As part of this year’s all online CES trade show, Acer has unveiled a thorough refresh of some of its most popular laptop lines, including some very appealing power upgrades in the GPU department for its gaming notebooks.
Along with updated configurations of both the Predator Triton 300 SE and Predator Helios 300 gaming laptops, Acer has also announced all new Aspire 7, Aspire 5, and Nitro 5 laptops that will be powered by AMD processors.
Nitro 5 gets boosted
Acer’s affordable Nitro 5 is one of the brand’s more popular gaming laptops on the market, and its 2021 refresh looks to keep that in line, with the option of kitting it out with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900 HX CPU and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU.
It will be available with either a 15.6-inch or 17.3-inch display, and feature either QHD or FHD resolution – the former will have a refresh rate of 165Hz while the lower-res screen will offer up to a silky smooth 360Hz refresh.
We’ve managed to spend a bit of time with the potential gaming powerhouse, so if you’re keen for more thoughts and info on the laptop, check out our Acer Nitro 5 hands-on review. Full global pricing and availability is yet to be announced, but Australia will reportedly see it in Q2 of 2021.
Aspire and Predator ranges
As for the Aspire ultrabook series, Acer’s Aspire 5 and Aspire 7 also get the AMD treatment, with both sporting a powerful new AMD Ryzen 5000 Series processor. The Aspire 7 also houses Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650 GPU, while the Aspire 5 features AMD’s Radeon RX 640 GPU.
Both feature a 15.6-inch display, slim and lightweight design, USB-C connectivity, and up to 1TB of SSD storage. The Aspire 7 can pack in 32GB of RAM while the Aspire 5 caps out at 24GB. As with the Nitro, full global pricing and availability is yet to be announced, but it'll arrive in Australia in Q2 of 2021.
While not as thorough a refresh, Acer’s Predator Triton 300 SE and Predator Helios 300 both now get the latest Nvidia GPUs, with the former able to squeeze in an RTX 3060 and the latter up to an RTX 3080 paired with 32GB of RAM.
Nvidia plus AMD
Considering how fiercely popular (and relatively unobtainable) Nvidia's RTX 30 GPUs have become, laptops like the Nitro and Predator series from Acer are one of the few surefire ways that you can get in on the latest graphics chips without paying inflated prices due to limited stock.
We're also glad to see that AMD's recent triumphs over Intel in the processor space have led laptop manufacturers to more widely adopt the competing chipset maker's products in its flagship lineup. Healthy competition leads to innovation, and we're already seeing great results from the reheated rivalry.
We’ll update you when Acer releases more information on pricing and release dates for its new range of laptops globally.
- Check out all of TechRadar's CES 2021 coverage. We're remotely covering the online-only show to bring you all the breaking tech news and launches, plus a smattering of hands-on reviews.
