OC-Freak's quick review: Acer Aspire V5-573G, i5 haswell, Nvidia GT750M and FullHD IPS.

Maybe we have completly different taste or maybe you are an artist and Im not or maybe your laptop has this problem, but.....


... I can just tell from my own experience that with my Acer V5: That was the best laptop I ever had in my life - not kidding

The IPS has never been a problem and the pictures are pure sharp. I don't even know what "image ghosting" is and after been googling it, I was like: what is that? Never seen that in my whole life so I guess, you are just unlucky or something.

I don't think that most of the Acer V5 have this problem and I don't even have any back light bleeding on my screen. Mine is perfect.


If Im watching movies with alot of dark scenes, I rather watch it on my Acer V5 than on my BenQ xl 2420T Gaming LCD screen

 

Bought recently this laptop and something is very wrong, Diablo 3 for example runs max of 30fps @ 1080p, even with +120 core and +200mem. Even my old laptop with Phenom II N620 + 5650M runs the game better. I thought this i5 + GT750M would have handled the game better, even dropping the resolution to 1366x768 doesnt really help anything.

 

Did you check if the laptop is using GT750M and not the intergrated graphic card for Diablo? If it doesn't , then you have to change the settings.

And IF the laptop is already using the dedicated one, then I think you might need a laptop cooler cause what I realize is that this laptop might getting VERY HOT during gaming so you def. will need a cheap laptop cooler (6 dollars on ebay).

 

hello everybody,

After some 6 months of very pleasant work with my v5 573G (i7 version) which let me test several demanding games (e.g. battlefield 4), the screen broke down and Acer uk support is not able to replace it. No matter to say that their flexibility suffers even compared to steel....
Now, since they offered a mere refund for the laptop, I am thinking about moving toward another model / producer which offers something comparable in terms of price, quality and performance but with a more parsimonious screen in terms of dimensions.
I remember vividly that at the time of the purchainse (november 2013) this laptop represented a straight outlier in the market, but now things could be lukely changed?
Any candidate?
Thanks for the help

 

Sorry for the cross-posting, but I believe it is worth reporting a message I wrote in the general section, as I see that some 573 users are thinking about swapping the goods of that versione for something different.

Update:

Current first choice in town is
Acer Aspire V5-473PG
Acer Aspire V5-473PG-54204G50aii W8 (Article no. 90528788) - Laptops / Notebooks - computeruniverse
Can someone express his own toughts about this laptop performance compared with the 573G ? I find size, screen quality, touchpad and video card extremely appealing.
I can't assess how much I would suffer from cpu and ram downgrading (Core i7-4500U 2x 1.80 GHz (3.00 GHz Turbo), 8 GB RAM ----> Core i5-4200U 2x 1.60 GHz (2.60 GHz Turbo), 4GB RAM) and I don't know if
1) it supports MSATA
2) RAM allows expansion


Second best:
ASUS S451LA-CA073H Touch W8 (Article no. 90539204) - Laptops / Notebooks - computeruniverse


I'd like a laptop which manages decently new games as 573G did such as BF4. But primarly use is working

Thanks

 

I have received this notebook recently and noticed that the screen panel is slightly bended along its horizontal axis. This can be clearly seen on the top edge of the screen with the panel widely opened. Do you guys have the same or it's just my copy?
The top lid on the other side of the screen looks flat though.

 

In The Netherlands Acer has launched the 2014 refresh for this model, it has a slightly higher clocked i5 4210U/i74510U and the best of all: GTX 850M graphics.

Should give this beast a great boost in graphics performance!

 

@G-Force

Thanks for the info. I've been waiting for this for a while.

EDIT: Some sources indicate that VRAM used on GTX 850M in this notebook is GDDR3 rather than 5.

 

GTX 850M ddr3 performs pretty much as good as the gddr5 GTX 765M. Either way, it's much faster than the GT 750M. I know I will be getting the i5 version as it only costs 799 euro here.

 

Saying it performs as well as a card of a previous generation is not exactly what I wanted to hear

It shouldn't come as a surprise considering Acer has been doing it for years but Aspire v3-7xx got GTX 850M first and it has GDDR5 on board, so I hoped v5 would too.

I'm gonna haver to compare v5-573G with GTX 850M against Lenovo Y50 with GTx860M. Lenovo is obviously faster but it's also more expensive.

I'm looking forward to a proper review of v5-573G refresh.

 

Well, it's pretty normal for the current mid range to perform the same as the previous high-end. 850M is much faster as the GT 750M, both ddr3 and gddr5 versions so I would say this is a significant upgrade. Especially considering the fact that the 850M is a ddr3 card.

