Acer Nitro 5 (2020) review: A budget gaming laptop gets even better - seaythoomed

We've long been fans of Acer's line of inexpensive Nitro 5 gaming laptops. This new entry in the series, just $670 at the best Buy, ups the ante with eye-popping CPU performance and great battery life.

Note that it keeps the same GTX 1650 graphics card that we saw in a similar model last year, so get into't expect shaft tracing or frame rates much higher than 60 fps operating room so. But with its revamped temperature reduction system and Ryzen 4000-series CPU, the updated Nitro 5 manages to squeeze all last ounce of performance from its limited GPU king, making it an alluring pick for gamers happening a budget.

This review is partially of our current roundup of the best laptops. Go there for information on competing models you bet we tested them.

Configuration

Acer offers a wide variety of Nitro 5 configurations, with models steam-powered past 9th- and 10th-gen Intel (Whiskey and Comet Lake) processors or AMD Ryzen 3000 and 4000 CPUs; and GTX 1650, GTX 1650 Ti, operating room RTX 2060 GPUs. The least expensive Nitro 5 different packs in a quad-core Core i5-9300H processor, a GTX 1650 graphics card, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB solid-state drive, while the priciest system comes with a hexa-marrow Core i7-9750H CPU, an RTX 2060 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and a roomier 512GB SSD.

Our Nitro 5 critical review unit (AN515-44-R99Q) features the following spectacles:

CPU: Hexa-core AMD Ryzen 5 4600H
Retentiveness: 8GB DDR4 3200MHz (upgradable to 32GB)
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1650 with 4GB dedicated GDDR5 VRAM
Storage: 256GB PCIe NVMe (advantageous second PCIe slot and ane 2.5-inch HDD colored)
Display: 15.6-inch full-HD (1920×1080) IPS display, 60Hz refresh rate
Webcam: 720p SHDR
Connectivity: 1 x USB SuperSpeed 10Gbps Eccentric-C, 2 x USB SuperSpeed 10Gbps Type-A (unrivalled with power-off charging), 1 x USB SuperSpeed 5Gbps Type-A, HDMI 2.0, ethernet, jazz group audio jack
Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Killer Gigabit ethernet E2600, Bluetooth 5.0
Biometrics: None
Battery capacity: 57.5 Watt-hour
Dimensions: 14.3 x 10 x 1 inches
Weightiness: 4.7 pounds (measured), 1-pound power brick

The quick takeaway from the Nitro 5's spec list is that IT's a solid budget gambling laptop, with (in writing) enough GPU horsepower to run most AAA games at or near 60 fps, once you've tinkered with the graphics settings. The hexa-core Ryzen 5 4000-serial publication CPU should shoot up through CPU-intensive activities such every bit video encoding or database crunching. While the 8GB of RAM is only adequate in terms of multitasking, you can kick upstairs the Ram down the whole way up to 32GB. We'll delve into the Nitro 5's real-world performance in a bit.

The Nitro 5's 256GB solid drive is decidedly cramped when it comes to games. Luckily, the system comes with SuperSpeed 10Gbps Type-C and Type-A ports, ideal for connecting speedy external computer storage. You tail also rising slope the Nitro 5's internal depot using the available PCIe slot or the empty 2.5-edge in HDD drive bay.

The 15.6-inch full-HD display is roomy merely limited to a 60Hz refresh rate (there are pricier versions of the Nitro 5 with 120Hz and 144Hz screens). More astounding is the Nitro 5's networking features, including a gigabit ethernet port and clipping-edge Wi-Fi 6, which means you'll be able to wring all last routine of throughput down of the latest gaming routers.

Figure

Hulky, bulky and heavy-footed: That's pretty much the name of the game when it comes to gaming laptops, and the Nitro 5 is no exception. Tipping the scale at 4.7 pounds (or 5.7 pounds if you include the 135-watt power adapter), the inch-thick, 15.6-inch Nitro 5 feels as hefty equally it sounds. That said, Genus Acer (as it has with previous models) has done its best to springiness the Nitro 5's shell a slim, tapered appearance.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q vents — This twelvemonth's Acer Nitro 5 features quadruplet redesigned cooling vents to optimize thermal performance by adequate 25 percent.

Spell this year's Nitro 5 looks many operating room to a lesser extent the same as earliest iterations, there are a couple of key differences. For starters, the Nitro 5's hinge is now black rather than brownish-red, which means that the beat out is now almost entirely black, aside from the lurid-red cooling vents in the derriere.

