Acer Predator Triton 17X review: A 17-inch gaming powerhouse

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Acer’s 2023 Predator 17X makes a bold statement from the moment you turn it on.

A futuristic sound hits your ears a few seconds after booting, followed by a blue flashing RGB light display that dances around the keyboard keys and finally ends in a rainbow RGB configuration. While all that razzle dazzle is just for show, it totally fits the bill on Acer’s most powerful gaming laptop, which benefits from the formidable combination of an Intel i9-13900HX CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU.

The Predator Triton 17X is Acer’s latest successor to the Acer Triton 700 – a forebear which was one of the first truly slim and powerful 17-inch gaming laptops. This new version sports a host of drool worthy features, none as enticing as its 240Hz QHD+ mini-LED display. In a nutshell, it’s powerful, but also very practical; it optimizes visuals with its display’s tall 16:10 aspect ratio, has a useful array of ports, and boasts one of most compact chassis of any 17-inch or larger laptops that I’ve reviewed this year. Read on to find out more.

Looking for more options? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best gaming laptops available right now.

Acer Predator Triton 17X: Specifications

The Triton 17X comes with an Intel Core i9-13900HX processor and Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU as standard. Acer’s website currently shows two seemingly identical versions of the Acer Predator Triton 17X with different model numbers, both featuring 2TB SSD storage and 64GB RAM, but one model costs $200 more. It’s not clear why that’s the case, other than you can purchase the cheaper version for $3599.99 from the retailer Micro Center. The specifications of our review unit are as follows:

• CPU: Intel i9-13900HX
• RAM: 32GB DDR 5 / 5600MHz
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090
• Display: 17-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600) mini-LED, 3ms response, 250Hz refresh rate, 100 % DCI-P3 color gamut, Nvidia G-Sync, HDR 1000
• Storage: 1TB Gen 4 PCIe NVMe SSD
• Ports: 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 2 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), HDMI 2.1, SD card reader, 3.5 mm combo audio Jack, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, Kensington lock
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.3
• Weight: 6.61lbs (2.99kg)
• Dimensions: 14.97 x 11.0 x 0.86 inches
• Battery capacity: 99.9Whr
• Price: $3,599.99 for a configuration with 64GB RAM and 2TB SSD at Acer

Acer Predator Triton 17X: Design and build

If laptops were tanks, the Acer’s Predator Triton 17X would be right up there with the biggest, toughest and meanest you could find – it’s an impressively large laptop but that makes it fun to use.

The fun revolves around the Triton’s huge slab-like chassis which is CNC-milled from a single block of aluminum. The metal is obvious in the build, and it feels exceptionally tough around the base – you can mash all day on it and treat it harshly and it will be completely unchanged. You’d be really hard pressed getting any flex from the lid either.

That brings me to a big point I’d like to make about this laptop’s design: in just about every way – not just its exceptional robustness – it reminds me of a Razer Blade laptop. It’s hard to overlook features like its all-black rectangular shape, sharp angles, thin bezels and tall display with 16:10 aspect ratio – which all convey that impression.

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This kind of design is a new direction for Acer’s 17X which has traditionally enjoyed far more out-there designs. Indeed, some users may have wished to see a return of the gamer-centric style we saw in the 2016 Acer Predator Triton 17X back again in this year’s model, which boasted a cut out lid, transparent WASDF and arrow keys and a trackpad that skewed a lot to the left of the laptop’s center.

Yet it’s hard to resist the blatant unadulterated utility of this new model. The large rectangular display with ultra-thin bezels provides so much space for viewing. I found the centralized trackpad immeasurably easier than previous iterations for gaming too, there being less of that hand/brain confusion I sometimes get when trackpads are moved too far to the left.

The laptop’s sheer size doesn’t retract from that practicality either. It’s still undoubtedly a desktop replacement, but it’s one of the more compact and maneuverable ones I’ve used this year. It measures 14.97 x 11.0 x 0.86 inches, which makes it surprisingly more compact and a whole lot easier to pick up than its main rival the MSI Titan GT77 HX 13V.

The Razer Blade 18 and Asus Strix Scar 18, being both 18-inch laptops, are understandably bigger and even more unwieldy – yes that’s where the 17X shines – it’s big, but not too big.

The most impressive of the three dimensions for me, however, is the Triton’s mere 0.86-inch thickness. Any laptop that manages to get away with less than an inch thickness is impressive in my book.

But for a 17-inch laptop to be one tenth of an inch slimmer than a 16-inch laptop like the Razer Blade 16 – now that’s even more impressive. Alienware’s X16 is notably slimmer still, but it does suffer from overheating, which leads me to think Acer has really hit a sweet spot of thickness with the 17X.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

Speaking of heat, the Triton 17X’s cooling hardware did a fine job keeping a lid on overheating. It includes a vapor chamber and Tri Fan System that includes 5th generation Aeroblade 3D fan technology. The cooling system also boasts rapid-cooling Liquid Metal Thermal Grease. There’s no shortage of air vents dotted around the back and sides of the laptop either.

To style, and despite my comparisons to Razer laptops, the Triton 17X still excludes plenty of Acer flair. For me that meant the predator logo on the top of the lid and the RGB micro etched predator logo on the right hand of the laptop’s base.

These are both discreet, the kind of detail you’d easily get away with in work meetings if you dare to cart the laptop to work. Still, the Triton is pretty hefty, weighing in at 6.61 pounds, so you might not want to do that too often.

Acer Predator Triton 17X: Keyboard

Keyboards in gaming desktops of this size need to be a little more refined than in most 13-to-16-inch laptops, if only to validate the choice of buying one over a comparatively inexpensive gaming desktop. Thankfully the 17X’s keyboard is a cut above most.

For starters, it’s large and spacious with ample room for both your hands to stretch out. The keyboard has a generous selection of options to choose from, including some really useful hot keys that saved me a ton of time fussing about in menus. Two worthy mentions are a Mode key that switches the laptop between Eco, Balanced and Turbo laptop Modes and key that opens up the PredatorSense utility app where you can make these and other settings changes yourself.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

The Per-Key lit RGB keys aren’t the largest I’ve seen in a 17-inch laptop, but they’re big enough to get the job done. They’re noticeably bouncier than in the Razer Blade 18 and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18, which I found makes for a less fatiguing typing experience.

You can program the RGB key lighting exactly how you like it in PredatorSense, which gives you up to 16.7 million colors to play with. There are some very cool dynamic light patterns to enjoy too. If fine-tuning macros is your jam, this is definitely one keyboard you can do that on.

Acer Predator Triton 17X: Connectivity

Acer seems to be making all the right moves when it comes to connectivity. Back when I reviewed the Acer Helios Neo 16, I was impressed to see it undercut most other 16-inch laptops in price yet backed up with no less than five USB ports, two of which were the very useful Thunderbolt 4 kind.