Acer Refreshes Predator Gaming Lineup With Skylake And Windows 10 At IFA
by Brett Howse on September 3, 2015 10:10 PM EST
Acer is also taking the opportunity of the timing of the IFA trade show in Berlin to announce updates to many of their notebook computers. As is the theme this year at IFA, Skylake and Windows 10 are the major changes, along with the new technology they bring to the table. The majority of the refreshed and relaunched devices fall into the Predator gaming lineup.
Predator 15
The Predator 15 and 17 notebooks feature the Core i7-6700HQ processor which is one of the new quad-core 45 watt parts from Intel. They will be offered with up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory, and offer the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M graphics card. Storage should be a strong point with Acer offering up to 512 GB of NVMe PCIe based solid state drives. Acer has turned to the Killer solution for networking, and it offers both 802.11ac and Gigabit which can be teamed using the Killer software. Keeping everything cool is Acer’s FrostCore triple fan design.
Acer has outfitted the devices with USB Type-C ports for expansion and while it does not specify if this is Gen-2 or not, it does hint at it being faster than USB 3.0, so it ls likely that it is.
Predator 17
The display on the 15-inch model is a 1920x1080 panel as the base option, and you can also get a 3840x2160 UHD panel, but the 17.3-inch model will only have the 1920x1080 version. To satisfy audio, Acer has four speakers and two subwoofers on the 17.3-inch model which delivers 12 watts of power. The 15.6-inch version has two speakers and a subwoofer with 6 watts output, and both notebooks support studio quality headphones up to 600 Ohm impedance.
These models will begin shipping in November with starting prices of $1500 for the 15 and $1600 for the 17. Exact specifications and prices vary by region, so check with your local Acer site to find out more.
Predator G3
Predator G6
Acer is also offering the Predator G6 and G3 desktops which are in an “armor-covered design” case which are certainly striking, although they will certainly not be something that everyone will be endeared to. They will of course feature Intel Skylake processors and up to 64 GB DDR4 memory. Graphics are NVIDIA GTX models. The G6 model will feature One-Punch Overclocking which allows the user to boost performance of the Core i7-6700K with the press of a button. Once again, exact pricing and specifications will vary by region and will release in mid-September in Europe and North America in October.
Source: Acer
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waltsmith - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Does anyone else find it odd that laptop manufacturers commonly offer higher resolution screens only on the smaller screens of their lineup? Very counter-intuitive.Mikemk - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
That's because they don't make the screens themselves. They source the screen from another manufacturer, and there are not currently any 17" 4K panels available. Making there own would be cost-prohibitive because 17" laptops are unpopularPixyMisa - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
There are 17" 4K panels shipping now, but they've only shown up in the last month or two. Lenovo, Acer, and Asus have all announced 17" 4K notebooks recently.boeush - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
80" 4k screens for TVs? No problem! 10" 4k screens for tablets and 2-in-1s? Sure, why not. 4k screens for 5" phones? Demented, but not too demented for the marketeers. 17" or 18" 4k screens for laptops? Bah, too expensive, that's crazy talk, man. Who would pay the extra price on a PREMIUM, HIGH-PERFORMANCE machine for something that is of relevance to only about 100% of the user experience? Jeez, and don't even get me started on 2:3 or 3:4 aspect ratios. Clearly all the people complaining couldn't possibly know what they, as potential customers, would want to spend their money on!stephenbrooks - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
That is pretty daft to have 4K on the 15" model but not the 17"! Also an intermediate 1440p panel could have been a good compromise, although I suppose you could run the 4K at 1440p with scaling if the game doesn't go fast enough.asmian - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
"To satisfy audio, Acer has four speakers and two subwoofers on the 17.3-inch model""Satisfy" is a strange word - as a musician I doubt laptop audio from a few tiny short-throw speakers would ever be satisfactory or even acceptable to me, LOL! And what do they think the definition of a "SUBwoofer" is if they think they are fitting any in a chassis this small? Truly breathtaking marketing nonsense.
Mikemk - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
As a musician, you should know that the size of the speaker doesn't matter, it's frequency response does. A 2" speaker with full 15-35 kHz (None exist to my knoweledge), and no large holes or drop offs would be far better than a 15# speaker that only goes to 12 Hzasmian - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Agreed. No doubt the high-end response is OK. But as extension to what you say, the likelihood of speakers that small providing a full low-end response is small. Subwoofers are generally large external boxes because it is near impossible to create very low frequencies with tiny short-throw speakers.I realise that it's a popular meme to mock audiophiles, but surely then the appropriate response here is to mock a computer company that is deliberately suggesting some audiophile quality to their sound setup, using highly misleading marketing words like "subwoofer". Show me the frequency response curve if you really want to impress me.
we - Tuesday, September 8, 2015 - link
I think you are absolutey right. I guess that it is physically impossible for a speaker within a laptop to produce a flat frequency response below 80Hz at ear distance even with active compensation. Firstly, the cone excursion would have to be so high, that even if the vibrations didn't shake the laptop to pieces they would cause considerable unpredictable resonances which distort the sound, because critical acoustic dampening of a laptop chassis is extremely difficult. In fact, I would guess that there is probably little usefull output below 100Hz on any commercial laptop. The reason our ears can follow notes lower than 100Hz, even if hardly any audible output is being produced is because basically all sounds have harmonic content, the first harmonic being at double the frequency of the fundamental. The human brain can fill in the missing fundamental of a tune, from the perceived harmonics.I consider any specified flat low frequency response of a laptop below 100Hz to most likely be a bluff (unless they specified the actual role off in dB measured at ear distance, which would probably be at least -10dB at 50Hz)
BMNify - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Who cares you are a musician or a criminal? The Subwoofer and 6/12W speakers will make a big difference to Audio experience of almost all the customers, the Dell Xps 15 3-4 years older model came with single subwoofer and the Audio performance was amazing for a laptop.