We all know gaming laptops come with a serious price. There’s no way you're gonna get top-rated performance, excellent graphics and quality by paying what us “normal” laptop users pay. It’s also important for things to stay cool when you’re gaming, for some good proprietary software to be included, and even a little bit of tough, flashy design appeal. That’s what you’ll find in the new Predator 17, which is one of the first gaming laptops made by the predominantly gaming desktop-maker, Acer.

As of late, we’re seeing a lot more big PC makers targeting the gaming consumer demographic, and within reason. Serious gamers are currently trending the notion of paying premium for powerful gaming notebooks. Here’s why: as a serious gamer, your natural instinct is to build your own gaming desktop. My husband did it, and my friends have done it. It’s cheaper, you can choose your favorite components and assemble them easily, bettering your results and performance over all. But if you want that done in notebook form, it’s not at all the same. This explains why some are willing to throw their money at a good gaming laptop. So let’s dig in and see if Acer’s Predator 17 gaming notebook has what it takes.

If gaming laptops are like gaming desktops in terms of performance and price, what is so great about having a humongous, heavy, LED-lit laptop monster to game on? For one thing, the ultra-aggressive styling that a lot of gaming laptops have are on purpose. Gamers like it. It’s not meant to act like those tiny 2 pound Chromebooks you play on at Starbucks. It’s meant to be a powerhouse that will take on the incredibly high frames per second your Final Fantasy game requires, and with ease.

The Predator 17 is a monster. This 8.7 pound notebook, measuring 1.6 inches thick, features a 17.3-inch 1080p IPS LED display, with the upgrade option of a 4K UHD with 3840 x 2160 pixels. Hardware includes a sixth-gen Intel Core l7-6700HQ quad-core Skylake processor, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, 512GB of storage on a PCI-e SSD, and Nvidia GTX 980M for graphics. This is pretty much the best of the best. Connectivity includes 4 USB 3.0s, 1 HDMI 1.2, an SD card slot, ethernet, and even the latest Thunderbolt 3.

In effort to help cool the Predator 17’s steamy GPU, CPU, and big battery (functioning 4 hours 53 minutes during high performance gaming), Acer features its FrostCore cooling technology, which “works as a hot-swappable cartridge that contains extra fans and cooling units, which you can change out of the slot where your optical disc normal resides”. This is something new and great for laptops that withstand intense gaming sessions. Not only that, but some neat software is included- Acer’s “DustDefender” program for reversing the fan speed direction for optimal clean up, as well as several Acer apps to assist the gamer with tech and profile support (Gadget Review).

This monster’s asking price is expectedly high. At $2,600 you’ve got to know you want this thing. Laptop Mag says it’s rock solid- not to mention its trendy build and exceptional performance don’t hurt its cause. The Acer Predator 17 stands out in the crowd, and besides an imperfect battery life and heavy build, you're going to get your money’s worth out of this hunk.