The Acer Aspire S7-393 Review: Broadwell Comes To Acer's Ultrabook
by Brett Howse on October 5, 2015 8:00 AM ESTGPU Performance
Broadwell brought along some major changes to the GPU architecture, including more execution units and less execution units per subslice. The total of EUs went from 20 in Haswell to 24 in Broadwell, but each subslice only has 8 EUs rather than 10 on Haswell to reduce some of the bottlenecks. The i7-5500U model is an Intel HD 5500 branded GPU with a frequency range of 300-950 MHz. This is the maximum before Intel moves into their Iris branded products.
As with the system benchmarks, the second generation Acer S7 with Haswell is included to give a reference of where we have gone in a year or so. Not all of the tests were run on it, but some of the 3DMark test scores are available.
The other note about GPU performance is our one gaming test that was decent to run on integrated graphics has been significantly changed. DOTA 2 was recently updated to a new version of the Source engine which has changed everything pretty dramatically. While we work out a good way to benchmark it again, it will be left out of this review. Any scores we obtained would not be comparable with the older benchmark.
3DMark
FutureMark’s 3DMark has a list of different tests which go from very difficult to very easy. The Broadwell S7 on Windows 10 does very well here with pretty much the highest scores across the board, with the exception of Ice Storm Unlimited Physics which is more CPU bound and the faster CPU in the X1 Carbon surpasses it. For light gaming, the S7 should be able to hold its own.
GFXBench
GFXBench is basically a mobile benchmark, but it has also been released as a DirectX benchmark as well in the Windows Store. Once again the Core i7-5500U does well against its Ultrabook brethren.
As far as performance, with the amount of systems we have seen with Broadwell there are not a lot of surprises left. Skylake should make some nice changes here and we should see devices with Skylake very soon.
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smorebuds - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
the hyperbole is strong with this onecgalyon - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
While "perfect" is probably an understatement, it was quite good, except the keyboard. I make no exaggeration when I say that it was not possible to type much more than a short word without having to make a correction. People were modifying registry files in an attempt to compensate (by changing the latency between detected key presses)DanNeely - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
I'm a bit surprised that Acer would want you to review a Broadwell model now when Skylake is out. Was this laptop stuck in your todo queue for a while?lmcd - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
Most of Skylake is a connectivity upgrade, no? Which would be lost on a unit like this, with nearly no connectivity to speak of.DanNeely - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
That's true for desktop processors. On the mobile side, improvements to power management and a bigger IGP have potential to make significant improvements to some performance numbers.lilmoe - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
Acer probably got a better deal for those parts...p1esk - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
Those specs at that price would be OK back in 2012. But now? At $799 it could sell a few. At $999? Meh, no thanks. At the asking price? You gotta be completely crazy.kmmatney - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
I'm pretty sure Intel is charging up the nose for the Intel Core i7-5500U - easily adds a few hundred to the price over an i5.solipsism - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
May I request when detailing the USB ports going forward to make clear if it's USB-A or USB-C.lilmoe - Monday, October 5, 2015 - link
"Something pretty remarkable is that Acer has sampled us nearly identical Aspire S7 models for the past three generations"I would have gotten excited here since I wanted a good comparison between Haswell and Broadwell in terms of efficiency. But I'm not sure if even this is a good comparison since you're not using the same browser for battery life tests. Edge is the most efficient browser on Windows.
It would have been nice if you also posted battery tests using IE for this particular product since you have identical specs other than the CPU.
On to the product itself, dat screen is seriously awful... The price tag is a bit high. Otherwise, not too shabby.