Acer Nitro 5 15.6" Laptop: i7-11800H, RTX 3050 Ti, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD Expired

The Intel 11th gen mobile CPUs are manufactured on their 10nm process, which has about the same density as TSMC's 7nm that AMD is currently using. So they are finally back at manufacturing parity with AMD. (Yes the different companies measure different things when they call something x nm. So Intel's 10nm is roughly the same as TSMC's 7nm. And Intel's 14nm was smaller than TSMC's 12nm. )

Intel's lower end 10th gen CPUs were also made on 10nm, but the 10th gen i7s were still made on 14nm, which is roughly the same density as AMD's original Zen processors from 2017. Their 14nm is nearly 1/3rd the density of their 10nm so burns a lot more power, which put Intel at a huge disadvantage for 3+ years. 11th gen is when Intel's mobile i7s finally made it to 10nm. (Their 11th gen desktop i7s are still made on 14nm - they're having trouble with heat dissipation in their 10nm process.)

It will be a short-lived respite though. AMD is supposed to switch to TSMC's 5nm process for Zen 3 in 2022. That's about a 1.7x higher density than Intel 10nm. Apple has already been manufacturing on TSMC's 5nm for a year, which is why the M1 processor does so well (it has nearly 5x higher transistor density than the Intel CPUs it replaced on the Macs). Intel's hopes lie with their 7nm process (now renamed Intel 4) - that should be around 2x the density of their 10nm, and on par with TSMC's 3nm process. But it's not scheduled until 2023, and there are doubts Intel will even make that deadline. TSMC already has 3nm in sample production, and Apple may roll out new chips using it in 2022.

The wild card in all this is that Intel could conceivably try to outbid Apple to manufacture their CPUs on TSMC's 3nm. They're one of the few companies with a fatter profit margin than Apple. The only thing stopping them is their pride (they've always manufactured their own processors).

This comment may or may not apply to the current deal, but my last Acer Nitro gaming machine lasted two years because the way the hinge connects to the screen nd the plastic housing was really pathetic and the arms that "hug" the screen broke from the hinges. When I went to replace, I accidentally slightly damaged the spot the screen ribbon connects to the board, ruining it permanently. So it runs with an external monitor but no longer has a screen. I'm very disappointed and that, alone, would keep me from going back to Acer. I don't care about the rest of the specs.

Edit: just an update to add that my last Acer Nitro didn't even last two years. It actually broke midsummer, so I got about a year and a half. And from the photo, it looks like this exact design, so it's possible this screen connects in the exact same way.

900+ should have a 3060 in it right now