 

I get your point but what I don't get is why Acer is hell bent on using low res screens and slow video memory.
They have been doing it for almost 10 years now (I'm not making it up- it dates back to at least ATI Radeon X 700) and I thought that since they have acknowledged Full HD screen and GDDR5 (as in V3-7xx) they decided to give up o those savings.

Of the two FHD screen is more expensive (compared to 768p) than GDDR5 is compared to GDDR3, so they have saved some $ (what $20- $40???) and at the same timeseriously hurt the notebook as a gaming machine.

I'm gonna wait to see the benchmarks but I'm pretty sure this is going to seriously hurt the performance.

 

There really is a substantial difference between the ddr3 and the gddr5 variant of the 850m. Here's a great graph that illustrates that (taken from gaminglaptopsjunky)

http://d27gsy1ysdham8.cloudfront.ne...R5-vs-GTX-850M-DDR3-vs-GTX-860M-I7.png?174598

As you can see, the gddr5 850m and the 860m are quite close. The ddr3 850m? Not so much

 

The problem is not only Acer. A lot of manufacturers use slower ddr3 memory. These notebooks are not marketed as gaming machines so they will not push performance to the limit. Yes, ddr3 850M is slower, we all know that. But in itself, it performs damn great compared to 750M.

Want true gaming performance? Better look at more expensive alternatives like Y50. This is not to defend Acer, but this notebook is in no way a gaming powerhouse. Not with a ulv processor anyway. However, 850M boosts graphics performance a lot so casual gamers like me will be happy with this upgrade.

 

Using the ddr3 version of the 850m just doesn't even make sense financially IMO. Someone calculated, using methods that I don't know and can't care to dig up, that using ddr3 over gddr5 saves about $25 maybe per unit. $25. I'm willing to bet there are a lot more people turned away from it based on it being ddr3 than people who would have turned away due it being $25 more. Evidence also shows that the performance upgrade is actually substantial going to gddr5.

*shrugs* I've never dealt with Acer before and while i am currently searching for a new laptop, probably dont plan to unless they have at least a gddr5 850m laptop that isn't 17.3 inches, but just wanted to give my opinion on this ddr3 vs gddr5 thing.

 

hy oc-freak. i am having problems with touchpad gestures. i installed synaptics and all i get is this (picture)


i also installed alps and elantech, many different drivers and none of them gives me any options. any suggestions or can you give me that link of those "older" drivers of yours?
tnx

 

never mind, found the right drivers "TouchPad_Elantech_11.6.2.1_W8x86x64"..gestures are working now. tnx anyways

 

Maybe they use ddr3 over gddr5 because it allows to make laptop more thin and not overheat?

 

Wrong. The DDR3 version is actually clocked higher (965MHz) than the GDDR5 version (876MHZ) and thus runs hotter.

The only reason I can see is a very slight cost saving.

 

Maybe then it allows to make laptop more thin? Idk, but Acer saving few dollars for huge performance sounds bullshiit to me.

 

Except that's exactly what they are doing. To be fair, they are not the only ones. Almost all of the 850m equipped laptops have cheap ddr3, with very few having gddr5

 

That is true most 850s are available with DDR3. The reason seems to be crating a performance gap that would justify the price-tag difference. After all 860 and 850 use the same core but 850 is underclocked and with DDR3 is again deliberately made slower. If it wasn't for that you could probably pay for 850 with GDDR5 and OC it manually to 860 level thus achieving the same performance for less money - manufacturers don't like this.

I have to say I got over DDR3 in this notebook. I still like it and I'm seriously considering buying one. Lenovo Y50 seems to be an alternative with faster CPU and 860 GDDR5 but it's also thicker, more expensive and will achieve significantly lower battery time (not to mention styling which I find questionable)

 

Same for me. The Acer is still my no.1 at the moment. I'm over the DDR3 thing, although I did not have really big issues with it in the first place as you might know. It performs fine compared to the GT 750M.

I do have some doubts left about the CPU. This will be my main computer for at least 2 years and I do think a quad-core would be a better choice. However, thin/light laptops with lots of power are not that common.

Y50 was my first choice and it would do the job but it has a horrible screen which will annoy me, I'm sure of that. I'm not going to replace parts on a brand new device.

 

Y50 has two screens - AUO is OK and Chi Mei is indeed crap.

