Acer Nitro 5 AN517 review: A gaming laptop with a quiet RTX 4050

The relatively large Acer Nitro 5 AN517 is home to an Alder Lake processor – which is no longer the newest kid on the block – and is combined with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4000 series graphics card. The result is a solid, entry-level gaming laptop that is decently specced with RGB lighting, a 144 Hz panel and a Thunderbolt 4 port. Last year, we reviewed the very similar predecessor, the Acer Nitro 5 AN517-55-738R with an RTX 3060 ; amongst other things, it caught the eye due to excessive noise levels.

It’s exactly in this area where Acer has made improvements and simultaneously manages to benefit from the RTX 4050 ‘s efficiency, as found in our review model. Our review reveals which level of quiet gaming you can expect. Competitors with comparable technology are the Medion Erazer Scout E20 which is equipped with a newer, bigger processor or the Asus TUF Gaming A16 which has gone for AMD components.

The well-above-average depth of Acer Nitro 5 is considerable, even for a 17. 3-inch device. So it’s not surprising that the device is somewhat heavier than similarly equipped competitors.

In return, the laptop is very solidly built. The hinges are firm, they can be opened to an angle of up to 145 °, and prevent the large display from wobbling. The entire case consists of plastic which doesn’t negatively affect the unit’s torsional rigidity.

The screen’s frame can be twisted slightly. By contrast, the base remains absolutely solid at all times – and quiet. Of course, opinions could be divided regarding the design.

However, the slightly offset silver corners and thin colored stripes appear somewhat less than adventurous. It’s questionable whether the difference to a completely black case would even be noticeable. The selection of ports is limited but, pleasingly, the most important ones are at hand.

Left and right are the USB-A ports with the right-hand side being home to two. They have a maximum transfer rate of 10 Gbit/s (USB 3. 2 Gen2).

On the rear of the laptop, you can find an HDMI and Thunderbolt 4 port as well as two video outputs. In addition, the TB4 has a suitable interface in order to be able to use an external SSD at its maximum speed. A card slot is missing and a third video output – sometimes used as a Mini DP but usually as an additional USB-C port with DP support – is absent.

In addition, the LAN port only has a data transfer rate of 1 Gbit/s. The Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i Wi-Fi module works as expected. If the distance to the router is short, it’s possible to reach speeds of more than 1.

5 Gbit/s. Wi-Fi 6E is not supported, meaning a noticeable reduction in the theoretically possible data transfer speeds should be expected, especially in areas with multiple wireless networks. The webcam performs poorly with HD resolution, a maximum of 30fps and barely acceptable image quality.

But, at least there is decent brightening in low-light conditions, without producing too much image noise. Under close inspection, the dual-array microphone fares much better. It does a good job recording the user’s voice from multiple directions and distances at a relatively stable volume and there is an absence of distortions, noise or metal undertones.

This makes the laptop well-equipped to handle video calls or gaming chats. Opening the Acer Nitro 5 isn’t particularly problematic: Firstly, the removal of twelve identically-sized crosshead screws is necessary. After doing that, it is possible to take off the base by removing it from the rear corners – and all with minimal effort.

A quick glance inside reveals a large spacious area. However, the free available space could have been used a little better, especially in the area around the battery, for something like M. 2 SSDs.

Both slots are also easily accessible. The second slot can be put into operation at a later time and is clearly marked with the number “2”. The Wi-Fi module, memory chips and battery can all be easily replaced.

A large number of passive cooling elements catch the eye. The RAM under the cover is equipped with large thermal pads. In addition, there is also a pad of this type on the SSD’s controller and it comes into contact with a cooling element in the base plate when the lid is closed.

Such an element and a thermal pad are also pre-fitted for the second M. 2 slot. The typing experience is pleasant.

Not like a mechanical keyboard, of course, but it still boasts a key travel of 1. 5 mm (our measurement), with even and reassuring resistance as well as a stable keyboard frame. Furthermore, the visual design is also well done: Thanks to white edges, the keys stand out from one another.

The arrow keys, “WASD” and a special key for Acer’s “NitroSense” software have an additional marking which makes finding them noticeably easier, especially out of the corner of your eye. The colorful key lighting only uses four customisable areas. At the same time, a large and finely graded color spectrum is available making the rainbow effect, amongst other things, really effective.

