We went hands on with the Aspire VX 15 at CES and were impressed by what we saw. The VX 15 is the affordable alternative to Acer’s higher-priced Nitro line. Although it trades the latter’s aluminum chassis for a plastic one, we found the VX 15 still offered a sturdy feel. However, what impressed us most about Acer’s new line was what we saw under the hood. This laptop packs a 2.8GHz Core i7-7700HQ quad-core CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Throw in a 15.6-inch 1080p LCD and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB video card and you have the makings of a solid, budget gaming laptop. Nvidia’s GTX 1050 Ti chip is making a big splash among gamers. The entry-level GPU lets cash-strapped gamers play today’s top titles at medium to high settings. We recently benchmarked the GTX 1050 Ti and found that it offers slightly better performance than its cheaper sibling, the GTX 1050. It won’t pass the strict requirements of an elite gamer, but it’s more than sufficient for everyday gamers. All this means the Aspire VX 15 (opens in new tab) is worthy of your attention, even more so now that it’s just below the $1,000 mark.

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