28W-35W at the expense of weight 1.3-1.4kg and noise/heat during heavy loads. Examples Lenovo Ideapad S540-13 both AMD or Intel, or Yoga Slim 7 both AMD or Intel.
psychobriggsy - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
When you buy low power laptops - Y or U series TDPs - you are really looking out for these things1) Sustained Single Core Clock
2) Sustained All-Core Clock
3) Race-To-Sleep Single Core Turbo Boost (and the time it can sustain this)
4) Race-To-Sleep All-Core Turbo Boost (and the time it can sustain this)
1 and 2 are what your gaming sessions will occur in. 3 and 4 might help in some particularly CPU-heavy parts, but only for small periods of time.
This is the problem Intel have with their 14++++ chips - 1 and 2 cannot be raised in the TDP they are restricted to (unlike desktop, where they can simply lie about the figures, in a laptop this will affect battery life and be easily detected), so they hype 3 and 4 to compensate.
AMD on 7nm does well in all four measures, but you should never think you'll get long-term turbo clock performance from any mobile chip. I don't know if Renoir has a 4C turbo that can last longer than the 8C turbo for lightly threaded loads.
fmcjw - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
Can a Y or U series SoC be considered the equivalent of an H series SoC internally, with a beefier cooling solution and reduced I/O capabilities externally? I imagine not just the I/O or cooler but also the capacitors and power circuitry need to be higher specified for the higher sustained load.It's just that few makers even try to create a balanced system around the U or Y series, letting Turbo Boost go wild to impress for the first minute or two, or restraint the system thermally to achieve longer battery life even when you can plug it in.
T1beriu - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
>the mobile chips here only feature half the L3 cache compared to its desktop counterpartsSmall correction. Ryzen 4000 actually has a quarter.
ads295 - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
Acer has consistently impressed me with their attention to detail. There are so many moronic OEMs that put in a single module of RAM but even my 2016 Acer E5-553-T4PT came with 2 modules of 2GB DDR4 RAM to enable the A10-9600P to run in dual channel mode.I suppose they don't get paid to debilitate AMD setups.