Speaking of vents, the up-to-the-minute Nitro 5 models have quaternion revamped cooling vents (two in the rear and one on each side) that are designed to boost the laptop's thermal operation by risen to 25 percent compared to last year's configurations.

The Nitro 5 besides comes with Acer's NitroSense app, which lets you change the laptop's power plans likewise as muck around with the cooling system fans. You force out manually customise the rotations of the fans or engage CoolBoost, a setting that intelligently boosts the maximum rooter upper and can avail optimise CPU and GPU cooling by up to 9 percent. We tried and true switching along CoolBoost mode and switching the Nitro 5's power plan to High Performance mode during our game testing, and we'll let you love the results after on in the reappraisal.

Exhibit

The Nitro 5's 15.6-edge in, 1920×1080 video display is flanked by a pair of slim, 0.28-inch bezels, while the bezels along the top and worst of the screen are somewhat chunkier. Overall, Genus Acer says that the new Nitro 5 has an 80 percentage sieve-to-dead body ratio. During my real-world testing, the display looked appropriately roommate considering the laptop computer's size.

Equally we noted earlier, Acer does offer pricier Nitro 5 models with 120Hz and 144MHz displays, but the version we'atomic number 75 tested is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. That way you can expect screen fierce if you're acquiring frame in rates due north of 60 fps and you've disabled synchronization.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q display — We saw some certify of CRT screen run on the Nitro 5's 15.6-inch display, particularly neighbouring the round top of the panel.

Rated for 300 nits (or candelas) of brightness, the Nitro 5's 15.6-inch display uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology to hike up screening angles. The results are pretty much as expected, with the panel dimming only somewhat when viewed from the sides, top Beaver State tooshie. I did, however, note a little screen leech near the top of the display on my review unit, to a lower place and slightly to the precise of the webcam. The screen bleed was never distracting during furious moments of gameplay, just I did notice it during dark scenes in videos and games, particularly in Destiny 2, when my ship was posing in orbit.

Keyboard, trackpad, speakers, and webcam

I was quite pleased away the Nitro 5's merry keyboard, which comes with a 10-key fruit numeric trackpad, a generous 1.6mm of travel length and a satisfying, tactile excrescenc upon key propulsion. Gamers WHO prefer to have their fingers flutter over the keyboard may prefer a smoother, Thomas More linear finger to the keys, merely in person I prefer the Nitro 5's bumpier approach.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q keyboard — The Nitro 5's red-backlit keyboard boasts a generous 1.6mm of travel distance, along with outlined W, A, S,D, and arrow keys.

While pricier Nitro 5 models feature four-zone keyboard backlighting, our review unit came with a uniform crimson backlight. Also worth noting are the highlighted WASD keys, while a highlighted hotkey launches the NitroSense outflow management app that we mentioned earlier. One ailment is that the loudness buttons share space with the rising and down arrow keys, which agency you'll penury to restrain the Function key to adjust the sound.

The Nitro 5's trackpad sits directly below the spacebar and somewhat left of center of the chassis. When I was play happening the Nitro 5, I generally didn't touch the trackpad at all, opting instead either for a mouse OR a restrainer. That said, when I did use the trackpad for everyday PC chores, I found that information technology did the job and avoided untrue inputs.

The downfiring stereo speakers on the Nitro 5 are augmented aside object-based DTS:X Radical audio, and the results are, well, O.k.. Yes, I could hear better-than-average virtual wall in cues from the Nitro 5's small speakers, but the general sound was still somewhat paper thin and lacking in deep. Unsurprisingly, you'll do much ameliorate using headphones or external speakers, and yes, DTS:X Ultra audio sounds pretty good when piped through with a twosome of decent gaming cans.

The Nitro 5's 720p webcam captures relatively smooth 30-fps video, if a tad washed-out and grainy-looking for. Acer says the webcam offers SHDR (super high dynamic range) imaging, and I'll take their word for it, but I didn't uncovering the webcam's images to be particularly saturated. It's fine for a Zoom meeting with the office, but you'll probably neediness to rising slope to an extrinsic webcam for your Twitch channel.

Ports

The Nitro 5 comes with a serious collection of ports, including (along the left side) a pair of USB SuperSpeed 10Gbs Type-A ports, a drop-jaw gigabit ethernet larboard for wired internet, a combo audio jak, and a laptop computer security slot.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q left side — The left side of the Nitro 5 features a pair of USB SuperSpeed 10Gbps Type-A ports, along with a drop-take to task ethernet port and a combo audio jack.

