Acer’s Nitro 5 is meant to be a more budget friendly gaming laptop,
and although they have made some really nice improvements to it this year,
they don’t come for free, let’s check it out in this review!
The Nitro 5 is all black plastic with a very subtle sort of shiny glitter effect,
and the lid has a shiny red and blue line design.
There was some flex if you go pushing down,
I mean it is plastic, but build quality feels alright when just using it normally.
The screen goes back about 145 degrees, and I didn’t have any problems opening it
despite there not being anywhere to easily grab with your finger.
Moving the lid feels sturdy enough, but the plastic body does flex a bit, and although
it only wobbles a little when typing hard, it is noticeable if you bump the table it's on.
Seriously, it’s not great. If I just bump the table a little you can see
the screen just starts wobbling like crazy. Still going… Only just stopped.
Fingerprints and smudges show up fairly easily,
but as it’s smooth it’s easy to clean with a microfiber cloth.
It’s not exactly thin, but it’s still portable and similar to most other 15” gaming laptops.
The laptop alone weighs 2.5kg or 5.5lb,
increasing to 3.3kg or 7.3lb with the 230 watt charger included.
My configuration has Intel’s Core i7-12700H processor, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 graphics,
16 gigs of DDR4 memory, and a 15.6” 1080p 144Hz screen, but there’s also a bigger 17”
model and other CPU and GPU options, check them out with the link below the video.
There’s a 720p camera above the screen in the middle, but no IR for Windows Hello face unlock.
Here’s how the camera and microphones look and sound,
and here’s how it sounds while typing on the keyboard.
My keyboard has 4 zones of RGB backlighting,
but there’s also a red only option, and all keys and secondary functions get lit up.
Key brightness can be adjusted between 4 levels or turned off by holding the function key and
pressing the F9 and F10 keys. You can also change it through Acer’s Nitro Sense software,
the control panel for the laptop. You can customize each zone individually,
or pick from 5 built in lighting effects.
The keyboard was fine to type with,
but the keys felt a bit softer compared to Acer’s higher tier Helios 300.
The touchpad is smooth and was fine to use, but it feels a bit softer
to press and click down compared to Acer’s Helios, which was more clicky.
The power button is part of the keyboard, but accidentally pressing it doesn’t do anything.
You have to hold it down for about 3 seconds before software asks if you want to shutdown,
sleep, hibernate, or just turn off the screen.
The left side has a Kensington lock near the back,
gigabit ethernet port, USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port and a 3.5mm audio combo jack.
The right side has two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports.
The rest of the ports are on the back. From left to right we’ve got the power input,
a Thunderbolt 4 Type-C port, and HDMI 2.1 output.
That single Type-C port on the back can be used to charge the laptop,
something that wasn’t available in last year’s model, but I think it’s only with 15 watts,
because it’s 5 volts 3 amps, so it’s slow.
Now due to the way Thunderbolt works, if you do connect an external screen to that
Type-C port on the back, it’ll only work if you have optimus enabled. If you disable
optimus and then reboot, then you can’t use an external screen on the Type-C port.
The Nitro Sense software warns you about this, which is good because
most laptops don’t. It’s just a limit of Thunderbolt and 12th gen laptops.
HDMI always connects directly to the Nvidia graphics though,
and this could run a screen at up to 4K 120Hz 12-bit with G-Sync.
Getting inside requires unscrewing 11 Phillips head screws,
all the same length. It was a little difficult to open, but the pry tools
I used were up to the challenge. I’ll leave a link to them below the video.
Once inside, the RAM is covered by a metal cover, though there aren’t any
thermal pads here like the higher tier Helios 300 had. We’ve got the battery down the front,
a 2.5 inch drive bay to the left of that, two memory slots just above, the installed
SSD to the left of those, a Wi-Fi 6 card just above that, and a spare M.2 slot to the right.
Acer includes the necessary cable and screws
in the laptop box for you to install a 2.5 inch SSD or HDD.
