Acer Nitro 5 i5 8300h + GTX 1050 ti AMA

Great little machine at BB that should compete nicely with Dell's new G3.

For the highest price sold at BB at $799 (sales have put this as low as $679) you get the following:

15.6" all plastic chassis at 5 ish pounds
i5 8300h
GTX 1050 ti 4GB
256gb intel 600p pci-e x 4 @ 1500/500 read/write w/room for a single 2.5" storage (it's empty)
48whr battery (terrible battery life at 2.5hrs at best)
LG 1080p panel at a measly 66% sRGB after calibration (easy to replace panel as I did)
Max dB at 54 at max fan speed.

Lots of thermal testing complete:
Stock:
Max GPU was 72c
Max CPU in the mid 90s

Undervolt:
Dropped CPU temps by 10c 80-85

Repaste + UV
Dropped CPU temps another 10c 70-75

Repaste + UV + Max fan speed kept temps in the 60's at 54 dB.

Lots of room here to play with acoustic settings and keep temps at bay.

May favofite was to apply the repaste, UV and Auto fan curve. Great acoustics and thermals in the mid 70's.

Review, teardown and panel replacement coming shortly.

 

I have the same exact laptop. Exact specs.

I hate the screen, would it be worth it to even get a 120hz screen? My concern is I do think i can get high FPS other then with lowest settings to utilize a 120hz screen, I play BF1/PUBG/FORTNITE. I do not like the stock screen, it is way too dark and washed out colorless... its got no vibrancy or even clarity for a 1080 and it’s lightbleed galore. The screen is the worst 1080 screen I’ve ever used on a laptop. What would be a good replacement?

I also need to run the fans of Mc as sometimes the laptop lets itself get hotter even with nitro sense coolboost. I don’t mind cleaning out the fans from dust every 6 months or so but cooling does not kick it when gets too hot so when I play I set the nitro sense to coolboost and during gameplay much of the time I set fan speeds to max. Is this bad in anyway? Not sure how to keep temps safely down without having to max out the fan speed.

I used nearly all my 8GB of ram during useage. I wanted to save money by find another exact model 8gb ram chip m.... but I could not for the life of me find the same ram model part to add it which is 8ATF1G64HZ- 2G6E1 so now I’m afraid I had to spend money on a set of ram sticks for 16gb. I tried to search the part number so I can buy the exact same 8gb ram chip to save money instead of buying a expensive Corsair pair...

I’m also looking to add a 500gb ssd later not sure which the best cheap brand is.

I can change out the screen, ram and hard drives but I’ve never repated before or undervolted before. I noticed when I use lowest settings in games the frame rate gets boosted to 80-90 FPS but eventually the cpu hits 100% usage while the gpu gets less usage like it’s a bottleneck. I feel like the cpu picks up more the frame rate when I’m using ultra low settings for high frame rates maybe you can school me on this better because I’m having a hard time finding a playable balance between graphics and smoothness but I prefer smoothness. I definitely hate the screen though shattering fearing lack of vibrancy, it’s not clearer compared to better screens I had as far back as 2012. Thanks again for any help

 

You don't need to. Just find out the frequency and CAS latency of the RAM stick that's in your laptop right now (use HWInfo) and buy another stick of RAM with the same frequency and the same or lower CAS latency. You don't need to do this - any stick of DDR4 should do work just fine, but if you do this, you're extremely unlikely to run into problems. Read this article for more information: https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/support/articles/000005657/boards-and-kits.html

Crucial MX500 SSDs

Undervolt the CPU + a repaste of the CPU and GPU.

 

Thanks!!!!
One last thing, can you recommend me a good budget ram chip? I found many comparable but most around 90 bucks help a poor broke student and I’d be greatful thanks

 

RAM is really expensive at the moment, you'll need to go on ebay to find a used stick of DDR4 if you want to pay less.

 

If anyone discovers a high refresh rate monitor that allows brightness control feel free to post a part number! Thank you guys for your help, effort and time.

I plan on putting in one of those 120/144hz monitors someday as long as the brightness control can function.

 

AUO B156HTN05.2 is a 120 Hz TN panel that has terrible colours out of the box, but is greatly improved with by installing an icc profile. See this review of the panel here. The other panel you could get is AUO B156HAN04.2. This is a 120 Hz IPS panel and it has much better contrast and marginally better colours than previous panel. It does have much higher pixel response times than the TN panel (30ms vs 9ms) which means you will see ghosting on this panel. A review of the panel is available here.

