Predator PO3-650 - Questions after some changes. By changing the PSW will the perfromance be better

Amorim5
Amorim5 Member Posts: 2 New User
edited July 9 in Predator Desktops

Hello guys,

I bought this computer about months ago (I believe all the model is on the subject but if I'm missing something please tell me). This model comes up with

  • Processor 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700F (24CPUs), ~2.1GHz. According to CPU-Z it's a Raptor Lake
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
  • 32 GB of RAM

After buying and checking the community here, I made the following upgrades / changes:

  • Got Noctua NH-U9S Chromax Black (only 1 fan so far, I'm thinking about putting a second just in case but need to buy the fan). Very much appreciate a video linked here on the forums where a French kid was saying what he was doing switching the original coller for the new one with some help 😂. I don't understand French at all, just needed to see for myself how it was done since I had to get the specific M3 12 mm screws. On this note I have to say the original ACER cooler is just plain bad.
  • Upgraded to 64 GB of RAM

I have to say that the cooler change was a huge quality of life improvement. It reduced the temperature a lot as well as the fan noise significantly! Feels very good and peaceful while gaming!

Now, as I'm not knowledgeable I'd like some help on the following points:

  • Searching the forums here, it is my understanding that any sort of overclocking is locked on the BIOS by ACER, as they were the ones that made it. So my question is if it's completely out of the question ACER releasing a new BIOS that allows such overclock. Personally I'm not having that much hope since with the original cooler the CPU easily reached 90 degrees Celsius and a bit more while playing unless I made a custom fan control where the CPU fan was always at about 3000RPM I believe. But regardless, I'd like you guys opinion on this.
  • Is it possible that if I switch the power supply to the one of 750W (I have the default 500W), PC performance will improve a bit as the components will have more power available to draw from it? My reasoning for asking the is because of how ACER built this PC and potentially decreasing some performance aspects of Memory / CPU / GPU. Just a conspiracy theory though 👀
  • Still regarding the power supply, I've seen the prints of the power supply on other threads but for the life of me I'm literally not finding it anywhere to buy. I'm European (from Portugal). If you guys have some tips I'll really appreciate it. For now I'm just contemplating getting a new PSU. The current PSU isn't giving me any problems at all even when pushing the RTX 4070 with stable diffusion. Although she gets to 80 degrees Celsius. On this note I tried to make than GPU fan run at 100% and jesus, it looked like a plane taking off 😂
  • You guys know of any motherboard that fits the case? This just for information purposes for now. The objective was a motherboard compatible with the CPU and the RTX 4070. I'd provisionally switch the RAM to the new board but the objective was to: 1 - Motherboard supporting overclocking; 2 - Motherboard supporting faster RAMs. I believe the current motherboard doesn't support RAMs faster than 4800 MHz? I'm also unsure if the CPU will allow for faster RAM. Naturally, a new motherboard may require a different PSU due to its power pins. I didn't do a deep research on this topic so far.

My interest on this questions is simply because I'm a bit of a gamer myself and like to be prepared for future changes if there's a need to.

Really appreciate any help from you guys.

Thank you!

Best regards to everyone,
Amorim

Answers

  • chiucs123
    chiucs123 Member Posts: 17 Troubleshooter

    Hi Amorim5,

    Overclocking is a subject that is beyond normal usage, but certainly some people/gamers would do that to squeeze every performance out of the machine. However do have in mind overclocking increases cooling demands and shortens hardware lifespan so that's on your own risk. If the motherboard isn't designed for such a purpose, you should consider upgrade options otherwise.

    I don't think there's any industrial conspiracy there having Acer is already the cleanest option on the market from my observation. An overclockable motherboard requires additional high-tolerance capacitors on the circuit to maintain the power supply stability. If you intend to upgrade motherboard than you have to take note on that as well. You can swap SSDs over to keep your OS and data.

    Upgrading power supply likely do you no change as the components are already well-fed, they don't need that extra power, nor would they suddenly perform better just by giving more power, it would consume power as per specs. Overpowering (not overclocking) can cause burn issues if not handled properly, however in normal cases, the unused power is simply not outputted and wasted depending on how you wire things up.

    If fan solutions aren't doing enough, you might want to look into liquid cooling solutions. Fan performance differs a lot if you use your computer with or without air conditioning, or whether proper cleaning maintenance is done regularly.

    Cheers!

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,206 Trailblazer

    The power supplies shipped with the PO3-650 models include:

    image.png

    So they have some SKUs with a 750W supply. You should be able to search on that part number for suppliers. I believe the system shipped originally without overclocking support, then they upgraded the BIOS to allow XMP memory overclocking. Someone will have to verify that for you however, I don't have a PO3-650 to test with. If you have the current BIOS and there is a section in there to enable eXtreme Memory Profiles then it is supported. As with all the PO3s the motherboard is designed to fit that small case, which adds that diving board out the front to bring the ports out to the case front. Putting anything other than a PO3 motherboard in there will lose you access to front ports, unless you have some really mad cabling skillz. :)

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • Amorim5
    Amorim5 Member Posts: 2 New User

    Thank you for your answers guys! 😄

    So safer choice for more performance would be to eventually upgrade the processor? In that case do you guys know any compatible processors for the motherboard? Let's imagine I wanted to put here a intel core i9 14900K. Would it be compatible with the motherboard? Although that would inevitably mean making sure there's enough cooling for it along with new power supply.

    Regarding XMP, latest BIOS updade for this model is R01-A2. This BIOS does not provide any sort of XMP support. I believe it was the PO3-640 model that got its latest BIOS available for it. So I'm curious if ACER will provide a new BIOS for this model that supports XMP.

    Also, in the case ACER provides XMP support, if for example I wanted for example to switch to a corsair vengeance 5200 MHz, do you guys know if the motherboard supports such speeds?

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,206 Trailblazer

    CPU changes are pretty much the last step when trying to squeeze more performance out. The big difference in memory between the 650 and earlier models was the change to DDR5, so it's not surprising they didn't do the XMP support switch at the same time as the DDR4 systems, it's different code in the BIOS. With the system specs you have now, you are pretty close to the maximum. I wouldn't pony up for the bigger PSU unless you really want to up the GPU to something like a 4080 or maybe 4090. If it were me and I was serious about getting more performance I'd be looking at the next gen Predator in the larger case, so PO5 or PO7 rather than tweaking a PO3. The case is a bit of a limitation on the PO3 models, but it does keep the costs down on them.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

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