My 2TB M.2 drive with chips on both sides didn’t fit properly into the spare slot due to it coming
into contact with stuff on the motherboard. Now technically I could probably still fit
the screw in and it would be ok, just not ideal. Interestingly you can actually remove these parts
of the bottom panel, which would give you a bit more space to run like this. Again not ideal,
but it could work. The 2TB drive fits ok in the primary slot, but I’m not sure if
this chip would limit bigger drives like 4TB ones that have more chips underneath.
The read speeds from the installed 512 gig SSD were quite good though thanks to PCIe Gen 4,
though the writes were quite a bit lower comparatively.
Intel 12th gen laptops can use either DDR4 or DDR5 memory,
but not both. Acer have presumably used DDR4 in the Nitro because it’s cheaper. Unlike
last year’s Nitro, this year’s version came to me with two sticks installed,
which should help improve performance by giving us dual channel, though it’s still the slower
x16 stuff rather than x8, so a memory upgrade could increase performance in some workloads.
The Wi-Fi performance was decent when compared against other gaming laptops,
though last year’s Intel based Nitro with the same Wi-Fi card was one of the best I’ve tested,
perhaps due to different antenna placement. The AMD version had slower MediaTek Wi-Fi though.
I took off half a point from the upgradeability score due to the limits on the 2nd M.2 slot,
which is the only reason it’s slightly under last year’s Nitro, though to be fair I wasn’t
checking for this until recently, so it’s possible it’s in the same boat. Although
I’d prefer a bigger battery, I do give a point for a 2.5” drive bay, as technically
that does give you more expansion, which is what some people want in an upgradeable laptop.
The speakers are found underneath on the front left and right corners. I thought they sounded
alright, a little better compared to this year’s Helios 300 which surprised me, as that’s a higher
tier model from Acer. There’s a little bass and they still sounded clear enough at higher volume.
The latencymon results were looking alright.
The Nitro is powered by a 4-Cell 57Wh battery, so on the smaller side due
to the 2.5 inch drive bay. The battery life was quite pathetic at under 4 hours,
but it’s not too much difference compared to last year’s Intel based Nitro 5 with the same battery.
I also had the Ryzen based Nitro 5 last year too, and that was lasting quite a bit longer
compared to the Intel versions, so consider the AMD option if battery life is a priority.
Let’s check out thermals next. There are a couple of heatpipes shared between the CPU and GPU,
with two fans that exhaust air out of both the left and right sides,
as well as out of the vents on the back. We can also see there are holes for air intake
directly above the fans, as well as some ventilation with holes above the keyboard.
Acer’s Nitro Sense software let’s us change between different performance modes,
but only when you’ve got the charger connected. From lowest to highest these are quiet, default,
and performance modes. Quiet mode doesn’t let you adjust the fan speed,
but default and performance do. You can leave them on auto, set maximum speed, or
individually customize them. Performance mode also applies this overclock to the GPU automatically.
The internal temperatures were cool when just sitting there idle. The rest of the results
are from combined CPU and GPU stress tests which aim to represent a worst case full load
scenario. Nvidia sets a temperature limit of 87 degrees Celsius for their laptop GPUs, so thermal
throttling was being hit in quiet mode. I think this is fine though, considering based on the name
of the mode, we’re expecting lower fan speed, so that’s the tradeoff. Temperatures were otherwise
excellent in the other modes. For some reason setting the fans to maximum slightly increased the
temperatures, so not sure what was going on there, and using a cooling pad barely helped either.
These are the clock speeds being reached during the same stress tests. The results were basically
the same in performance mode regardless of whether or not we’re changing fan speeds or
using a cooling pad, because thermals weren’t a limit. Actually the CPU performance was the
same regardless of the mode in use, and this is because the CPU was power limited to a little over
20 watts with the GPU also active. Now to be fair, the GPU power limit in performance mode is quite
high for an RTX 3060 laptop. My first thought was that this might not be good for gaming,
but as we’ll see soon, games perform just fine despite this lower CPU power limit. Considering
the temps in the higher modes were fine, I'm not sure why the CPU power limits weren't higher.
Other laptops with similar specs manage this fine with a 230 watt power brick. Not sure if Acer is
trying to segment the product and make the Helios look better or if there's some other limitation.
