The Tomahawk 300 series in the Predator family has always given me the impression that it is strong enough, portable, has a distinct personality but is not flashy, and everything is just right. Especially considering the price factor, the tomahawk 300 series price performance can be said to be quite satisfactory.
After Intel launched the 12th generation Core processor, we finally got the new Marauder Tomahawk 300 series, and the most impressive thing I left with this new product has been reflected in the title, that is, super performance tuning. Therefore, in the case that the overall mold appearance has not changed, and the hardware performance adjustment is so in place, this review we may wish to start with the performance of the Marauder Tomahawk 300 to feel this excellent performance.
In fact, the tomahawk 300 series of previous models have adhered to the spirit of uncompromising in performance release, but after all, the power consumption range of Intel's 12th-generation Core platform has been further expanded, the upper limit has been broadened, and the power consumption of the RTX 3060 full blood version has reached 140W, under double pressure, for the tomahawk 300, which is not a large game book, there are naturally greater challenges in terms of heat dissipation and performance stability.
However, after completing the test, the performance can be completely assured, do not believe to see the results of each test project?
01 14 core 20 threads 12 generation Core i7 blessing
This review model is equipped with Intel 12th generation Core i7-12700H processor, 2×8GB DDR5-4800 memory, 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 discrete graphics, and also equipped with a Killer Wi-Fi 6E wireless network card, the configuration is undoubtedly the mainstream configuration of the current 12th generation Core game new products, and tomahawk 300 is equipped with 140W full power RTX 3060 unique display.
Let's start by looking at processor performance. Intel 12th Generation Core i7-12700H processor performance, native 14 cores 20 thread design, of which 6 cores are high-performance cores (P-Core), Turbo acceleration up to 4.7GHz, 8 cores are energy-efficient cores (E-Core), the maximum Turbo frequency is 3.5GHz, and has up to 24MB of L3 cache, the basic power consumption is 45W.
First of all, look at the performance test of CPU-Z, its processor performance score is 749.1, multi-processor performance score is 8085.8, which is currently measured in the game book, i7-12700H processor running score is the highest, especially the multi-core performance has broken through 8000 points, its performance potential can be said to be fully tapped.
Geekbench 5 is mainly a direct score evaluation of single-core and multi-core performance, under its test standards, the measured Core i7-12700H processor single-core score of 1628, multi-core score reached 12083, compared to the 11th generation Core i7-11800H, the performance improvement is huge.
In the CINEBENCH test standard, the measured CINEBENCH R15 multi-core 2789cb, single-core 262cb; CINEBENCH R20 multi-core 6961cb, single-core 689cb; CINEBENCH R23 multi-core 17929pts, single-core 1798pts. Judging from the ratings, the Marauder Tomahawk 300 gives full play to the single-core and multi-core performance of this processor, and does a pretty good job in CPU performance tuning.
Intel 12th generation Core processor further strengthens the video codec capabilities, 12th generation Core i7-12700H processor in the use of P-Core + E-Core heterogeneous design at the same time, through the Intel thread scheduler to achieve the perfect scheduling of heterogeneous cores, so in the video codec can provide very good efficiency. Through the x.264 Benchmark test, it can be seen that it takes only 31 seconds to encode 2500 frames, the frame rate is as high as 79.99fps, and the video encoding efficiency is about 20% higher than that of the previous generation.
In terms of physical rendering, under the V-Ray renderer standard, the measured 12517 vsamples shows that it has efficient physical rendering capabilities, which also makes the Predator Tomahawk 300 not only suitable for games, but also provides excellent performance support in 3D rendering, modeling and other aspects.
In terms of compression/decompression efficiency, we refer to the 7-Zip test results. It was measured to take only 77.422 seconds to complete 10 rounds of compression/decompression tasks, and the overall score was as high as 94.221 GIPS.
3DMark's CPU PROFILE can test the processor from single-threaded to multi-threaded, under this test standard, Intel 12th Generation Core i7-12700H processor single-thread score up to 949, 2 threads score 1831, 4 threads score 3450, 8 threads score 5544, 16 threads score 7573, maximum number of threads combined score 8197, single-thread and multi-thread strength is quite outstanding.
And it is worth mentioning that the i7-12700H performance test results carried by the Marauder Tomahawk 300 have many exceeded the test results of the i9-12900HK carried by some products, which shows that it has no regrets in performance tuning.
02 140W Full Power RTX 3060 provides surging graphics performance
The 140W RTX 3060 is commonly known as the "full blood version" of the RTX 3060. Through GPU-Z we can see the basic information of this notebook GPU, it has 3840 CUDA cores, 192bit bus width, bandwidth 336GB/s, video memory is 6GB GDDR6, core frequency 900MHz, memory frequency 1750MHz, Boost frequency 1425MHz.
Let's take a look at the theoretical performance of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 through 3DMark software testing.
Here are the test results of the time spy, port royal, and Fire Strike Extreme modes as a reference. The Time Spy DX12 test mode has a score of 8793 points; Port Royal is a professional test mode for light chasing performance, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 has a score of 5136 points; and Fire Strike Extreme is a limit test mode for general game scenarios, with a score of 10588 points.
