Acer Swift 3 16 Laptop Review: Affordable And Capable
Acer Swift 3 16" Review: Benchmarks And Performance Testing
Before running any of our benchmarks, we apply all of the latest Windows and driver updates to the system we are testing. Our particular Acer Swift 3 sample shipped with Windows 11 and needed very little updating. Other than applying any available updates (like most consumers would), we run all of our tests with out-of-the-box settings. Our goal is to test the system as it ships, but after updating, to accurately reflect what buyers can expect from a retail experience.
We use BrowserBench.org's Speedometer test to gauge our web experiences, which takes a holistic look at web application performance. This test automatically loads and runs several sample web apps from ToDoMVC.com using the most popular web development frameworks around, including React, Angular, Ember.js, and even vanilla JavaScript. This test is a better example of how systems cope with real web applications, as opposed to a pure JavaScript compute test like JetStream.
We don't get to hold onto all of the laptops and notebooks we've tested, so software and driver updates unfortunately come into play in a test like Speedometer. That said, the Acer Swift 3 put up a strong number here and landed near the top of the charts.
The Core i7-11370H powering our Acer Swift 3 is a quad-core / eight-thread processor with up to a 35W TDP and a max boost clock of 4.8GHz. As such, it's not going to compete with the top-end processors in some of the higher-end configurations represented here, but it definitely holds its own. The Acer Swift 3 ended up competing well against the MSI Prestige EVO 14 and was right in the mix with the other quad-core processors.
The Core i7-11370H in our Acer Swift 3 performs about as expected in the Geekbench as well. It's single-thread score is competitive with some of the faster systems in the chart and its multi-threaded score is competitive with the other quad-cores as well.
The Acer Swift 3 competed well in the PCMark 10 benchmark suite. Here, the machine lands about in the middle of the pack, no doubt held back a bit by the mainstream SSD in the system. Still, the Swift 3 puts up a good showing and competes well against some much more expensive notebooks.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
The ATTO disk benchmark is a fairly quick and simple test which measures read/write bandwidth and IOPS across a range of different data sizes. While we don't typically compare these results across multiple machines, it's useful to gauge whether a particular notebook's storage subsystem is up to snuff.The Acer Swift 3 came equipped with a WD SN530 NVMe PCIe SSD. This is a mainstream drive that doesn't offer near the bandwidth of high-end PCIe 4 SSDs, but with peak reads over 2.3GBs and writes approaching 1.6GB/s, it's much higher performing than any SATA-based drive.
BrowserBench Speedometer Web Application Benchmark
In this web test, the single core performance of the CPU is a factor. While the Acer Swift 3 comes in last, it is the only 11th Gen CPU utilizing an integrated GPU on the list. It is not far off from the 10th Gen i7s that are coupled with dedicated GPUs. However, Dell's XPS 13.2-in has a 10th Gen with Iris Plus integrated graphics and slightly edges out the Swift 3 in this test.
We don't get to hold onto all of the laptops and notebooks we've tested, so software and driver updates unfortunately come into play in a test like Speedometer. That said, the Acer Swift 3 put up a strong number here and landed near the top of the charts.
Cinebench R23 Rendering Test
This is the latest 3D rendering benchmark from Maxon, based on the Cinema 4D R23 rendering engine. We tested both single-threaded and multi-threaded tests on all of the notebooks represented here...
The Core i7-11370H powering our Acer Swift 3 is a quad-core / eight-thread processor with up to a 35W TDP and a max boost clock of 4.8GHz. As such, it's not going to compete with the top-end processors in some of the higher-end configurations represented here, but it definitely holds its own. The Acer Swift 3 ended up competing well against the MSI Prestige EVO 14 and was right in the mix with the other quad-core processors.
GeekBench 5 Testing
Geekbench is a cross-platform benchmark that simulates real world processing workloads in image processing and particle physics scenarios. We tested the notebooks featured here in Geekbench's single and multi-core workloads. It measures single-threaded performance allowing a single core to stretch its legs, and multi-threaded throughput to put all cores under a heavy load.
