Acer Predator Orion 3000 review: Compact gaming PC power

Best Prices Today: Acer Predator Orion 3000 (PO3-650-UR17)

$1408.99

$1,462.99

The Acer Predator Orion 3000 is an attractively compact prebuilt gaming PC that mixes a strong 13th-gen Intel Core i7 with a strong midrange GPU, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070. It won’t be as configurable as we’d like, but it surely’s a strong choice for high-performance 1080p and 1440p gaming.

PCWorld sometimes caters to the DIY viewers, the place we encourage you to purchase separate parts and construct a completed PC. (Check out our YouTube channel for builds, breakdowns and extra.) But every thing from GPU shortages to only plain comfort also can push you to purchasing a prebuilt gaming PC.

You often have one in all three instructions to pursue: purchase from a boutique builder like Falcon Northwest, which might order and configure the correct mix of elements; purchase a prebuilt from an organization that buys and combines third-party parts; or choose from a producer like Asus, which both makes its personal parts or works immediately with third-party suppliers.

Prebuilt gaming PCs are available in quite a lot of sizes and shapes; you’ll desire a compact mannequin just like the Acer Predator Orion 3000 should you’d like to save lots of desk area. Smaller fashions can sacrifice airflow and future enlargement capabilities.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

The Acer Predator Orion 3000 (PO3-650-UR17) is on the market in a single configuration, listed under, although you’re clearly free to improve it your self. I couldn’t discover it on Acer’s United States website, although it’s out there in Canada. Customers dwelling within the United States can purchase it from both Amazon or Newegg.

You’ll must pair this PC with a great gaming monitor. We’ve bought tried-and-tested ideas.

Acer Predator Orion 3000 (P03-650-UR17) specs:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-13700F
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 w/12GB GDDR6X video reminiscence
• Memory:  16GB DDR5-4400
• Storage: 1 TB M.2 PCIe Gen4
• Ports: 1 USB-C (20Gps, 2×2); 1 USB-A (10Gbps), 2 USB-A (5Gbps), 4 USB-A (480Mbps); 3 DisplayPort 1.4a; 1 HDMI 2.1, RJ-45 (Ethernet)
• Wired Connection: Killer E2600 Gigabit Ethernet
• Wireless: WiFi 6e (AX211); Bluetooth 5.3
• Operating system: Windows 11 Home
• Dimensions (inches): 14.84 x 6.89 x 15.16in
• Weight: 24.5 kilos
• Colors: Black
• Also within the field: Keyboard, mouse, glass window
• Price: $1,699.99

Acer Predator Orion 3000: construct and chassis

Out of the field, Acer’s Predator Orion 3000 is fairly easy. The field contains the chassis, the facility wire, and some extras: a mouse and keyboard in addition to an non-compulsory glass aspect panel. That’s a pleasant contact, particularly if you need a greater view of the interior parts in addition to a manner for the interior RGB lighting to light up your bed room, workplace, or den. Otherwise, a few of the inner RGB is considerably muted.

Acer charges this compact little 18-liter minitower at about 15 inches tall by 15 inches deep — lower than the peak of a monitor, which makes it acceptable for both on prime of or beneath your desk. Acer mentioned that the case is a customized design, and the motherboard is, too. The included graphics card is made by “one of the largest ODM/OEM graphics makers,” an Acer consultant mentioned.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

I choose to maintain my desktops under my desk, out of the way in which. Acer didn’t actually design the Predator Orion 3000 for that configuration, nonetheless, as solely the facility button is top-mounted. All of the opposite ports are on the I/O panel on the rear (as anticipated) or on the fitting aspect of the entrance panel, which features a USB-A port, 3.5mm jacks for headphones and mics, and the 20Gbps USB-C port to attach an exterior high-throughput SSD for gaming.

At 24.5 kilos, the chassis is simple sufficient to carry out of the field with an angled design that enables it to be gripped from the highest, through a deal with. Acer contains rubber toes on the underside of the chassis, which retains it from sliding about however will even imply that it’s a must to carry it up even for small changes.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Acer Predator Orion 3000: Cooling and ports

Cooling is supplied by two 92mm FrostBlade 2.0 followers — one on the entrance, and one on the rear –with 4 RGB LEDs mounted on the entrance and rear followers. These followers could be configured through the PredatorSense utility that Acer ships as a default app on most if not all of its gaming merchandise. Additional followers are mounted on the CPU and GPU, all managed by PredatorSense.

Air is pulled in from the entrance via a fan mounted on the backside of the case, then routed via the chassis the place it both exits through the rear exhaust fan or via a grille on the prime of the case. Airflow seems to be simply okay, although satisfactory for this design.

The cables aren’t sleeved, and this isn’t one of many newest premium cable-free designs, after all. One cable additionally traversed the entrance of the rear exhaust fan.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Acer says that the arced fan blade design helps maintain the system cool whereas lowering noise, and I’d agree. The Predator Orion 3000 retains very quiet, whether or not it’s sitting idle on the desktop or underneath load. There was no distracting coil whine, both.

While some prebuilt PCs don’t shrink back from utilizing third-party parts, Acer badges principally every thing underneath the Predator model: the GPU, the reminiscence (from Adata, hidden behind a Predator defend which populates two out of the 4 out there DIMM slots) and an nameless 500W (80 Plus Gold) energy provide.

