IETS: GT600 Laptop cooler review on the Predator Triton 14 - One of the best Laptop Coolers right now?

Here we have the V2 version of the GT600. What defers from the V1 to V2 is adding RGB to it. What is an upgrade over the GT500 is near double the wind pressure thanks to its larger fan which allows more pressure for lower revs which in turn lowers noise. The B0s versions of both sizes of cooler does not have a USB Hub built in which may hurt a bit if you're a content creator and you need the extra expansion off the laptop. My particular model has and you can use it as a passthrough to USB-C.

IETS GT600 blower cooler

How the GT600 is built it is pretty much a large blower cooler in the center blasting cooler air from its back which is more as an intake. Foam is provided and fitted around the top of the pad to provide a near complete seal to the laptop to prevent leaking of hot or cold air which makes it more efficient as one entire direction of channeled air into the internals. The cooler does include an additional foam insert for smaller laptops like mine and those that have smaller screen sizes.

Do note however, this cooler works best with laptops with vents at the bottom. The more vents, the more air it can take in.

Also interesting to note, that the USB-C passthrough can operate via your device's USB without additional supplemental power. You only need DC Power for the fan and RGB itself.

TEST:

Just to refresh the specs of the test machine:
We have the Acer Predator Triton 14 with:
Core i7 13700H
16GB RAM
RTX 4070.

This is always a good laptop to test because both CPU and GPU both pull some heavy wattages in sustained loads depending which of the two is used more. This 13700H uses up to 115W in short burst and 60W Sustained, and the RTX 4070 pulls 105W to around 107-108W of power. It's not the highest we've seen from a RTX 4070 but it is the optimal power where we see the best performance pulled for the GPU.

And for me, this laptop already pulls impressive performance for a 14 Inch even without additional laptop cooling. And hey, for a laptop this powerful, it deserves a run with probably the most powerful cooler.

Software-wise: I went ahead and get Unigine Heaven and finally Furmark since you can leave it running at load for prolonged periods without stopping and without using the benchmark tool.

FURMARK: 15 minute stress test - Volare vs IETS turned off.

How I did this is I left Furmark running first without cooling to get to its worst case temps on the GPU. 

83 degrees with the GT600 cooler off.

Volare cooler with it off does gain a better result of just a smidge under 80.
Interesting.

Without any cooling, 15 minutes stress test yielded pretty shocking and interesting results between the two. The shocking thing is that temperatures were actually quite good for a 14 Inch laptop with such hardware, with it lifted off the surface using either cooler. The Volare Cooler does net better zero fan temperature results, due to the more open nature of the Volare compared to a more constricted channel of the GT600. Interesting there, however it pretty much confirms that the GPU doesn't require much more cooling for it to stay cool at turbo. 

FURMARK: Cooler Tests

I didn't really bother posting the photo of Volare results because the temperatures didn't really change much. If the laptop had more vents concentrated on the cooling pipes of the laptop it would have helped. However, the IETS GT600 does get a nice temperature drop from 83 degrees to about 76-77 degrees. Sure a few degrees may not sound much, but every degree drop does help to extend the life of your components.

Whizzy whizzy. 2800 rpm is loud!

TUNING WITH IETS GT600 AND TURBO ON ACER PREDATOR SENSE

To get the score around 26400+ consistently like my last results I've been getting, I tuned the fans of the laptop down to 2300 rpm for both the CPU and the GPU at manual while I turned down the rpm to 2000 of the laptop cooling pad (Photo). Subsequently did try to drop the GT600 even further to 1000 rpm, even that didn't change it much to be off the margin of error.

CONCLUSION: High price but best cooling for a gaming laptop.

Let's just face it, this laptop cooler is not cheap by any means. However if you're doing a nice super clean build on your desk the GT600 v2 will be a workhorse because this is another way of adding more ports and therefore quite a bit of further expansion which improves more if you're using USB-C to USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 instead of USB-C to USB-A.

Admittingly, this is way too overkill as a bedside configuration. However, it'll still serve as such for now!

Acer Predator Triton 14 Review follow-up: Cooling does play a part in performance, especially the GPU. (Quick Volare Cooler Review)

Now last week, when I reviewed the laptop I was actually very happy with its stock performance right out of the box. Got me thinking, if cooling does play a part in performance, how much would it?

Just a refresher, the Acer Predator Triton 14 PT14-51 has it specced to the following:
- Intel Core i7 13700H, 14 Core, 20 Thread CPU (6 Hyperthreaded Performance Cores, 8 efficiency cores)

- RTX 4070 8GB, set at 105W TGP

- 16 GB LPDDR5 at 6,000 MT/s

- 1TB PCIe nVMe Samsung 980 Pro OEM SSD

To test I have a new Laptop Cooler from Volare, with 2 big fans and 2 smaller fans. The cooler doesn't get drowned in noise by the Turbo fans and even at max speed of 6 it is plenty quiet. For benchmarks reference we will take the reference scores from both Time Spy and Fire Strike Runs that we posted up last week.

Time to add some cooling. Volare AC38 has 2 large and 2 mini fans

During the benchmarks, with more cooling to give, means more clock speeds. It used to boost to around 2350MHz, but this time round I've seen clocks go as high as 2450 Mhz on Time Spy and even 2535 MHz at Fire Strike which results in these comparisons. Temperatures we are hitting nowhere near the TGP of the RTX 4070, even without it. With it sees the RTX 4070 stabilizing at 76 degrees, which is pretty impressive even from the base scores.

Time Spy Without Cooler from Last week:

Time Spy With Cooler

Cooled down resulted in a bit of a performance boost across the board.

That places the RTX 4070 in the typical score that's a bit higher than average for both the CPU and GPU across the board.

Fire Strike Without cooler:

Without cooler: 25244, with 28727 on GPU and 30783 on CPU

Fire Strike with cooler:

The scores got a noticeable bump: 28727 to 30545 on the GPU. CPU scores did drop slightly
but still resulted in a higher score overall from 25244 to 26421.

That places the overall score: slightly higher than average again, but the GPU score is very high and inching ever closer to an overclocked RTX 3070.

I did run a second run on Fire Strike to see it's not really an abnormally. Weirdly, the GPU score remained EXACTLY the same. But at least the CPU scores are now in line with the previous results that were not cooled.:

Fire Strike Cooled, Run 2:

In all, it was a 5.7% improvement over the previous total score and a 6.32% boost on the GPU alone.

It goes to show, cooling does play a part in affecting the laptop's performance. With more cooling will allow the GPU to further boost itself. But I think we've found couple of things:

1. Actually temperatures have never been an issue for the RTX 4070 even without a cooler.
2. But still has some untapped performance by sustaining at a higher clock.
3. The one that needs the cooling more is the CPU, as much as it has been amazing for us.

Because CPU intensive tasks will still cause the hotspot to immediately spike up to 100 C regardless. It did help scores in Cinebench just slightly, by about 300 points higher.

To be fair, bottomline is that the Core i7 13700H is still a 14-Core CPU. So it is bound to get hot in a jiffy.

Now the only thing, I hope that I can get sent is one of those IETS GT500/600 Coolers. As sufficient the Volare is, this laptop deserves the best laptop cooling pad possible. If anyone can give me a IETS GT500/600 cooler.

Sure, surfaces get hot on this regardless. But that says it all as to how well heat is actually managed on the Acer Predator Triton 14 despite its beast specifications. Still worrying for me is the CPU though, but for now is enough.

