Acer Aspire 5920
Attractive Home Gaming Notebook
Gaming notebooks belong to a special class of machines. Two years ago questions about gaming notebooks would only irritate professionals - "Why? A notebook is not a desktop!" But time flies. Notebooks were replacing home desktops in all fields. Only 3D games held their ground because of high requirements to performance. However, it's not reasonable to buy a big desktop only for games, while its other functions are performed well by a small notebook. That's why more and more potential buyers of notebooks would like to use a notebook not only for work, but also for entertainment. And 3D games are a significant part of it. If there is demand, there will certainly be supply.
There started to appear notebooks for games. As their components grew more powerful, they started to compete with desktops almost on a par. On the other hand, the main problems of notebooks remain. Namely: a small case, problems with channelling the heat away, power consumption requirements, and low upgradability.
Today we are going to review the latest model from Acer, which is designed for gaming. Let's see how it copes with games as well as other home tasks.
Acer Aspire 5920G-102G16
The manufacturer describes Acer Aspire 5920 as
the first notebook in the new stunning Gemstone design. Able to satisfy all requirements of a modern user, the Aspire 5920 is based on the latest Core 2 Duo processor. The graphics component is really splendid: wide 15.4" panel, Acer CrystalBrite technology, 8 ms response, with the NVidia GeForce 8600M-GT graphics card (up to 512 MB, some cards have 256 MB) of the latest generation with DX10 support. The excellent image comes with splendid audio owing to the 2.1 audio system (two speakers and a subwoofer) supporting Dolby Home Theatre Virtual Surround. Besides, a HDMI connector and a built-in HD DVD drive (in some models) open up the door to the age of high definition video.
And the key advantages are, according to Acer:
Excellent design
Acer presents a new concept design of Acer Aspire notebooks for home entertainment. It's designed in cooperation with a well-known industrial design team and called GemStone. The form and color of the GemStone design personify a natural harmony of gem stones. The new Aspire 5920 notebooks embody purity and value of precious gifts of nature. They attract with their excellent exterior and impressive components worthy of a modern notebook for entertainment
Multimedia heights
The Acer Aspire 5920 notebooks are truly multi-functional. They can impress even the most hard-driving users. The Aspire 5920 provides unforgettable impressions with its audio system (two speakers and a subwoofer) supporting Dolby Home Theater Virtual Surround Sound HDMI, HD audio/video port, HD DVD drive (in some models), and an optional built-in TV-tuner.
I generally agree with the description. But I would have also added gaming features of the 5920 to the list of its advantages.
5920G-102G16 Specifications
You can read the 5920 family specs here. Specifications of each model appear in a drop down window on the main page describing a family, if you click a model name. Here are specifications of the model under review:
| Processor |
Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 (1.8 GHz/ 2
MB/ FSB 800) |
| Chipset |
Intel PM965 Express |
| RAM |
2048 (2x1024) MB DDR II |
| Display |
bright (220 nit) 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) display with
Acer CrystalBrite technology, 8 ms response
|
| Graphics |
256 MB nVidia 8600M-GT
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M, 256 MB GDDR2 VRAM, up to 1024 MB
with TurboCache technology (up to 768 MB is allocated
from system memory*), support for NVIDIA PureVideo
(WMV HD, High Definition MPEG-2 Hardware Acceleration), Microsoft
DirectX 9 and DirectX 10, OpenEXR High Dynamic Range
(HDR) and PCI Express
|
| HDD |
160 GB SATA (5400rpm) |
| Optical storage |
DVD RW (Super Multi)
|
| Audio |
- Dolby-certified surround-sound system with two integrated
stereo speakers (Acer 3DSonic) and one subwoofer supporting
low-frequency effects.
