Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58 [AN515-58-5325] (NH.QLZEP.00E)

One of the best entry-level gaming laptops

The Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58 is a great entry-level gaming laptop with a 165Hz display, noisy but efficient cooling system, comfortable keyboard and modern hardware. Inside, the laptop uses a moderately powerful combination of a hybrid 12-core Core i5 12500H, a GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM running at 3200 MHz. At first glance, this is a familiar "nitrobook" that will give out around 60 FPS at high graphics settings in Hogwarts Legacy, Baldur's Gate 3, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Diablo 4 and other popular games of 2022-2023. At the same time, due to its limitations, it is unlikely to allow you to raise the resolution to 1440p on an external monitor or enjoy all the delights of ray tracing. However, for 1000 euros it would be strange to ask for more.

GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card with increased power consumption limit

The main charm of this modification of Acer Nitro lies in the unlimited power consumption limit (115 W + 25 W reserved for automatic overclocking), as a result of which the game results of this crumb are almost 70-80% on average ahead of the results of most laptops with the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, with a typical for it there is a limiter of 85 W. Further more, in some games, the results of this RTX 4050 approximately correspond to the results of gaming laptops with a much more powerful RTX 3080 video card, but cut down to 110 W. Moreover, the hero of this review has only 6 GB of video memory and a 92-bit bus! Throw in ray tracing support with the upgraded series-exclusive DLSS 3.0 engine and you've got an all-around great low-cost Full HD gaming laptop.

A high-quality laptop without particularly noticeable flaws

In principle, we did not learn anything new, over the past 5 years of our acquaintance with Acer Nitro laptops, they almost never disappointed, only occasionally causing a desire to grumble at a mediocre webcam or not the most convenient touchpad. Moreover, the 2022 update went off without a hitch - the company's designers modernized the chassis, giving the laptop a more solid look, slightly adapted the cooling system, updated the ports (there are USB4 and HDMI 2.1), and also significantly upgraded the display (Full HD, 165 Hz , 3 ms, 100% sRGB, NVIDIA G-Sync), bringing it up to the level of more status laptops. All other features of the Nitro 5 series, including a comfortable keyboard, Killer E2600 LAN controller, a sound card with DTS X Ultra, remained in place. As well as the ability to independently upgrade the drive and RAM.