PCMark 10 Testing
PCMark 10 uses a mix of real-world applications and simulated workloads to establish how well a given system performs productivity tasks, including image and video editing, web browsing, and OpenOffice document editing. While these scores appear to be all over the place, the systems are sorted by their overall PCMark score, which is the third (gray) bar in each cluster.
3DMark Graphics And GPU Tests
3DMark has several different graphics tests which focus on different types of systems. We start with Time Spy, which is 3DMark's headline benchmark. This test presents a pretty significant challenge for the system's CPU and GPU using DirectX 12's API...
In both of the 3DMark Tests we ran, the Acer Swift 3 ended up leading all of the other systems that leverage Intel's Integrated Iris Xe Graphics. This is most likely due to driver and OS updates, and perhaps a bit of additional thermal headroom afforded by the Swift 3's 16" chassis, however. For all intents and purposes, the Swift 3's iGPU performance is right in-line with other Intel-based systems.
Middle Earth: Shadow Of War Tests
Middle Earth: Shadow of War is a fun and and beautiful title set in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe. To test the game's performance relative to other systems, we set the resolution to 1920x1080 and turned the visuals up to the High preset. The frame rates here are the average reported by the built-in benchmark.
The Acer Swift 3 is not a gaming notebook, but we ran Shadow Of War on the system nonetheless. Everyone needs a bit of downtime, and if you plan to squeeze in some gaming when the workday is over, we wanted to present some real-world gaming benchmarks. In the Shadow Of War benchmark, Intel's Iris Xe Graphics engine trails AMD's latest (in the Ryzen 6000 series) by a wide margin, but actually out runs the Vega-based graphics engine in the Ryzen 4000 and 5000 series. Stepping up to a system with a discrete GPU obviously results in vastly better gaming performance.
The Acer Swift 3 is not a gaming notebook, but we ran Shadow Of War on the system nonetheless. Everyone needs a bit of downtime, and if you plan to squeeze in some gaming when the workday is over, we wanted to present some real-world gaming benchmarks. In the Shadow Of War benchmark, Intel's Iris Xe Graphics engine trails AMD's latest (in the Ryzen 6000 series) by a wide margin, but actually out runs the Vega-based graphics engine in the Ryzen 4000 and 5000 series. Stepping up to a system with a discrete GPU obviously results in vastly better gaming performance.
Acer Swift 3 Battery Life Testing
The Acer Swift 3 is equipped with a 56 Wh Li-ion battery that the company states should provide up to 11.5 hours of battery life. We run a custom 1080p HD video loop test developed in-house, to prove out battery life with our test group of machines. In all tests, Windows Quiet Hours / Focus Assist has been enabled and the displays are calibrated with lux meters on pure white screens to as close to 115 lux as possible.
With our custom battery life test, the Acer Swift 3 offered up over 6.6 hours of uptime, which placed it squarely in the middle of the pack. Keep in mind, this test requires that the display remain lit-up for the duration, so mixed workloads where the display may go dim for brief periods will result in longer battery life than what is represented here.
We also performed a lighter-duty, quick and dirty battery rundown test by playing a YouTube video on loop at 1080p resolution, with the screen brightness turned up to 100%. The Swift 3 was able to stay powered on for a total of 7hrs 47mins, or 467 minutes, in this test before finally powering off. So, if you are simply using the laptop to view some videos on a long trip and maybe do some light browsing and what not, the battery should last quite a while.
We also performed a lighter-duty, quick and dirty battery rundown test by playing a YouTube video on loop at 1080p resolution, with the screen brightness turned up to 100%. The Swift 3 was able to stay powered on for a total of 7hrs 47mins, or 467 minutes, in this test before finally powering off. So, if you are simply using the laptop to view some videos on a long trip and maybe do some light browsing and what not, the battery should last quite a while.