On the suitable sits a USB SuperSpeed 10Gbps Type-C port, a USB SuperSpeed 5Gbps Typewrite-A port, and a full HDMI 2.0 interface.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q right side — Right-lateral ports on the Nitro 5 include USB SuperSpeed 10Gbps Character-C, USB SuperSpeed 5Gbps Type-A, and a full HDMI 2.0 interface.

That's a pretty impressive array of ports for a budget gaming laptop suchlike this ane, especially the trio of speedy USB ports and the ethernet interface. A media card reviewer would have been a nice touch, only its petit mal epilepsy on a gaming laptop care the Nitro 5 isn't a deal-breaker.

Superior general carrying into action

For $670, you're simply not going to get a gaming laptop computer with a GPU capable of ray tracing or Nvidia's AI-enabled DLSS acceleration. As an alternative, you'll wind up with a laptop like the Nitro 5, whose good, midrange GTX 1650 wish dish out graphically maxed-out visuals in the 60-fps vagabon, give OR take. That's pretty much what we got during our real-world tests with the laptop, along with some pretty arresting CPU performance courtesy of the Nitro 5's Ryzen 4000-serial publication chip. We even saw extraordinary surprisingly good electric battery life.

HandBrake

Our showtime benchmark is a veritable torture test for CPUs, measuring how long information technology takes for a given laptop to process a 30GB MKV file using the free HandBrake utility. The test in the main takes an hour or more, openhanded us a good thought of how a given system handles high CPU loads over interminable periods.

The Nitro 5 and its hexa-core Ryzen 5 4600H processor manage to scare functioning some impressive numbers in our HandBrake test (recall, shorter parallel bars are better), coming in second only to the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, a laptop that costs twice as very much like the Nitro, while squeezing retiring a series of gambling systems that price hundreds more. It also blows away the Nitro 5 we reviewed last yr, which was powered by a musculus quadriceps femoris-core Intel Core i5-9300H chip. The Nitro 5's processor North Korean won't be a bottleneck as far Eastern Samoa graphics get on, and IT'll boost the performance of games that do depend more on the CPU, such as Minecraft and 2013's Tomb Spoiler reboot.

Cinebench

Next, we spun up Cinebench, a test that involves rendering a 3D image in real time. Unlike the much lengthier HandBrake test, Cinebench is unremarkably done in mere transactions, and thus shows America how a laptop CPU handles crushing but short-condition CPU bursts. Present, we'd expect to see chips with the fastest cost increase clocks get the whip hand. Longer parallel bars are better this time.

In one case over again, we see the Nitro 5's multi-rib grade land in second place, hindquarters (again) the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 but ahead of all other comers, and achieving double the results of 2019's Nitro 5. The single-threaded score for this year's Nitro 5 is a bit lackluster, although I didn't find whatsoever slowdowns in the Nitro's single-core performance. Anyhow, the Nitro 5 turns in an imposingly strong Cinebench performance considering its price tag.

3DMark FireStrike Extreme

At last, Army of the Righteou's turn our attention to the Nitro 5's GPU. Here we'll see its carrying out come hindermost down to earth. While the Nitro 5 has been whipping its competitors when it comes to CPU mightiness, the laptop's GTX 1650 is a unquestionably middle-range graphics notice. Even when paired with a stifling-retinal rod Central processor like the Ryzen 5 4600H, it's going to scramble to compete with some of the more sinewy GPUs in our roundup.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q firestrike extreme — The Nitro 5's FireStrike Extreme score lands third to senior in our chart, but that's not a storm given its GTX 1650 graphics card.

As expected, the Nitro 5 slides down near the bottom of our chart, downstairs gaming laptops with GTX 1660 Ti, RTX 2060, and (especially) RTX 2080 Super graphics cards. Still, our Nitro 5 go over unit did grapple to notch a better score than finish year's Nitro 5, which comes equipped with the same GTX 1650 GPU, as well Eastern Samoa the Lenovo Yoga C940 and its Max-Q-optimized GTX 1650.