Although the CPU was running quite low with the GPU active,
it’s able to run much higher when the GPU was idle, like in Cinebench.
It’s one of the lower results out of the 14 core 20 thread laptops tested so far,
only slightly ahead of the 8 core 16 thread Ryzen chip just below it, though Intel has a bigger lead
in single core performance. That said, it’s not the lowest 14 core result either. The
Blade 15 is a thinner machine, so lower power limits, but it also costs way more money too.
Performance lowers if we unplug the charger and instead run purely off of
battery power. The single core score is now honestly quite pathetic compared to others,
and although a number of other Intel 14 core laptops are similar in multicore,
a number of 8 core Ryzen machines were able to do better.
Most laptops I test are in the low 30 degrees Celsius range on the keyboard at idle, and the
Nitro was cooler than this, a good result. It’s warmer in quiet mode with the stress tests going,
but the keys only felt a bit warm. Default mode is cooler because the fans get louder,
despite it also performing better now too. Performance mode was quite cool,
and there wasn’t really much noticeable difference between having the fans on
auto or maxed, but it's very loud now, let’s have a listen.
The fans were audible when idling in quiet mode, but it’s very quiet. Default mode was
a little quieter compared to most other laptops under load, but performance mode
was much louder. Using a cooling pad resulted in the fans being a little quieter, but not much,
I’d still want to be wearing headphones. The fans are going so hard in performance
mode that you can feel the laptop vibrating, which doesn’t feel great.
Just before we get into the game testing, let’s check out the screen,
given that’s what you’re going to be looking at when playing games.
Unlike last year’s model, the 2022 one has added a MUX switch,
and this can be toggled through the Nitro Sense software or BIOS. There’s no advanced optimus,
so it requires a reboot to change between optimus on and off.
My 1080p 144Hz screen doesn’t have G-Sync,
and there’s no adaptive sync available from the integrated graphics with this panel either.
Color gamut wasn’t great, which is pretty common with gaming laptops that are meant
to be more budget friendly. I mean it looks ok when gaming, not amazing but not terrible,
but yeah I’d definitely want something else for content creation.
Brightness was a little low, not quite able to make the 300
nits at maximum that I like to see as a minimum from a laptop.
Average gray-to-gray screen response time wasn’t great either at 17.62ms,
and there’s no overdrive mode available to help boost this.
It’s not great compared to other laptops tested, and it’s actually using the exact
same panel as last year’s Nitro 5, which is why the difference is within the margin of
error range compared to those. Both were slightly better compared to last year’s higher tier Helios
300 though. Definitely expect better from the 1440p 165Hz option though. Acer claims it’s
got a 3ms response time, but more likely it’s the same panel that’s in this year’s Helios.
The total system latency is the amount of time between a mouse click and when a gunshot
fire appears on the screen in CS:GO. Despite having the same screen as last year’s Nitro,
we’re seeing around a 10ms faster time with this year’s model thanks to the addition of the
MUX switch, and probably also due to dual channel memory and better CPU, as both will lower latency.
Backlight bleed wasn’t great in my unit, but this will vary between laptops and panels.
Alright now let’s find out how this year’s Nitro 5 compares against others in games!
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested the same on all laptops, and I’ve got the Nitro 5
shown by the red highlight. It’s ahead of this year’s Legion 5 and TUF A15,
probably because of the Intel CPU, as Intel 12th gen tends to beat Ryzen 6000 from my testing,
granted the differences are only a few frames. Despite last year’s Nitro 5 having RTX 3060
graphics as well, this year’s version is reaching a 22% higher average FPS due to
improvements such as higher GPU power limit and the addition of a MUX switch.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the games benchmark tool,
and again the Nitro was a little ahead compared to other high powered 3060 options such as the
Legion 5 and TUF A15. This time the Nitro is 20% ahead compared to last year’s version,
and it’s even beating Acer’s Helios 300 from last year with higher tier RTX 3070 graphics.
This year’s Helios is a massive improvement compared to last year’s version though.
