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The Nitro N50-600 is Acer’s entry-mid level gaming desktop. With its Intel i5 CPU and, if you go for the pricier option, GTX 1060 graphics card, it’s set to run most current games quite comfortably at 1920x1080 resolution.
The most noticeable things about this computer when pulling it out of the box are its design and size. With a red, black and grey chassis with silver highlights and red lighting, the N50-600 has a striking, gamer aesthetic to it. By tower case standards, it’s also tiny, measuring a mere 300 (D) x 340 (H) x 163 (W) mm, making it ideal for those operating with space constraints. The small size also means it’s relatively light and easy to move around.
Coming with wireless LAN and Bluetooth support, and shipping with a wireless keyboard and mouse, it’s also good for those who can’t stand the usual ‘spaghetti tangle’ of cables that grow out of your average desktop. This means the only cables you need to have running to your PC are the power, monitor and speakers cables, making it a breeze to setup.
The N50-600 is also surprisingly quiet. So quiet, in fact, I had initially wondered if there was some sort of sound-proofing. Further investigation revealed that this wasn’t so. The case, in fact, had a large grill set in the side to let air flow over the quiet CPU, GPU and PSU fans. Which leads neatly to the first potential drawback: no dust filter. This is hardly a major issue, but for those in dustier environs (particularly those living next to building-works), this does mean you’ll have to clean it out a bit more often.
The small size, while being one of the N50-600’s advantages, also means there is very little space for buyers who want to modify the internals of the machine. For example, while the case shows capacity for three expansion cards, two of the slots are already taken up by the GPU. Adding a third would potentially limit the GPU’s air-flow, and given that the GPU’s exhaust grill got up to around 60° C when under load (that is, too hot to comfortably touch for more than a second), adding an extra card is probably not the best idea. (Also, some of the more powerful graphics cards are almost as long as the entire case.)
That said, the N50-600 seems to be aimed at the buyer who wants an affordable gaming PC but doesn’t want to be bothered with building it themseves, and for this Acer seems to have hit the mark. Starting at around the $1,499 mark ($1,999 for the review model), it’s a solid entry-mid level gaming PC which comes with a decent set of features for a good price. ■