Well actually neither Acer nor Dell "makes" a laptop... the ebst laptop you can buy, like any desktop is the one where you pick each component that goes inside it.
The majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of Taiwan-based Original Design Manufacturers (ODM), although their production bases are located mostly in mainland China.
Major relationships include:
Quanta sells to (among others) HP, Lenovo, Apple,
Acer, Toshiba,
Dell, Sony, Fujitsu and NEC
Compal sells to (among others)
Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo and HP/Compaq
Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of
Acer) sells to
Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP
Inventec sells to Toshiba, HP,
Dell and Lenovo
Pegatron sells to Asus, Toshiba, Apple,
Dell and Acer
Foxconn sells to Asus,
Dell, HP and Apple
Flextronics sells to HP
Clevo sells to "boutique" vendors who cater to the gaming and enthusiast market. Distributors start with barebones chassis and than add 1 of several options for each component.
The mass market vendors sucker you in with name brand CPus, GFX cards and then stick ya with no name brand memory, storage, RAM etc. And, as you can see above, both Dell's and Acer's laptops are made on the same productions lines using the same parts so doesn't leave you much upon which to base a decision on one way or the other.
As for thermal management, one thing I learned with thr mass market vendors ... if ya take the base CPU and don't OC you are generally OK, if you upgrade, stick with the custom built lappies as there cooling systems are large, copper and capable of pushing it.
We have used nothing but Clevo lappies for about 10 years now. Clevo was the original supplier of Aliewnware laptops which is where Alienware gained their fame ... then they went downhill when purchased by dell.
http
/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/clevo-guide-v2-0-faq-and-reseller-info.91510/
CLEVO is a large Taiwanese computer company specializing in laptops. While the Clevo brand name is perhaps not widely known, their products are re-branded and sold by known boutique brand OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers)… notably Sager, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Eurocom, etc. They are also considered (by whoever knows about notebooks) to design and manufacturer the best of the best notebooks in terms of superior build quality and innovative designs.
Established in 1983, as an ODM (Original Design Manufacturer), they sell barebones ranging from laptop to portable computing solutions for both AMD and Intel processors. Clevo is one of the world's most preferred ODM partners and markets their products in more than 50 countries, and have established service centers in the USA, Germany, Britain, China, and Taiwan.
For the last 10 years, we have used nothing but Clevo lappies, the last 7 years or so from LPCdigital. Using $1650 as budget and with upgrades to what ya looking w/ the Dell in bold
NP8173 / P670RS -
Gets ya a $60 game
https
/lpc-digital.com/product/sager-np8173-clevo-p670rs/
Free WATCH DOGS 2 for GeForce GTX 1080 or 1070 Powered Notebook
17.3” Full HD (1920 x 1080) Clear LG
IPS MATTE
G-SYNC™ Technology
NVIDIA® GeForce™
GTX 1070 GPU with 8GB GDDR5 NVIDIA PASCAL™
6th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)
16GB Dual Channel DDR4 2400MHz (PC4 19200)Memory (2 x 8GB)
SanDisk X400
256GB M.2 SSD - Primary C Drive
1 TB HGST 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s
Hard Drive
Intel® Dual Band Ultra Wireless-AC 8260 M.2 AC + Bluetooth 4.2 Combo
LIFETIME Limited Labor and
2 Years Premium** Parts Warranty
Cash Price: $1,691 ... $1,759 w/ OS installed
With the game, the Dell's price would be about $1,685 ...so for the extra $68, you get:
G-Sync capable monitor
Big step up in GFX
Twice as big SSD
A 1 TB hard drive as opposed to none
Name brand wireless
The Killer wireless is a $15 upgrade at LPC, $25 at Dell
Twice the parts warranty and lifetime phone and labor coverage.
If ya willing to settle for the 1060, you get everything selected above in the base price... tho, no free game fir just $1,386 ...$1,454 w/ windows installed.
That's $200 below Dell and you get all those upgrades.
https
/lpc-digital.com/product/sager-np8172-special-clevo-p670rp6/
Notes:
1. Clevo distributors are prohibited from advertising prices below certain levels... everywhere ya look, prices are always the same. You can, and will et a discount if you call and ask, the size of which is proportional to what you spend... higher the price, the larger the discount. Read the FAQ:
https
/lpc-digital.com/faq/
2. Credit card fees cost vendors money. I pay by business check or wire transfer when we buy / all prices are "cash" prices. Acceptable cash payment methods are:
Bank Online payments (Bill Pay, Sure Pay, etc), Wire Transfers, Bank Cashier’s Checks, Company checks, money orders personal check from Wells Fargo. personal checks from other banks will have to clear before shipment.