Acer Nitro 5 AN515-56(57)

Acer's Nitro series has earned widespread popularity, largely due to its blend of solid performance and affordable pricing. The Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-57) is a prime example of what you can expect from the latest Nitro laptops – each year, these devices receive incremental updates. As is often the case, the changes for the new model are primarily found beneath the surface, with the design of this particular version remaining nearly identical to last year's.

To sum it up, the updated AN515-57 models feature Intel's Tiger Lake 45H processors and NVIDIA's Ampere GPUs, offering modern performance suitable for gaming, office work, productivity tasks, or other uses. While the entry-level configurations may feel a bit underwhelming in terms of power, the top-tier setup is quite impressive for a Nitro 5 laptop (though it could present cooling challenges). It comes equipped with an Intel Core i7-11800H processor and a 100W GeForce RTX 3070, marking a first for a Nitro device to house such a powerful GPU.

For those who don't need all that power, there are more budget-friendly configurations available. In the past, some Nitro laptops struggled with high CPU and GPU temperatures under heavy load, but that issue seems to be resolved with the latest refresh. The old, heat-prone Intel Coffee Lake and Comet Lake-H CPUs have been replaced with the more efficient Tiger Lake-H chips, resulting in better thermal management. So, let’s take a closer look at the performance of the new model.