Overall, the Marauder Tomahawk 300 plays a good 140W RTX 3060 unique performance, with the estimated game performance reference given by 3DMark, the Battlefield V 1440P Ultra image quality can reach more than 75fps fluency, the game experience is excellent.
03 Smooth running of various AAA game masterpieces
Next, let's look at the actual game tests, starting with the recent hit Eldon's Ring of Law.
Friends who know it know that this game is an ancestral lock 60 frame setting, but the main reason why this game is used as a test game project is that it is currently very unstable due to optimization problems, and this is the perfect condition for testing the performance of the processor.
When testing, we set the game quality to the highest quality, set the resolution to the default 2560×1440, and adjusted to full-screen mode. In addition, because this is a lock 60fps screen, there is no need to test the smoothness of the game under 1080P alone, as long as the 2.5K resolution can reach a stable 60fps, 1080P naturally has no problem.
Through the actual test, we can see that the average game frame of the Predator Tomahawk 300 can be maintained at 60fps, and the author actually plays it, and the stability of the entire frame number of the screen is also maintained very well, and the whole experience is very smooth.
Total War: Three Kingdoms is a game that relies more on processor performance because there are a lot of physics operations involved in the gameplay. Especially after the size of the force is turned on to the maximum, the processor load pressure will increase significantly. Before the test, we opened the picture quality to the highest, the size of the troops to the maximum, the test chose the game's own Benchmark, the mode is the battlefield mode, and tested the screen frame number performance at 2.5K and 1080P resolutions respectively, as follows:
Through the results, it can be seen that the measured 2560×1440 resolution is 41.4fps, and the fluency is 66.4fps at 1920×1080 resolution, which can achieve such a frame-count performance in the case of the largest size of the troops, indicating that tomahawk 300 has no problem dealing with "processor-dependent" games, after all, the "Total War" series is the ceiling of this type of game.
The last game tested was the hardware killer Cyberpunk 2077, which was preceded by the test, which turned on the light chase mode as super, with the highest image quality, and the DLSS set to automatic, which allowed the game to present a more exquisite and realistic picture effect, and all the light and shadow details will be fully displayed.
Thanks to the powerful hardware combination of the 12th-generation Core i7-12700H and the 140W full-blood RTX 3060, in the same scene, the 2560×1440 resolution picture fluency is 49fps, the fluency at 1920×1080 resolution is 63fps, and the silky experience brought by the 165Hz high brush screen is really a kind of enjoyment for players.
04 DDR5 memory + PCIe 4.0 SSD breaks through the storage bottleneck
In addition to the powerful CPU and GPU performance, relying on the new features of the 12th generation Core, the Tomahawk 300 has also upgraded the DDR5 memory, and the author evaluated its performance through the storage test of AIDA 64. It can be seen from the test that its read speed reaches 56350MB/s, write speed is 52913MB/s, copy speed is 50724MB/s, and latency is 103.8ns. Compared with DDR4 memory, the read and write speeds are about 50% faster, and the copy speed is about 60% faster, although the latency is slightly higher than that of DDR4 memory, but the overall performance improvement brought by read and write performance is extremely impressive.
In terms of hard disk storage, Tomahawk 300 is equipped with a 512GB capacity PCIe 4.0 SSD, the measured read speed is 6544.51MB/s, the write speed is 4001.44MB/s, the 4K random read speed is 70.3MB/s, and the write speed is 214.16MB/s. From the test point of view, the performance level of this SSD is at the normal level of PCIe 4.0 SSD, and the performance is excellent enough.
05 Excellent comprehensive performance without shortcomings
Next, let's look at the overall performance, here we refer to PCMark 10 and CrossMark and performance test results.
In the PCMark 10 Extended test standard, this product scored as high as 10275 in common basic functions, including web browsing, video conferencing, application launch, etc., indicating that it has no problems in completing these basic office tasks; and a score of 9974 in the productivity project test, indicating that it has efficient spreadsheet and document work performance; and in digital content creation, its score reached 10729 points, indicating that it can complete pictures, videos, etc. very efficiently. Graphics rendering and other work; the score of game performance is as high as 16835 points, and the game experience is excellent under the support of the two powerful hardware of the processor and graphics card. In addition, its comprehensive score is 9097 points, and there is no shortcoming in comprehensive performance.
Under the CrossMark test standard, the overall score is 1929 points, the productivity score is 1842 points, the creativity score is 2037 points, and the responsiveness score is 1884 points. So the Marauder Tomahawk 300 is not only suitable for games, but also meets the needs of creativity and productivity-related applications.
06 The 5th generation of 3D blade speed cold + liquid gold heat dissipation brings a cooling experience
Intel's 12th generation Core processor performance improvement, the overall power consumption has also improved, coupled with the Tomahawk 300 equipped with a 140W full blood version of the RTX 3060, so the thermal design of the machine has brought certain challenges. However, after all, the Tomahawk 300 uses the 5th generation of 3D blade speed cold metal fan and liquid gold heat dissipation scheme, so its heat dissipation performance does not worry the author, after all, the previous performance test has seen that the Tomahawk 300 is very good in terms of performance release, which must be the result of the underlying heat dissipation guarantee.