As for the CPU - I'm willing to pay extra for i7 version for the exact reason you mentioned. Core i7 4510U seems to be doing OK - it's actually pretty close to some quad cores of previous generation(s) and all that with 15W TDP. But since the CPU can't be upgraded it's reasonable to go for the fastest you can afford or fastest available which would be 4510U at this point.

I'm going to play games on it for sure but I also work on my laptop and I carry it to meetings and such - Y50 is heavier offers a good 2.5 to 3 hours less on battery and I'd look ridiculous with a notebook with red trim and fake air inlets in a meeting with a client about a project worth a lot of money.

 

True, but for me the difference in performance between the i5 4210U and i7 4510U is to small to justify the 230 Euro difference in price. In The Netherlands you also pay for a 1TB SSHD (i5 has 500GB HD), which I won't be using because I will use my Crucial 240GB SSD.

I agree with you on looks, why do game laptops always look so weird... There must be serious gamers out there wanting a stylish high-performance notebook.

 

Maybe there will be more configurations available in The Netherlands too - for example in Poland there are versions with and without SSD, with and without OS and there is even one with Windows 7 rather than Windows 8 out of the box.
The difference between two otherwise identical v5-573Gs is 108€ (one being Core i5 the other Core i7). I can spare another 100€ for that - I wouldn't pay another 230€ though especially that I have SSD too.

Overall i7-4510U/12GB/1000+8GB SSHD/FHD IPS/GTX850M/ no OS costs almost 900€ after taxes.

 

Double-posting for a reason:

Notebookcheck posted a review of v5-573G with 850M and Core i5 - (poorly) translated version is here.

 

Looks like it's performing decent, at least when compared to the V5/750M. The ULV holds the true power of the 850M back in some cases, but it will give you a light and long lasting (battery) notebook. Great all-rounder if you ask me. The 2kg weight and the battery life will be great for me personally, as I have to take it with my pretty much every day to school. I'm not a die hard gamer, I usually play older games so that will also not be a problem for me.

The performance enthousiast should not even bother with this notebook in my opinion, there are much better options for that.

 

I'm having hard time with those better options though. Assuming one doesn't want to spend a fortune and/or own a laptop with ridiculous styling (MSI, Alienware etc.), there are not many options left.

Lenovo Y50 tuns out to be a lot faster - I've calculated the average for six games that notebookcheck Germany used on them both and Lenovo is on average 82% faster in Ultra quality FHD settings (although they tested Core i7-4710HQ rather than Core i5-4200H that would be more in the price range of v5).

Now - even assuming that Y50 is a lot faster than v5-573G there are still issues with Y50. Acer has better screen (IPS and better quality overall), Acer is quieter and lasts longer on battery, is lighter and arguably better looking.

Considering that Core i7-4510 (that was in Y50 review unit) would be faster than i5-4200H (that would be in v5 price-range) and in Acer and Core i5-4200U (that was reviewed by notebookcheck) would be slower than Core i7-4510U, the performance gap would close a bit.

And at the end of the day v5-573G with Core i7 will still be slower than Y50 with Core i5 but for pretty much the same money Acer will be quieter, easier to carry, will offer better battery time and better screen - pretty much everything apart from sheer power.

Any other options that would beat Acer for similar price?

 

It depends on the country I guess, but the Lenovo Y50 costs € 999 here (i7 4710HQ) and the Acer V5 (i7) costs also € 999. The i5 V5 is € 768 here at the moment. The Acer is a good deal, but purely performance wise the Lenovo is a much better deal in my opinion. However, the screen is really, really bad, no matter which panel you might end up getting.

An alternative here is the MSI GE60, with gddr5 850M graphics and a 4710HQ, € 1049 (no OS). But I don't think it's built that well and the cooling raises concerns with me.

The V5 i5 would be the best choice for me. The money I will keep in my pocket by going with the i5 will be used for an external 23"/24" display.

 

Over here v5-573G with i7 and 8GB RAM without OS costs 856€, Lenovo Y50 with i5-4200H, 8GB and no OS costs 892€ and Y50 with Core i7 4710HQ, 8GB RAM and no OS costs 975€.

So Acer might be the slowest but it's also the cheapest and wins in many other departments.

I've checked out MSI GE60 too but it indeed has terrible cooling but at the same time it's extremely loud under load, has poor battery times is heavy and looks flimsy.
So do other MSI notebooks for that matter.

 

Actually, you save a fair bit of power by going with gDDR3. Take for example the GT 650M vs the 660m. The 650M gDDR3 had a higher clockspeed yet the 660m dissipates an extra 5W to the TDP. GDDR5 is quad-pumped so the power required is enormous (relatively) to gDDR3. As for heat, this is actually less of a concern in practice, low voltage GDDR5 exists (i.e. 1.5V or even 1.35V SKUs) for heatsink-less operation.