The touchpad is much less impressive and, at 10 x 8 cm, it’s not particularly large. The hidden keys don’t always respond immediately. This was repeatedly noticeable with inaccurate representations of finger movements.

However, as with most gaming laptops, this shouldn’t crop up when gaming. The Acer Nitro 5’s very basic IPS panel almost reminds us of an office monitor if it weren’t for the refresh rate of 144 Hz. And this is in harmony with the Full HD resolution as well as the limited graphics performance.

In addition, the measured response times are also decent. Unfortunately, all the other aspects are below average. A medium brightness of almost 250 cd/m² and relatively bad black levels result in poor contrast.

When viewing a dark image in a dark room, significant screen bleeding can be seen around the display. The variety of colors, the color reproduction accuracy and the illumination are also consistently poor. That doesn’t negatively impact playing games but it does result in some effects being less than eye-popping.

In addition, it restricts the laptop’s versatility. The screen is not a serious option, even for modestly ambitious hobby photographers. The screen can display roughly more than half of sRGB, the color space typically used in games.

As a result, fine color grading, such as a representation of the sky, can end up looking blocky. It would be right to expect at least near to complete sRGB coverage, as seen in the predecessor, the Nitro 5 AN517-55-738R . But, unfortunately, that is not the case here.

It’s just good enough for games but still disappointing. We measured a color reproduction deviation, especially when it came to blue tones and this even was also visible to less experienced eyes. However, a better result could not be expected in view of the overall poor color reproduction.

An average DeltaE of just under 5, which cannot be improved through calibration, is quite decent, if the focus is basically only on gaming. In the shade, photos and text are clearly legible, if a little grayish. As soon as sunlight falls onto the screen or the sky is reflected from behind, even text can only be difficult to decipher.

The display disappointment didn’t subside when we turned to the viewing angles: At an angle of around 45 °, significant color distortions are visible, shifting towards yellow or blue. For an IPS panel, this is unusually poor performance. With the smallest GPU in the RTX 4000 series, the RTX 4050 , the Nitro belongs to the entry-level class of gaming laptops.

This is joined by a chip already launched at the start of 2022, the Intel Core i5-12500H . It wasn’t a top model, even when it was introduced but still offers sufficient computational power for its intended use. Additionally, both components can be supplied with a lot of power, at least on paper.

The CPU consumes up to 115 watts and the GPU even manages 140 watts with dynamic boost. As well as that, we have 16 GB of DDR5 4800 RAM from Samsung which is fast enough for high frame rates in less demanding games. For Full HD gaming, the basics seem to be relatively coherent as long as you can live without one or two details here or there.

Acer’s provided “NitroSense” control software is accessible via a designated button and allows access to the various performance mode settings as well as fan management. In addition, the key lighting can be adjusted, speaker sound profiles can be selected and a few basic settings can be made. For our gaming tests and benchmarks, we selected the “Performance” profile and kept the automatic fan.

Using the “Standard” profile the noise levels are reduced substantially and in “Quiet” mode the cooling sound’s volume drops further but remains continuously audible. The Intel Core i5-12500H is a small processor – at least for a gaming laptop – and offers twelve cores of which four are performance cores and eight efficiency cores with a total of 16 threads. That is sufficient for high-level multitasking.

The laptop is still easy to use, even alongside demanding programs. The maximum clock speed only sits at 4. 5 GHz, and, at 18 MB, the L3 cache is not especially large.

Despite these rather modest specs, the Cinebench R15 loop ran very well. For example, the Medion Erazer Defender P40 manages 30% more at the start with its considerably faster i7-13700HX . Towards the end of the loop, it’s not even a 10% advantage.

This is where the generous cooling comes to the fore and can be seen from the almost flatline series of measurements. The processor can consume 95 watts for a longer period and 115 watts for short periods without a dramatic increase in temperatures. Also in “Quiet” mode (the green line in the Cinebench loop) – during which disruptive noises were hardly audible – solid results were returned which were, on average, on par with the MSI Cyborg 15 A12VF .

The Nitro consumes less power despite the MSI having a larger CPU. The fact that the Nitro 5 continues to perform well here is due to a reduction to 70 watts while the brief maximum of 115 watts remains unchanged. In “Standard” and battery modes, the power limit is 80 watts.

