Acer Predator Helios 18 AI (Core Ultra 9 275HX + RTX 5090) Gaming Laptop Review

TweakTown Rating: 94%

Our Verdict

Acer's new Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop rocks an Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU + RTX 5090 Laptop GPU + Gen5 SSD + 192GB of RAM into an 18-inch powerhouse gaming laptop. Oh, and did we mention RGB? Great stuff here, Acer.

Pros

• Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU (24C/24T)
• Bonkers 192GB of RAM
• GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU + 24GB GDDR7
• 18-inch Mini-LED display - 3840 x 2400 (2400p) 120Hz
• Fast Gen5 SSD @ 12GB/sec+ and fantastic use of RGB lighting

Cons

• Very expensive
• Not the fastest RTX 5090 gaming laptop
• Battery life

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

Acer has sent us its high-end Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop for review, packing an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU. It's another 18-inch mega-sized gaming laptop, packing some serious horsepower inside, and an incredible 192GB of RAM... useless for gaming, but incredibly useful for specific workloads. Let's dive in.

The CPU inside this laptop is the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX with 24 cores and 24 threads (8P + 16E) at up to 5.4GHz on the P-Cores and Max Turbo speeds. This is a fantastic laptop CPU, but not quite as balls-to-the-wall as the previous gaming laptop we reviewed in the MSI Raider A18 HX A9W, which featured AMD's new flagship Ryzen 9 9955HX3D with 16C/32T and second-gen 3D V-Cache technology.

As with all of my gaming laptop reviews, I've moved away from my desktop 7800X3D + RTX 4070 SUPER system to the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, and I haven't had it skip a beat. The huge 18-inch 4K (well, 2400p actually, so beyond 4K) with a 120Hz refresh rate on a Mini-LED panel is always a great thing to see, and use, too.

Firing up the laptop, I was welcomed with 192GB of RAM, which is a ton of RAM for AI workloads, content creators, and others who want 192GB of RAM, a 24C/24T processor, and a Gen5 SSD that pushes 12GB/sec+ read speeds... all with a huge 18-inch 4K 120Hz display. So far, so good.

Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with Ray Tracing, Frame Generation, Ray Reconstruction, and DLSS on Balanced mode achieved an impressive 90FPS+ on the MSI Raider A18 HX A9W gaming laptop.

If you need all of the CPU power you can get with 16 cores and 32 threads with second-gen X3D cache mixed with the most powerful GPU in the RTX 5090 with 24GB of GDDR7 memory, and a huge 18-inch display, then the recommendation goes to MSI's new Raider A18 HX A9W, the new gaming laptop champion. Let's dive in!

Specs Reviewed:

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (24C/24T)
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU + 24GB GDDR7
• RAM: 192GB
• Storage: 2TB Gen5
• Display: 18-inch 4K (3840 x 2400) @ 120Hz Mini-LED

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Overview

Acer's new Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop features a wicked CPU + GPU + RAM + SSD combo, all finding its way into an 18-inch laptop that stays rather cool during heavy workloads. Acer is using its 6th Gen Aeroblade 3D fan technology inside, engineered for maximum cooling, with ultra-thin, responsive metal blades that rise and adapt at high speeds, increasing airflow efficiency by up to 20%.

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The company says it has the world's thinnest fan blades at just 0.05mm, with 100 razor-sharp blades that are optimized for the best performance, with up to a 20% increase in airflow, with the adaptive blades dynamically adjusting speeds depending on your workload.

The 18-inch Mini-LED panel is a Dual-Mode display offering either 4K @ 120Hz or 1080p @ 240Hz, depending on what you want, but I used the 4K @ 120Hz mode for 90% of my testing, only playing with the 1080p @ 240Hz during some rounds of Overwatch 2.

One of the stand-outs of Acer's new flagship Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop is that it has RGB lighting absolutely everywhere. There's even "Milky Way" RGB dynamic lighting on the rear fab hub behind the display hinge, a wicked wrap around RGB lightbar running from the left side, down the bottom of the keyboard up to the touchpad, RGB lighting on the right of the palm rest, RGB lighting on and under the Predator logo on the led, but per-key RGB lighting on the keyboard... and it's all user-customizable.

Features + I/O

Acer has crammed in a bunch of I/O into the Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, with Thunderbolt 5 connectivity offering up to 120Gbps of bandwidth, and up to 80Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth. Wi-Fi 7 is here with up to 4.8x speeds over Wi-Fi 6, so if you've got a Wi-Fi 7 router, your new gaming laptop will have wicked-fast wireless networking speeds with lower latency.

