Acer will be bringing a bunch of new products to CES, including a few interesting items for gamers. One of them is the Switch 7 Black Edition, a 2-in-1 laptop with integrated liquid cooling and discrete graphics.
For the most part, 2-in-1 devices haven't taken aim at gamers, instead focusing on productivity and general purpose computing. Acer is looking to buck that trend with its Switch 7 Black Edition. It pairs an 8th generation Core processor with Nvidia GeForce MX150 graphics.
The MX150 isn't a powerhouse GPU by any stretch of the imagination, but having discrete graphics inside a fanless 2-in-1 is new. And as for the liquid cooling, it consists of "LiquidLoops," which work similarly to traditional heatpipes.
"Acer LiquidLoop transfers heat from the CPU to the heatpipe via a thermal conductor. The heatpipe then generates a single direction, two phase flow of liquid. Heat is dissipated through a continual process of evaporation and condensation of the liquid," Acer explains.
The Switch 7 Black Edition is thin and light, measuring just 0.39 inches thick and weighing 2.6 pounds with the keyboard detached. It's carved from brushed aluminum an features a patented kickstand that can be auto-deployed and auto-retracted.
Look for the Switch 7 Black Edition to be available later this month starting at $1,700.
Acer Predator Orion 9000
Way over at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Acer is finally ready to start shipping its monstrous Predator Orion 9000. This one qualifies as Acer's most powerful desktop to date. It's fueled by an 18-core/36-thread Intel Core i9-7980XE processor and dual GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI.
Users with deep pockets can opt for up to 128GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory, and stuff it full of M.2 NVMe and SATA 6Gbps storage.
Connectivity options include two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (one Type-C and one Type-A), eight USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (one Type-C and seven Type-A), and two USB 2.0 ports. So, there are plenty of places to plug in an assortment of external devices.
The Predator Orion 9000 will start shipping in February starting at $2,000, which means much tamer configurations will be available.
Acer Nitro 5
Circling to gaming on the go (the Predator Orion 9000 has handles on the top, but we don't suspect gamers will be lugging it around all over the place), Acer also announced it's upgrading its Nitro 5 laptop for casual gamers.
The Nitro 5 has a 15.6-inch IPS display with a 1920x1080 resolution. It's outfitted with AMD hardware, including a Ryzen mobile processors and Radeon RX 560 graphics.
Acer is offering the Nitro 5 with up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM and up to 512GB of solid state storage. Other features include dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, USB Type-C connectivity, HDMI 2.0 output, and GbE LAN for wired connections.
The Nitro 5 will be available in North America in April starting at $800, and in EMEA starting at €1,100.