Acer Predator 14 Triton PT14-51-783U Review: Cheapest 14 Inch Sleeper powerhouse with a RTX 4070 (Core i7 13700H and RTX 4070)

The Acer Predator Triton 14 PT14-51-783U

Acer has be able to churn out 14 Inch Laptops for all kinds of purposes. From student Creator gaming laptops like the Swift X 14 to even the Predator series. The power has always been quite good for their form factor and I always view 14 Inch as the perfect balance of size, portability of a subnotebook without much trade offs in their performances. Here are some good examples of their 14 Inch systems including mine to compare to:

Acer Swift X 14 2023: Ryzen 7 5825U, RTX 3050 Ti (40W) - Mine and it still works.
Acer Swift X 14 2023: Intel i7 13700H and RTX 4050 (50W)
Acer Swift X 14 2024 Intel AI Version: Intel Ultra 7 155H, RTX 4070 (60W) or 4050 (60W)
Acer Predator 14 Triton PT14-51-78B4 2024: Intel i7 13700H and RTX 4050 (95W) - Reviewed by Notebookcheck
Acer Predator 14 Triton 2024: Intel i7 13700H and 4070 (105W) - Mine
Acer Predator Triton 300SE 2023: Intel i9 12900H and 3060 (95W) - 14 Triton's Predecessor

Just this small list alone is why Acer still competes well in the school laptop and creator laptop market. And usually they don't cost as much as the other competing devices. I got mine for 2043 SGD (Free shipping included) / USD 1,500, after a over 350SGD discount with vouchers off its original 2399 SGD / 1765 USD price tag. Amazon was offering at 1420 USD / 1933SGD but it would still cost almost 2150SGD after factoring in shipping. Luckily for Lazada I could pay by instalments for 12 months directly to Acer.

Which leads to my specs for this laptop:
Specifically this model number: PT14-51-783U

Core i7 13700H
16GB LPDDR5 6000MT/s RAM
1TB nVMe Gen 4 SSD
RTX 4070 (105W)

COMPETING DEVICES

Other computer manufacturers also brought their portable gaming 13-14 subnotebooks to the market too:
- AftershockPC's Lunar 14: 1750SGD with 13700H and 3050 6GB (50W), 1TB, 16GB, 2880 x 1800 screen
- MSI Cyborg 14: 2199SGD with  i7 13620H, RTX 4060, 1920x1200p 144Hz, 1TB
- MSI Stealth 14 AI: 3099-3199 SGD with Ultra 7 155H, 16GB, RTX 4060, 2880x1800 
- Razer
- ASUS Zephyrus G14 Series: 3025 to 3399 with Ryzen 7000/8000 HS processors and a RTX 4050 / 4060.
- ASUS Flow Z13 - 2499SGD with i9 13900H, RTX 4050, 16GB DDR5, 1 TB - Usual price 3328
- Razer Blade 14 2023 - 3311 with Ryzen 7 7940HS, RTX 4070

On paper, specifications-wise, the Acer Triton does offer the no-compromise with less money option, being the cheapest 14 Inch Laptop with a RTX 4070 and costing less than other 14 inchers with less powerful GPUs. Should be noted that the Lunar 14 from Aftershock PC is after all more as a creator / student laptop, rather than a gaming device. Fitting in a RTX 4070 in the above-mentioned laptops above really pushes the price out of most people looking for a 14-Inch and Acer is the only one able to put it in a Sub 2200-2400 Laptop.

Current Bedside Rig with a Razer Deathadder white Mouse and a White Controller

ACCESSORIES AND FREEBIES

The Laptop Case that housed the laptop.

Came with a free mouse.
Acer Predator Cestus 310 retailing at SGD 69

The inclusion of a Laptop Backpack and a Predator Cestus 310 Black mouse was what came with the laptop. If this is your first portable gaming rig, you can just plug the mouse in, plug the brick to the mains, and away you go. Frankly I would have preferred a white / grey version of the mouse to go with the grey exterior. However it does complement my usual mouse pad, the steelseries Qck Mini. It should be noted that the included (and rather large) power brick supplies 230W of power. Usually most laptop bricks would use the "Mickey-Mouse" connector at the end of the box, not this one though, it uses a standard C15 Power cable which may be great if you have a much longer cable that plugs into your Desktop's Power Supply.

Predator Cestus on a
steelseries Qck MINI

Dimensions and design: Looks like an office Laptop

312.42mm x 226.06mm x 19.81mm
1.7 Kg

On first glance, the Predator looks like a good ol' plain Jane Office Laptop. And you're not wrong to assume that it looks like a HP Elitebook or Dell latitude or something. It can function like one but it's a whole lot more. On the outside, doesn't have the same flair and look as the more flashy Predator Helios brethren. Really it is styled as a sleeper laptop, partly because of its thick and plain grey exterior. As such it can be easily pass as an office laptop like from HP, Dell or something even with a small Acer Predator Logo on it. You can stick that on an office desk and no one would be any the wiser. Moreover the free inclusions of the Backpack and Predator Black Cestus 310 Mouse (at least for my order) bundled to the laptop box just screams the whole package to be carried to an office.

However, the internals are anything but an office laptop. It uses an all-metal case for two purposes. It helps with structural rigidity but also to dispel heat because it really needs that conduction for a powerhouse like this. 

When closed, it can easily pass as an office laptop with a Predator Mouse
The Predator logo doesn't really stick out either.

This laptop's dimensions and size puts in on similar ballpark as most 14 inchers in the market. Yes it is considerably thicker than other gaming laptops but not by much and 1.7 Kilos is still not at all heavy. The only thing that IS heavy is the 750g power brick this laptop is supplied with! Holy Fuck man! I guess I can understand that is because the power brick supplies up to 230 Watts of power.

The bottom has some ventilation slots, along with raised feet to help with a bit of air flow on the laptop. It's not of ventilation at the bottom, as most of the intake and exhaust is based around the sides and rear.

All around, using the laptop normally doesn't display any flex or wobble. The sheets of aluminum are relatively thick which makes it pretty sturdy, especially from the bottom.

Enough ventilation has chunky and sturdy feet to raise the laptop and to some extent
give quite abit more additional structural integrity to the bottom shell.

Gosh that power brick is freaking heavy, are you kidding me?!
It's a Delta unit delivering 230W of power.

It uses a standard C13 Power Connector, a common connector for a Desktop Power Supply.
A cable for it comes included but you can use any C13 Power Cord.

All metal Finish. 

The free bag that comes with it is Predator branded. Only thing is that is too big and overkill for my use! A smaller big like this Adidas one I got in Austria in April will be enough with room to spare.

The laptop bag on the left also came with the lappie. Too big for me to use!
So I'd use my Adidas bag I just got from Austria near Vienna.

Ports:

Port Selection on the Predator 14 is very similar to my Swift X 14 Go with only differences in a couple of port placements. On the right side is the audio combo jack, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A port, and the HDMI port which swapped sides with the Kensington Lock slot. The left is the latter, the Power jack, another Type A USB 3.2, and a USB-C which is actually my first Thunderbolt 4 port that I have. The Predator 14 does have one key addition that makes it more suited for creators which is a micro SD card slot at the front. The USB Gen 2 Type A ports have a bandwidth of 10Gbps, while the Thunderbolt 4 USB-C does support up to 40. The USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port is full featured, which allows support for Power Delivery and an eGPU but doesn't charge the laptop so don't bother using the USB-C to charge. Even if it could, it can't supply enough power.

Except the front, each side plus the bottom has ventilation one way or the other to exhaust its heat. The power jack uses a barrel style connector which seems to be the universal thick barrel power connector from Clevo instead of the thinner connector from my Swift X 14. So technically one of my 180W power bricks could fit here though it wouldn't supply enough juice to charge it.

