Acer Predator 21 X

Well now we're talking....
The future of desktop replacement for sure.

 

this is it man, niche design. if only they chose to use desktop processor it'll be even more awesome.

btw looks like there might not be any 2.5" storage devices even though its so big lol, and only 2 ram slot as far as i can see.

any thoughts?

 

this seems like what the msi gt80 should have been. I am watching this product very closely with keen interest

 

On another note, how do people feel about the durability of this laptop? its a gargantuan behemoth meaning it should be pretty solid and whatnot, but the "reversible numpad/touchpad" is eerily irking me, if it has hinges isnt that a prime candidate for wear and tear and damage?
I think the gt80 with the touch sensitive might have been the better option in this regard.

Overall though, this laptop seems to take the cake from everything else in the market. The alienware 18 (long may it rest in peace), the gt80/gt83 seem nowhere in comparison to this monstrosity.

 

The keypad/trackpad combo unit looks like a solid stand alone unit held in by magnetic force, no moving parts or hinges to wear out.

I hope it can be used a distance from the laptop, so I can use it with an external keyboard. It must be wireless, so I would think it could...

Acer seems to build solid stuff, the ones I've used, but all the makes have gotten a lot better in the past 5 years, so I'm not too worried about the build.

We only have the mockup to go by. It's gonna be September / October / November / December / January / February / March before we get owners hands on reviews and get to see them in person.

Lots of new laptops and options between now and then

 

from the looks of video, looks fairly sturdy to me tbh though cant really say about what kind of materials they used.

back when we had hdx9000, it was cheap plastic and having such a big notebook, carrying it improperly would destroy the bottom chassis and mobo would go with it.

 

Its beyond me why MSI/Acer handicap their top gaming PCs with 45TDP mobile processor, when they should go with the 91TDP Desktop processor (i7-7700K in this case) to truly unleash its performance, this what compels me to stick with Clevo rather than anything else. Too bad this would have been a dream machine.

 

It's all guesses right now, there are no facts about what's inside the 21x other than 7th Gen Intel CPU and 1080 SLI, and a few other minor details.

There is plenty of room in the case for a desktop CPU.

Don't count the Acer 21x out yet

 

Arent the mobile CPU that MSI/Acer has been using are soldered/BGA? I didn't know that they are interchangeable with a deskptop LGA1151 cpu

 

Clevo also has BGA CPU models, in addition to the LGA Desktop CPU models, there is nothing that would keep MSI or Acer, or anyone else from offering an LGA Desktop CPU model if they choose to.

 

Thats the thing, Acer/MSI never offered LGA CPUs in the past. I guess we have to wait and see if this will change with the 21X

 

Asus / MSI have had models with LGA laptop CPU's before, but not with "desktop" CPU's.

A gaming oriented laptop designer might not find need for a 95w Desktop CPU, but there are 65w / 85w(75w?) CPU's coming that would be nice to see in a 1080 SLI to feed those GPU's for best gaming performance.

A 45w CPU doesn't seem appropriate in a monster 1080 SLI laptop.

 

more info from this video?
@Mr. Fox @Papusan @Johnksss@iBUYPOWER @hmscott @ryzeki

1:30 to 1:45 mentioned intel core K series processor? the guy probably just throw in random comments as he may only know about desktop CPU series however he did mention about kabylake release date along with release date of this laptop, what are the chances of it including a desktop CPU? if so this one will definitely shine.

64 gb ram, though i only see 2 slot from other slots guess theres 4 in total. he mentioned 4 SSDs likely that 4 NVME PCIE SSDs or simply 2 NVME PCIE and 2 M.2 SATA SSDs.

 

I say slim, considering kaby lake will launch on notebooks then desktops.

Or so I read somewhere... ita a bit infuriating that I read all these things and forget sources haha.

Sent from my SM-G925I using Tapatalk

 

Well if it's coming out that late it better have something other than 1080's in it...

