Gaming Laptop Analysis

Is the Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 good as a gaming laptop? Excellent

Processor - An excellent CPU for running AAA game requirements, especially during the 2023 gaming year. It will be solid for some time to come as well. This laptop CPU has 6 cores. This is excellent for modern AAA gaming as the games start to require more cores for simultaneous activities.

Graphics Card - This laptop’s GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile is an excellent gaming graphics card for 2023 gaming. This GPU comes with 8GB, which is excellent and plenty powerful to meet the VRAM requirements of modern games.

System Memory - This laptop’s 16GB RAM can deal with everything modern games can throw at it and is a good step towards this being an excellent gaming laptop choice.

Screen Size - This laptop panel is an excellent 2023 size at 17.3". This will certainly help gamers see in game details and text. You can game on smaller physical screens, but once you get to this sort of screen size its a nicer experience, while still providing mobile gaming.

Refresh Rate - Look for higher refresh rate hertz for a gaming laptop. Ideally around 120Hz or more refresh rate on a gaming laptop screen. The laptop can only deliver FPS(frames per second) up to the listed refresh rate. So if you have hardware in your laptop that can turn out awesome frame rates on all the latest AAA titles, but a 60hz refresh rate, your laptop will be stuck at a maximum of 60FPS in all games. The top refresh rate for this laptop is 144Hz which is excellent for gaming. Get a panel with over 60Hz refresh rate would certainly be suitable for gaming.

GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile graphics card gaming performance in the Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop

The big one in any gaming PC is making sure the graphics card is up to the task of modern gaming. And this is of course the same for choosing the right gaming laptop as well. Therefore we will be considering this laptop’s hardware in relation to its overall price and how well it could run modern demanding or popular games like Grand Theft Auto VI, Star Citizen and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022). This is done in relation to its native 1080p resolution at Ultra video settings to give us something to compare against other laptops. Coming loaded with the GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile, this laptop is capable of beating 495 games at their minimum system specs and 410 games at their recommended system specs. This is when looking at today’s top 500 most demanding games.

Comparing Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 to today’s best price to performance laptop ranges

As you have probably discovered during your research into buying your next gaming laptop, getting an up-to-date value assessment that enables you to compare a laptop’s hardware performance against today’s games is tricky. And especially so, when we factor in all variations of hardware and prices that the Predator Helios 300 17 comes with. What we have done in this Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop review is give a price to performance rating to help standardise our comparisons.

P2P rating of 0 today the Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2. Our value to performance rating score will auto adjust as new hardware capability improves and prices drop. With a number of Predator Helios 300 17 laptops in the model lineup this particular variant places at the 2nd position for Price to Performance value. Laptops closer to the top place (1st) are value gaming laptop options that deliver the best performance for the laptop price.

Looking outside of this range lets us compare the Price to Performance rating of the very best laptops we have listed. Today's top laptop model for P2P is the ASUS TUF A15 R7 4800H GTX 1660 Ti 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 and the price we have for it is $999. Our Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop’s price to performance is % when comparing it with the top laptop, purely on a performance for money basis, and as we know lots of things go into our decision when choosing the right laptop for us. How about we also look at the 2nd ranked laptop for excellent Price/Performance ratings, which is the MSI Bravo 15 R7 4800H RX 5500M 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 and has a recorded cost of $1049. We see our Predator Helios 300 17 laptop scores % against it for price to performance.

How does the Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop compare to the best CPU performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

One of the key components in a laptop is of course its CPU. So let's see if our Predator Helios 300 17 laptop compares favourably when placed against the laptop that has one of the most powerful CPU’s around today. This comparison will at least help us know how this laptop performs against the top end CPU laptop and we can then see the amount of money we might have to pay to get that sort of laptop. So the laptop we have chosen for its CPU performance is the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R9 4900HS RTX 2060 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2, which comes with a Ryzen 9 4900HS 8-Core 3.0GHz processor. That processor performs 43% better compared to our review laptop’s Core i7-9750H 6-Core 2.6GHz.

Our laptop processor, the Core i7-9750H 6-Core 2.6GHz, can currently meet the recommended system requirements of 416 games when compared against the top 500 most demanding games right now. This number changes to 497 for the top 500 most demanding minimum system requirements.

When compared to the recommended processor requirements of the most popular games today, like Grand Theft Auto VI our laptop CPU is 3% better in performance. Compared to Star Citizen our laptop processor is 13% worse.