First, under the AIDA 64 Stress CPU stress test, the processor's 14 core temperatures are between 79°C and 92°C, the power consumption is stable at 110.38W, and the frequency is stable at 2.61GHz. From the perspective of TDP release and core temperature, tomahawk 300 performance is really good, processor performance has been fully released, while also controlling the core temperature at a very good level, the overall heat dissipation performance is good.
GPU single roaster test, Furmark 2560×1440 resolution, GPU power consumption release 124.56W, not stable in the 140W full power state, so the GPU temperature is only 60.5 °C, heat dissipation performance is excellent. If the GPU power consumption is stabilized at 140W through the BIOS update, the current thermal performance can be completely suppressed.
Under the CPU + GPU dual oven test, the processor core temperature is 74 °C-82 °C, and the core frequency is stable at 2.83GHz. At this time, its GPU temperature is 72 ° C, cpu + GPU power consumption release reached 65.09W + 116.68W, CPU performance release is sufficient, GPU also reached a good performance state, daily games, productivity applications without any problems.
07 Classic design combines practicality and personalization
After understanding the overall performance, let's review the design of the Tomahawk 300. The new generation of Tomahawk 300 follows the previous mold, although the appearance has not changed, but the overall design and functionality of this mold is widely recognized by users.
Although tomahawk 300 is a 15.6-inch game book, but through the narrow bezel design, its entire body is basically only the size of a 14-inch notebook, the whole machine weighs about 2.4kg, and the thickness is 25.5mm, for a game book, such a size and weight is still more convenient to carry.
The A and C sides of the Tomahawk 300 are made of alloy materials, and the surface is treated by an anodizing process, and the texture and surface touch after coloring are very good, and it is not easy to stain fingerprints. Its A-side is equipped with LED strips on the left and right sides, and the Marauder logo in the middle is also backlit, which has a good handling in terms of personalized design, and is a highly recognizable game series.
The overall shape of the tomahawk 300 mold is very dynamic, and the corners are "cut", so the entire body is not square, but forms a hexagon.
Open the screen to see the entire C-side design of the Tomahawk 300, its keyboard area is compactly arranged, there is no extra space on the left and right sides, and even accommodates a separate number keypad, and the arrow keys are also standard sizes, these details are very practical features for gamers.
The upper area of the keyboard has a separate Turbo function key, and the machine will be in the best performance state when pressed. Of course, at this time, the fan speed will also be pulled to the maximum, when playing the game, turn on the Turbo mode will increase the number of game frames, effectively reduce the temperature of core hardware such as CPU and GPU, but because the fan speed increases, so the wind noise will also be more obvious.
In terms of interface, the left side of the fuselage is an RJ45 network cable interface, a USB 3.2 interface, and a headphone/microphone socket; the right side of the fuselage is designed with 2 USB 3.2 interfaces (supporting shutdown and charging); the rear of the fuselage is equipped with a power interface, a Thunderbolt 4 interface, an HDMI interface and a MiniDP interface.
08 Upgrade 165Hz refresh rate supports 99% P3 color gamut
In order to bring users a more silky visual experience, the Marauder Tomahawk 300 upgraded the screen refresh rate from 144Hz to 165Hz, with 3ms ultra-low latency, 2.5K resolution, G-Sync technology, can bring a very good visual experience to gamers. And the 15.6-inch screen is more compatible with the 2.5K resolution.
In addition, the screen quality of the Tomahawk 300 has also maintained a good level, and through the spider color calibrator, we have tested it, and the results are as follows:
It can be seen that the color gamut volume of this screen is 100% sRGB (actually more than 100%), 87% AdobeRGB, and 99% P3. The screen brightness is measured at 290.2nits, and its color accuracy average ΔE value reaches 2.02, and the overall performance is no problem for playing games.
09 Review Summary
Under the background of no obvious change in the design, how the hardware performance adjustment and how the heat dissipation experience performs will naturally become the key factor for users to judge whether a new product is worth buying.
The Predator Tomahawk 300 series has always had one of the best performance tuning levels in the industry, and this upgrade to Intel's 12th generation Core platform has not disappointed. The author probably counted that in the more than ten 12th-generation Core i7-12700H game books that have been tested so far, the processor single-core and multi-core performance release, the Marauder Tomahawk 300 ranked first, is currently the most outstanding performance tuning of a product, which can be assured.
In other aspects, the new Tomahawk 300 further enhances the screen quality, the color gamut volume is further improved, the maximum support is 99% P3 color gamut; in addition, its screen refresh rate has also been upgraded to 165Hz, with 140W power consumption RTX 3060 laptop GPU, can bring users a very good game visual experience.
In addition, it must be mentioned that the excellent performance of its cooling system, and this excellent performance leaves a lot of room for further development of future performance potential. Although the RTX 3060 unique display did not reach 140W full power consumption in this test, if Acer is willing, the follow-up can solve this problem through a version of the BIOS update, after all, from the core temperature test, even if the RTX 3060 unique display is at 140W, it is not difficult to release it stably.