Left Side: Kensington Lock slot, universal Barrel style Power Jack, USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, Thunderbolt 4

Front: Micro SD Card, a godsend due to the Laptop's lack of expandability

Right Side: Headphone / Combo jack, USB-A, HDMI

Rear is entirely exhaust.

Because storage options on the Triton are limited, the MicroSD card is a godsend for anyone that does content creation. Therefore you can stick a 512GB or 1TB card in which goes a long way. However, should be noted that Notebookcheck's PT14's MicroSD card slot is a bit on the slow side so I have to assume mine should be the case as well. Still useful for slamming storage in for documents and videos while keeping the SSD primarily for games.

Intel Core i7 13700H: Raptor Lake's a heavy hitter.
Intel Core i7  13700H 12 Core 20 Thread Processor
24MB Cache
6 Hyperthreaded Performance Cores with 2.4GHz base, 5GHz Turbo Boost Clocks
8 Efficiency Cores with 1.8GHz base, 3.7 Turbo Boost Clocks
Intel UHD Graphics: Iris Xe with 96 Execution Units with boost clock at 1.5Ghz
45W TDP, 60W PL1 (Sustained), 115W PL2 (Burst)

The Intel Core i7 as of late have changed quite abit of their core configurations. Gone were their usual pure Hyperthreaded Cores in favor of Using 2 different types of Cores. The Performance Cores with Hyperthreading for more intensive tasks and Efficiency cores for low power operations and computing. This particular example is the Raptor Lake 13700H with 6 P Cores and 8 E Cores for a total Core count of 14 and 20 threads. Both the 13th and 14th Gen CPUs are the same architecture based on the Raptor Lake design. It is just a more refined architecture over the older Alder Lake CPUs. Regardless of the case, the 13700H is more than capable of handling almost any kind of tasks you can throw at it.

If the RTX 4070 is not super needed, it uses a UHD Graphics iGPU that is identical to the Iris Xe with 96 Execution Units. On GPU-Z, it'll be labelled as UHD Graphics rather than Iris Xe but the number of Execution Units is the same.

Power Limits do vary on laptops with this CPU, as some will have a lower power limit on boost and / or stock clocks, thus affecting performance. Acer sets the Triton 14 PT-14's 13700H with a significantly higher power limit of 60W at stock, and 115W when on turboboost. So you will be hearing a lot of comparisons being in line with Notebookcheck's 13700H. Sounds quite high for a laptop CPU, but that would also play a part to some of the scores on Cinebench and 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy.

Input devices: Keyboard is surprisingly good. Small but zippy and responsive touchpad.

Full size keyboard with a tactile feel to it.

The chiclet style keyboard makes typing pretty much a breeze which makes processing of school documents a rather huge boon. In fact this blog has been completely typed using the Acer Predator 14 Triton's keyboard. Sure the keys are silent but they exhibit a rather satisfying tactile feedback for every single key stroke. Each key is a full-sized key with full sized arrow keys as well. Another good thing is that there is no keyboard wobble or flexing which further proves its build quality. The only slight quirk is that the power button for some reason is not able to put the laptop to sleep or hibernate.

*Update*: Holding the power button does for 4 seconds does bring up the Acer Power Button window that gives you options for shut downs. I have no idea this even existed, because I never had to do this with my Acer Swift X 14. So I turned that automatic window off so I can hibernate the Predator without bringing up anything else.

Great, responsive touchpad. Could be just a couple centimeters larger then it'll be perfect.

The touchpad is small, which to be fair is to be expected after you manage to cramp in a full-size keyboard in it. It's however nice and very smooth, but ultimately sensitive and responsive allowing very quick strokes and glides. In fact it is as good, maybe even better, than the trackpad on my MacBook M1 despite having a bigger touchpad. It does come with a fingerprint sensor but I usually don't really use it.

The buttons? Their clicks are nothing short of... bloody satisfying. Kid you not, enough said.

RTX 4070 Laptop: 105W TGP is quite a pleasant surprise

The RTX 4070 on the Predator 14 Triton is based on the Ada Lovelace ADA106 chip with its full complement of 4608 cores, more than the Desktop 4060 Ti's 4352 Cuda Cores.

What I was looking over some reviews the RTX 4070 used in this thing, they didn't reveal the actual TGP of the laptop's RTX 4070. To me, I was kinda expecting around 75W to 80W in a 14" Laptop. However, when I went over to Acer's website, it dawned on me that was the GPU was set in freaking105W TDP, which is about the full performance it can get. Yes there are 115W and above TDP versions but doesn't seem to do any significant gains so this is pretty as optimal as it gets.

That makes this GPU in particular a monster to be shoved into and it will perform quite well, as shown on 3D Mark later. You may feel the 8GB VRAM on a 128-bit memory bus may present as a bit of a bottleneck. But so far at its native 2560x1600p, in my experience, I don't really encounter stuttering due to memory bottlenecks and 1920 by 1080p/1200p is gonna be overkill regardless. The Ada Lovelace's architecture has already optimized memory usage so a lower bus width instead of 192 bit is still good enough.

Also interesting to note, as I found from HWINFO, the thermal juncture for the 105W RTX 4070 was set to 87 degrees Celsius. The GPU in my testing even when overclocked didn't hit it. 

Fast 165Hz 16:10 1600p display with adjustable refresh rates is one of Predator Triton 14's top features.

The 14" 16:10 IPS panel is probably one of the best displays I have tried in a laptop so far. Truth be told, this is also perhaps my very first display that is more than 60 Hz.

And just by gliding my touchpad was enough to quickly tell a difference between a 60Hz panel and a 165Hz panel. Having a 16:10 aspect ratio over a standard widescreen also gives a bit more vertical screen estate to display a bit more content. G-Sync is integrated on this IPS Panel. And depending on the need for either power or energy savings, the display can be toggled to different refresh rates as well as being able to dynamically toggle itself automatically between 60 and 120Hz. nVidia Optimus will set it to 60Hz when the laptop is running off battery.

Another top feature is that the IPS Panel is super bright that in lit up environment, turning the brightness all the way is pretty much overkill. In the complete dark, the screen remains bright even at the dimmest setting. Either way, it's easy to adjust via the Keyboard or by the side bar in Windows. 

In all a very good and adaptable screen! Already the first sentence says it all. You can get the option with the mini LED screen also in 165Hz which should be better but the IPS panel for this one is already really really good.

Even at the minimum brightness setting, most of the text and icons are still legible.
This particular IPS Panel sports a 16:10 aspect ratio with a resolution of 2560 x 1600.

16GB of RAM: Is it enough?

The minor problem is that the RAM is soldered and limited to 16GB no matter which configuration you go for. However on this platform, 16GB of DDR5 RAM will still provide a tonne of bandwidth. The question whether 16GB RAM is enough, maybe long term not. But as long as you limit background task usage and focus on just gaming, it shouldn't be a problem. Like my Desktop, the 16GB of DDR5 RAM that is onboard is clocked at an impressive 6000 MT/s.

1TB nVMe SSD: It's a Samsung 980 PRO in disguise!

The SSD details was abit vague as nothing was said about the type that was used. Device Manager did say it's a Samsung following with a bunch of letters and numbers. By Googling these letters and numbers there and it turns out that this Samsung Drive is an OEM variant of the 980 PRO drive. That'd explain why downloading and writing to the drive can be easily kept up at 200+Mbps a second on a 5GHz WIFI network. Read Speeds in theory can reach around the 6000-7000 MB/s and writing around 4000. The RTX 4050 Variant that Notebookcheck reviewed only came with a 512GB Micron SSD with Read and Write speeds fairly similar. However, 512GB is not viable, so if you can, find one with a bare minimum 1TB as your boot drive.