 

IDK, could be an HK laptop CPU, or a K desktop CPU, it's a mystery

 

With all that time to prepare, it should be the first real K or X-bga processor. Key word here, "should" Then the real games will start, but more than likely...regular overclockable bga cpu....

 

should all together just ditch intel and put zen 8core in it.

 

what's the tdp on the zen 8core?

 

95W

 

not going to work, the predator 21x has smaller heatsink on cpu

 

head over to acer idea forum and let these guys know what hardware we are looking for.

http://community.acer.com/t5/Acer-Ideas/Acer-Predator-21x-hardware/m-p/453935#U453935

can't stand the idea of having soldered CPU or even GPU.

 

I'm trying to recall who was interested in 18" or larger laptops quite some time ago. @Red Line, was that you?

 

Hey, mate) I've been interested in a 18" Clevo some time ago, but it never appeared. As of today, 18.4" is still a good idea, like gt83vr but with some internals tweaking. Why do you ask?)

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

@Mr. Fox , @Papusan , @Johnksss@iBUYPOWER , @hmscott , @ryzeki , @Meaker@Sager

well the hype ended quickly. I am seriously hoping this is one of those time when each departments within a company dont communicate with each other properly.

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobil...-created-the-outrageous-predator-21-x-1327838

so there we have it, if the marketing people not making any mistake or miscommunication, both CPU and GPUs are all soldered. LMAO what a fking joke this is. see how the guy say it like its natural? ALWAYS soldered on? look at this garbage trend created by non-enthusiast thinking they are paying premium buying an okay product. little do they know when it breaks, that entire motherboard will cost them upwards $3000-$3500.

 

Yees.Acer will be the NEW BGA KING!! http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/anyone-else-disappointed.795318/page-20#post-10334422

LOOOOOOL!!!

 

And, anyone that wants one should remember...

 

This thing looks to have phenomenonal build quality. What a shame. It got BGAed before it even had a chance.
"Acer... You goofed good... You goofed good"

 

Well, there's only one effective way to deal with BGA...

 

such a shame indeed, this is brutal. such a waste, the idea of mechanical keyboard, large display, curved screen, dual psu all of them are there, with exception of soldered hardware. I CANT BELIEVE THIS, ITS THICKNESS IS ABOUT 5 TIMES OF MACBOOK AND THEY CHOOSE TO USE SOLDERED GPU/CPU.

 

Not even surprised a bit, The promo video had all the information we needed. Expecting an Acer LGA machine...

Oh they took the GX800VH as Inspiration hahaha..what a failure. MSI and Clevo must be laughing their arses off that Acer's expensive Brainfart...

 

Oh my Gosh!!!

It's INCREDIBOL how Acer did NOT dissapoint us! What's the matter when building a 21" Notebook, if they aren't using the space to its fullest? They call it the ultimate "Gaming Machine"! I think they "coupled" a few times too often with Dellienware....

Lets see, if the major part of the average Joe fanboy's community will buy this stuff. I hear their comments:

"Ey Joe, I got this awesome freakin' machine! It has a CURVED Display and is Bigga badass sista, ya know?"
"Yeah, great Joe! What's with the internals?"
"Who cares about the internals? It has a CURVED Display, Dude!!!"

Edit: They will fail miserably.... They Should fail miserably! But as you all know, the average Joe are Legion. And if enough morons are buying this crap, then Acer has its justification being right....

 

I was going to suggest taking a look at this very thread. But with the info regarding bga based components, probably best to move along.

 

I've only hope Clevo to get a big bach of those 21" screen panels ASAP

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

 

I don't know folks. If this article is correct, I think they're on to something here.

Hey Acer, I would strongly consider purchasing the Predator 21X, if the base package pricing is announced to be close to its real value. And I would do one better tell a lot of people they should buy it too. How does $550 USD seem? Fair price for the useful components like the mechanical KB and display. Everything else is worthless.

 

I couldn't resist....

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobil...-created-the-outrageous-predator-21-x-1327838

 

I was excited about it until I read soldered CPU and GPU. Blargh.