As for cost, the cost savings, I'm going by older data here but in the BOM of the Xbox One vs the PS4. The Xbox One's gDDR3 array only costed about $39 while the PS4's GDDR5 array cost $62. This is where the $23 figure came from.
http://www.techinsights.com/uploadedImages/Public_Website/Content_-_Primary/Marketing/2013/PS4_vs_Xbox_One/ps4vsxboxone-bom.jpg

As for performance, the difference is substantial. gDDR3 already bottle necked the 650m (384 Kepler cores) and now you have something with probably over twice the rendering power (the 850m) with the same bandwidth? this is a disaster. I had the gDDR3 version of the 650m, it was awful. In games where there is insufficient rendering power, overclocking simply didn't scale unless VRAM was also OCed. In games where there was sufficient rendering power, everything became a total stutter fest. Seriously, the Techreport charts on frame latency for the desktop GT640 will tell you everything wrong with gDDR3 in this era.
With gDDR3, you are pretty much limited to older games, casual titles and/or zero graphics settings (e.g. MSAA), never mind high resolution performance.

I would never ever buy another machine that has gDDR3.

The reason why Acer picked gDDR3 I'd imagine is multifaceted and complex. The cost savings of about $23 is substantial, the profit margins on these budget-mainstream oriented machines are razor thin. Additionally there is a spill on effect, gDDR3 consumes less power, this means less specced PSUs, VRMs and cooling can be deployed for further cost savings. Plus, there is also the topic of planned obsolescence and product segmentation. gDDR3 is the best way I know of to allow a manufacturer to claim a certain GPU part for the obligatory spec sheet checklist but at the same time cripple the machine enough so that it doesn't compete with more up-market oriented SKUs.

All this being said, the reason everybody is noticing a substantial improvement on the Kepler generation despite gDDR3 is that the Maxwell GPUs have a massive L2 cache. This amplifies the effective VRAM bandwidth thus mitigating some of the performance penalty of gDDR3.

 

Hey,
I am about to buy this devilish device.
I've found a shop in Poland which sports the renewed version of this model with all these fancy 850M and processor stuff.
Here is the link Acer V5-573G i5-4210U/8GB/1000+8 FHD IPS GTX850M - Notebook / Laptop 15,6" - Sklep komputerowy - X-KOM.PL.
I decided to buy the i5 version without SSD (850$ if I get back VAT) to save some money and buy bigger 250gb mSATA SSD later. But what bothers me is that I called the seller asking about the additional mSATA socket in this laptop, and that guy said there is no such thing, and, if I want mSATA for SSD, I should buy i7 version with 120gb SSD pre-installed (1050$). I hope he is wrong, and I want to ask you guys if anyone bought this version and still had the so desirable mSATA socket inside.
So, I need an advice. What do you think, should I buy the i5 version without SSD hoping ther will be mSATA, or should I buy the i7 version where mSATA is present for sure?

 

mSATA is available in this laptop. No wonder the seller doesn't know about it - you need to remove 16 screws to remove the back cover - he surely didn't do it.
And an advice - Media Markt in Poland carries this exact model in the same config you've mentioned but with Win 8 for 3099 (including VAT) which is even better deal than x-kom offers.

They don't list it on their website but it's physically available (I've seen it last week although I can't guarantee it's available in every MM). But again - it's hard to buy from abroad of you are not in Poland so it might not matter to you.

 

So, I can be sure that every configuration of this laptop has mSATA? The x-kom guy on the phone asked me to wait for whole 15 minutes, and it seems he called someone else who must know something about this laptop.
If it has the mSATA, then it remains to persuade them to install my SSD not to break the warranty. Or is it possible to remove the back cover without damaging the warranty stamps?
Media Markt's offer is interesting, of course, but yep, I don't live in Poland, I live in Belarus, so I have to cross the border (which is nice, I can get back the VAT ). Anyway, I don't care much about Win8.
I've been in Media-Markt in Białystok last Thursday, and I didn't see it there. So the best option for me is to order the laptop at x-kom and go to their store knowing for sure that they have it in stock..

 

It definitely has the mSATA near the mini-PCI Express. I'm on my phone right now (In a pub no less) so you'll have to excuse for being too lazy to find a photo for you.

And there are no warranty seal at all on Acer so you can upgrade yourself.