GPU can sustain a near 2.4GHz Clock on Turbo
80 Degrees on the RTX 4070, 77 on the 13700H

SOFTWARE AND TEST SETUP

The Predator does come with the PredatorSense software that allows changes of the Laptop's power and fan profiles to handle various loads and applications. Activating the Turbo Mode turns the fans all the way but it also also turns up the frequency of the CPU AND even applies a 100 MHz Overclock to the GPU core which is pretty nice and will boost the scores in most of the tests. So most tests will be under Turbo Mode with fans set to Auto for its out of the box experience. Word of warning if you using it, it's gonna get loud! 

I'm not going through battery tests because if you buy a desktop replacement, you won't really shift it from place to place. That's not really the role for this laptop. This is meant as a secondary machine especially if the study with my main rig is needed for my wife for her lessons there.

Fire Strike Benchmark: CPU is surprisingly overperforming better than Notebookcheck's highest 13700H result! Acer's tunings allow to duke it out with the 14-Core i9s.

I'm just simply pitting this laptop against other results I have done with an Acer Swift X 14, the laptop I am replacing, as well as my old system with an Ryzen 7 1700X system that is currently in storage with a RTX 3070. The Laptop is set to its Best Performance and Turbo mode which clocked the GPU with a +100 MHz overclock. And in 3 runs, surprisingly the GPU was able to stay around the 74-75C mark. Gaming temps will be higher later as it has to sustain for a session while 3D Mark will allow some breathing time in between scene changes and restarting runs.

Overall scores even beat my old ITX build, thanks to the strong CPU performance
from the Core i7 13700H.

Scores are quite impressive for a 14 Inch Laptop, mixing up with some of the bigger laptops in Notebookcheck. Not because of the GPU, but it was actually because of the CPU for some reason. Of all the CPUs and SoCs that I tested over the years, the i7 13700H clearly is my most powerful CPU that I have. But it's due to Acer tuning this CPU with a higher Power Limit which allowed it to draw as much clocks as it possibly can, compared to any other laptop manufacturer. Even trumps my 6 Core 7500F. The GPU score of 28727 places itself in among the common pack in Notebookcheck, but among some of the higher wattage ones at 140W, 160W... that kind of ballpark. Moreover it's not really that much slower than an overclocked Desktop RTX 3070.

That higher Power Limits would explain why my PT14 and notebookcheck's PT14's Core i7 13700Hs are amongst the top performers with the same CPU, which always is a good thing. But didn't explain the 2nd thing why my Intel Core i7 13700H Physics score on Fire Strike actually surpassed the maximum score of all the 13700H laptops tested by Notebookcheck, and by quite a bit. In reference to Notebookcheck's Predator Triton 14's 13700H, mine weirdly scores higher but within a few % margin of error. The highest score was from a Acer Nitro 17 with a RTX 4060 GPU at 30259 tuned at 6GHz. Usually the average of all 13700H benched at around 26000 points. This laptop even beats the average score of the 13900H and narrowly beat out an Alienware's 13900HK that Notebookcheck was even testing. No idea why my 13700H is performing this well and I was able to replicate a 30,000 plus score over and over again. 

I may be very lucky with this sample of the 13700H. Either way, it's great and I'll take it.

3DMark Time Spy

Time Spy has become increasingly standard for testing 1440p - 4K capable gaming GPUs over Fire Strike. General scores are typical for an RTX 4070 and 13700H combo. Near 12000 in the graphics score and again a much higher than average score on the CPU.

Cinebench R23

The good scores for the 13700H as a result of Acer's tunings do not end there. Cinebench places the CPU's score of over 18454 points considerably higher than average 13700Hs on Notebookcheck. Again in line with their Predator 14 Triton PT14's 13700H with the RTX 4050 and both duking up there with some of the 14 Core big boy CPUs like the i9 13900H and 13900HK.

Geekbench 6

Another solid showing for the i7 13700H.

Geekbench benches all the computing stuff and specifically targets your CPU. A score of 14816 is another good showing by the Core i7 13700H, against the NBC's one of 13800+. A bit of abnormally there by the NBC's PT14, but it was still the highest score on Geekbench 6 among the other 13700H till I got this one. Heck my PT14-51 even beat the highest score set by by the Core i9 13900Hs.

BORDERLANDS 3 AND THERMALS AT TURBO:

While going on a 30 minute gameplay on Borderlands 3, we're gonna talk thermals. At its Highest settings at its native 2560x1600p, we can go easy 60 fps on Borderlands 3. Temperatures while running tip at about 77 C on the CPU and 80-81 on the GPU which is well in tolerance in a gaming scenario. There was no obvious sign of thermal throttling and the GPU sustained around the 2400-2450MHz ballpark and demonstrates it is pulling the rated 105W, sometimes even going to 107W. Additionally, according to HWINFO64, its voltage pull is around 0.910 V. Some users report at 0.98 Volts or more but if you're going gaming, use the gaming pull as reference.

Yes you can feel the laptop's warmth but it was not that super warm. Still, your mileage may vary and may be that I do naturally have hot hands. Since most of the heat is all concentrated in the middle section of the keyboard, your palms wouldn't feel that bad, although may feel just a tad sweaty.

To be absolutely fair to the 14 Inch Triton, this is high end hardware stuffed in there. It is no surprise that this thing will get hot in some way or another. I don't really have a good testing methodology because I'm just using a typical gaming load to test which is the most likely purpose you'll have for this laptop instead of benchmarking it over and over. Cooling off however is done fairly quickly though, due to the entire body made of aluminum which made the entire keyboard area, one gigantic heatsink which does helps dissipate heat. Despite the high surface temps, Core hardware temperatures surprisingly are controlled rather easily with little trouble.

From this clip, the fans are loud like obnoxiously loud, but for a 14 Inch Laptop with some high end hardware that can be overclocked, it kinda needs it at Turbo mode. Just get a pair of headphones if you need it or plug it to some speakers. You can tweak the fan speeds on Turbo Mode but turning off Auto Modes for the GPU and CPU fans but I would recommend a laptop cooler to balance out everything.

SPEAKERS:

Funnily, these speakers are pretty loud for what they are. Even at 15% volume they still have a hefty punch. However sadly, doesn't really translate to good quality of audio to be honest. I dunno how to say it, the best way that makes it less garbage is actually turning off Audio Enhancements on windows for the default speakers. It's funny as Audio enhancements are meant to improve audio but in the PT-14, that is unfortunately not the case.

OTHER STUFF:

Other stuff which was super helpful is casting on a TV. Streaming movies from the PT-14 either from VLC or via Windows is the best experience of all my laptops I've got so far.

CONCLUSION - Some compromises, but still a great portable powerhouse

+ Software that overclocks the GPU and CPU on Turbo mode.
+ Surprisingly powerful i7 13700H, rivals some of the i9 CPUs like the i9 13900HK and the Ultra 9 185H.
+ Capable and near Full Power 105W TGP RTX 4070
+ High Balance of Performance to size and weight.
+ Still portable enough despite being a bit chunkier than other 14 Inches.
+ One hell of a display; bright, fast, color accurate and adaptable refresh rates and G-Sync ready.
+ Thunderbolt 4 that also has power delivery.
+ Most value for money 14 Inch Laptop with a RTX 4070
+ Satisfying Keyboard though Power Button doesn't put it to sleep.
+ Rather Thick materials used which really helps in structural rigidity.
+ Acceptable Core Hardware Temperatures

= Hot Surfaces but Aluminum surfaces disperse heat relatively quickly and Core Temperatures are good under load.
= Tiny but actually very responsive trackpad with a fingerprint reader (albeit at the wrong spot), and nice, loud and satisfying mouse click.

