I opted for the AMD variant of the Acer Nitro 5 to give it a shot since i most of my systems are now Ryzen & FX series (don't get me wrong i love intel but i kinda wanna keep the budget low) .
Specs:
AMD FX 9830p
GPU RX 550
8Gb Ram
256gb SSD
Started up a brand new laptop, finished setup.. and ran all updates from windows... i had problems... driver issues mostly and getting games to recognize the dedicated GPU instead of the APU. So being the tinkerer that i am i decided to go with a fresh installation of windows 10 and here is what i did.
Note: Please remember that the below steps include a fresh installation of windows 10 and re-installing windows means you have to re-install the Acer Quick Access app, which does not have cool boost (Still looking for a solution) 1. Download a fresh copy of windows 10 directly using their tool -
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows102. Get a USB thumb drive (4gb or more)
3. Create an installation disk using the thumb drive as the external media.
4. Restart the device and boot to thumb drive.
5. Complete installation (You will have to delete all partitions of your main drive)
6. Once installed do not download any drivers from Acer support.
7. Just run windows update and let it update (do not do anything with the laptop, as this will take some time depending on your connection)
8. Windows update takes a while as it will install everything including the latest stable Radeon Graphics drivers (switchable version). Be patient as it takes a while.
9. Once all updates have been installed restart your laptop (you might require to restart your laptop after some updates in between, do not worry just restart and run windows update again and make sure you keep running windows update until there is nothing else left to update)
10. You will see a lot of difference running a fresh copy of windows 10, smoothness and stability is one of them.
11. Games will automatically select the Discrete GPU on your laptop (Be sure to set it in high performance mode when plugged in)
12. The only Software you have to download from Acer is the Acer Quick Access App.
13. Tested the game Overwatch before and after the installation and found less stuttering (Enable windows game mode for better performance)
14. To take advantage of this APU it's recommended you add another stick of ram (DDR4 2400Mhz) - I got a Patriot Viper 8Gb 2400Mhz from amazon that works just perfect with the ram that was already installed. Adding the second stick of ram improved performance in gaming (Since the bandwidth doubled) and made a huge difference in DX12 games too.
So there you have it , this was what i did with my laptop, hope it helps you guys out there too.
Savio