Control is a GPU heavy game, so I was expecting to see our high powered 3060 out in front of
others again, but now those other laptops were in front. Again it’s not a big difference either way,
most people wouldn’t notice these small changes when actually playing.
Here’s how a game performs with the different performance modes in use.
Performance was the best, as expected, but the difference in frame rate wasn’t
really that big between them, at least in this single game. So it goes to show
that you don't have to run with loud fans in order to have a playable experience.
Here are the 3DMark results for those that find them useful, now for some content creator tests.
Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark tool, and the Nitro is
right next to Acer’s higher tier Helios 300 with RTX 3070 from last year. Otherwise we’ve got a
nice boost compared to last year’s Nitro, likely due to Intel’s 12th gen CPU gains.
Speaking of CPU performance, Adobe Photoshop likes
single threaded performance, and again Intel 12th gen does quite well here.
GPU power usually matters more in DaVinci Resolve,
and the Nitro is doing well here too, basically right next to Dell’s G15 with RTX 3070 Ti,
and a fair bit ahead compared to some other 3060 laptops.
The Blender score was behind most other 3060’s we’ve tested so far,
and not much different to the lower wattage Legion Slim 7i with lower power limit.
We’ve also tested SPECviewperf which tests out various professional 3D workloads.
The BIOS looks older compared to say what Acer have done with the Helios 300,
and we’re only getting basic functionality through here, though that said, we do get
the option to disable optimus completely here, something my Helios 300 didn’t allow.
Linux support was tested with an Ubuntu 22.04 live CD. By default the keyboard, touchpad,
speakers, Wi-Fi and ethernet worked, but the camera wasn’t recognized. Keyboard shortcuts
for screen brightness control didn’t work, but volume and key brightness shortcuts worked,
though the default red keyboard lighting can’t be changed.
Let’s discuss pricing and availability next. This will change over time,
so refer to the link below the video for current prices and sales. And if
the Nitro does go on sale, I’ll be sure to add it to my new website gaminglaptop.deals,
so make sure you check that out regularly for the best gaming laptop deals.
At the time of recording, in the US the Nitro 5 starts at $800 USD for the i5 and RTX 3050
configuration, though it’s out of stock right now, again check the links in the description
for current availability. The RTX 3060 model at Bestbuy is currently going for $1300, but this one
has a lower tier i5-12500H processor. Other sites have the 12700H option that I’ve tested for a
couple hundred dollars more, which doesn’t really seem worth it considering Acer’s better Helios 300
with the same CPU and GPU is the same price, so the Nitro is looking a bit overpriced right now.
Last year’s entry Nitro was often found for less than $700, so the improvements that Acer
have given us in this year’s model definitely don’t come for free. This newer version gives
us a MUX switch, and combined with higher GPU power limits and dual channel RAM,
it gets a decent FPS boost compared to last year’s Nitro 5 with same RTX 3060 graphics.
This year’s version also adds Type-C charging and more performance with Intel’s 12th gen CPUs.
But the 144Hz 1080p screen is the same older cheap one found in previous models. You can
of course get it with better screen options, like 1440p 165Hz, just expect to pay more.
Personally, I would have liked to see the move away from the 2.5 inch drive bay and
get that bigger battery like they did with the higher tier Helios 300. But at the same time,
I suppose if you really do need a 2.5 inch drive bay gaming laptop,
the Nitro 5 is one of the only options left giving you that.
Speaking of battery life, you’ll probably want to look for the Ryzen 6000 configuration,
though I only found that available in different countries. The Intel one seems
way more common. The only other things I didn’t like were the crazy loud fans,
and that the screen just wobbles easily if you bump the table. But other than that,
there’s not too much to complain about except maybe the higher price right now.
Considering that this Nitro costs a similar amount to Acer’s Helios 300 with same CPU and GPU,
honestly you should just get the Helios, even if it’s a little bit more expensive. It’s actually
a really good machine this year, and you can find out more about it in this review video
over here next. I had a lot of problems with last year’s Helios 300, but this year’s model
fixes all those issues, so I’ll see you over in that one next. Otherwise if you are considering
getting the AMD version of the Nitro, then check out this video to see how Intel and AMD compare.