Are Acer laptops good for gaming? What are the best ones for gaming?

The best Acer gaming laptop deals are around us all the time. Watching, waiting to pounce. Ahead of the pack, the Acer Predator gaming laptops stalk in all their alpha glory. The Predator sub-brands, Helios and Triton, offer mid-range and high-end beta experiences. And Acer has finally removed the word ‘Predator’ from the laptop’s lid, which might have caused some misunderstandings in public.

Are Acer laptops good for gaming?

Before going ahead and reading our guide, something important to note is that the latest gaming laptop releases from Acer have been pretty disappointing, which has made it a bit more difficult than usual to provide a list of recommendations. Whereas previous iterations of the Acer Predator Triton, Acer Predator Helios, and Acer Nitro have been worthy selections, the latest versions with Nvidia 30-series GPUs have had several major issues. These issues can be summarised as: poor quality displays (worse than the previous generation), poor stock RAM (again worse than before), and particular features that we would have liked to have seen updated by now, in particular the lack of a MUX switch to disable Optimus and improve performance in-game.

The Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop with RTX 3070 for instance that was released this year, only has a response time of around 19ms grey-to-grey, a disappointing max brightness of around 230 nits. It comes with single-channel stock RAM that bottlenecks its performance considerably if not upgraded.

Consequently, a lot of the selections you will read below are of the older generations of each of these ranges in the Acer lineup. Still worth considering if you can get them at a reduced price, but not the cutting edge.

If you want to know more about Acer laptops before you make your choice, read our Things to consider when buying an Acer gaming laptop section below for more info

2022 Nitro 5 | Gaming Laptop | Acer

Go full throttle with the Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop in either 15 or 17-inch models – whether using it as a laptop for casual gaming or ranking up online.

Reign over the game world with the combined power of a 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processor and NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 30 Series GPUs, GEN 4 M.2 PCIe and up to 32GB of DDR4 3200 RAM

The Best Acer Gaming Laptops

Acer Predator Triton 500

Once you get past the initial dread of its god-awful startup sound, the Acer Predator Triton 500 is hands down one of the best gaming laptops we’ve ever used. Small enough to fit in a backpack and light enough not to be a burden, it stuffs a 15-inch screen into a 14-inch frame for an RTX gaming experience that is, against all odds, both portable and potent. It doesn’t have the strongest battery life, having conked out at less than three hours in our in-house battery test, but you can’t expect to play intensive triple-A games unplugged for long anyway.

Acer Predator Helios 300

Though it comes in 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch flavors, we prefer the 15-inch Acer Predator Helios 300, a budget-minded clamshell made for gaming in each of its many forms. Despite being available in ten different configurations, they are all almost good choices.

The Predator Helios 300 is one of the better-performing mid-range gaming laptops, packing in plenty of power for under $2,000, which is not an easy task. The vast number of configurations even let you find a way to drive the price even lower by skimping on inconsequential components (for gaming, at least), like RAM or a screen with a lower refresh rate, you can save yourself a hefty chunk of change. Mainly if it’s meant to complement your existing desktop rig, the Helios 300 is a solid, lower-cost alternative to the Triton 500.

Acer ConceptD 7

If you’re in the market for a 4K laptop that will also work well for gaming and content creation, the Acer ConceptD series is worth checking out. It doesn’t have the newest generation of hardware, offering an older Intel Core i7-9750H processor and a one-generation old RTX 2080 GPU.

However, the CPU and GPU combination will still be good enough to max out games on the 15.6-inch 4K display. And, while there are more extreme 4K gaming laptops out there (like ASUS’ Duo SE 15), they are quite a bit more expensive.

So, the slightly older hardware will allow you to jump into 4K gaming for a bit less money and that hardware will handle games just fine.

Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45-R21A

While Acer isn’t currently as competitive in the high-end of the gaming laptop market (We suspect that will change in the near future), they do have some solid value-oriented options available through their Nitro lineup of laptops. And, if you’re looking for an AMD Ryzen-based laptop, the Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45-R21A is worth checking out.

At just a little over $1,300, the Acer Nitro 5 45-R21A comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H processor, 16GB of RAM, an RTX 3060 GPU, and a 512GB NVME SSD. It also comes with a 15.6-inch 144Hz display. That’s a solid hardware combination for the price. In fact, other than the processor, it is essentially the same hardware configuration as the Helios 300 listed above.

The Intel Core i7 in the Helios 300 will provide a slight performance boost over the Ryzen 5 5600H, but the two are so similar in terms of in-game performance that you likely wouldn’t notice the difference between them.

Final Word
This has been our guide to the best Acer gaming laptop. We hope it has helped you make an informed choice about which model is right for you; if it turns out that it isn’t an Acer, then see our various best gaming laptop guides for different price ranges under Custom Gaming PC > Gaming Laptop in the main site menu. Alternatively, check out our best gaming laptop page for our top picks across all brands and price ranges.

Which is better Asus or Acer?

Acer vs Asus – Which Models Are Best? In the battle between Acer and Asus, generally Asus is considering the better brand. This is primarily due to the quality of the laptop, which tends to be better than Acer according to most users. Plus, Asus gives the best customer service experience too.

Why are Acers so cheap?

Another reason most why Acer laptops are cheap is because of their low performance. Acer notebooks with premium performance are very expensive ones. READ: What Is That Small Cylinder On A Laptop Charger For? The cheaper ones are known to be built with ordinary processors and less quality hardware components.

Does Acer Run Steam?

After a bit of a false start last week, Steam is finally, officially available for a select few Chromebook models. The Valve-owned digital storefront can now be accessed by the following models: Acer Chromebook 514 and 515. Acer Chromebook Spin 713.

Is 8GB RAM enough for gaming?

8GB of RAM is the minimum amount of RAM for any gaming PC. With 8GB RAM, you will be able to play most released games without many problems, but some games might not play at the highest quality, and you might have to shut down other applications.