Acer Predator Helios 16 (PH16-71) review – liquid metal meets a huge power draw


Temperatures and comfort, Battery Life

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average P-core frequency; Average E-core frequency; CPU temp.; Package Power

Intel Core i7-13700HX (55W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Acer Predator Helios 16 (PH16-71)2.16 GHz @ 3.66 GHz @ 85°C @ 157W2.38 GHz @ 3.47 GHz @ 94°C @ 156W1.30 GHz @ 3.62 GHz @ 75°C @ 115W
HP Omen 17 (2023, 17-ck2000)3.49 GHz @ 2.86 GHz @ 66°C @ 130W3.48 GHz @ 2.80 GHz @ 74°C @ 130W3.10 GHz @ 2.44 GHz @ 76°C @ 100W

We observed a very strange behavior from the Predator Helios 16 (PH16-71) and its Core i7-13700HX. Even though the CPU has a liquid metal thermal compound applied, its P-cores are running at very low frequencies. At the same time, the power consumption remains high, inducing a lot of heat. This might be something fixable by a firmware update, or an issue with an uneven application of the liquid metal.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
Acer Predator Helios 16 (PH16-71)2550 MHz @ 68°C @ 98W2550 MHz @ 68°C @ 98W
Lenovo Legion Pro 5 (16″, 2023)2625 MHz @ 70°C @ 100W2625 MHz @ 74°C @ 99W

Interestingly, while both the Predator Helios 16 and the Legio Pro 5 have a 140W version of the RTX 4060, we see neither of them achieves this TGP value. Instead, they both hover around 100W. In this case, the Legion Pro 5 is slightly ahead with 75MHz, while the Acer Predator Helios 16 (PH16-71) runs at 6°C cooler at the end of the test.

Gaming comfort

This notebook produces a lot of noise during gaming. On the other hand, it fluctuates between being loud and quiet, and you can always pick a more lenient performance preset if you need to keep it down. As for external temperatures – its keyboard only reached 32°C, which is astonishing.

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This device features a 90Wh battery pack. It lasts for 5 hours and 54 minutes of Web browsing, or 5 hours and 27 minutes of video playback.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.



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Tony
Tony
10 months ago

Thanks, Alex. Very helpful. Question on the HDMI port: do you know whether it’s truly FRL? I’ve seen a lot that are actually TMDS or otherwise less than true FRL specs. I can’t find anything in the Acer’s documentation.