Acer’s Predator Gaming Monitors Come For Your Console And Wallet – CNET

This story is part of CES, where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon.

Three new monitors stand out from Acer’s crowd of gaming gear at CES 2022. Not as yowza as Alienware’s QD-OLED debut, but with enough yes-I-may-want-it newness for the gamer who’s OK spending $1,799 or more for a fast 32-inch 4K HDR monitor or $2,499 for a 48-inch OLED to pair with an Xbox Series X or PS5.

The veteran Predator X32 line welcomes two new members this year — the, well, Predator X32 and Predator X32 FP. They use the same IPS panel, a DisplayHDR-1000 certified 4K screen with a peak brightness of 1,200 nits and full coverage of the Adobe RGB color gamut and 1ms response time. A new 576-zone Mini LED backlight supplants older versions which had a lot more zones but also tended to generate a lot of heat. They also sport a thin bezel design and minimalist stand.

As the names might imply, though, they differ by some supplementary features. The $1,799 X32 FP uses FreeSync Pro for its variable refresh rate support, and its maximum native refresh rate is 160Hz, or 165Hz overclocked. The $1,999 X32 uses G-Sync Ultimate, which adds to the price and supplies support for Nvidia Reflex latency optimization technology, but G-Sync only works over DisplayPort. Its maximum refresh rate over DP is 160Hz, but over HDMI it’s only 120Hz. And unless the specs I’m looking at are wrong, which is quite possible, the X32 only offers HDMI 2.0 connections (three of them) while the cheaper FreeSync model has four HDMI 2.1 connectors as well as a USB-C port with 90-watt power delivery.

The $2,499 Predator CG48 console monitor should offer all the usual benefits of OLED — a large color gamut, high contrast and fast pixel response — with a refresh rate of 138Hz in 4K. But seems like it might make some sacrifices. For instance, it’s not clear how well it will handle HDR: Acer provides what sounds like a low peak brightness of 450 nits (and a native brightness of 135 nits, which is low) and says it supports HDR10, which means it can decode the stream but won’t necessarily display it well.

It does have an HDMI 2.1 connection as well as 3 HDMI 2.0 and a USB hub, though it’s odd that the USB-C can only charge up to 65 watts.

All the monitors will ship around October.

Acer also brought forth refreshes of its Nitro 5, Triton 500 SE and Predator Helios 300, but nothing really makes them stand out from the crowd on paper. They’ve all had minor makeovers to tone down the gaming vibe (but just a bit) and the Triton has slimmed down. The Triton will be marketed as a creator-focused laptop in some regions, so a more subtle style is warranted. 

All get the usual upgrades to the newest versions of whichever processor and graphics card they use. That means the Nitro gets 12th-gen Intel Core H and AMD Ryzen 6000 H models, along with all the perks of the new platforms like support for DDR5.

• The Predator Triton 500 SE ships in March, starting at $2,300
• The Predator Helios 300 ships in May, start at $1,650 for the 15-inch model and the 17-inch ships in March starting at $1,750
• The Acer Nitro 5 with Intel ships in March starting at $1,050 for the 15-inch and April starting at $1,100 for the 17-inch; with AMD the 15-inch ships in April starting at $1,100 and the 17-inch ships in May starting at $1,150