Acer Nitro 50 review 2024: budget gaming desktop

This small form-factor Acer Nitro PC comes in a box that’s small enough to fit in your mouth. It makes me think of Napoleon. On the front of the machine is an angry red LED brow next to what might be the biggest power button we have ever seen, as if to say. Even so, that attitude isn’t completely wrong, since a mid-range CPU and GPU can handle a lot of games at 1440p.

Adding an HDD, even a 1TB one, to a pretty small 238GB PCIe SSD boot drive is, frankly, a bad idea. People, just get a bigger SSD that can boot on its own. In this case, it means that we can’t play most of today’s games as quickly as an M.2 solid state drive would have let me. For example, the FFXIV Shadowbringers benchmark froze at 32.9 seconds when loading from the hard drive, which is pretty unacceptable in this day and age.

Acer Nitro 50 specifications

Acer Nitro 50 review: Design

The case of the Acer Nitro 50 looks a little bit like a robot. The front is mostly black, with a lit-up red “V” near the top and Acer’s logo. There are two red vents on each side of the front of the case.

The front I/O ports are in the red area on the right (see Ports and Upgradability for more information). The DVD drive is vertical and runs down the middle of the case. On the bottom, there is a small badge that says “Nitro.” There’s no glass or acrylic here, just some holes on the left side to let hot air out. You can buy this gaming PC from its official website.

Acer Nitro 50 review: Performance

Hitman 3 Dartmoor ran at an average of 82 frames per second on the CPU when ultra graphics settings, 1440p resolution, and best sim quality were used. Not a bad score when you compare it to the average 43 fps in Metro Exodus Enhanced.

At 29fps, F1 22’s performance with ray tracing turned on wasn’t very impressive, even though the test was done on a wet Belgium track with anisotropic filtering set to x16 and graphics on ultra high. But it never went below 26 frames per second, so it was still playable. With a little tweaking of the settings, you can definitely get smoother frame rates.

Acer Nitro 50 review: Connectivity

This tiny desktop has more ports than you can count. On the right side of the front, there is a recess where you can find a USB 3.1 Type-A port, a USB Type-C port, and an SD card reader. There is also a DVD burner on the front, in case you still need one.

Around the back, there are two more USB 3.1 ports, four USB 2.0 ports (all USB Type-A), three DisplayPorts, one HDMI out, and a DVI connection. The last three are all part of the GTX 1060 card’s port panel. If you took out the GTX 1060 card, you could use the Intel graphics on the CPU, which is why there is an extra HDMI on the I/O plate.

Acer Nitro 50 review: Ports

Because the Nitro 50 has a small case, it has a tight layout with little room for growth. There are only two RAM slots, and only one of them was used on the review desktop. There are also only a few SATA ports and no extra PCIe slots. The lack of PCIe is especially annoying because, as was already said, the Nitro 50’s wired connections aren’t very good. A PCIe expansion card could be the answer, but that’s not an option here.

Acer Nitro 50 review: Price

Our review unit of the Acer Nitro 50 cost $1,199.99 and had an Intel Core i7-8700 CPU, 8GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU with 6GB of GDDR5 memory, and a 1TB, 7,200-rpm HDD with 16GB of Intel Optane memory. The entry-level Nitro 50 costs $799.99 and has a Core i5-8400, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB), and no Optane memory. The most expensive option costs $1,386.99 and is similar to our review unit except that it has 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD (sans Optane).

Final Words

We will give Acer this: it made a cheap gaming desktop that costs less than those made by other companies. And its gaming performance is good, but its productivity performance is not as good. For example, the speed of its hard drive is slow. Even though you can open it, it’s hard to get to many of the parts and upgrade them. Plus, Acer fills Windows 10 with useless programmed, which is just annoying.

FAQs

Is the Acer Nitro 50 a good computer?

The Acer Nitro 50 with Core i5-12400F is still a simple machine, but it does well in all areas and is a good choice for those who want a cheap gaming desktop that can also be used for work. The Nitro 50 is a good choice for tasks like 1080p video editing, photo editing, and less demanding 3D rendering. 

What games can a Acer Nitro 50 run?

This pre-built gaming PC can run popular PC games like GTA V, Apex Legends, Minecraft, and Fortnite at a recommended level. But it doesn’t meet the requirements for games like PUBG and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Is Acer Nitro 5 high end laptop?

Overall, the Acer Nitro 5 is a smartly focused machine and a great deal, which is why it’s our favourite budget gaming laptop. You won’t get all the bells and whistles you’d find on a more expensive device, but there’s nothing better if all you want is solid, portable PC gaming.