The latest Acer Swift X has just been announced, boasting an AMD 7000 Series processor and Nvidia GeForce graphics.
The Acer Swift X (2023) has finally been announced, with a starting price of $1599. We will be sure to update this article when we know more about the UK pricing as well as the release date.
But with the addition of another powerful laptop, we thought it was time to consider how it compares to one of the most popular devices on the market, the MacBook Air (2022). Can the M2 Apple Silicon chipset match up against the latest Nvidia RTX GeForce GPU and AMD Ryzen 7000 Series?
Read on to find out all the key differences between these two machines to see which one is best suited for you.
Apple Silicon vs AMD Ryzen
The MacBook Air comes with the M2 chip, which can be configured with either an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU or an 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU. We found this chip to perform very well, with smooth scrolling through documents and apps loading up very quickly.
The Acer Swift X can be configured in a number of ways, with the top processor being the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H. This is an octa-core processor, with a boost of up to 5.2GHz compared to the last generation of CPUs. While we can’t make any direct comparisons as of yet, we do know that the latest AMD generation of chips provides great execution, with fantastic multi-core performance and the addition of LPDDR5 memory.
The Acer Swift X has an OLED display
The Acer Swift X features a 16-inch OLED display with a 3200×2000 resolution. It has a refresh rate of 120Hz with a peak brightness of 500 nits. It’s important to note that the Acer Swift X can also be found with an IPS display, which has a lower resolution of 2560×1600.
But looking at the OLED variation, it should provide high brightness and contrast while watching media and editing photo or video content, aided by the 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut.
The MacBook Air comes with a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display with a 2560×1664 resolution alongside a wide colour (P3) gamut and a quoted 500 nits of brightness. While we thought that this screen was great for watching media, it won’t have the same depth as the OLED Swift X. Plus, it has a capped refresh rate of 60Hz, meaning that scrolling through documents and navigating through apps could look less clean in comparison.
Apple Silicon vs Nvidia RTX
While we already know that the MacBook Air runs on the M2 chip, we have not spoken about its graphical power. We were able to achieve 4K editing in both Adobe Premiere Pro and Apple’s Final Cut Pro, showing that the MacBook Air can easily tackle intensive creative workloads.
We were also able to run Football Manager 2022 without any hiccups, although we did note that extending gaming sessions would make the laptop heat up. Apple is not known for producing gaming-ready laptops, so despite our experience with this title, we would not recommend this machine as a dedicated gaming device.
The Acer Swift X can be packed with either the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 or the RTX 3050, both of which come with 6GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM. Opting for the latest RTX 4050 would provide a massive amount of grunt and should allow for smooth performance while playing triple-A games. It will also be capable of running creative workload apps, with 4K editing being possible.
No Thunderbolt on the Acer Swift X
The MacBook Air comes with MagSafe 3 charging port, a 3.5mm audio jack and two Thunderbolt USB-C ports that have support for charging, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt 3.
The Acer Swift X opted for two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, a microSD card reader, a 3.5mm audio jack as well as an HDMI 2.1 input. There is no Thunderbolt 4 support here, but the inclusion of the HDMI input will give users the ability to extend their display.
Plus, the inclusion of USB-A inputs means that users will be able to utilise any older peripherals – such as headsets, keyboards or mice – which cannot be done with the MacBook Air without a dongle.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.