How does the Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop compare to the best graphics card performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

Now lets see how well our review laptop holds up compared against graphical performance with the top performing GPU laptop available today. Today’s MSI GT76 Titan i9-10900K RTX 2080 Super 64GB RAM 2.0TB M.2 4K comes with one of the more powerful laptop graphics solutions available for game crunching at the moment, making it a good one to compare against our review laptops GPU. We will use its GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB to compare against our GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile card. The top end laptop’s GPU currently delivers 35% better performance when benched against our own review laptop’s GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile.

A quick review of the number of games our laptop Graphics Card can run at recommended requirements is 410, taken from the top 500 most demanding games today. For min GPU specs this figure for number of games it can run is 495.

When compared to the recommended graphics requirements of the most popular games today, like Grand Theft Auto VI our laptop GPU is 4% worse in performance. Compared to Star Citizen our laptop graphics performance is 53% better.

The Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 has a 1080p screen resolution, should I get a 4K resolution gaming laptop instead?

The Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 has a physical 17.3" screen size and a fixed number of pixels in that screen of 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall, or 1080p resolution. So is it ok to go for a 1080p laptop like this one or should I be considering a 4K screen resolution laptop instead of this? A 4K laptops will likely run with 60Hz screen refresh rate, so should the laptop’s hardware be able to get good frame rates at 4K resolution and due to the refresh rate the laptop would max out at 60 frames per second as its screen would not be capable of delivering any higher. Modern games in Ultra graphics settings are also normally too demanding for a 4K resolution anyway. We can see 144Hz panel refresh rate versions of this laptop are available. The higher the better.

So lowering a game’s screen resolution down to 1080p or 1440p during your gaming of modern AAA games will help get more frames per second. But in doing so, by down scaling the game resolution will then make the game look blurry on a native 4K laptop panel. So the purpose of getting a 4K laptop monitor for gaming maybe lost at this point. The laptop has got 4K capable hardware? Well when you are not on the move, plug the laptop into a 144Hz or better desktop monitor that’s 28inches and comes with a 1440p or 4K resolution to enjoy modern gaming without FPS or size limits.

If you stream 4K content, films, services like Netflix then perhaps the quality of 4K resolution on a 17inch panel would be better than the 1080p alternative that the majority of laptops provide.

We think don't spend your extra cash on getting a 4K laptop to game on, as it's likely to feel disappointing to buy a super shiny new 4K laptop, then have to lower the resolution while playing your games, delivering a blurry in-game experience, and only getting up to a maximum 60FPS due to the usual 60Hz 4K panel restriction.

Today’s best 1440p desktop monitor for a laptop is - ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS

A well priced 1440p gaming monitor with 75Hz, is the ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS, which is currently priced at $311.99 and would work well with our Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop. To help you get a bit more insight into the pricing trends of this 1440p monitor, we have price tracked this monitor and saw its lowest price recorded at $229.99, which was taken on 9th Mar 2021.

Today’s best 4K desktop monitor for a laptop is - Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz

Today's best priced 4K gaming monitor comes with a 144Hz refresh rate. It is the Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz and is currently priced at $618. During these past 2 weeks, this 4K monitor’s price has gone up by $618. The cheapest we have tracked this 4k monitor was for the price of $549.99, on 13th Nov 2020.

[Note - check that monitor display connectors are compatible between a monitor and a laptop before purchase]

If you are looking to view 4K streaming content, while keeping yourself mobile with your laptop, then maybe a 4K resolution panel would be a better experience than the normal 1080p. In general, we think it's probably not worth the extra money for any visual gains you might not spot, without a direct comparison, especially if you are thinking to game on your laptop as well.

As you can probably gather from the information above, it's probably not worth the extra cash for a 4K laptop if gaming is your Laptop purpose. 1080p is likely plenty and has enough alternative gaming options for when you want better resolution. It feels like you might not get what you were after if you picked up a shiny new 4K laptop, then was needing to lower game resolution, while getting blurry in-game experience and achieving a max 60FPS when you could push the hardware into better frame rates.

Today's Best Priced Mouse and Headset for Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop

A mouse that is well priced at the moment and could accompany the Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop is the Kayinuo M738 Gaming Mouse 3200DPI wired 6 Buttons. Of the mice we price track, it is one of the best valued mice today and currently priced at $12.99. We have seen this mouse lower its price during these past couple of weeks by $32.26, which is part of the reason we are considering it as a good option for this laptop. Another point of reference for this mouse, is that our lowest recorded price for this mouse was on 15th Aug 2020 where it was costing $11.99.

A good value gaming headset available at the moment, one that should go well with the Acer Predator Helios 300 17 i7-9750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 is, Corsair HS45-7.1 Surround with a price of $36.99. For reference, the lowest price recorded by us so far for the headset is $34.99 on 28th Nov 2019.