Meet the Acer Predator Helios 300 - Good enough as a desktop replacement?

We've had the pleasure to game and work on the Acer Helio 300 gaming laptop. It features an Intel Core i7-12700H and an RTX 3070 Ti GPU.

How good was the Acer Predator Helios 300?

The Acer Predator Helios 300 retains its premium build and gaming aesthetic with a mix of aluminum and plastic chassis, slim bezels, lots of RGB lighting, a 165Hz IPS screen, lots of air vents for cooling, great speakers, and DTS:X Ultra support.

On paper, this seems to be a great hybrid between a portable gaming laptop and a powerful desktop replacement.

Meet Acer Predator Helios 300 - Powerful enough to be your only PC

The Acer Predator Helios 300 is relatively small for a gaming laptop this powerful

As expected, Acer made the Predator 300 feel solid while maintaining that gaming look. The device is made out of aluminum and plastic around the chassis. There are a total of 4 vents for the airflow when the 5th Gen AeroBlade 3D fans ramp up when under heavy load. It also has Liquid Metal thermal grease for better heat dissipation through the heat sinks.

It has a pre-key RGB keyboard with Numpad and a large trackpad

It features a full keyboard with per-key RGB lighting that can be edited via the Predator Sense app.

The RGB light strip

There's also an RGB light strip under the lip of the laptop. We wish it could be brighter or placed more prominently though. When the laptop is on your desk, you really can't notice it. Either way, it's a cool addition.

Dedicated Predator Sense launch button

In terms of keyboard performance, the keys are responsive with great travel and a pretty noticeable tactile bump. It is not noisy though which is a plus for a lot of people. It has a dedicated Predator Sense and Turbo button when you need to adjust your performance profiles.

The back air cooling vents

One of the side air cooling vents

Back side ports

Right side I/O

Left side I/O

Because of the trackpad's size, it makes an excellent mouse replacement. The trackpad's wide surface area makes navigating simple and precise movements possible. When pressed, it has a matte texture and provides tactile feedback.

It also has a lot of ports including 3x USB-A 3.1 Gen2, 1x USB-C Thunderbolt 4.0 port w/ DisplayPort and Power Delivery, an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a charging port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack slot.

Multimedia Experience

The 15.6-inch IPS screen has good brightness and colors

This Acer Helio 300 has a 15.6-inch IPS screen with 2560 x 1440 QHD resolution, a 165Hz refresh rate, 3ms Overdrive, 100 percent DCI-P3 color gamut, NVIDIA GSync, and 188 ppi pixel density.

Fairly thin bezels for a gaming laptop

The screen gets pretty bright at 100 percent. We highly recommend that you hover around 60 for a good balance of clarity and comfort.

The colors are pretty vibrant yet accurate for an IPS screen. Some laptop IPS screen has a bluish tint but the Predator Helios 300 did not. This is to be expected for a sub-PHP 100K gaming laptop.

165Hz, 3ms Overdrive, and NVIDIA G-Sync support

In terms of multimedia, the contrast is great even if it is not an OLED screen. Yes, blacks can be darker but honestly, they are not bothersome to look at.

165Hz confirmed

If you need to game though, the 165Hz refresh is perfect for eSports titles such as Valorant and League of Legends. Graphics-intensive games can also reach above 60fps given you utilize DLSS if available. The Witcher 3 is still a hard game to run at everything ultra but we hovered around 60fps even at 4K Ultra.

The speakers could be better though. We found it on the softer side of things. It does not have a wide soundstage and can get distorted at max volume. We highly recommend a gaming headset to utilize the DTS:X Ultra in full.

Performance

Strong performance with a Core i7-12700H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti

In terms of performance, the unit we got features a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H 16-core CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB mobile GPU, 16GB 4800MHz LPPDR5 RAM, and 1TB Gen4 SSD.

We played The Witcher 3 at 4K Ultra

In terms of gaming performance, we tested the Witcher 3. We chose this game because even modern CPUs and GPUs struggle to run this with everything on max. The Predator Helios 300 did not disappoint. We clicked Ultra in the settings and we were startled as it only managed 60fps.

