So I bought a used gaming PC and need to know stuff

[Jerry®]

I’m a world of Warcraft player and my 2012 mini can barely run it so a fellow player told me he was selling his Acer Nitro 5 laptop that he only used for the game when he traveled. I did some research and asked around in the game community and got a lot of thumbs up on its specs and price. I haven’t used a PC in years and need to know some stuff:

- it’s got an HDMI output so I should be able to connect it to my 27 in 4K display that I have hooked up to my mini - correct? Will I be able to use it beyond its (the laptop’s) native resolution 1920x1080? I don’t know how to tell. Can I hook it up to my 50 in 4K HDTV?
- I’ll only be using it to play WoW so I’ll basically be using it as a desktop most of the time. Are PCs better with plug and play? The laptop is running Windows 10 home and it’s a 2016-2017 I believe.


SPECS

Acer Nitro 5
Model is AN-515-51-76SX

[Filliam H. Muffman]

I think Acer is a decent brand. The 7700HQ is a decent CPU for gaming. 1050 Ti isn't really a 4K video card for most games but it should run a 4K display with either a HDMI 2.1 cable or USB-C/Thundercrap cable. 2560x1440 might be a better resolution to run WOW if it struggles at 4K.

I would recommend a 1060 Ti or 1660 Ti with 4 GB VRAM as the bare minimum for 4K. If the CPU/GPU temps are under 60 C and it's still struggling, you could try Afterburner to overclock it.

I have the next step down Acer for a HTPC and occasional Handbrake conversion. AN515-51-5082 i5-7300HQ, plain 1050.

[Forrest]

That’s a very good gaming laptop, but the 4 GB Nvidia 1050Ti is setup for Full HD gaming - 1080i.

[kj]

1080i is fine. I don't know that 4k gaming is that common at this point anyway. I think higher frame rates are more important than 4k, personally. That should really blow away your Mac mini though.

[Jerry®]

kj wrote:
1080i is fine. I don't know that 4k gaming is that common at this point anyway. I think higher frame rates are more important than 4k, personally. That should really blow away your Mac mini though.

Sorry I wasn’t clear I meant can the laptop go a higher res like 2560x1440 when I hook it up to my display which happens to be a 4K display. I’m not wanting to do anything 4K. And can I use my hdtv as a big display for it?

[Jerry®]

Also is there a free malware app for PC that I can use just to be safe?

[Jerry®]

kj wrote:
1080i is fine. I don't know that 4k gaming is that common at this point anyway. I think higher frame rates are more important than 4k, personally. That should really blow away your Mac mini though.

I get it tomorrow and can’t wait. On my Mac mini I get between 10-20 fps!!!! Can’t wait to see how much better this will be!

[kj]

Jerry® wrote:
[quote=kj]
1080i is fine. I don't know that 4k gaming is that common at this point anyway. I think higher frame rates are more important than 4k, personally. That should really blow away your Mac mini though.

Sorry I wasn’t clear I meant can the laptop go a higher res like 2560x1440 when I hook it up to my display which happens to be a 4K display. I’m not wanting to do anything 4K. And can I use my hdtv as a big display for it?
It will, but it will take extra graphics horsepower due to all the extra pixels it has to draw, which will decrease frame rate, so I would stick to 1080 (1920 × 1080). Your TV should be fine hooked up with hdmi. I would think your frame rates will be closer to 60fps, depending on how busy the graphics are. If it's higher than that it won't matter unless the monitor or tv has a refresh rate higher than 60hz. Actually, if WoW does higher than 60fps, you could try a higher resolution to see if it stays up at 30- 60fps. But I get over 100fps in a lot of games, and the smoothness is super noticeable, so I would get high fps before anything else, personally. 30fps looks pretty choppy (I play ps4 and it drives me nuts as it is capped at 30fps). You're going to notice a huge difference if you've been at 10-20fps!