Acer Showcases Nitro 5 Spin Notebook With Intel 8th Gen Inside

[Raevenlord]

Intel has just opened the proverbial lid on their 8th Gen "Coffee Lake" family of CPUs, which should bring about a democratization of cores for the masses. Acer has been quick to jump on the 8th Gen bandwagon, by announcing their new Nitro 5 Spin laptop, which brings with it the increased performance and "UHD graphics" of Intel's 8000 series of CPUs.

The Nitro 5 Spin is being marketed as a convertible, gaming-focused laptop, whose 15.6 1920*1080 IPS panel can be rotated to multiple locking positions through a 360º hinge. The gaming part of this laptop seems a little subdued - an NVIDIA GTX 1050 graphics card is confirmed to be on board - while memory configuration, and even the specific Intel 8th Gen processor inside, are still a mystery. The company also said that 802.11ac MU-MIMO Wi-Fi will be par of the course for their new offering, and that we should expect this take on Intel's 8th Gen mobility CPUs to be available sometime in October, for a respectable $999.



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[TheLostSwede]

Except this is Kaby Lake refresh, not Coffee Lake...

 

[Valantar]

Except this is Kaby Lake refresh, not Coffee Lake...

Yep.

Also, even Intel freely admits that the HD -> UHD branding of the graphics is a pure branding change, and not indicating any real hardware change whatsoever.

 

[Deleted member 172152]

Yep.

Also, even Intel freely admits that the HD -> UHD branding of the graphics is a pure branding change, and not indicating any real hardware change whatsoever.

iGpu clockspeed increase, but the updated 7th gen has that too. Unlikely you'll find the latter anywhere though.

 

[Air]

Cool, we should soon find out how well these 15W quad cores do on gaming.

 

[Deleted member 172152]

Cool, we should soon find out how well these 15W quad cores do on gaming.

6300hq maybe?

It might actually be a bit of a surface pro replacement for non-artists looking at the specs. Don't know who would need this laptop, but it's pretty cool. If the iPad Pro 2 12.9 wasn't so damn good, I would've gotten this. I'm alreading getting a nice coffee lake/1080 (ti) 1440p 32" setup, so I don't need a gaming laptop and even if this allows me to do some gaming at school and upstairs, have a better workflow in some cases and have more versatility, iPads are just so nice and I'll just have to deal with others using the pc occasionally and not having a windows device upstairs in my lovely armchair or at school!

 

[Valantar]

iGpu clockspeed increase, but the updated 7th gen has that too. Unlikely you'll find the latter anywhere though.

An overclock is not a hardware change. And, as you say, KBL (non-refresh, i.e. "7th Gen") has this too. In general, 1.15GHz graphics clocks are not unheard of in Intel CPUs.

I would definitely be interested in a Surface Pro with this, although I'd be very tempted towards anything in the 13-14" range with this in 25W cTDP-up mode and a low-power iGPU like the GTX 1050. Although then I might prefer something with Raven Ridge.

 

[Air]

6300hq maybe?

It might actually be a bit of a surface pro replacement for non-artists looking at the specs. Don't know who would need this laptop, but it's pretty cool. If the iPad Pro 2 12.9 wasn't so damn good, I would've gotten this. I'm alreading getting a nice coffee lake/1080 (ti) 1440p 32" setup, so I don't need a gaming laptop and even if this allows me to do some gaming at school and upstairs, have a better workflow in some cases and have more versatility, iPads are just so nice and I'll just have to deal with others using the pc occasionally and not having a windows device upstairs in my lovely armchair or at school!

A 6300HQ is 45W so it will probably not match it.

I'm interested in it because it mey be a good match to an eGPU, which is what I'm looking for. I would like to have something portable a like XPS 13 or macbook pro that i could use at home docked with a nice screen, keyboard, mouse ethernet and eGPU. I'm trying to slim down the number of devices i own. (And an iOS device, as limited as it is, certainly is not in the cards...)

 

[Deleted member 172152]

A 6300HQ is 45W so it will probably not match it.

I'm interested in it because it mey be a good match to an eGPU, which is what I'm looking for. I would like to have something portable a like XPS 13 or macbook pro that i could use at home docked with a nice screen, keyboard, mouse ethernet and eGPU. I'm trying to slim down the number of devices i own. (And an iOS device, as limited as it is, certainly is not in the cards...)

Matched it in some synthetics and that was pre-launch!

 

[LogitechFan]

Ah, nothing says "cheap rubbish" better than Acer!

 

[Deleted member 172152]

Ah, nothing says "cheap rubbish" better than Acer!

Acer is great! You must be getting confused with hp.

 

[Valantar]

A 6300HQ is 45W so it will probably not match it.

I'm interested in it because it mey be a good match to an eGPU, which is what I'm looking for. I would like to have something portable a like XPS 13 or macbook pro that i could use at home docked with a nice screen, keyboard, mouse ethernet and eGPU. I'm trying to slim down the number of devices i own. (And an iOS device, as limited as it is, certainly is not in the cards...)

The 6300HQ has a 2.3GHz base frequency, 3.2GHz single core boost and the first 14nm process. The new 8650U has a 1.9GHz base freq., but can be had with cTPD-up at 2.1GHz at 25W. Couple that with a full GHz higher boost clock and some power curve improvements due to process improvements, and I'd say they're very close, if not an outright victory for the 8650. Depending on the workload, of course. But very few workloads consistently load all cores at 100% over time.

Ah, nothing says "cheap rubbish" better than Acer!

Totally agree here.

Acer is great! You must be getting confused with hp.

Nah. While cheapo consumer HP machines tend to suck, they tend to suck slightly less than cheapo consumer Acers. Cheapo consumer Asuses again tend to suck just slightly less than HP. My dislike of Acer stems from their not-cheap consumer "premium" models also consistently sucking in my experience. Then again, I haven't been near one for five or six years.

 

[Deleted member 172152]

The 6300HQ has a 2.3GHz base frequency, 3.2GHz single core boost and the first 14nm process. The new 8650U has a 1.9GHz base freq., but can be had with cTPD-up at 2.1GHz at 25W. Couple that with a full GHz higher boost clock and some power curve improvements due to process improvements, and I'd say they're very close, if not an outright victory for the 8650. Depending on the workload, of course. But very few workloads consistently load all cores at 100% over time.


Totally agree here.

Nah. While cheapo consumer HP machines tend to suck, they tend to suck slightly less than cheapo consumer Acers. Cheapo consumer Asuses again tend to suck just slightly less than HP. My dislike of Acer stems from their not-cheap consumer "premium" models also consistently sucking in my experience. Then again, I haven't been near one for five or six years.

While it's true acer totally sucked back then, nowadays most of them are pretty good and at least you have good options in the lower price range, unlike hp for the notmal laptops at least. Those pavilion and older omen laptops are terrible, although the newer omens might be somewhat decent.

Acer predators are amazing btw, whereas msi often still has cheap chinese laptops with their own stickers applied. Seriously, mkre than half of msi's laptops feel incredibky cheap and some have the least solid keyboards I've ever seen that depress all the way to the mobo, taking the mobo with them!

 

[LogitechFan]

Acer is great! You must be getting confused with hp.

Hp is a bit better.... rubbish, but it depends and varies model by model.