The Witcher 3 settings

We thought that was weird. We checked the settings and it was playing on Ultra settings on 4K resolution. It managed 60fps on 4K Ultra. On Witcher 3, that's impressive for a laptop!

GeekBench 5 Single-Core, Multi-Core scores

Geekbench 5 OpenCL score

Well, this is given that we pressed the Turbo button to max out the performance and fan speed. The fans get pretty loud when you max them out. It is a significant amount of noise but can be easily drowned out by your headphones. Your roommates will not appreciate it though. In all fairness, other performance profiles are fairly quiet.

Cinebench R23 scores

Since this has an RTX 3070 Ti, you get NVIDIA GSync, Raytracing support, and NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 support. This will further enhance the gaming experience to smooth out the experience. Raytracing will add more visual fidelity with its lighting and shadow simulation.

3DMark Time Spy results

The Predator Sense app gives you more control over the laptop's performance with controls for the fan speeds, pulsar lighting for the keyboard/lightbar, and modes. It also has a built-in temp monitor for the CPU, GPU, and the whole system overall.

CrystalDiskMark 8 SSD test

Cooling for the Lenovo Yoga 9i 12th Gen is already good but leaves room for improvement, especially during heavy loads.

In terms of battery life, it has a 90WHr battery with a HUGE 280W charging brick. Battery life will vary according to how hard you are driving the performance of the Helios 300. We managed 4 hours on Turbo mode at 75 percent brightness, 6 hours on Extreme mode, and 7 and a half hours on Default. There is a Quiet mode that could further add battery life but we didn't get to test it.

Also included is an FHD webcam. When used in conjunction with the built-in microphone for video conferences, it is fairly reasonable. When compared to older 720p laptop cameras, this is a little better for Zoom calls. The microphone performance will also improve with the inclusion of NVIDIA Broadcast available for RTX GPUs. This app uses AI to eliminate noise and focus on your voice only.

Here are the Acer Predator Helios 300 benchmark results:

1. GeekBench 5 - 1,751 (Single-core), 12,439 (Multi-core), 130,198 (OpenCL)

2. 3DMark Time Spy - 11,723 (Overall), 11,494 (Graphics), 13,222 (CPU)

3. Cinebench R23 - 1,691 (Single-core), 18,043 (Multi-core)

4. CrystalDiskMark - 6,541.09 MB/s (Read), 4,994.01 MB/s (Write)

The 16-core/20-thread CPU smashed our benchmarks. As you can see, it is already good on single-core tasks but it shines on multi-core tasks in all our benchmarks. We didn't get to test Blender as we can't seem to run it during our tests.

Acer Predator Helios 300 Specs

Display: 15.6-inch LCD (IPS) touch screen w/ QHD 2560 x 1440 resolution at 188 ppi

CPU: 4.7GHz 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H 14-core processor

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB GDDR6

RAM: 16GB LPDDR5 RAM

ROM: 1TB M.2 Gen 4 SSD

Selfie Camera: FHD webcam

Battery: 90WHr w/ 280W charging

OS: Windows 11 Home

Connectivity: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, 3x USB-A 3.1 Gen2, 1x USB-C Thunderbolt 4.0 port w/ DisplayPort and Power Delivery, 3.5mm headphone jack

Others: Dedicated Turbo button, per-key RGB keyboard, Pulsar Lighting strip, built-in microphone, quad-speaker w/ DTS:X Ultra Colors: Abyssal Black, Shale Black

Dimensions: 359.4 x 276.4 x 22.9 mm

Weight: 2.6 kg

Price: PHP 97,999

Our thoughts

Looks amazing in the dark too!

The Acer Predator Helios 300 is a great gaming laptop and a good option if you are also looking for a desktop replacement.

The 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H processor with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is good enough to last you for 4 to 5 years minimum. It has ample cooling so thermal throttling will only be a problem if you let dust build-up.

Priced at PHP 97,999, we can honestly say that it is a good buy. It packs performance, looks good, has great features, and is future-proof. We highly recommend it!

What do you guys think?