- Slightly plain design, although it can easily pass as an office laptop
- Not as light as other 14" Laptops but the weight is still very acceptable and manageable.
- Huge Power Brick.
- USB-C does not have the capacity to charge the laptop.
- Soldered RAM, CPU and GPU
- Another USB Port, (3rd type A or 2nd Type C doesn't matter) would be nice.
- Very loud when exerted at Turbo modes.
- Mediocre audio quality despite speakers being loud.

Acer has engineered a Tiny-ish yet mighty everyday laptop that represents that limit of power in as small a package as possible. If you think the Swift X 14 is a good no-frills line of 14 inch Laptops, this is about as good as you can get in that size for less of a price point than those of like say MSI Cyborg 14, Razer and Asus. The RTX 4070 is more than capable to handle games up to 1440p. It being light makes it a fairly portable yet powerful everyday gaming machine.

Acer has constructed a bit of sleeper of a powerhouse laptop.
Does have shortcomings but it just not only works, but works well.
Pictured with an Acer Predator Cestus 310 Mouse which came free with the Laptop.

Number crunching and highly threaded applications will be absolutely no problem for the 14 Core 13700H. This one did surprisingly well on Fire Strike and Cinebench, partly because of Turbo mode. But even if you didn't get lucky on this one, most computing tasks can be executed on this CPU easily.

No doubt you will encounter tradeoffs like soldered memory, slow but still useful SD card reader, hot temps. However for the purposes of gaming, this laptop does the job.

It is not without faults however, as all laptops are. The shortcomings are its less flashy design which may feel a little plain to some. This may be a good thing as this can pass as an office laptop which it can definitely be. Personally I would prefer it being black instead of grey. Hot surfaces but that is made up that the whole body of the laptop is a gigantic heatsink which helps to dispel heat abit more quickly and controls hardware hotspot temperatures relatively efficiently. An additional USB port would be nice, preferbly a type C, but another Type A would be useful too. Another thing is that the power brick is flipping huge, and the biggest letdown is that expansion is pretty much non-existent with most components soldered. Swapping to a bigger drive will require you to reinstall windows again.

But I guess to some extent that the microSD card as well as the Thunderbolt 4 port does allows some upgrades. Not to the laptop per se, but at least installing a more powerful eGPU or external storage is an option.

Despite its deficiencies, the Acer Predator Triton 14 is still a great portable powerhouse. The question is whether which laptop you'd better off with. The RTX 4050 version or the RTX 4070 version of the Triton 14? I would say without a shadow of a doubt, the 4070 Triton 14 especially with the 1TB Samsung Drive. The 512GB Micron SSD in the 4050 is not enough to be used viably in a gaming laptop or content creation. It's weird that the 4050 at the time of Notebookcheck's review cost 1440 USD, now the RTX 4070 one with 1TB SSD costs the same now. So it makes more sense to buy the more powerful model.

With all that said, as far as gaming laptops are concerned, this has certainly got to be one of my favorite gaming laptop I have ever purchased. Powerful without it being too flashy.

Zotac RTX 4070 Super Twin Edge OC Review: An RTX 4070 Ti Killer?

Zotac has been well known to make cards of different sizes, but are the most known of all add in partners to go almost as small GPUs as possible. It's not the first time using a Zotac card considered short, small and compact. I used the GTX 750 Low Profile, a GTX 1070 Mini, and now this card that is considered small. Here's a new one by Zotac, and with a quick unboxing video of the card.

What came with the card is the simple documentation including Warranty, which is tied to Aftershock. The Double PCI-E 8-pin to 12VHPWR Adapter for it if your PSU doesn't have these types of cables right out of the box.

Bear in mind, the 4070 that I pulled out is 25cm long, still short in modern standards though not as short as the Zotac 4070 Super.

One thing I find absolutely hilarious that the Zotac 4070 Super was cute to say the least, being short and all while the PNY 4070 that came out of my Aftershock looks more aggressive. 

Zotac's RTX 4070 Super, with the attached adapter
above the PNY RTX 4070

At just over 23cm long, the Zotac Twin Edge variant is one people would go for in a small form factor. Especially in a case, that added space you get can be beneficial for air flow.

The RTX 4070 Super upgrades my Aftershock PC Level 4X to a Level 5 System.

GRAPHICS CARD SPECIFICATIONS
7168 Cuda Cores
224 Texture Mapping Units and Tensor Cores
80 Render Output Units
56 Ray Tracing Cores
1980 to 2475 Mhz (Zotac is at 2490MHz)
12GB of 1313 MHz GDDR6X RAM at 21GHz Effective Memory
192-bit memory bus width granting 504 GB/s Memory Bandwidth
220W TDP

The specs of the card are universal across all common RTX 4070 Supers. The only slight difference which may not sound a lot is that this GPU comes with a teeny tiny bit of overclock right out the box. Only 15Mhz but it is almost as good as stock already.

Should be noted that boost clock speeds will vary depending on application. Most typical it will hit around 2915MHz, but I do get a rare 3Ghz flat on couple occasions, especially on Fire Strike.

As you can see specs-wise, the 4070 Super has a good bump in the number of CUDA Cores over the 4070 (5888). A 20% increase is what gives the 4070 Super its muscle, which is well worth the slight TDP increase and power consumption increase of 20 Watts.

TEST RIG: Aftershock PC's AMD Level 4X System (Now unofficial Level 5)

AMD Ryzen 5 7500F
32GB DDR5 - PNY MAKO 6000 MHz DDR5 RGB
1TB nVMe Lexar NM790 PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD
Gigabyte B650M Gaming Wifi
Zotac RTX 4070 OC Twin Edge
750W FSP Hydro GD2 PSU

This Computer is powered by the excellent budget friendly Ryzen 5 7500F which is perhaps one of the best value for money CPUs in 2024. It is a mid-ranged to high performance 6 Core Aftershock Level 5 AMD PC that promises on performance at a reasonable budget, with most of it, I would assume, to be spent on your GPU. Some gaming benchmarks from other reviewers places it about as good as even the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. If anything, bottlenecks will be more apparent on 1080p resolution. In which case, pairing a high power GPU with low res monitor is a very stupid idea to begin with. Therefore, most titles are tested on UHD / 4K resolution when applicable using some of the highest presets to be completely GPU bound rather than CPU bound.

This system is very similar to Iceberg Tech's and RandomGaminginHD's Reasonably-Priced gaming PCs, with the same CPU and with all clock speeds on CPU and RAM identical to mine. Seems that more people would use an AM5 system in this ballpark because the CPU can be upgraded either to a 7800X3D or an upcoming 9000 Ryzen Series chips later on. So if you like a more in-depth comparison, you can search for these two out.

The card will be tested overclocked at 125 MHz OC on core, and 300 MHz Memory on MSI Afterburner and any comparisons will be up against the PNY 4070 that was also overclocked. Any higher and the card will not be stable.

DIABLO II RESURRECTED STRESS TEST
Maximum Settings Possible: 4K Upscaled to 8K.

Diablo II may be an older title, but the remastered brings about huge customization to your graphical options that allows it to be upscaled all the way up to 8K, which is actually 4 times the pixel count than standard UHD 3840 x 2160p resolution. The 4070 non Super pushed 24-25FPS in 8K. This card now is able to give me a more console like experience at 30-32fps which is the way to play although granted, 24-25FPS is passable if you're coming from the classic D2 experience.