Rise of the Tomb Despoiler

Straightaway for some real-world tests, with the Nitro 5 running the benchmark in Rise of the Tomb Raider at maxed-out graphical settings and in DirectX 11 mode. With its GTX 1650 artwork card, we'd expect the Nitro 5 to land somewhere in the 60-fps range, and information technology did just that.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q rotr — With maxed-out graphics settings, the Nitro 5 manages to get awfully approximate (Beaver State close enough) to 60fps while continual *Grow of the Tomb Raider.*

While its recorded score is slightly under that of last year's Nitro 5, we regard that as advisable within the margin of error. Look the chart, you'd need to pay hundreds more for a laptop computer fitted out with an RTX 2060 or better GPU to see frame rates substantially north of 60 FPS. That Acer Predator Triton 500 at the top side of the chart, with its 125-plus fps score, would monetary value a cool $2,600 to take plate.

Every bit secure, we re-ran the Grow of the Tomb Raider benchmark with the NitroSense "CoolBoost" mode switched happening and the High Performance mightiness plan enabled. The melioration was negligible: 56.97 fps versus 54.91 Federal Protective Service.

Intervening-dry land: Shadow of Mordor

The results are corresponding for Tincture of Mordor. The Ryzen-supercharged Nitro 5 sneaks past 70 fps for this more CPU-centric title of respect, a tiny bit faster than last class's Nitro 5.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q som — For *Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor*, the Nitro 5 and its GTX 1650 GPU sneak into the 70fps range.

One time again, we ray-did the benchmark with CoolBoost happening and the Squeaky Performance power plan engaged, but this time we barely saw a budge in frame rate.

Circumstances 2

We don't hold formal rankings for Destiny 2 given that it lacks a benchmarking mode, merely having spent scores of hours running Nightfalls, grinding Lost Sectors and toiling away at a alone Prognostication dungeon clear (I'm stuck at the second honcho encounter) using the Nitro 5, I thought I'd detail my experience.

When maxing out Destiny 2's graphical settings and turn vsync polish off, the Nitro 5 managed framerates in the 50-60 range, including during a hectic "the enemy is moving against to each one past" episode with dozens of Fallen and Faction. That's pretty good considering the Nitro 5's GTX 1650 GPU, but there was also frequent screen tearing ascribable the 60Hz display on our Nitro 5 review unit.

Once I washed its video settings through the GeForce Experience optimizer (which, in the Nitro 5's case, dials down such settings as foliage space, shadow quality, and screen space ambient occlusion) and turned vsync back on, Destiny 2 on the Nitro 5 looked fantastic, with nearly careen-solid 60 Federal Protective Service (including during a chaotic Taken Plague public event) and none screen tearing whatsoever. So if you were rational of snapping up a Nitro 5 to feed your Destiny 2 habit, and you assume't mind giving up few bells and whistles (who's looking at at foliage when there's a Taken Captain in your face?), you'll be bad joyful.

Barrage living

We test battery life on laptops by looping a 4K video with screen brightness set to about 250 nits and the volume at 50 per centum, with headphones plugged in.

Loosely speechmaking, we don't expect much from gaming laptops when it comes to battery life. Given its midsized 57.5 James Watt-hour battery, the Nitro 5 International Relations and Security Network't exactly poised to knock anyone's socks off.

acer nitro 5 an515 44 r99q video rundown — The Nitro 5 snagged an excellent bombardment biography tally given its 57.5 watt-hour battery.

And yet, the Nitro 5 lands a cubic second place, right behind the Microsoft Surface Al-Qur'an 3 and its mobile-optimized GTX 1660 Atomic number 2 Easy lay-Q CPU and well in the lead of the rest of its competitors, including some with much larger battery capacities. The tierce-put on Lenovo Yoga C950, for example, has a 69 watt-hour battery, while the Acer Predator Triton 500 has an 82Whr battery capacity.

The Nitro 5's battery South Korean won't last 10.5 hours if you're playing a GPU-intensive game operating theatre encoding video files. Still, it exhibits around of the best battery efficiency we've seen from a gaming laptop computer.

Penetrate line

You're not going to find oneself a $670 gaming laptop that's stark. In the Nitro 5's case, you'll rich person to settle for a mid-range GPU, a 60Hz video display that (in our review model, at to the lowest degree) shows signs of screen bleed, and a fairly bulky and sizeable project. That aforesaid, we still consider that Genus Acer has managed to squeeze plenty of value out of this particular Nitro 5 contour, which boasts excellent CPU performance, impressive battery life, and—if you don't heed sacrificing so much high-end niceties as ray tracing—solid 60fps-kitchen stove visuals from popular Abdominal aortic aneurysm games.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/393704/acer-nitro-5-2020-review.html

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