Deal | $1,000 off: Acer Predator Helios 18 AI with RTX 5090 and mini-LED display is now on sale

The sad reality of today’s desktop gaming landscape is that 4K gaming requires thousands of dollars. For instance, despite an official MSRP of $1,999, you’d be hard-pressed to find an RTX 5090 below $2,400 on retailers like Amazon. Add in the cost of other components like a flagship CPU and a high-refresh-rate display, and a 4K-capable desktop PC could easily cost $4,000 or more.

Most gamers don’t have that kind of money. This is where RTX 5080/5090 gaming laptops come in as more reasonable options for folks who want to enjoy 4K gaming. Granted, such machines are expensive, costing north of $2,000. However, gaming notebooks are often on sale at big discounts, which makes it possible to buy an RTX 5090 gaming laptop at a much lower price.

Case in point, Best Buy is now offering the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop for $3,499.99, a $1,000 discount. The laptop brings a flagship RTX 5090 mobile GPU with a 175 W TGP, a Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, 64 GB of DDR5 RAM, 2 TB of Gen 5 storage, and a per-key RGB keyboard. Users can also upgrade the RAM and storage, courtesy of four RAM and three SSD slots. 

The front of the laptop is dominated by an 18-inch 4K Mini-LED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. The panel can be run at either 4K@120 Hz or FDH@240 Hz, covers 100% DCI-P3 gamut, features 1,000 nits of brightness, and has Nvidia Advanced Optimus. So, gamers should find the display more than enough for both gaming and content creation.

The combination of the RTX 5090 and the 24-core Core Ultra 9 275HX should be powerful enough for smooth 4K gaming. While we haven’t tested the RTX 5090-based configuration of the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI, we have extensively benchmarked the RTX 5090 in other machines. The GPU is extremely fast and can hang with desktop cards like the RTX 5080 (Available on Amazon).

Be sure to check out our detailed review of the RTX 5080-based Acer Predator Helios 18 AI to know more details like the chassis, inputs, storage/Wi-Fi performance, and more.

Suffice it to say, if you want a desktop-replacement, the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI with the RTX 5090 is among the fastest gaming laptops on the market. At the current discount, the machine is worth looking into.