 

Predator 21x is a gorgeous shemale of a laptop. Looks amazing at first glance. Once you look closer, a pretty huge disappointment.

 

One of the nicest design I have seen and the size is what I want. But destroyed by Acer's engineers. This laptop size could easily fit the very best from Intel!!

 

You would think so.....

 

The fact that consumers are predominantly stupid doesn't make Acer "right" about anything. All it proves is they have an effective strategy for maximizing profit by selling garbage to idiots.

 

Maybe not an X, but something better than a 4 core i7 As I said. The size and design is great, but the rest... You know

 

You would think so..... <----- This was me totally agreeing with you.

 

I will by better to explain in English. Just wait and see Better and better day for day, LOL

 

Everyone overreacting because the gpu is soldered on? Big f'ing deal.

This is still a beast even if you can't upgrade it. I haven't upgraded my M18X and don't plan to because I just plan to replace it... with this.

They got everything right. The dual power supplies means no complaining about the performance or overclocking like we saw with the MSI Titan.

If you want to easily swap cpu's, motherboards, and videocards go get a desktop.

 

Sadly, there isn't much you can do with the M18x. Alienware was very thorough and methodical in seeing to that, unfortunately. That's why I don't have those machines any more. They were awesome for as long as they could be. Now that MSI and Clevo have screwed us all by deviating from a usable MXM form factor, it's death warrant is signed, sealed and delivered along with everything else made prior to the release of Pascal.

So, the Acer Predator is a beast? Really? How so? I'm not seeing anything that says beast except the deceptively fancy wrapper hiding a soldered mess. Mediocre, at best. The BGA CPU is not even a notch above mainstream consumer... because it is mainstream consumer, intentionally dumbed down for under-engineered notebooks to help OEMs make more money selling throw-away filth that cannot be properly serviced, much less upgraded. BGA mean Better Get Another computer... crippled garbage.

It's not overreacting when a product is incapable of doing what you want it to do and the most critical specs relating to performance and quality are a disappointment. I'd say that's a normal reaction and totally justified. Quite a few of us were eagerly waiting to find out what it had on the inside. Understandably, we weren't happy to learn that it was just another turdbook masquerading as something special. Same experience we had with the MSI Titan. So much goodness rendered meaningless to us by BGA filth. Close, but no cigar.

Now, to be fair Acer did a lot of cool things with the Predator 21x, but it is a disappointment to many because they totally wussed on on the most important parts. Dual AC adapters has been around for years. That's nothing new. But, it is new for Acer. Kudos to them for doing part of the job well.

If all you want to do is play games you can do that with a low end quad core running at 3.5GHz and a single 980M or desktop 970. Any 1080, even an emasculated BGA version, is more than enough for playing games. But being able to do a great job of playing games doesn't qualify something as a "beast" by any measure. You can do that with a Playstation or XBOX and those do not qualify as a "beast" machine either.

There is no meaningful overclocking with BGA anything. Mild or moderate overclocking, sure... but that's not "beast" status. The BGA CPU in the Predator won't be able run any faster than the same crippled CPU when installed in something else.

But, if this so-called Predator is really what you want then nothing else matters and you don't need to explain that to anyone. By all means, get it and enjoy it (hopefully). People should buy whatever makes them happy. As long as the bar is set low enough, you should be tickled with it.

 

@sticky you're also not considering the cost of maintaining this so called 'Beast'. CPU good goes bad, what to do? One of the GPUs flakes out, what to do?

Me: An out of warranty GPU replacement costs how much?
Acer support: wha, wh, wha, wha, wha. (Charlie Brown for those old enough to remember.)
Me: Oh, I need to send in the entire unit, replace the working mobo, perfectly fine cpu, and other working GPU, and that costs how much? No, thanks!

I'm not anti-bga, as bga has its place, in low end, throw away garbage. But if a tech company wants any of my money, on a high end system, it's going to come in socketed form. You mention desktop as alternatives if someone needs to swap components, but my professional requirements strictly limit that possibility. Desktop? Nahh. I'll stick with Clevo socketed laptops for now.

