Acer Aspire V3-571G-9435 review

The best part of the Acer Aspire V3-571G-9435 is its CPU: the quad-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM is an upper-echelon processor like those seen in more expensive laptops, including the 15-inch MacBook Pro and Dell XPS 15. It's an extremely fast processor, considerably speedier than a traditional dual-core Core i5 and exceptional at multitasking. In this price tier, you won't find many laptops that pack such a wallop.

Also impressive are the Nvidia GeForce GT 640M graphics, all 2GB of them, under the hood. These aren't the GTX-level graphics you'd see in a screaming-fast $2,000 laptop, but games played exceedingly well: Street Fighter IV ran (albeit at 1,366x768-pixel resolution) at 96.4 frames per second, while the much more demanding Metro 2033 ran at 17.3fps. Dirt 3 ran at high graphics settings (again, at 1,366x768 pixels) at 76fps.

Can the Acer Aspire V3 play games? Absolutely yes, but can it play top-notch games as well as a dedicated gaming laptop? No, it can't. Still, these graphics and that Core i7 CPU are the reasons this Aspire V3 will be tremendously appealing to budget PC shoppers.

Juice box
Acer Aspire V3-571G-9435	Average watts per hour
Off (60 percent)	0.28
Sleep (10 percent)	0.58
Idle (25 percent)	7.35
Load (5 percent)	40.05
Raw kWh	35.62
Annual power consumption cost	$4.04

You wouldn't expect a big, thick budget high-powered laptop to have good battery life, and this Aspire V3 managed 4 hours and 23 minutes in our video playback drain test. That's actually not bad, but laptops such as the Dell XPS 15 ran for 6 hours. Yes, you can can achieve longer battery life in a laptop this high-powered, just not in this budget model.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Acer offers a standard one-year warranty on the Aspire V3-571G-9435. Acer's Web site has plenty of support options, provided you know the product name and serial number of your laptop.

If you're shopping purely for under-the-hood performance, the Aspire Aspire V3-571G-9435 has some of the biggest bang for the buck currently available. Just be advised that the chassis and overall laptop quality, including the screen, are far from top-end.

It's an excellent pick for a value-minded shopper who needs power, but here's the question I pose you: would you rather have a more easily portable machine with better battery life that can still do most tasks very, very well? If so, I'd suggest the Acer Timeline U M5, a similarly priced laptop that's far thinner and more versatile but lacks a quad-core CPU. If you feel that's a problem and don't want to spend over $1,000, well, the Aspire V3 awaits you.

Street Fighter IV (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Native resolution, 2X AA, V Sync Off

Maingear EX-L 15

162.4 

Acer Aspire V3-571G-9435

96.4 

Dell XPS 15

73.1 

Sony Vaio S1511AGXB

51.5 

Find out more about how we test Windows laptops.

System configurations:

Acer Aspire V3-571G-9435
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM; 6GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 640M / 128MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 500GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Maingear EX-L 15
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-3820QM; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M + 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 750GB Seagate 7,200rpm

Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch w/ Retina Display (June 2012)
OS X 10.7.4 Lion; 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,600MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 650M + 512MB Intel HD 4000; 256GB Apple SSD

Dell XPS 15
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.1GHz Intel Core i7-3612QM; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 640M LE / 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 750GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Sony Vaio S1511AGXB
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 2.1GHz Intel Core i7-3612QM; 8GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 640M / 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 4000; 750GB Seagate 7,200rpm