DIABLO IV
Maximum Settings Possible: 4K

The latest iteration of Diablo does bring it's graphics to almost as dark a palette as Path of Exile. Diablo IV brings about some new features to your graphical settings including Frame Generation which requires a 40 series card. I don't have results of the 4070 as I sold it to buy this card even though it was brand new when I sold it.

The only time where FPS really tanks is when exploring in snowy weather. That is when the GPU really gets pushed very hard, which is not common for an RPG. So even with a card as powerful as a 4070 Super is not guaranteed to give 60 fps. So recommend switching DLSS on, at highest Quality control to kind of smooth things out just a bit which does help quite a lot. Although resolution scale can be brought to 200% like Diablo 2, the game is too demanding to making increasing past 100% worth it.

SKULL AND BONES (BETA, EARLY ACCESS)
Maximum Settings Possible: 4K no DLSS

Made in Singapore, guaranteed with their offices located over at Fusionopolis, Buona Vista area. Skull and Bones is an open world genre that also comprises of Real time Naval ship to ship combat. This Ubisoft early access title was only just announced for demo from Feb 8-11th February. So it gives me an idea on how it will fare for games in their early stages. Clocking at 2910MHz boost, I left all the settings at maximum as is, while turning off any scaling and leaving it at Temporal Anti Aliasing. I tested on the Naval Combat opening Chapter. And truth be told, it looks impressive. 50 FPS is good enough at this demanding section of the game.

Skulls and Bones blends a mix of open world and old school naval gunnery combat.

RTX 4070 Super Clocks in at 2910 MHz

THE FINALS
Maximum Settings Possible: 4K with Dynamic Ray Tracing at Epic

The Finals is resembles a present day version of Overwatch. A lot more demanding than the latter game as the Finals uses the Unreal Engine 5. It looks mighty impressive to say the least and extremely well optimized to be run on budget hardware. As for graphics performance, the Super Variant can do around 55 fps without any dynamic scaling applied. However as a fast paced E-Sports title, it can do with some. 40 series GPUs have a distinct advantage with Frame Generation and notebookcheck has covered that when they benched the Finals. nVidia DLSS set to quality and Frame Generation coupled with nVidia Reflex Low Latency mode on, makes playing even at 4K extremely responsive and snappy.

4K Maximum settings are possible...

though I'd recommend turning on DLSS Quality and Frame Generation.

90-100 FPS is very doable at this settings. Yes these screens are from the Practice range but I've already played a round at 4K Max with DLSS Quality and Frame Generation and Ray Tracing Epic which I won and it was plenty smooth and snappy yet still look beautiful and gorgeous at these settings, especially for a free to play game. That would be the settings I would go for.

Unigine Superposition:
1080p Extreme

A bump from 9553 to 11974 nets an impressive 25% gain, which is more than the 20% scaling from a CUDA core perspective. 

Definitely a CPU bottleneck as the Guru3D net a 97 fps average compared to my 89.5. But I'll take the hit, and besides I game on 4K more often than not.

3DMark Fire Strike
Graphics Score: 53230 vs 44724

Comparing GPU score, a score of 53230 is the first time I have ever hit past 50,000. This is a nice bump compared to 44724 of my PNY regular 44724, overclocked mind you.

A close to 20% performance increase is nothing to scoff at. 

3DMark Time Spy
Graphics Score: 21115 vs 17592

Again a 20% bump over the 4070 in scores is quite noticeable. A score 21115 puts it inline with a RTX 3090 Ti which is weirdly pleasant and a whopping 60% above my RTX 3070 I just sold. A significantly better bump than Guru3D review's 7% increase from the 4070 Ti to the 4070Ti Super, and  2% from the 4080 to 4080 Super. I'm using Time Spy to compare since Guru3D uses it as standard. Therefore you can look this up yourself.

THERMALS:

The short cooler does limit the cooling slightly but not to the point I would consider as a concern. Sure, 78 to 82 Degrees C while gaming is not great, let's face it, it's what you'd expect from one of the smallest 4070 Supers in the market. To be fair though, that's because I maxed the power limit and overclocked it quite a bit without touching the fan curves. It is not that all bad all things considered, and fan is not annoying at load. Noise is never an issue for me as I always have a fan blowing above me that drowns out any noise and potential coil whine. Speaking of which, it's not really anything to speak of or anything noticeable.

Cooling is therefore adequate to say the least, good enough considering its size.

BOTTOMLINE: 4070 Super, the only saving grace of the 40 Supers release. Performs more like a 4070 Ti and a 3090 than a 4070.

If you ask me, the Super Series I would say it's.... meh. However doesn't hide the fact that the best step up from the regular to the Super Variant is the 4070 line, which is this series' only saving grace. It feels a lot more bang for the buck compared to the 4070 Ti and 4080 Supers even though the latter is meant to make the 4080 cheaper by a noticeable amount.

The extra cores allows the 4070 Super to make up a lot of ground as far as performance goes. It is nearly as fast as the RTX 3090 and even the 4070 Ti and it is nice to see that it is much closer to that than to the base 4070. It nets a good 40-60% jump in performance from a 3070 depending on the title while keeping the same power envelope as a 3070 and a full 140W less than a 3090 which is crazy efficient. Although aimed at 1440p, it is 4K ready. While the 4070 does provide an acceptable 4K gaming experience, the increased power from the Super is a difference between passable and smooth / fluent. 

Power Supply-wise, if you have been chugging a PSU that handled a 3070 without stability problems, you don't need to upgrade the former to run a 4070 Super. As long as you have at least 2 8-pin PCI-e pins on your cables (needed to use the 12VHPR adapter include), then it should be fine. 

I don't think you need to worry so much about bottlenecking if you're on a Ryzen 5 7500F as that basic 7000 series chip pairs very well with this card. However, if I was to nitpick or complain about one thing, is that it should have come with 16GB of VRAM instead of 12 especially if you're upgrading from a last gen 3070 and you intend to game at 4K UHD like I usually do. 12GB for now is gonna cut it a little close but if I need fluid gameplay down the line I'll just lower the resolution to 1440p.

In all though, it is as powerful enough as it needs to be and also a powerful and mid-high end GPU for a mid range pricing. It still has to fend off competition from the Radeon 7800XT but I think we can cut the 4070 Super some slack here since it is performing so well in a bracket of GPUs that are not much more powerful than it for a lot more money.

Aftershock PC's Level 4X AMD Desktop review: Ryzen 5 7500F, PNY RTX 4070.

*UPDATE*: The RTX 4070 that was in there has been sold to be upgraded to a Zotac RTX 4070 Super!

Aftershock PC's one of those PC DIY enthusiasts in Singapore you may have heard before as they have been in the business for at least 10 years. I know them because I did win an Aftershock X11 laptop which is a rebadged Clevo W110ER laptop in their very first giveaway in March 2013. 

So fast forward 10 years on, it is time to replace my desktop as it is exhibiting quite a few stability issues. When I just do random things on Google Chrome, it'll randomly hard lock and hard crash and reset itself. Besides the Ryzen 7 1700X is getting a bit long in the tooth so it's a good time to upgrade.

NEW AFTERMARKET BUILDS: Should you go for it? Pros and Cons

These days there are several different ways to buy / build your PC, both old and new. If time is not a factor, you can always gather the parts yourself and spend a day or two for the build. But let's say time is not a luxury you have in this fast environment or your skills as a builder are not up to snuff, there are alternatives. You can still buy the parts from some shops in Singapore, like Fuwell in Sim Lim Square, then have the shop assemble it for you which was what I did for my very first Sandy Bridge build in 2011.