I'm still hopeful,someone was mistaken on what's inside, because I'm back on board if non-bga. If you do go with a Predator X21, and it is bga, I hope it really does work out for you. But I'll sit this one out.

 

I think being able to run at higher settings at games at better resolution is more meaningful for most people than being able to get higher scores on benchmark suites. So, higher CPU clocks are mostly meaningless because games usually are limited by GPUs than CPUs, especially at higher resolutions. BGA or not BGA is meaningless in that scenario. Since you are benchmark guy, so I can see why you care about socketed CPU more than anything, but only meaningful to you and few other benchers out there.

Ideally, we would love to have notebooks that you can just as upgrade as easily as desktops but its upgradability is already severely compromised when there is no standard form motherboard form factor for notebooks. Intel changes sockets every 2 years and MXM situation is already in big mess and Nvidia is no longer planning to support it anyways. I would rather get a new laptop every 2 years rather than trying to upgrade in current situation. Socketed CPUs? They are better for overclocking and will get you more points on benches but meaningless for most people unless you care about benchmarks. And people still need to get a new laptop when Intel makes new sockets lol.

 

Well, I certainly understand what you're saying and why you think that way. Some people find it easier to surrender and lower their standards. It's hard for people to be passionate about things they either don't understand or do not value. And, nobody can miss something they never had.

With regard to the excuses for BGA... We don't need NVIDIA to support MXM. They stopped already. MSI and Clevo have already proven NVIDIA's support is not required. All we need is for MSI and Clevo to figure out what the new form factor should look like and stick to it. Hopefully, they can set aside the fact that they are competitors long enough ot agree on a standard that both can live with. If we can get as many years out of the new form factor as we did from the past MXM versions everything will be fine. As far as Intel CPUs go, if you get the best they offer it will generally perform great for at least two generations of upgrades and outperform mainstream crap for 3 or 4 generations. If you go with the low-buck CPUs that isn't true, but enthusiasts don't opt for the cheap stuff. Or, they start out cheap and upgrade to the best when prices drop. In other words, you don't usually need to upgrade the CPU just because there is something newer if you choose wisely. Bottom line here is if the day comes that nothing is left but BGA notebooks, those whose standards transcend the mediocrity of the masses will stop buying notebooks altogether, or when they do buy one it will be something extra cheap, disposable and forgettable.

This lame BGA crap isn't new. It started out as being the low budget option for cheapskates and bottom-feeders, then it morphed into the crutch to support thin and light ultrabook filth that can't handle much in terms of TDP. Now, because we have allowed them so much liberty to sell garbage, it has become the one-size-fits-all mainstream solution to mass production trashbooks. There is absolutely zero legitimacy to the decision for Acer to use BGA in such a large machine. Considering their brand has always represented the cheapest mainstream junk available, their decision to wimp out on us with BGA in their Predator is more disappointing than it is surprising.

 

There used be the days when faster CPUs correlated with noticeable performance increase in pretty much every applications. Right now, it is hard to tell the performance difference between 6820hk and 6700k outside of benchmark numbers, and they make no difference in most important applications that matters most and biggest selling point, games. There hasn't been meaningful performance improvement even since Sandy Bridge days and CPUs are becoming less and less important, at least not until we have more applications that takes advantage of more cores than Quads. Even BGA "turds" are good for at least few years and will not become a bottleneck.

I am more concerned about GPUs than anything actually, because CPUs far more outlive GPUs and lack of GPU upgrade option is far more damaging in terms of laptop longetivity. Because gaming laptops and bought for, yeah, gaming, and GPUs are by far the most important in terms of gaming performance.

On a bright side, now we are seeing more 660w laptops than ever and I think we are not far away from seeing laptops featuring HEDT platform and Titan level GPUs. I hope those are socketed and features upgradable GPU at least.