Acer Predator 15 Gaming Laptop - More than meets the eye?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,438 words · ~7 min read
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all right ladies and gentlemen time for yet another high-end gaming laptop with
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a top-of-the-line NVIDIA GPU and Intel processor this time it's the Acer
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Predator 15 specifically the g95 n174
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KNN well compared against other competing gaming laptops in terms of raw
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performance so stay tuned to see how it Stacks
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up the Scimitar RGB from Corsair features 17 program buttons a 12,000 DPI
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Optical sensor and a shape designed for comfort in MMO and mobile gaming learn
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more in the link in the description down below starting on top of the lid there's
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a snazzy looking Predator logo and name with a pair of red LED bars on the sides
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there is also an Acer logo visible on the bottom area that is fixed in place
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as it's part of the main body and not the back of the screen the main material
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used here is a matte black plastic that almost feels slightly rubbery to the
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touch I personally like this a lot as it's not glossy and cheesy looking like
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glossy plastic and it won't look bad over time like brushed aluminum the
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bottom of the unit features a bunch of venting near the back four rubber feet
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that help the venting Breathe by getting it up off of whatever surface it's on
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and to help the laptop stay in place by gripping said surface there's a red
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subwoofer that is a part of the predator sound pound 2.1 audio system that
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features doly surround and there's a sliding latch that releases your Blu-ray
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Drive why the hell would you want to quickly release your Blu-ray Drive well
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just in case you want to install the Predator Frost core basically you turn
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your laptop off pop the optical drive out pop The Cooler Master designed
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Predator Frost core in and now you have a third fan instead of an optical drive
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which you probably wouldn't have been using is it cool yes is it effective
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kind of no major changes but in Crisis 3 Skybox load tests it did bring the
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temperature down of the CPU and GPU by
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one degree each nothing to break into song and dance over but definitely
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something I'm happy to see I wish they also included a like Predator Drive core
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or something where you could mount an additional 2 and 1/2 in drive that abely
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would have been kind of cool it's been done before but it would have been kind of cool under the hood it's rocking a
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shiny i76700 HQ Intel processor which
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turbes up to 3.5 GHz an NVIDIA 980m 32
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gigs of RAM for all your browser tab needs killer 1535 AC Wi-Fi and gigabit
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Ethernet alongside Bluetooth 4.1 a 6,000
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mamp hour battery which claims 6 hours of battery run time A 1 TB 7200 RPM hard
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drive and a 512 GB NVMe SSD which is
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like crazy not only because NVMe drives are super freaking fast and totally
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awesome check out this video to see just how much more powerful these drives are
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but it's also crazy because they don't really tell you it has one on the
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website it just says solid state drive no other information on any part of the
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page on the box it states that it's a pcid which isn't wrong but it also
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doesn't properly claim the awesome power that is NVMe anyways moving on on the
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left side other than the Predator Frost core there's an SD card slot two 3.5 mm
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audio jacks for headphone and microphone and a dual USB 3.0 ports on the right
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hand side there are two USB 3.0 ports a Thunderbolt 3.0 port HDMI DisplayPort
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killer gigabit Ethernet port and a Kensington lock slot where your hands go
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there's a wonderful chicklet keyboard with four lighting zones and cool
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outlined WD buttons just above the keyboard there's five macro keys and a
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profile button which allows you to swap between three profile groups for a total
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of effectively 15 possible hotkeys the
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touchpad is nicely sized and has a noticeable Ridge around it and separate
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buttons so you can easily find your way around without needing to to look down
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which I super definitely like just up and to the right of the touchpad is a
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toggle button to turn off or on said touchpad just in case you're plugging in
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a mouse and don't want the touchpad to randomly decide to send pointer inputs
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when you're just trying to type or whatever also a cool feature the screen
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itself is a 15.6 in 1080P IPS comfy view
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panel which has a little bit too much Bezel around it for my liking but suits
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the laptop quite well regardless the panel does not Port g-sync despite a
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sticker that says g-sync on it if you look a little bit closer in the slightly
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smaller print you'll notice that it states monitor support meaning that if
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you plug in a g-sync monitor it will function as intended performance- wise
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we compared it against the ASUS g751 the
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review of which you can also see up here under the hood the g751 has the same
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980m GPU an older model i7 4710 HQ and a
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little bit more weight near the back in the form of bigger heat sinks it's also
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considerably cheaper but that can probably be blamed on that massive super
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badass NVMe Drive in terms of power draw from the wall and Battery Jane when not
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plugged into the wall both during our Crisis 3 Skybox test the Predator 15
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dominated from wall it drew 29 Watts
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less than the g751 and during the battery drain test it lost 4% less over
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16 minutes of gameplay which is actually pretty significant for temperatures the
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g751 consistently had better CPU temperatures with The Predator including
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the not so impactful Frost core installed having better GPU temperatures
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moving on to game performance there's a bit of trading blows that went on here
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when looking at battery power game performance the Predator wins by five
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FPS in both Battlefront and Crisis 3 but loses by three in Tomb Raider when
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plugged into the wall however they tie in Crisis 3 with the Predator losing by
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four in Tomb Raider and three in Battlefront okay so that's all fine and
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good but what are the takeaways here well I think there's three main ones if
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you want to no compromises compared to a desktop performance laptop and don't
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mind hauling around basically a bag of bricks maybe check out the Sager that we
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reviewed up here it's a similar price point to the Predator but not nearly as
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elegant if you want great gaming performance and don't mind lugging a bit
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of extra weight but don't quite want to haul a bag of bricks and want to spend
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some money but maybe not quite as much as this guy or the Sager maybe check out
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the g751 if you want a gaming laptop that still
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manages to look Sleek despite the stereotype of big bulky gaming laptops
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one that has Beast gaming performance one that performs relatively well on
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battery and has what has very recently been a revolutionary storage drive maybe
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check out the Predator if your bank account can take that big of a hit mine
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cannot so I guess I'll keep using the lonus hand-me-down laptop that he gave
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me at swivels and stuff whatever thanks
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for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do if it was awesome
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Forum now that you're' done doing all of that stuff you're probably wondering
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what to watch next so click the little button in the top right hand corner
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which I've referenced a few times this video to watch this Channel Super Fun
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video where we jasted each other on swag ways or hoverboards or the horizontal
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boards with wheels on on them or whatever you want to call them I don't
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know