My new Aftershock Level 4 AMD mATX System sits on my ITX build.

The other options are builders who are focused on PC Builds like Aftershock. That is usually the best and cheapest options. The 2nd best are brands  Dell, Asus, Acer, Lenovo and Gigabyte that sell prebuilds although plenty of them would always have a price mark up for some reason. Most of them are online accessible so you can do this from your own home. 

This one will need a bit of research on your end and abit of patience. Because you never know what kind of parts PC Builders usually supply and you're under their mercy with regards to their service and their parts they use. Therefore you need a bit of luck.

However the two big advantages are:
First, do save you a lot of time and hassle to build your own computer for a better out of the box experience. Then all you have to do is plug in a monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers and away you go.

Additionally, the second advantage is for shop built DIY PCs and prebuilds is that the warranty for everything is tied to the shop or brand instead of individual parts then everything should be bore by the shop(s) during the warranty's duration

With that said, if you'd feel like going for PC builders like Aftershock, Dreamcore, Manta builds, Dynacore, etc... my recommendation is to compare prices with the full build they do as well as the prices of parts should you build it yourself. Moreover be patient because promotional prices will always be available, especially the end of the year for the following:

Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals
12.12 Deals
Christmas Deals / Last ditch deals.

The Christmas Deal is where I got this desktop at its promotional price of SGD 1495 instead of its base price of 1869. In comparison if I was to build and gather stuff using similar comparable parts from Fuwell it'll be around the 2100 mark. Moreover it is cheaper than prebuilds offered by the more known brands. Understandably most of Aftershock PC's parts are some of the cheaper / no-frills options but if you are not so much into overclocking, this is usually fine.

REVIEW:

The PC comes with the following components:

Ryzen 5 7500F
Gigabyte B650M Gaming Motherboard
32GB PNY XLR8 DDR5 6000MHz RAM
1TB Lexar m.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD
RTX 4070 12GB PNY Verto Dual Fan
750W FSP Power Supply
Aftershock's own mATX case and Tower Coolers

It's kinda almost like a PNY / Aftershock focused build. But the base RAM that the rig starts with is a different brand and at 16GB instead of 32GB which I upgraded to. 32GB of DDR5 on a 6 core may sound overkill but it does give a bit more breathing space if you are having alot background tasks that hog RAM space.

RYZEN 5 7500F
(6 Cores with SMT for total 12 Threads: 3.7GHz Base Clock, 5.0 Turboboost)

The Ryzen 5 7500F in a nutshell is a very slightly underclocked 7600 without integrated graphics, meant for the China Market. Compared to the previous generations of all Ryzen CPUs, the 7000 series start with a boost clock of 5.0 minimum, the 5000 series could only boost to max 4.9. So right off the bat, it has decent enough single threaded performance.

It was received to raving reviews and many would recommend this if you can find it cheap. Yes it is a 6 core but the cumulative differences over my former Ryzen 7 1700X do add up to be almost 50% faster on all cores. Moreover the 7500F brings a lot more features to the table over the first gen:

- DDR5 RAM Support over DDR4, potentially doubling Memory Bandwidth
- Double the L3 Cache, 32MB over 16MB
- Up to PCIe 5.0 Support Maximum which also depends on your Chipset of the Motherboard
- 65W TDP, 30W less than the 1700X
- First Generation on the new AM5 Platform

Like all F series of CPUs of both Intel and AMD, Ryzen 5 7500F does not come with Integrated graphics, which makes sense if you're building a gaming PC with a dedicated graphics card. This brings the price down to well below 200 USD while it is able to outperform the 13400F and trade blows with the 13500. If my motherboard wasn't locked in the first place, it can definitely clocked itself and perform as well as even the 13600K cause' I know I have the cooling capacity to do it. 

The only catch is that the CPU is not normally found in major CPU retailers and as said before, meant for the China market and exports. That means, AliExpress. However you can find it there for as low as 155 USD and it is a good first stepping stone to get onto the AM5 platform on the cheap before considering to upgrade to something better down the line like the Ryzen 7 7700 / 7700X.

And truth be told, if you're in Singapore and already using a 7500F, you'll be very happy and can at least hold onto this CPU for a few years before you need an upgrade.

Techspot / Hardware Unboxed has covered a VS battle between the 7500F and the 13400F in great detail, so you can look it up: https://www.techspot.com/review/2728-ryzen-7500f-vs-core-13400f/

GIGABYTE B650M Gaming Motherboard
AM5

One of the few most basic B650M Motherboards available in the market. Although classified as a mid-ranged board, the PCIe Specifications are locked to 4.0 and there is a lack of USB C on board. There is a PCI-E 1x Slot, that could potentially where I'd might add a type C Port to it. Another bummer is that this B650M board does NOT have Overclocking capability for some dumb reason which is a shame as I do like to push things a little bit. I tried turning the PBO settings, but doesn't do anything, not even Ryzen Master recognises it as overclocking ready.

The 7500F even if at stock is pretty powerful but I really wished that a new Overclocking BIOS is rolled out on this thing. The Chipset is not locked but the motherboard itself is.

32GB DDR5 RAM: PNY XLR8 MAKO
6000 MT/s

This is my first time using DDR5 RAM and the AM5 platform is built solely with this in mind and at 32 Gigs. This is supposed to be fast ram tuned to 6000 MHz or 6000 MT/s. This version is the updated version with RGB lighting over the first release of this RAM in 2022 by PNY. By default the RAM comes stock at timings of CL40 although overclockers would want to tighten the CAS Latency down to the mid to low 30s. 

If buyers didn't opt for the RAM upgrade, the installed RAM will be Team Group's T-Force Vulcan 16GB rated at 5600 MT/s which in itself will be sufficient for most needs.

12GB nVidia GeForce RTX 4070: PNY XLR8 VERTO DUAL FAN

The RTX 4070 have been released to big acclaim compared to all the mixed reception of the other GPUs of this generation. Anything in this line will make a lot more sense as they feature some of the best and craziest power efficiency over its 3000 predecessors. 40% more performance thereabouts than the RTX 3070 for 15% less power. 15% less power may not sound a lot but it'll mean savings off your power bill. Some specs as follows:

5888 Cuda Cores
184 Texture Mapping Units
64 Render Output Units
46 Ray Tracing Units
184 Tensor Cores 
200W TDP
12GB GDDR6X VRAM at 1313Mhz for 21GB/s effective.
1920Mhz - 2475Mhz Core Clock

RTX 4070s are the most powerful GPUs you can squeeze into a shorter and smaller card. As such, this specific RTX 4070 is one of the smallest high end GPUs in the market, at the time of writing with the PNY at 25cm long, the MSI Ventus 2X at 24.2cm long and the smallest being the Zotac's famous Twin Edge at 22.5cm. 25cm long compared to the longer ones at 28-30cm may not look much, but having this compact reduced length does add compatibility with slightly smaller and shorter computer cases. In respect to having that in a normal size case does allow abit more air flow. Anything more powerful than the RTX 4070 will need a much bigger, chunkier probably even a triple slot cooler, at least on air.

Other interesting feature that you don't see in other 4070s is using of a standard 8-pin connector and are the most powerful GPUs that still use it. Most of the other RTX 4070s and 3090, 3090 Ti then the 4080, 4090, especially the Founders Editions use the newer 16 pin. This doesn't, interestingly enough. That is actually a huge advantage when you yourself put together a PC so you don't need Power Supplies that use the unique connector or upgrading from a GPU that still uses standard PCI-E connectors. Moreover the 8-pin connector is still more reliable after stories of the 12VHPWR connector melting on 4090s.

