Acer Predator Triton 500 (2020) review: A truly portable powerhouse

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Acer Predator Triton 500 (2020) review: A truly portable powerhouse

I’ve tested a lot of gaming laptops over the years, but the newly refreshed Acer Predator Triton 500 is the best one I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing on.

For many years, you could only coax enthusiast-class performance out of mammoth gaming laptops that threatened to throw out your back while you carried them around in your bag. The introduction of Nvidia’s energy-efficient Max-Q technology resulted in more portable play-worthy notebooks, but the truly totable ones usually topped out with graphics options below the upper echelon of performance. Gaming on the go always required some sort of compromise.

No more. The Acer Predator Triton 500 brings it all, pairing a 6-core, 12-thread Intel Core i7-10750H processor with Nvidia’s potent new GeForce RTX 2080 Super graphics chip. All that power somehow squeezes into a sublime 4.6-pound aluminum chassis with a lightning-fast 300Hz G-Sync display that offers drop-dead gorgeous contrast ratios. Is it perfect? Not quite. But hot damn, I love it.

Acer Predator Triton 500 specs and features

acer predator triton 500 2020 9 Brad Chacos/IDG

Acer sent us the highest-end Triton 500 on offer, loaded with every feature you could ask for. Acer’s site ostensibly lists it for $2,600, but at press time we could only find it available for $2,800 at B&H Photo. You get a lot of hardware for all those pennies.

  • CPU: Intel 10th-gen Core i7-10750H
  • Memory: 32GB DDR4/3200 in dual-channel mode
  • GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max-Q
  • Display: 15.6-inch, 300Hz, 1920×1080 IPS screen with Nvidia G-Sync
  • Storage: 1TB Samsung NVMe SSD
  • Dimensions: 14.1 x 10 x 0.75 inches (without the feet)
  • Weight: 4.6 pounds 

There’s not much more you could ask for. The included Samsung NVMe SSD blazes along, but if you want even faster speeds, there’s another M.2 slot for expansion, and Acer loaded the laptop with Intel software ready to get a dual-SSD setup humming in RAID 0.

The storage and RAM are difficult to access, however. The Triton 500 uses an inverted motherboard design, which means you’ll need to yank out ribbon cables and the entire motherboard to access the expansion slots. Fortunately, the stock configuration comes with plenty of firepower.

Even the Internet is fast on this beast. The Acer Predator Triton 500 includes Killer’s AX1650 Wi-Fi 6 module and Killer DoubleShot Pro technology. DoubleShot Pro lets the gaming-optimized 2.5 Gigabit ethernet port work together with the notebook’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi, shifting more important tasks to the wired connection and less urgent tasks to the wireless network. The Triton 500 also supports Bluetooth 5.

acer predator triton 500 2020 1 Brad Chacos/IDG

Left-edge ports.

Acer included an ample port selection despite this gaming laptop’s relatively small size. The Triton 500 comes with a trio of USB 3.0 ports, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI 2.0, Mini DisplayPort, headset and mic jacks, and the aforementioned ethernet port. It also includes a Kensington lock slot for more security-conscious types.

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