 

Ok, now I'm sure there is mSATA, thank you a lot for your help.
The notorious guy on the phone told that removing the back cover voids the warranty.
I'm thinking of installing something like this one A-Data 256gb.

 

dont you worry about notorious guy, there are no seals like mentioned in earlier post..you are free to add mSATA.

 

I'm buying a new laptop and this one is simply the best for the money.
I'm mostly going to use it for programming, so I want to know if the keyboard is really that bad or do you get used to it?
Is it possible to comfortably type on it for several hours?

Also is it worth paying 100€ more for 850M?

 

If you play games it's definitely worth paying for 850M - it's a lot faster. Otherwise there's no point.

As for the keyboard - it would be best if for you could test one yourself. In my opinion it is not bad but there is very little key travel. I've also seen better keyboards in similar notebooks (i. e. ASUS) but I wouldn't call it bad. This is very subjective though - I find the keyboard acceptable but someone else might find do if dreadful.

 

Hey, I got this laptop a couple of days ago, and I love it so far. It's powerful, silent, and the screen looks amazing. Although, the very bottom seems a bit darker when displaying white. And on the right edge there are some dark spots appearing on the dark background. But you have to make an effort to see these things. The keyboard is perfect for me. Personally, I don't like keyboards with big motion range as it tires my fingers over time when coding. So it depends on what you need.

The only problem so far was the touchpad. Is there any options for the driver? I have the standard one from the resource CD. It confuses scrolling and zooming. Seems better when "Zoom perfect" option is disabled. But still, maybe there is something else? Or maybe it's the touchpad issue?

 

Is the touchpad on the updated version of this laptop better? Because on notebookcheck.net's updated review the score for the touchpad is higher.

 

Well, I don't know if it's better, I've never used the older version. But I'm pretty sure there is nothing change about the touchpad. Touchpad is faultless without "zoom perfect". But with "Zoom perfect" option on it sucks, it seems like scrolling and zooming become indistinguishable. Well, if you can live without gestures the touchpad is fine. It's not glitchy, doesn't loose your finger while moving, sensitive enough. But with "zoom perfect" turned off gestures don't work. Like when you swipe with two fingers to the right it opens the previous web-page. I probably want too much from it.

 

Hi guys,

I had the old version of this laptop (573G with Intel 4200U CPU and NVidea 750m GPU). The right fan made an extremely annoying whirring noise (like OP's did as well). A recording of the noise can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArUwhWbo7E
I had the fans replaced twice, but the noise stayed, so I returned it (just like OP did).

Now, I am looking for a new laptop. And again, the 573G has everything I want (power, battery, screen, weight) for the best value. And since this is a new version (with GTX850M and i5-4210u), I am hoping the right fan doesn't make the sound anymore.

However, before I buy another 573G, I request that someone with the new 573G - with the Intel i5-4210U CPU and NVidea GTX850m GPU - tell me whether the right fan (under the numpad) makes an annoying sound.

The sound was only audible when the laptop was running medium-intensive tasks (like playing four 1080P YouTube videos at the same time). You wouldn't hear it in a pub, but when alone it would make a whirry-noise that drove me up the wall.

For anyone kind enough to check - thanks a lot!!

Best regards,
MM

 

Hi,

I've got the new version of this device, with 850M and i7-4510, and I haven't heard anything like the sound in the recording you made. Here is a recording (a video, didn't bother to convert): swdet link to googleDrive For the first 20 second fans are spinning moderately fast, then I launch skyrim, and you can hear it spinning way faster. I've put the phone right next to the right fan and the air flow made this noise which sounds like an airplane engine, sorry. At least you may be sure there is no such clanking sound.
I hope it was helpful, good luck with future purchase.

 

Your post made me happy. Because the sound is absent (yay!), but mostly because you took the effort to write an extensive reply, even with a recording. You made my day. I'd buy you a beer if I could (hell, send me a PayPal address and I will). Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(The experiences of other owners are still welcome!)

 

What wireless cards are installed in the GTX 850M refresh of the V5-573G, could someone please check and report back? Thanks!

 

Refreshed version reviewed by German notebookcheck had Intel N7260 (mind you -not the 7260 ac)

 

Thanks. 7260N would be ok for me. I'd rather have Intel wireless than Atheros wireless.

 

These are not good cards though - neither n version or ac version of 7260 (the latter of which I have).
7260ac at least offers something extra in 866mbps speeds while n7260 is simply worse than Intel 6200/6230.

That said it's not important since you can easily replace the card and Acer doesn't whitelist cards.