Again being a no-frills GPU, it's power limit is understandably locked so overclocking is quite limited, and purely on thermals at this point. However if you're someone not into overclocking and just wants to plug in your PC and go, usually that is a minor shortcoming. That is not to say the performance is bad, it is actually impressive with a 40% improvement in frame rates for 15% less power over the 3070 it replaces.

Chassis: Aftershock Rapid 

Been a while since I've gone back to a more traditional mini tower build. It's a good thing I went for an mATX build instead of an ATX build. The entire computer feels lighter that I thought, making transporting back in my car easy because of its light weight.

The case measures 365mm long, 216mm wide, and 405mm tall which is surprisingly abit narrower and shorter than my ITX Coolermaster Elite 120 build. (401mm long, 240mm wide, and 207mm tall). That makes it take abit less area on my desk despite the case being taller. 

BENCHMARKS:

Nothing too crazy with this rig. Little overclocking on the GPU if any. However, if you're looking at the basis of plugging in everything and go, this is what you get.

Cinebench R23 and CPU-Z

Some of the synthetics and benchmarks that I will show now that uses the 7500F will explain why the 7500F is probably the best budget processor for the money in 2024. Just to put it outright. 

Now I want to draw to your attention, because the scores quite surprised me, for stock. For reference please look up Iceberg Tech's video on the 7500F for his scores. His CPU-Z scores were right in line with mine. But there's a bit of a huge discrepancy from Cinebench R23, not that I'm complaining as my score was 14323 points, Stocked locked compared to his 13000 points. And I did ran multiple times. Also noteworthy that mine was on an air cooler instead of his on water! 

CPU-Z Benchmark of 5705 puts it in line with Iceberg Tech's scores.

But receives a surprisingly higher score of 14323, about a 1300+ higher.
Still a massive 60% uplift from the Ryzen 7 1700X.

Having said that though, scores on synthetics and favoring CPU doesn't matter much if you game. However having a good 6-core does go a long way. 

Cinebench 2024

All Tests: GPU, CPU (Single and Multi)

The newest Cinebench allows you to add the GPU to the stress testing. You can refer to the scores in the images and other comparable CPUs and GPUs. There's more to come with this 7500F, because the performance quite surprised me.

The RTX 4070 Supers blitzes alot of the default scores for the GPU.
While the general 7500F gives it a respectable multi-core score on par with the 8 Core R9 5800X along with better single threaded performance.

3DMark FireStrike

Fire Strike was impressive to say the least. 34291 after a very minor tweak to the RTX 4070 Clock Speeds. 44724 on the Graphics score is very high with 26527 points on Physics is no joke for a 6 core. This is an improvement from my best 1700X and 3070 run of 23210 score: Broken down to 32404 on the GPU, 18472 on the CPU, a much lower score considering it is a 8-core. Yes Fire Strike is an old benchmark now. But hey, who doesn't love big scores?

Comparison of the uplift from a 1700X and 3070 to a 7500F and 4070.
Note that both GPUs were overclocked, although the former has abit more headroom.

The scores improved by: 

47% on the final score.
36% on the GPU score
45% on physics even though has 2 less cores.
77.5% on the combined score.

3DMark Time Spy

The newer benchmark also net big gains from the better hardware. Time Spy is a DirectX 12 based benchmark for more demanding games in today's modern landscape.

The GPU score of 17592 puts it within margin of Error with Guru3D's 4070 Founders Edition review sample. A 35-45% boost in scores in each component is significant.

DOOM Eternal
Maximum Settings (Ultra Nightmare)

Doom Eternal may be getting a bit older in 2024 and considered easy to run nowadays. Heck, even RTX 3050 Ti 40W on my Acer Swift X14 can chug along nicely at 1080P High with Ray Tracing. However, it is still a very popular and actually cool looking game today. The RTX 4070 has absolutely no problem with 4K completely maxed out (Ultra Nightmare Preset) with Ray Tracing without needing DLSS or any resolution scaling to achieve playable frame rates. Even with it maxed out it only used about 8.5 Gigs of the 12 GB memory.

4K Ultra Nightmare, Ray Tracing? Easy work for the RTX 4070.

PATH OF EXILE
4K Maximum Settings

The rival to Diablo II, III and IV and this free to play game is still doing a job. Path of Exile may be a Super Old Game at this point. I was even testing the game 12 years ago during the Closed BETA testing. However Grinding Gear Games has been updating it heavily and has support for 4K. That's why it can still be relatively taxing for GPUs at High Resolutions. 110+ FPS may not sound a lot as a result, considering it's 13 years old now. 

Diablo II Resurrected
Maximum Settings: At 4K, 100% native resolution and 200% resolution scaling to 8K
No nVidia DLSS

This is the only game in my current lineup that allows you to really play around the resolution scaling to your hearts content. 100% Resolution Scaling on Maximum settings without DLSS is easy work for the RTX 4070, at least until you really push the resolution past it. Rendering at 200% scale essentially upscales the detail from 3840 x 2160 all the way to 7680 x 4320. Interestingly 8K doesn't even fully saturate all 12 Gigs of VRAM, but performance obviously really tanked. That said, if you've been used to the 24 fps framerate from the classic for years, I guess it is still playable-ish at 8K? The frame rate is more acceptable when indoors and other small maps. You can use DLSS to help things around in 8K which brings up the framerate to around the mid 40s in the open fields. That would be probably how I would play D2R on 4K on this card.

Unigine Superposition

Another synthetic benchmark that tests the limits of your GPU even at 1080p. The card hits a score of 9553 and an average framerate of 71.46. Guru3D's average FPS was 78fps. It may suggest a processor bottleneck but it's not a huge deal.

CONCLUSION: The Aftershock PC Level 4X 7500F PC is a good high end system that doesn't cost a lot. 7500F is a surprise.

This Computer does strike a good balance of performance, size and even efficiency compared to my older system. The RTX 4070 has hit the sweet spot in terms of amount of VRAM, cost and efficiency curves as well, giving excellent 1440p performance but can also cope 4K with Ray Tracing at close to max settings in lighter titles with its good amount of VRAM. The Ryzen 5 7500F CPU is no slouch either which surprised me quite a bit for a 6 core. It IS the ideal CPU to form a solid foundation on the newer AM5 platform. And for the amount of power it has in it, the desktop is actually nicely compact for a mini tower and the entire thing was actually fairly light to transport from the collection center and fit in my boot of my Mercedes A180 for the journey home.

But back to the subject of builders. Cause' at the end of the day, it is still important you do your Math right and your research. I went for Aftershock as it is a proven Singapore PC builder (and from my experience with my Laptop) that also found itself expanded its shores to Australia down under as well. Also with the GeForce 40 Super series of GPUs coming out just around the corner, chances are that prices may further drop a little. The RTX 4070 however will still do the job at this price point.

If there are complaints I need to make, it will be mainly towards the Motherboard for obvious reasons. The lack of a USB-C Port necessitates an Add-on PCIe card, while there is seriously no overclocking on this.

For now, the Level 4X AMD Desktop will be a my main daily rig. It is also an ideal platform for testing some mid range hardware. It still has a good upgrade path, even though frankly it doesn't need it. For example, it can go for a more powerful CPU like the Ryzen 7 7700, and the RTX 4070 Super without changing the Power Supply.

*UPDATE*: The RTX 4070 that was in there has been sold to be upgraded to a Zotac RTX 4070 Super!