Acer Predator Orion 3000
Not as slick as the HP Omen 25L, but it reaps the benefit of an RTX 3070 card and we can’t argue with the price
SCORE
PRICE As reviewed, £1,250 (£1,500 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk
On the surface, there are many similarities between Acer’s gaming PC and the HP Omen 25L. They both benefit from a customdesigned case, giving them a style lift over their British rivals, and as they aren’t built to order you can buy them near-instantly – if they’re in stock.
Curiously, Acer supplies the Orion 3000 with a metal side but includes a glass side in the box. It’s easy to swap these, but you will need a crosshead screwdriver to do so. Perhaps Acer defaulted to the metal side because the insides look so cramped: the huge RTX 3070 graphics card dominates, but we found our eyes continually drawn to the plethora of cables.
A lack of space compounded by the size of the card makes it a tricky case to work inside. For instance, there’s less than 2mm clearance between the DIMM socket clamps and the top of the graphics card; you may find it easier to remove the card before adding to the two 8GB HyperX Fury DIMMs
Acer supplies, giving a 16GB total.
Also note there’s no second M.2 slot on the motherboard. If you want more space than the supplied 512GB SSD and 1TB hard disk then your easiest route is to fill the spare 3.5in bay – this is a toolless caddy with power and SATA connectors in situ.
The Predator looks its best from the front, with an RGB fan to add some colour. Acer supplies its own software to control this, and it syncs with the LEDs inside and even the triangular power button on the front. An integrated carry handle is another neat touch, as is a pop-out headset holder, while a discreet cover hides two 3.5mm jacks and a pair of fast USB 3.2 ports: one Type-C, one Type-A.
It’s a shame that the six rearmounted USB-A ports are slower, with four USB 3.1 (5Mbits/sec) and two USB 2 ports that are only good for connecting a mouse and keyboard. Aside from a trio of 3.5mm jacks, the only other rear-mounted connector is for the Gigabit Ethernet port. If you intend to rely on wireless, we suggest you position the Orion in a strong area: Acer eschews physical antennae for the Wi-Fi 6 card in favour of a “bump” at the rear. This worked fine in our bijou testing space, but we prefer adjustable antennae. There’s also no spare PCIe slot for adding your own expansion card.
A 500W power supply – with no 80 Plus rating – is another limiting factor for expansionists, so as with the HP Omen 25L we’d say the Orion 3000 makes best sense if you’re happy with the existing spec. Here, however, we must couch the good news with some bad. The main “problem” is that the Orion 3000 we tested included a Core i7-10700 processor, which is tenthgeneration silicon. We hesitate to use the word slow, but there’s no hiding from the benchmarks: it actually falls behind the 11th-gen Core i5 chips.
The comparative weakness of the 10thgeneration silicon is most obvious in single-core tasks. For example, in Cinebench R23 it scored 1,273 versus 1,587 for the PCSpecialist Opal R (Ryzen 7) and 1,552 for the Chillblast Fusion Cruiser (Ryzen 5). You’ll see the same pattern repeated in the single-core Geekbench
5 graphs on p92.
The Core i7-10700 also weakened the Orion’s results in CPU-limited games. This came to the fore at 1440p where it was slower than the Opal R in several tests: 239fps in F1 2020 versus 303fps, 181fps in Metro: Last Light versus 254fps, 162fps in Dirt:
Showdown versus 250fps.
The RTX 3070 is the decisive factor in more demanding games, though. At 4K in Wolfenstein: Youngblood, with RTX and DLSS on, the Opal R was only marginally faster at 129fps versus 119fps. They scored identically in Metro Exodus at 4K (57fps) and 1440p (94fps), and likewise there was nothing to separate them in Hitman 2
(78fps at 1080p, around 50fps at
1440p and 22fps at 4K).
The results above demonstrate that you can buy this PC with confidence that it will play the latest games at challenging settings. And generally you will benefit from a quiet-running system, even if fan noise jumps when pushed in tough games. If you don’t mind waiting for a bespoke PC such as the Opal R, that’s probably your best option, but if you want instant satisfaction – and you can find a spec you like in stock – the Acer Predator Orion 3000 won’t let you down.