 

This is now $649 on Best Buy, albeit with the Core i5-7300H:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-n...lid-state-drive-black/6204553.p?skuId=6204553

Core i5-8300H version you have is I think this one at $799, which still isn't bad at all:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-n...ate-drive-shale-black/6212602.p?skuId=6212602

Pretty great specs for the money. I haven't seen better, actually.
Thanks for the write-up.

Charles

 

I have the 8h gen acer nitro 5 and the Predator 8th gen sitting at home one for myself and one for wife so we can play pubg

And thanks for all your help bob

 

This model ( AN515-53-55G9, with the i5 8300H and 1050Ti) is currently on sale today (08/12/18) at Best Buy during their 40th anniversary sale for $699. Using gift cards purchased at Giant Eagle (6% discount) this model can be had after sales tax for around $705 delivered to you door. I bought one today.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-n...ate-drive-shale-black/6212602.p?skuId=6212602

 

Any advice on sources to learn how to properly repaste the GPU and CPU on this model? I just bought it today.

 

Everything you’d want to know is in here

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3n5VGqlV9X0ytZ3A_k5GU3Fh51hsa3U

 

I saw your videos. Very informative, thank you. I plan on re-pasting over the weekend. Could you please provide more specifics on the replacement panel you used? I saw how you got the replacement from "Kishka eBay", but could you share pricing and model number? If the price is right I'm interested in following your footsteps and putting the same (or similar type) of panel in.

 

I’m not too sure what Kishka eBay means but the seller was a computer store and that name doesn’t ring a bell.

The panel part number was mentioned in the first 60 seconds of the video if I recall correctly.

I’m vague here for a reason. There isn’t a place I can recommend to buy displays. You just have to get lucky and find a one off unit sold somewhere. I wish this wasn’t the case but right now there is a panel shortage.

 

I have the 7300HQ/1050 ti model, I got it for $600. I've been using it for about a month now and it's been great for the price, the performance per dollar is fantastic. Temps are kind of a big problem with it out of the box though. Without any tweaks or anything, my CPU was in the low-mid 90's and GPU in the mid-high 80s during stress tests. That's pretty insane, granted its also summer so ambient temps aren't good. It's technically usable but I don't consider that to be usable temps, I don't know how that's allowed.

I repasted with Arctic MX-4 because that's just what I had laying around, undervolted both my CPU and GPU, and have Coolboost on. CPU sitting at a nice low-mid 60s and GPU mid-high 60s during stress tests. I managed to get a -.140V stable undervolt on my CPU and -.120V on my GPU. My GPU actually went further but my FPS started to go down for some reason so -.120V was the max I could go before my FPS started to be affected. I overclocked my GPU and temps still low-mid 70s during stress tests. Pretty insane the difference compared to out the box.

Honestly Coolboost shouldn't even be an option. It only kicks up under loads and not having it on increases temps significantly. Having it off pretty much means the fan barely does anything under load, its ridiculous. I think Acer just wanted it for the marketing gimmick, "You can control your fan speed!" Coolbost is mandatory unless you want your laptop to light on fire.

But yeah, I would only suggest this laptop if you're not afraid to open it up and you're willing to do some tweaks. Otherwise its rock solid, its a good laptop.

 

@KuroLionheart Do you use MSI Afterburner to undervolt the GPU? I only undervolted CPU in my notebook (not the same as yours but also with 1050Ti) and it seems I'm missing an opportunity here.

 

Yup. MSI Afterburner works just fine, just as not as simple as undervolting the CPU.

 

Can this use 2666mhz ram?

 

Yes. This stick works fine in mine for $87.00:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071KNKBQ1/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Also, as of today BestBuy is offering it again for $699:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-n...ate-drive-shale-black/6212602.p?skuId=6212602

 

Why is your CPU usage so incredibly high in your overwatch gameplay?

Does the unit come with a single RAM stick or something? 77fps on OW should not be anywhere near 80% CPU utilization for that chip... should be closer to 30%

 

I see 60% roughly on the CPU usage and FPS all over.

I don't cap frame-rates nor do I max out titles. I'm also recording too, sometimes with OBS. Also about 2 minutes in, I not only said there's one stick of RAM but physically removed the back panel to provide evidence

 

I see. I was just skipping through for temperatures and saw abnormally high CPU usage, but that would explain much.

Sent from my OnePlus 1 using a coconut