A cursory search on gaming laptops will show you many options that cost more than $4,000. It is more difficult to find a laptop that will give you the best return on your investment. If you are spending more than $3000 on a gaming laptop, you want it to be more than just a piece of furniture. The Triton 500 SE is disappointing and doesn't set it apart from the crowd.
The 2,999.99 configuration of the Triton 500 SE includes a 12th Gen Core i9-12900H processor, RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, 32GB of RAM, and 1 terabytes of storage. The hardware is enough to take advantage of the display. The base model of the Triton 500 SE costs $2,099.99, which is about the same as the Legion 5i Pro model.
The Triton 500 SE doesn't need an external dock or a lot of dongles. Along the left side, you will find an ethernet port, DC connection, 3.5mm audio jack, and a singleUSB-A port. On the right side, there are two more ports, an HDMI output and a card reader.
It can be difficult to get work done on the keyboard if you stick to the area around the WASD keys. The switches have a small amount of travel, but they are smaller than average, and the gaps between them make me wish this space were used more efficiently. I hit the key that summons the software rather than the backspace key in a few instances. The keyboard on the ROG Zephyrus M16 has a familiar layout and slightly larger keys, which made it easier for me to make mistakes.
The 5 x 3 inch trackpad is large and has a nice click. It's accurate and responsive and didn't randomly register my palms when I used it If you are playing Civilization 6, you will need a dedicated mouse for your ladder matches. Part of the upper- left portion of the trackpad has a fingerprints sensor. It doesn't get in the way a lot, but I would prefer a bigger trackpad surface with a fingerprint sensor on another part of the system.
The battery life makes it impractical to go far without an outlet. When you consider that it offers the same gaming experience you would get when it is plugged in, the Triton is more impressive. The battery life of the board can be boosted by changing between the integrated and dedicated graphics cards depending on the task. It was able to work for almost three hours by leaning on the integrated graphics card. If you need a long-term gaming laptop with a demanding graphics card, the GS77 stealth is a good choice because it costs less and lasts longer.
The Intel Core i9-12900H 14-core processor has a 2.51 GHz clock and is capable of running at speeds as high as 4.7 GHz.
If you use the laptop on a flat surface, the hinges on the display will not jiggle. I would have liked a material on the lid that was more resistant to fingerprints and other markings. The slim lid has a surprising amount of flexibility, which is one of the big complaints from the previous model. If you put a lot of pressure on the display, it will bow, which is something I don't want to see in a laptop that costs over 3000 dollars.
I didn't want to reach for the closest pair of headphones because the speakers are good for a laptop. They are not far apart to provide the spatial audio you would get from a pair of headphones, but they are competent enough to provide a high and low end that sounds good. The most balanced sound of the bunch was provided by the music preset in the software, which was intended to give a better listening experience for different game genres.
The display has a 16:10 aspect ratio and can hit 500 nits of brightness. It supports G-sync with a maximum refresh rate. The Triton 500 SE is powerful, but not as powerful as the RTX 3080 Ti. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was the only game that was able to maintain around 200 and 333 frames per second. The fact that the screen has adaptive sync is more important to most people than the refresh rate.
It wasn't easy to beat the Triton 500 SE. The current top-of-the-line gaming graphics card in our review unit is the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti, and it is powerful, and it hit around 60 frames per second in almost every game we tested it with.
In our Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark, it averaged over 80 frames per second. The $4,000 Blade 17 laptop with an RTX 3080 Ti screen, and the $2,800 GS77 Stealth laptop with an RTX 3070 Ti screen, both had 70 and 58 frames per second, respectively.
In Red Dead Redemption 2, the Triton 500 SE hit 67 frames per second, compared to 72 for the Blade 17 and 59 for the GS 77.
In the Cyberpunk 2077 it was possible to hit 61 frames per second at ultra settings and 48 frames per second at ultra. When using the performance mode of the game, it is possible to hit a consistent 120 frames per second.
It completed our video export test in two minutes and 20 seconds, just like the other laptops.
I did most of my gaming in the aptly named "whisper mode", which lives up to its name, despite the fact that all of the benchmarks were performed while using the highest performance preset available. If the system is under a modest amount of strain, the fans can be loud enough to be a distraction. In testing, the 500SE still provided solid performance when placed under these constraints, despite the fact that this mode has the fans operating at their minimum. When playing Doom Eternal with the same settings, it was still able to deliver up to 120 frames per second. The Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark used the same settings and managed an average of just 50 frames per second.
It is easy to switch between performance profiles with the help of the control software. The software can be summoned via the desktop or its own dedicated macro key. You can adjust fan speeds with the software. The performance profile can only be changed while the laptop is plugged into an outlet. The hardware profile reverting to its default balanced power state is caused by the laptop being unplugged.
Every smart device has a set of terms and conditions that you have to agree to before you can use it. It is not possible for us to read and analyze all of them. We started counting the number of times you have to agree to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people can't negotiate.
With other Windows 10 computers, you are presented with a number of things to agree to or decline.
There are mandatory policies for which an agreement is needed.
There is a request for your region and keyboard layout.
There are a number of things that can be agreed to.
Privacy settings include online speech recognition, Find My device, Inking and Typing, Advertising ID, location, Diagnostic data, and Tailored experiences.
There are mandatory and optional agreements.
There is a tough spot for the Triton 500SE. It's the least expensive gaming laptop we've tested. The cheapest model of the RTX 3080 Ti is the Razer Blade 17 which costs $1,000 more. There is a lower-resolution screen on the GE 76 Raider. The Gigabyte Aero 16 is a few hundred dollars more expensive than the Triton 500 SE. It has bad battery life but also has a 4K screen.
It seems like the right resolution for the current top-of-the-line mobile graphics card is 1920 x 1600. If you want to see 60 frames per second on a 4K display, you'll need to drop ray tracing and quality settings. If youSpring for a 3080 Ti instead of a 3070 Ti you will get more life out of your laptop before you have to upgrade.
I spent most of my gaming time in quiet mode because the fans on my test unit were so loud. If you don't have good noise-canceling headphones, you shouldn't spend the extra money.
The RTX 3080 Ti is the one pictured. The best graphics card in the lineup right now is the RTX 3070 Ti, which can hit close to 60 frames per second at ultra settings. The cost is a lot less. The $2,099.99 model of the Triton 500 SE has a Core i7-12700H processor, 16 gigabytes of RAM, and 1 terabytes of storage. It is more compelling because you can upgrade the ram. You will get most of the performance of the $3,000 model for around $800 less if you compare it to laptops with similar specifications.
For the same price or even less, you can get a Legion 5i Pro with the same processor, graphics, and memory, port selection, and G-sync panel as the Legion 4i Pro. It tops out at 165 hertz instead of the original 240 hertz. The Legion 5i Pro had better build quality and quieter fans than the Triton 500 SE I tested. Even if you can't get the exact same configuration, both of those are upgradeable.
I tested two gaming laptops, one of which has powerful hardware for the price. It isn't worth the price premium because of how loud the fans are, new graphics cards coming soon, and the fact that the laptops get you 80 percent of the performance for almost $1,000 less. With the new 40-series GPUs on the horizon, the pricing for many gaming laptops may cool down.
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