Additional benchmarks and information can be found here in our CPU benchmark list . With the not-very-powerful CPU, the CrossMark and PCMark results are also not exactly thrilling. Comparable gaming laptops can achieve an extra few percentage points.

Nevertheless, we’re dealing with a powerful 16-thread processor which has no difficulties handling multitasking, launching programs, and installation and de-installation processes. Opening the browser, playing videos and additional everyday tasks can all be done without any lags to speak of. Our LatencyMon test was very solid.

For special tests such as real-time audio editing, the Acer Nitro 5 offers only limited suitability but is still able to handle it with very few glitches. Currently, the Nvidia driver contributes to the measured performance dips. Updates and generally changed or deleted drivers could further improve or significantly worsen the results.

4K video playback ran in parallel without problems. Skipped frames were not detected. The iGPU is overloaded at almost 40% and the blame for this can be put down to most Alder Lake processors.

The M. 2 NVMe SSD from Western Digital achieved an excellent result that is better than the average of our reviewed gaming laptop’s mass storage. Despite a passively cooled controller it was unable to maintain a very high access rate in the continuous test but still, achieved an average of over 6 GB/s.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 is the RTX 4000 series entry-level model with a performance level comparable to an RTX 3060 . Unlike the previous generation, the GPU’s TDP sits at 140 watts including 25 watts dynamic boost. It was a maximum of 105 watts with the RTX 3050 (but also 140 watts with the RTX 3060 ).

The Acer Nitro 5’s RTX 4050 only reaches this value in extreme situations. In the graphics card stress test, we briefly measured the maximum possible 140 watts, but, otherwise, the power consumption at the highest performance and maximum fan speed sat at around 100 watts because reaching the GPU’s critical temperature is responsible for a drop in the clock speed. For a longer period of time, for example, in the Witcher 3 continuous test, only 80 watts is consistently available and in quiet mode, it’s only 50 watts.

At the same time, our Witcher 3 measurements and synthetic benchmarks displayed no performance drops to speak of, if the fans are set to “Quiet”. In real-life gaming situations, the average frame rate dropped by less than 10% and only 15% in 3DMark Time Spy. In Blender benchmarks, the values differentiate by only 1 second.

Graphics performance remained high in quiet mode and graphically demanding applications ran smoothly although the power consumption was greatly reduced. In return, this significantly lowers the cooling requirements. When it comes to gaming performance, the Nitro 5 AN517 achieves decent frame rates, even in current games.

If you can do without a few details here and there, demanding games can run at over 60fps. This corresponds to the results we received with similarly equipped gaming laptops. The previous generation Nitro 5 , with an RTX 3060 , is mostly on the same level.

Similarly, that also applies to the AMD Asus TUF Gaming A16 . The system performance is consistent with the device’s Full HD display resolution. The Nitro’s benchmarks are especially interesting when it comes to quiet cooling with some of the results remaining almost identical.

Sometimes they are minimally below the maximum performance measurements. Only in GTA V did we notice the frame rate drop by around 22%. This meant there was a difference of only 6% in six games.

Taking GTA V out of the picture, the difference was a mere 3%, although the fan noise levels dropped by around a third. That means that with an additional 40 to 50-watt power consumption and considerably more noise production, only tiny performance gains should be expected. The RTX 4050 seems to be very efficient but with hardly any benefits when it runs at its maximum possible power requirements.

Our analysis of GPU’s performance values under differing loads . The graphic for the article is displayed on the right. In the Witcher 3 endurance test, the Acer Nitro 5 AN517 showed no weaknesses with frame rates remaining consistently stable.

The slight fluctuations correspond to the rhythm of the day and night cycles in the game. By contrast, using “Quiet” mode, we observed a slight drop. At first, the green line (quiet) stayed almost congruent with the red line (Performance).

With the lower clock speed and power supply, there was a 7% lower fps measurement after one hour. In addition, there were small dips. Since the fans cannot simply be turned up in “Quiet”, the clock speed had to be reduced for a short time once more.

Nevertheless, this value remained at a high level and only sat below 60fps once. The Medion Erazer Scout E20 , with the same graphics card, only achieved comparable fps values in performance mode. Even when the system is under light load, the fans turn on.

