The Acer Predator Triton 17 X impresses, but who is it for?

Acer is taking no prisoners with its new Predator Triton 17 X gaming laptop that squeezes in everything you'd want from a high-spec powerhouse. This is an elite piece of kit that starts at $3,799 and can be upgraded to include Intel 13th-gen Core i9-13900HX processor and Nvidia’s RTX 4090 GPU. So who's it for?

Combined with up to 64GB of DD5 RAM and stretching to 4TB SSD storage and a 17-inch display that comes in either a mini-LED technology at a 250Hz or an IPS screen offering a 240Hz (both at 2,560-by-1,600 resolution and up to 1,000 nits brightness), Acer really isn't messing around with the Predator Triton 17 X. It's a beast of a gaming laptop that could easily muscle your desktop gaming PC out of the way.

Put against the current roster of best laptops for gaming the Predator Triton 17 X will eagerly clean up, but with a price tag of almost $4,000 even the world's crypto-kiddies are going to need to think twice before breaking into those NFT profits. I spent some time with the Acer team at the Predator Triton 17 X's launch during Acer Next, the same event that saw the announcement of the equally impressive Acer Swift X 16, and was told the Triton 17 X is aimed at the top "five percent of gamers".

Now, I'm not a five-percenter when it comes to gaming, but I wish I was, and honestly after seeing the Predator Triton 17 X in person and holding one, I'm tempted. Very tempted.

This gaming laptop's impressive specs stretch to lots of clever ideas, such as a triple-fan cooling system, a vapour chamber, liquid metal covering the CPU, and neatly placed exhaust vents, all geared towards keeping the machine chilled as you game. As well as the hefty price this means the Predator Triton 17 X comes with an equally beefy, but premium, polished and sandblasted metal chassis that weighs 6.61 pounds (around 2.9kg). While it may be on the heavy side the Predator Triton 17 X is only one-inch thick, giving it a slender and almost artistic look.

This new Acer gaming laptop's power is topped out with equally high-end parts and finishes, such as DTS:X Ultra surround sound six-speaker system as well as Intel Killer E3100G+ Ethernet and Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1690i for guaranteed lag-free gaming. This is impressive, seriously, Acer hasn't skimped anywhere, there's even Thunderbolt 4 ports for hooking up dual 4K displays or a single 8K display.

I raised the question of who the Predator Triton 17 X is for because not only does the price seem high but there's way too much power in here for everyday gaming. And yet, as we come out of Covid and developers begin to get their hands on the newer technology, we could see gaming make huge leaps in the next year or two, as recent implementation of path tracing in Cyberpunk 2077 has shown.

I feel the Predator Triton 17 X will future-proof your gaming setup for quite some time, and has enough power to easily handle heavy gaming tasks as well as creative work; if you like to swap between Call of Duty and then a couple of hours in Unreal Engine 5 working on a personal project, this could be for you. That five percent looks like it could actually increase, so start saving now.

The Predator Triton 17 X (PTX17-71) will be available in North America in May, starting at $3,799 before releasing in Europe this June. Visit the official Acer website for more details.

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