- Dolby Home Theater supporting Dolby Digital, Dolby
Digital Live, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Digital
Stereo Creator, Dolby Headphone, and Dolby Virtual
Speaker
- Intel High-Definition audio support
- S/PDIF support
- Acer PureZone support - it uses two built-in microphones
for high-quality recording and better voice rendition.
|
| Communication |
- 4 x USB 2.0
- 1 x HDMI with HDCP support
- 1 x VGA
- 1 x ExpressCard/54
- 5-in-one card reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
- 1 x S-video/ TV-Out (NTSC/PAL)
- 1 x CIR
- 1 x IEEE 1394
- 1 x AV-In (in some models)
- 1 x TV antenna (in some models)
- 1 x RJ-11
- 1 x Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45)
- 1 x headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support
- 1 x mic-in
- 1 x line-in
- 1 x connector for the AC power adapter
|
| I/O ports |
- 1 x RJ-45 Ethernet port (1GB Lan)
- 1 x RJ-11 Modem port
- 1 x S-video
- 1 x SPDIF (shared w/ Line-out jack)
- 1 x VGA port
- 1 x PCI Express Card (Type II)
- 1 x Mic-in
- 1 x Line-out
- 1 x Line-in
- 1 x Port Replicator Jack
- 1 x C-in for power supply
|
| Power supply |
- ACPI 3.0 supporting Standby and Hibernation modes
- 71 W 4800 mAh 8-cell battery pack (Li-ion): up
to 3.5 hours life
- Acer QuicCharge support: 80% charge in 1.0 hour,
2.0 hours recharge time with power off, 2.5 hours with power
on
- 3-pin 90W AC adapter
|
| Extra |
- Built-in Acer Crystal Eye digital camera, support for Acer
PrimaLite technology (in some models)
|
| Warranty |
1 year |
| Dimensions and weight |
- 364 x 270.2 x 30.8/43.7 mm
- 3.00 kg
|
Bundle
The plain-looking box contains:
- Notebook
- AC adapter comes with a thick cord and a euro-type socket
- User's Manual
- A small booklet about an international traveler's warranty
The bundle is minimalist. You even have to create a system restore disc on your own.
Test results
Battery Life Tests
We ran the tests in real applications and measured battery life of the notebook. We ran two types of tests: reading a pdf file, and watching a movie. The notebook hibernated in compliance with its OS settings, when 4% of battery charge was left.
| Test |
Battery life |
| Movie playback mode |
2 hours 40 minutes |
| Test results for reading |
3 hours 11 minutes |
Its battery life is impressive for a desktop model. However, don't forget that a powerful configuration is spiced up with a powerful battery, 66718 mWh according to the test.
Game Tests
We use SmartFPS 1.5 for game tests. You can download the latest version from the official web site at www.smartfps.com
Just like in tests of other notebooks, we faced the problem with Call of Duty 2 (the game crashes only in Vista, it runs well in XP) and Call of Huarez (it does not work correctly), so we excluded these two games from the test.
We should note one peculiarity of this test - if a resolution in the test is higher than resolution of the panel, the test shows results for 640x480. So test resolutions were lower than the screen resolution.
| Name |
Resolution |
result |
| Battlefield 2 |
800x600 |
104.1 fps/112 |
| Battlefield 2 |
1024x768 |
91.9 fps/101 |
| Serious Sam 2 DEMO |
800x600 |
73.0 FPS (89.2 w/o peaks)
82.6 FPS (102.4 w/o peaks) |
| Serious Sam 2 DEMO |
1024x768 |
70.7 FPS (82.2 w/o peaks)
68.0 FPS (70.6 w/o peaks) |
| Quake 4 DEMO + 1.3 |
800x600 |
79.5 fps |
| Quake 4 DEMO + 1.3 |
1024x768 |
61.5 fps |
| Prey DEMO |
800x600 |
64.5 fps/78.7 fps |
| Prey DEMO |
1024x768 |
63.0 fps/65.0 fps |
| The Chronicles of Riddick DEMO |
800x600 |
90.51/89.62 |
| The Chronicles of Riddick DEMO |
1024x768 |
55.79/64.00 |
These results give a good idea of the notebook's performance. As you can see, the Acer 5920G copes well with all games, at least with our settings.
