Acer Swift 7 Review: A Thin, Sleek, Kaby Lake Powered Ultrabook

The Acer Swift 7 isn’t a gaming laptop, but the Intel HD Graphics 615 bodes well for its ability to handle at least casual gaming. After running the full-system benchmark PCMark 8, we checked out the Swift 7’s gaming chops with 3DMark and Fary Cry 2.

PCMark 8 Benchmarks Productivity And System-Level Benchmarking

We selected three tests from the PCMark 8 benchmark suite: Home, Storage and Work. Futuremark recently improved all three tests with PCMark 8 version 2. We selected the Open CL "Accelerated" options for both Home and Work.


Although we made multiple attempts to coax a better Work Accelerated score from the Swift 7, it couldn’t get past the sub-par 2834. Still, its Home Accelerated and Storage scores are about where we’d expect them to be.

3DMark Cloud Gate Synthetic DirectX Gaming And Graphics Testing

We used the Cloud Gate benchmark, which targets mainstream laptops like the Acer Swift 7 with on-processor graphics, to get a sense of how it compares to similar systems running a 3D graphics workload.


The Swift 7 didn’t fare well among the other mainstream laptops in this comparison. The laptop handled video streaming just fine, but video gaming is a weak point for this system.

Far Cry 2 Light-Duty DX10 Gaming

When it comes to lush vegetation in a steaming, sinister jungle, no one pulls it off quite like Ubisoft does in its Far Cry series. Far Cry 2 uses high-quality textures, complex shaders, and dynamic lighting to create a realistic environment. The game’s built-in, DirectX 10-based benchmark gives us a good look at a system’s light-duty gaming performance.


The Swift 7 produced a playable frame rate in Far Cry 2, but it certainly didn’t take the game by storm. With unimpressive performance in a an older DirectX 10 game, the laptop isn’t well-positioned to play modern, graphics-intensive titles.