On the I/O side of things, Acer is packing heavy on the Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, where on the left we've got a full-sized RJ45 Ethernet port, a single USB Type-A port, an SD card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

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On the right, we've got two more USB-A ports. On the rear, there are dual Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports, a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port with support for 4K 120Hz + 8K 60Hz out, and the DC-in port.

Detailed Look

Acer's new Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop is a gorgeous product the second you lay your eyes on it, with fantastic - and sometimes over-the-top - use of RGB lighting. Check it out:

From the front and the back, you can see the RGB lighting used on the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, but that RGB goodness is absolutely everywhere. In the photos below, you can see the fantastic use of the light bar in the bottom left of the laptop.

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From there, it is a tiny bit more subtle with RGB lighting use in the bottom right, as you can see in the shot below:

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There's even a fantastic RGB light bar on the back of the laptop with the "HELIOS" branding lit up, which you can see below:

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The per-key RGB lighting on the keyboard also looks fantastic, with various settings you can play around with in the software, to get to your personal liking.

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On the rear of the laptop, we've got the power plug, full-sized HDMI 2.1 output for 8K 60Hz and 4K 120Hz out, and a dual Thunderbolt 5 ports (which double as USB-C ports) and the DC-in port.

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On the left, we've got a USB-A port, 3.5mm headphone jack, and a full-sized SD card reader perfect for content creators.

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On the right, we've got dual USB-A ports and the Kensington lock.

Benchmarks (Synthetic + CPU + SSD)

Cinebench R24

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The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor inside of the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop features 24C/24T, only losing to the AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D with 16C/32T that we recently tested inside of MSI's new Raider A18 HX A9W gaming laptop when it comes to Cinebench R24.

We have 1794 points in the multi-core run of Cinebench R24, losing to the 2084 points on the 9955HX3D, with 124 points in single-core testing, only losing out to the 127 points on the 9955HX3D chip in Cinebench R24 testing.

CrystalDiskMark

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There is a 2TB Gen5 SSD inside the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, pumping out over 12GB/sec in reads (12,200MB/sec) in CrystalDiskMark testing, with around 4.6GB/sec writes (4693MB/sec). This is fantastic for content creators and AI workloads, where you need these wicked-high Gen5 SSD speeds, while gamers won't tell much of a difference between Gen4 or Gen5 SSDs.

It's still awesome seeing 12GB/sec+ reads on your SSD, though.

3DMark Speed Way + Steel Nomad

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3DMark Speed Way is up on the benchmarking run first, with the RTX 5090 Laptop GPU inside of the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, edged out ever-so-slightly by the MSI Raider A18 HX A9W with 5580 points versus 6001. Very close.

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The gap between the two RTX 5090 Laptop GPU-powered gaming laptops is a little wider in the Steel Nomad run of 3DMark, with 5382 points on the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, compared to 6035 on the MSI Raider A18 HX A9W.

3DMark TimeSpy Extreme + TimeSpy

There's not much difference between Acer's new Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop and MSI's offering, both with the RTX 5090 Laptop GPU; they scream through TimeSpy Extreme and TimeSpy without much difference between them.

Benchmarks (Gaming)

Note: Moving onto the gaming benchmarks, I re-ran the benchmarks on the systems that I had on hand at the time, running Cyberpunk 2077 twice. First, without RT and DLSS enabled to see the raw performance of the gaming laptop, and then once more with RT + DLSS + GF + RR enabled.

• RT = Ray Tracing
• DLSS = Deep Learning Super Sampling (AI upscaling)
• FG = Frame Generation
• RR = Ray Reconstruction

I also used the Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) to create a custom 3840 x 2160 (2160p or 4K) resolution, as the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop features a 16:10 aspect ratio panel with a 3840 x 2400 (2400p) resolution. This makes the comparison against the other GPUs much fairer.

Cyberpunk 2077

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Acer's new powerful Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop is capable of running Cyberpunk 2077 at 65FPS average without any DLSS enabled, and without any Ray Tracing enabled, on the High preset. This is 5FPS less than the MSI Raider A18 HX A9W gaming laptop, showing off that AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D processor and its gaming CPU prowess.

120FPS+ at 1440p is nothing to sneeze at, but it's 14FPS slower than the MSI offering, while 1080p makes that gap even bigger with 'just' 137FPS average on the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, compared to the 160FPS from the MSI system running the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D processor.

Cyberpunk 2077 + RT + DLSS

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Here we go: Cyberpunk 2077 with Ray Tracing, Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction all enabled, with DLSS set to Balanced mode, and the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop out of the gate loses by 9FPS to the 9955HX3D-powered MSI Raider A18 HX A9W. Still, 4K with RT enabled and DLSS on Balanced with 83FPS is more than enough. A few tweaks and you can easily maintain 120FPS at 4K.

