Acer via eBay has
Acer Predator Helios 16 Laptop (Certified Refurbished, PH16-71-93FR)
w/ 16GB RAM + 2-Year Allstate Warranty for $1655.99 - 20% when you apply coupon code
BESTOFBRANDS at checkout =
$1324.79.
Shipping is free.
Thanks to community member
Dr.Wajahat for finding this deal.
Specs:
- 16" QHD+ (2560x1600, WQXGA+) 16:10.
- 240Hz 3ms, 500-nits Peak Brightness, 100% DCI-P3, DisplayHDR, NVIDIA Advanced Optimus & G-SYNC, IPS Display
- Intel i9-13900HX 24-Core/32-Threads 5.4GHz Processor (13th Gen)
- 16GB (1x 16GB) or 32GB (2x16GB) SO-DIMM DDR5 Memory
- 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe Solid State Drive SSD
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 12GB GDDR6 GPU
- Intel Killer WiFi 6E AX1675 + Bluetooth 5.1
- Lithium Ion Battery (90W)
- RGB Backlit Keyboard w/ Precision Corning Gorilla Glass Touchpad
- 90Whr Battery
- Windows 11 Home
- Ports:
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (w/ DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 4, USB charging 5 V)
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
- 1x HDMI 2.1 with HDCP Support
- 1x RJ-45
No Longer Available:
- Acer via eBay has Acer Predator Helios 16 Laptop (Good - Refurbished, PH16-71-948L) w/ 32GB RAM + 1-Year Allstate Warranty for $1655 - 20% when you apply coupon code BESTOFBRANDS at checkout = $1324. Shipping is free.
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Top Comments
The mobile 4080 is essentially a desktop rtx 4070. This is why it has 12GB of ram. Performance-wise, mobile 4080 has nowhere near the power and thermal headroom of a desktop gpu. Fortunately, Nvidia's design & TSMC manufacturing process = very efficient chips, and the end result in mobile form are surprisingly close to their desktop counterparts. Mobile rtx 4080 performance varies depending on the designs by Acer/Asus/Lenovo/etc, but roughly approximates a 4070 Super with weaker 1% lows (lack of clock speed).
Thin laptops like Asus Zephyrus and Zenbooks are often given less power or clock speed to the cpu, gpu, or both and have worse performance. Meanwhile thick tanks like this deal or huge 18" desktop-replacement laptops often have the best performance (or at least better cooling). This 16" Helios is on the upper-end of performance, but Acer in general seems like they've spent most of the past 2-3 years trailing Asus and Lenovo laptops on design and/or software. Can't say Acer isn't trying though as I think they updated this laptop like 3x in the 4-5 years. That kind of competition has been great for us consumers and probably explains at least part of why they fire-sale this laptop to get rid of it.
I CANCELLED MY ORDER ON 32GB because 16GB had two year warranty and was Certified refurbished which apparently is Like new compared to the 32Gb version which only had 1 year and is the lowest tier of reburbished on ebay 16GB of ram is $40 the extra year of warranty is worth it for me
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With 16" QHD+ 240Hz, i7-14700HX, RTX 4060, 32 GB, 1TB for 1234 after coupon...
This seems a better deal with the Processor and Graphics card but I need to upgrade the ram (so ~100 more). The 2 year warranty also seems to be better than the default Lenovo 1 year warranty... is there a reason I shouldn't jump on this and return the Legion? I am not a huge PC gamer BUT if the deal so really good, might as well jump on it....
With 16" QHD+ 240Hz, i7-14700HX, RTX 4060, 32 GB, 1TB for 1234 after coupon...
This seems a better deal with the Processor and Graphics card but I need to upgrade the ram (so ~100 more). The 2 year warranty also seems to be better than the default Lenovo 1 year warranty... is there a reason I shouldn't jump on this and return the Legion? I am not a huge PC gamer BUT if the deal so really good, might as well jump on it....
What would you recommend? I was thinking about either getting a Lenovo slim or Asus zephyrus (but non upgradable ram makes me want to go with Lenovo)
This laptop does fit most marks except weight.
Do you think these prices can be expected during black Friday and how is the return policy on this?
I was thinking that it could also be interesting to go for a 800$ laptop and then have an egpu if I ever need the extra power.
Asus or Lenovo laptops may offer better battery life, smaller size, and/or lower weight, but you won't get anywhere near this level of performance for this price.
As to your question about an eGPU, technically yes, you can add an external GPU. However, there are some significant limitations to this approach beyond just the GPU portability.
So, most (but not all) laptops have a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 port or USB 4. Any of these can be used to connect an eGPU. If your laptop only has USB 3.X, it won't work.
However, these ports are not equivalent to the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot that modern GPUs generally use. They all add latency as they need to encode and decode the PCIe data at each end of the connection. Also, they only support up to 40 GT/s bandwidth, whereas a PCIe 4.0 16x slot offers 256 GT/s bandwidth.
What does that mean practically? Your FPS will be low, and as you can't upgrade the ports on your laptop(unless it's a Framework and you feel like replacing the motherboard and CPU), that's not going to increase over time.
An RTX 4090 GPU running on a thunderbolt port at 1440p resolution:
Forza motorsport:
61 FPS average
24 FPS 1% low
Total war wh3:
94 FPS average
26 FPS 1% low
Cyberpunk 2077:
101 FPS average
33 FPS 1% low
That same GPU plugged into a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot:
Forza motorsport:
159 FPS average
102 FPS 1% low
Total war wh3:
181 FPS average
116 FPS 1% low
Cyberpunk 2077:
211 FPS average
123 FPS 1% low
Over double the average performance. And more importantly, far better 1% low performance; that means games stutter when run over Thunderbolt/USB4, not a fun experience.
There are some applications that use the GPU but don't need as much bandwidth, such as generative AI, but for gaming, external GPUs don't work all that well.
There is a port called OCuLink that offers 64GT/s and doesn't add latency to the eGPU connection. But you'll only see that on a few mini PCs, and rarely on a laptop. If you can get that it's a better option, but it's extremely rare. The 1% low performance is significantly better because it doesn't add latency, but it's still less than half that of a PCIe x16 4090. It's equivalent to a PCIe x4 slot.
So for now, for high end gaming, you should get a laptop with a strong internal GPU. Maybe in the future and with upgraded ports this could be a viable way to game on a slim and light laptop (I hope so), but it's just not practical right now.
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/...lay-egpus/
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