This results in background noise that neither disturbs gaming sessions nor your own thoughts. Conversely, the gaming laptop gets really loud using the “Performance” setting. It’s possible to tell when someone is gaming, even from behind a closed door.

That changes considerably in “Quiet”. Wie measured only a third of the original noise level. The sounds produced sit above the noise levels found, for example, in a business laptop with its fans.

However, you never feel the need to grab a pair of headphones. Some desktop PCs and most gaming laptops will be much louder. As you can already guess from the image seen in the “Maintenance” section, the hand rest remains cool, even running under the rather theoretical scenario of maximum load.

We only measured a little over 30 °C in the middle. By contrast, in Witcher 3 no significant temperature increases took place. This means at least the keyboard area stays below 40 °C.

Something which is not ideal but still manageable nonetheless. In the rear area, where the fans are located, the temperature rises but remains below 50 °C, something the predecessor was unable to achieve. In the other performance modes, heat dissipation remains comparable.

This means you can expect a warm keyboard. Even under maximum load, the processor does not reach the maximum possible power consumption of 115 watts. For a few moments, we measured almost 100 watts while the temperature rose to 100 °C which, in turn, reduced the power consumption.

By contrast, the CPU can briefly consume 140 watts and manages to stay permanently well below 90 °C at more than 100 watts. That’s exactly how to make a gaming laptop. The comparison of the performance modes is interesting, especially when set to “Quiet” (blue line): The processor’s performance is clearly restricted while the graphics chip still manages to reach the level that is normally only permitted when using the “Performance” mode.

Even though it looks erratic in our diagram, the GPU clock rate only fluctuates between 1,800 and over 2,500 MHz. At the same time, the temperature stays significantly above 80 °C. The “Quiet” mode allows for high graphics performance without excessive heat production since the processor’s power is very constrained.

The small stereo speakers meet the minimum requirements. In particular, voice playback is well done. From the spoken word to sophisticated vocals, it sounds good.

Bass is largely absent and also the mids are weakly defined. The Nitro 5’s speakers are not really suitable for music but are quite sufficient for video streaming or games. The fact the processor is not up to date is noticeable in terms of consumption.

At just over 7 watts, the minimum power consumption is good but could be somewhat lower, like the Medion Erazer Scout with its i7-13700H . Even with typical use, 150 watts is a rather poor value. The average of the RTX 4050 laptops sits below 100 watts.

However, in quiet mode, the total power consumption is also around 100 watts. The maximum power consumption of 244 watts was only recorded in one single peak measurement. The 230-watt PSU should, therefore, be sufficient and have enough reserves in order to charge the battery.

The Acer Nitro 5’s battery life is very practical: Even at maximum screen brightness, the laptop managed considerably more than 8 hours in our Wi-Fi test while switching websites. With limited brightness, you can expect an extra hour. However, at 90 Wh, the battery capacity is also very high.

The Asus TUF Gaming 16 – which can get 12 hours and more from the same-sized battery – shows that a gaming laptop can run much more efficiently. With the straightforward i5-12500H and the entry-level RTX 4050 graphics card, the Acer Nitro 5 delivers not bad, but at best, average performance. Then “Quiet” mode is switched on: With audible, but never annoying fan noises, the gaming performances dips minimally, especially in games, where we only determined a difference of a few percentage points.

The Nitro plays current games smoothly in Full HD resolution, at high detail settings and never exceeds the noise levels found in its peers. Quiet fans and Full HD gaming are not mutually exclusive in the Acer Nitro 5. This is possible due to Nvidia’s efficient graphics chip which doesn’t benefit from higher power consumption.

However, this is also possible thanks to the very big case and a similarly large cooling system which possesses clever settings. On top of that, there is an RGB keyboard, Thunderbolt 4 and two, 10 Gbit/s USB ports. What is really disappointing is the display: While resolution and size fit perfectly to the Acer laptop’s size, color reproduction, contrast and peak brightness are clearly below-average, even for entry-level standards which come into their own in terms of price.

If it’s only about gaming performance, there are faster laptops. For example, the Medion Erazer Scout E20 is also equipped with an RTX 4050 and also has a significantly better display. However, it is not as quiet as the Nitro and is minimally more expensive.

The Acer Nitro 5 (RTX 4050, 16 GB of DDR5 RAM) is available on Amazon for around $1225. .