Dropping down to 1440p sees the performance up at 130FPS average, but it's still a far cry from the 161FPS on the MSI system, while at 1080p, we have Cyberpunk 2077 hitting 186FPS on the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, compared to the commanding 222FPS on the MSI system.

Forza Horizon 5

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Forza Horizon 5 seemed to love the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop at 4K on the High preset, with 211FPS average, losing by 10FPS to the MSI laptop. At 1440p, we have 286FPS versus 306FPS between the Acer and MSI, while at 1080p, the Acer hits 350FPS while the MSI system hits 389FPS.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

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The gap gets far closer in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, where at 4K you're not going to tell the difference. Acer's new Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop hits 148FPS - the top of the chart - but it's just by 1FPS. That 1FPS win switches sides to MSI at 1440p, with 252FPS vs 251FPS on the Acer, and by 3FPS at 1080p (377FPS vs 374FPS on the Predator).

Performance + Thermals + Battery Life

If you've got a new super-fast Wi-Fi 7 router at home, you'll be able to enjoy high-bandwidth, low-latency wireless goodness through to your new Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop. I use Bluetooth to connect my Apple AirPods Max headphones, which worked perfectly the entire time, while connecting to my older Wi-Fi 5 network and using the 100Mbps fiber connection to the internet.

I did find that I had to manually switch over to the Performance profile in the Acer Predator software more times than I'd have liked, as the keyboard got a little uncomfortably warm at times, depending on the game that I was running or testing at the time.

Performance Thoughts

One of my benchmark runs is through one of the most important things to me as a PC gamer: running Overwatch 2 with high visual quality and high FPS. The Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop was put through its paces, running OW2 most days of the week (I love the game), all at 2400p with DLSS on Balanced, enjoying over 200FPS+ average for the most part. Lovely stuff.

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The higher-end Mini-LED panel really helps out on a higher-end gaming laptop, where I wouldn't want to be plonking down thousands upon thousands of dollars and only getting an IPS or TN-based panel. Sure, refresh rates can be higher, but once you go to Mini-LED or OLED, there is NO going back. Acer even supports DisplayHDR 1000 on its Predator Helios 18 AI, with 4K @ 120Hz looking MIGHTY fine across the board.

Windows, regular workloads, gaming... 4K @ 120Hz on a Mini-LED panel = awesome. No regrets to be had.

Battery Life + Charging + Software

Acer has its own in-house Predator software on its laptops, with different modes to choose between: Quiet, Balanced, Performance, and Turbo.

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Heavy workloads like high-end gaming, content creation, and AI workflows will have your CPU and GPU clocks running at peak, so temperatures increase. The Balanced setting was what I used the most for day-to-day tasks, but before I jumped into any benchmarks or gaming, I switched over to the Performance setting so that the CPU and GPU clocks remain high, and the fans are spinning faster, keeping the chips cool.

It's nice and easy to use, with a hotkey on the keyboard taking you directly there when needed.

Final Thoughts

Acer slays with its new Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, a powerhouse system with a high-end Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor offering 24 cores of CPU power at up to 5.4GHz, with my configuration packing a huge 192GB of RAM, and NVIDIA's ultra-fast flagship GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU with 24GB of GDDR7 memory.

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The 18-inch 2400p @ 120Hz Mini-LED display is amazing to gaze at all day and night long, matching the rest of the CPU + GPU + RAM + SSD goodness inside of the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop. The addition of Thunderbolt 5 ports means that creators with ultra-fast Thunderbolt 5-ready accessories will love it, with up to 120Gbps of bandwidth flowing through TB5.

The inclusion of a 2TB Gen5 SSD capable of 12GB/sec+ reads is another impressive feat, once again for creative professionals who seek huge read speeds to match their 24-core CPU and insane 192GB of RAM. This is an impressive thing to see, considering other high-end gaming laptops with similar or the same CPU + GPU combo have 32GB to 64GB of RAM.

High-end 4K 120FPS gaming, content creation like video editing, and AI workloads are a breeze for the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop. The Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU + GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU + 2TB Gen5 SSD + 192GB RAM is a culmination of some of the best laptop hardware money can buy... sure, it's expensive, but this isn't the everyman laptop.

This is a laptop for those who crave absolute power, and with it comes absolute responsibility - Spider-Man pun intended - with top-tier performance in every category. It's not the absolute fastest gaming laptop on the market, and most gamers using an RTX 5090 Laptop GPU won't tell the difference; they're ALL wicked-fast gaming machines.

Acer does it differently with the Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop, using powerhouse components with stunning aesthetics and tons of RGB lighting if that's your thing. Uncompromising performance, an insane 192GB of RAM, and great looks that will have everyone asking you 'Hey, what is THAT?!' and seeing that smile form on your face every time you open it up and use it.