[In-Depth Comparison] ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 (2021) vs Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s) – two devices for two different people

Slim gaming notebooks have been getting a lot of steam. New and improved hardware has allowed gaming laptops to slim down significantly, as GPUs and CPUs now run cooler, without needing the crazy cooling setups from before. Today we are comparing two of the best-looking slim gaming devices, which set the bar pretty high in terms of design and performance.

The ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 and the Predator Triton 300 SE both come with other features which make them overall great laptops, such as quality displays that can be used for professional work. These laptops are great for people who move around a lot and can’t be burdened by a heavy gaming laptop. You do sacrifice a bit of performance, but considering the advantages that you get with it, it’s worth it for many people.

Today we are giving you an in-depth comparison between the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 (2021) and the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s).

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 (2021): Full Specs / In-depth Review

Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s): Full Specs / In-depth Review

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 (2021) configurations:

Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s) configurations:

Contents


Design and construction

Both laptops look fantastic in their own right. The Zephyrus G14 has a slim exterior that is made entirely from metal. It also has sharp edges, which help grip the laptop better. The LED Matrix on the back allows the laptop to be truly yours, as you can set up a custom image or animation to be displayed on the lid. In terms of structure, the aluminum and magnesium alloy body is pretty durable, with next to no flexing to be seen from the base. The lid, on the other hand, is a bit bendy, but nothing to be afraid of. As for the dimensions, the laptop has a weight of 1.60 kg and a profile of 17.9 mm. The more powerful versions of the device are heavier and thicker, however, measuring at 1.70 kg and 19.9 mm for weight and height, respectively.

Going over to the Predator Triton, it also comes in a fully metallic outfit. It uses aluminum for everything. The shape is minimal and good-looking, without too many distractions. Even the Predator logo is not front and center. Instead, it is featured inside a badge in the upper right corner. Overall, the design is much more grown-up, which low-key gamers will appreciate. The Triton 300 is relatively sturdy, with no serious flexing both in the lid and the base. In terms of weight and height, the laptop measures 1.70 kg and 17.9 mm.


Keyboard and touchpad

The keyboard on the Zephyrus isn’t the best one out there, but it does its job. The keycaps are decently sized, but the arrow keys are really tiny. The keyboard has clicky feedback and long key travel, along with a backlight. Yes, it does lack a NumPad, but at this size, it is to be expected. The touchpad is also pretty good, offering smooth gliding and accurate tracking.

The Predator also lacks a NumPad, while offering large keycaps (arrow keys included). The unit is complemented by long key travel, clicky feedback, and a white backlight. The touchpad is also one of the greatest that we have used. It has a fingerprint reader embedded in it, that surprisingly doesn’t result in a dead zone. The pad has smooth gliding and a very good clicking mechanism.


Ports

The G14 has decent I/O coverage, with a total of two USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 2) ports, two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1), an HDMI 2.0b, and a 3.5 mm audio jack. Sadly, the laptop lacks a MicroSD card reader.

As for the Triton 300 SE, it has even fewer ports, with a total of two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 2) ports, a single Thunderbolt 4 port, an HDMI connector, and a 3.5 mm audio jack.


Spec sheet


Disassembly, upgrade options

The Zephyrus G14 has a total of 14 Phillips-head screws, revealing a single SODIMM slot, as half of the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard. There is also a single M.2 PCIe x4 drive.

In the case of the Acer laptop, it is being held together by 9 Torx-head screws that when removed, reveal soldered RAM and a single SODIMM slot. Storage-wise, it mimics the G14, having access to a single M.2 drive.


Display quality

The Zephyrus G14 comes with several display options. The laptop that we reviewed came with the 14-inch QHD IPS option, which has a pixel density of 210 PPI, a pitch of 0.161 x 0.161 mm, and a Retina distance of 40cm.

As for the Triton 300 SE, it comes with a 14-inch FHD IPS display with a pixel density of 157 PPI, a pitch of 0.16 x 0.16 mm, and a Retina distance of 56cm.

Both displays have excellent viewing angles. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

The G14’s panel has a max brightness of 302 nits in the middle of the screen and 283 nits average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 11%. The contrast ratio stands at 1360:1.

As for the Acer device, it has a similar, albeit slightly lower max brightness of 284 nits in the middle of the screen and 278 nits average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 9%. The contrast ratio is noticeably higher – 1930:1.


Color coverage

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows the color coverage of both the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 and the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s).

Both laptops have near full sRGB coverage, with 95% for the Zephyrus G14 and 98% for the Triton 300 SE.


Color accuracy

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can check the results from the test of both laptops, with both the factory settings (left) and with our “Design and Gaming” profile applied (right).


Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” methods from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

The Zephyrus G14 had a faster Fall + Rise time of 26.4 ms.


Health Impact / PWM (Blue light)

PWM – Screen flickering

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

In terms of flickering both panels show no usage of PWM across any brightness levels.


Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

Here at LaptopMedia, we create a set of custom-tailored profiles for every notebook we review. They boost the productivity of display and reduce negative effects such as blue light emissions and PWM. You can read more about them here.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 14.0″ AUO B140QAN02.3 (AUOE68C) (FHD, 2560 × 1440) IPS: Buy our profiles

Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s) 14.0″ Sharp LQ140M1JW49 (SHP1523) (FHD, 1920 x 1080) IPS: Buy our profiles

Sound

The ASUS laptop has two speakers on the left and right sides of the keyboard, along with two on the bottom panel. As for the Acer Predator, it has two speakers on the bottom. In terms of quality, the Zephyrus G14 produces loud and punchy audio with no deviations across the entire frequency range. The Predator does have some deviations in the high tones, but its sound is relatively good.


