Acer's AMD-powered Helios 500 uses a 120W RX Vega 56 graphics card

AMD's standard RX Vega 56 is 165W

| Source: Computerbase.de Author: Mark Campbell

Acer's AMD-powered Helios 500 uses a 120W RX Vega 56 graphics card

When Acer revealed their AMD-powered Helios 500 notebook, several questions were raised regarding the power consumption and heat production of the unit, as both the CPU and GPU portions of the system use desktop-grade hardware.



On the CPU-side the all-AMD Helios 500 uses a Ryzen 7 2700 processor, a low power variant of the Ryzen 7 2700X, shipping with a 65W TDP, which is pretty low for an 8-core processor. On the GPU-side we have a Radeon RX Vega 56, which by default has a TDP of 165W.



Computerbase.de was able to learn that the RX Vega 56 used in Acer's Helios 500 has a TDP of 120W, which is much lower than AMD's desktop version, even in low-power mode. Reference RX Vega 56 GPUs have a secondary low-power BIOS with a default TDP of 150W which lowers to 135W if set to power save mode in AMD's Radeon Software drivers, which is still 15W more than what is used on Acer's Helios 500.



With such a low TDP, the Acer Helios 500 is expected to offer lower performance levels than its desktop counterpart, though it is worth noting that the performance difference is minimal when mowing from the RX Vega 56's standard 165W mode to its 135W low-power mode.





Even with these power saving in mind, Nvidia's GTX 1070 Mobile still offers a lower TDP of 115W, showcasing how efficient Nvidia's Pascal series of graphics cards are in the mobile market.



AMD's TDP reducing measures on the RX Vega 56 showcases how versatile their offerings when it comes to power consumption, though the company still has a long way to go before they can catch up to Nvidia when it comes to power efficiency.



You can join the discussion on AMD's 120W RX Vega 56 in Acer's all-AMD Helios 500 notebook on the OC3D Forums.

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