Battery

The way we conduct our battery tests is with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. The ASUS device has a bigger battery pack with a 76Wh capacity. The Triton 300 SE has a smaller 60Wh unit. This is shown to have a big effect, as the Zephyrus nearly doubles the battery life of the Predator in the web browsing test while having a lead of 1 hour and 22 minutes in the video playback test.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.


Performance

For now, the G14 is available only with the Ryzen 9 5900HS and the RTX 3060 (80W). As for the Triton 300 SE, it offers two Tiger Lake H35 chips, with either the Core i7-11370H or the Core i7-11375H. The laptop can be configured with either the GTX 1660 Ti, the RTX 3050 Ti, and the RTX 3060 (75W).

CPU benchmarks

Here we tested the Ryzen 9 5900HS and the Core i7-11370H. Unsurprisingly, the AMD CPU was better in both benchmarks, with leads of 86% in Cinebench 20 and 0.8 seconds in Adobe Photoshop.

Results are from the Cinebench R23 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)

Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)


GPU benchmarks

Here we tested the RTX 3060 in the 80W and the 75W versions. The Acer laptop had leads of 5% and 22% in 3DMark Fire Strike and Unigine Heaven 4.0. Interestingly enough, the G14 won in the Unigine Superposition test with a small 0.16% lead.


Gaming tests

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Highest (Check settings)
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 – RTX 3060 (80W)91 fps (+1%)88 fps57 fps
Acer Predator Triton 300 SE – RTX 3060 (75W)90 fps88 fps63 fps (+11%)

Temperatures and comfort

The Zephyrus G14 comes prepared in terms of cooling, with four heat pipes. Three of them cool down the CPU and GPU, while the fourth one is there for the VRM modules and graphics memory. They all connect to two cooling fans. On the other hand, the Triton has three heat pipes and two fans. One of them is shared between the processors and the graphics card, while the other two cool them separately.


Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS (35W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 (2021)3.42 GHz (B+14%) @ 67°C3.40 GHz (B+13%) @ 72°C3.50 GHz (B+17%) @ 87°C

The CPU maintained decent temperatures while keeping its clock speed above the base one.

Intel Core i7-11370H (35W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s)3.97 GHz (B+20%) @ 95°C @ 64W4.03 GHz (B+22%) @ 97°C @ 63W3.87 GHz (B+17%) @ 93°C @ 50W

The Core i7 didn’t reach critical temperatures, while its clock speed was close to 4.00GHz.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (80W)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 (2021)1722 MHz @ 75°C1656 MHz @ 82°C

The GTX 3060 (80W) had a max temperature of 82°C while running t 1656 MHz.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (Max Fan)
Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s)1593 MHz @ 75°C @ 84W1580 MHz @ 79°C @ 85W1656 MHz @ 72°C @ 83W

The GPU inside the Triton 300 increased its TDP using Dynamic boost, maintaining a slightly lower frequency and temperature after the 30-minute mark.

Gaming comfort

Lastly, in terms of noise and outside temperature, the G14 had plenty of both. It isn’t surprising though, as the powerful hardware is crammed into such a tiny body that there isn’t excess space for the heat to go. The keyboard gets pretty warm, although the WASD keys and the palm rest area are usable. We would recommend a cooling pad for the summer. As for the Acer laptop, its outside temperatures went over 50°C. The fans on the inside were also pretty loud.

Verdict

These are two pretty similar systems, which are competing in a space that still hasn’t been occupied by every single manufacturer. For now, we have the two laptops that we are reviewing today, as well as the two other Zephyrus devices: the G15 and M16 if you count them despite their larger screens.

Starting from the design, the laptops both come in metal outfits, albeit they go in different directions when it comes to their appearance. The Triton 300 SE is a lot more minimalistic, with subtle Predator branding on the lid and the bottom bezel. On the other hand, the G14 is pretty loud, but only if you want it to be. The AniMe Matrix allows you to customize the design, at the cost of some battery life.

Moving to the input devices and I/O, the Predator gives you larger keycaps, while keeping the feedback and key travel on more than acceptable levels. On the other hand, the G14 offers wider I/O, at the loss of Thunderbolt 4 support.

The Zephyrus is also offered with higher resolution displays if you feel that 1080p isn’t enough for you. If that is not the case, both laptops offer near full sRGB color coverage and good color accuracy with our Design and gaming profile, making them suitable for color-sensitive work.

The ASUS device also packs a better audio setup, delivering two front-facing speakers, with two more on the bottom. It also shows no deviations across all frequencies. The battery life is much better on the Zephyrus, which does pack the slightly larger battery pack.

In terms of performance, the Ryzen 9 5900HS rightfully outshines the Core i7-11370H, which is totally expected, especially if you take a look at the spec sheet of both processors. In stark contrast, the GPU performance on the Triton 300 SE was better.

Lastly, both laptops get pretty warm both on the inside and the outside, thanks to their slim bodies and tightly packed hardware. As we see things, the ROG Zephyrus G14 should be the device for gamers and people that need a lot of power on the go. Respectively, the Predator Triton 300SE is more suitable for those, who need a more subtle design, but still want to be able to play a game or two between meetings.

Why choose ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401?

  • + Lighter design that is plenty durable
  • + Access to more powerful hardware
  • + Way longer battery life

Why choose Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s)?

  • + Better Keyboard and touchpad
  • + More minimal design

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 (2021): Full Specs / In-depth Review

Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s): Full Specs / In-depth Review

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401 (2021) configurations:

Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s) configurations:

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