The exception is an PCIe Gen 4 SSD from SK Hynix, which fills an M.2 slot. (The different M.2 slot, beneath the graphics card, is crammed by the Intel AX211NGW Wi-Fi/Bluetooth controller.) There are two bodily 3.5-inch drive bays, each vacant.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

On the rear of the chassis lie the remainder of the ports: the three DisplayPort 1.4a ports in addition to the HDMI 2.1 port for connecting any out there shows; after which the bevy of six USB-A ports on the again. None are marked, nonetheless. Acer tells me that the underside two ports are rated at 5 Gbps, with the rest supplying 480Mbits of legacy throughput. There are an extra three audio jacks right here, too.

Acer Predator Orion 3000: Expansion and configurability

Acer tells me that each the motherboard and case are customized, so that you most likely received’t be capable of swap out the motherboard for an improve. It even seems that a part of the motherboard disappears into the case itself in a single spot.

Acer contains the choice to swap out the aspect panel (a metallic grille) for one fabricated from EMI-compliant tempered glass. Acer makes this simple and handy; two screws join the present aspect panel, and they are often eliminated through a screwdriver so you’ll be able to slide the panel out. The tempered glass alternative has padding across the edge to dampen any vibration and to seal within the airflow. Attaching it’s as simple as lining up the screw holes and tightening them. You can screw them in with a flat-head screwdriver, however hand-tightening appeared to work simply tremendous.

I don’t see an excessive amount of further area for enlargement, nonetheless. Two of the DRAM slots are empty, permitting for a most of 64GB if crammed utterly. Both 3.5-inch drive bays can be found, too. But you’ll need to take away the Wi-Fi card to entry the second M.2 slot, mounted beneath the graphics card; in any other case, the inventory SSD fills the primary. The Predator Orion 3000’s case doesn’t seem to go away sufficient room for extra followers, both.

Part of the chassis juts outward within the entrance, housing the enter fan. But that a part of the chassis actually doesn’t appear to be (simply) user-accessible, although Acer says that it’s by eradicating the aspect panel and a few screws. It really seems that it could be detachable through collection of plastic pegs, however I couldn’t budge it.

The graphics card could be eliminated by unscrewing a screw on the skin of the case, which secures the mounting bracket that ships with the Predator Orion 3000. Two extra screws safe the cardboard’s bracket internally, and the cable runs make accessing them harder than they most likely must be. The graphics card can then be indifferent from the bracket itself. There’s not an entire lot of play within the Predator’s mounting bracket, most likely lower than an inch, so that you’ll want a card whose size can match the bracket, about 10.5 inches. I initially tried detaching the cardboard from the interior bracket utilizing an offset ratcheting screwdriver to get the cardboard out, however gave up. The cable meeting didn’t give me sufficient area to entry each retaining screws.

The Predator Orion 3000 doesn’t have any mud filters, which signifies that you will have to periodically open the case and attempt to blow out any lint or hair that penetrates the inside. That may very well be a difficulty, on condition that entrance meeting.

Acer additionally features a small mouse and primary keyboard contained in the field, including to the worth. Both are good starter peripherals, and helpful should you’re migrating from a laptop computer outfitted with a keyboard and touchpad. The keyboard, although slender, has a full keypad to the fitting and is definitely pretty snug to sort upon, although it lacks a top adjustment. The mouse is a primary three-button mouse with scroll wheel, not rated for any specific body charge. It slides simply, however I’d nonetheless advocate that you choose from our recommended gaming mice (and favorite gaming keyboards) as a substitute.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Acer Predator Orion 3000: Performance

As a re-entrance into the world of prebuilt gaming desktops, we don’t have any present pre-built desktops to match Acer’s Predator Orion 3000 to. For now, we’re going to match it to plenty of gaming notebooks — it’s not ultimate, however you’ll additionally understand how this desktop compares to the much less highly effective however cell variations of this technique.

I used inventory settings for testing, which included the “Auto” settings in PredatorSense.

Regardless, a few of the similar benchmarks apply. I examined the Acer Predator Orion 3000 (P03-650-UR17) utilizing PCMark 10, a great general benchmark that measures efficiency throughout a number of purposes, from net shopping, CAD work, and light-weight gaming; together with Cinebench, which measures the relative CPU efficiency. In 3D graphics, we’ve caught with 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmarks as a common indicator of 3D efficiency.

In common, the 13th-gen Acer Predator Orion, with a barely slower GPU, appeared to outperform every thing however the MSI Raider, which must be at or close to the height of 14th-gen cell gaming {hardware}. One exception was PCMark, the place it completed atop the heap.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Flip that on its head, although, when the Core i9 laptops come out to play. Yes, the desktop structure performs nicely, however the Raider nonetheless beats it. Easily.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

That’s it for the CPU-centric benchmarks, although. Since this can be a gaming PC, we glance subsequent on the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark.

The outcomes aligned with the way you would possibly count on: The laptops with higher-end RTX 4000-series GPUs cluster on the prime. The desktop-class RTX 4070 helps elevate the Acer Predator Orion 3000’s efficiency, although.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Since this can be a gaming PC, after all, we’ve additionally added a number of video games to the combo: Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Metro: Exodus, and Cyberpunk 2077. As a rule, avid gamers use 60 fps as absolutely the minimal for gaming — and it sometimes is dependent upon the sport. A body charge of 90 fps is most well-liked, with even smoother, higher experiences produced by larger body charges.

We can examine the Predator Orion 3000 to the notebooks, however a lot of the video games we’ve examined appear playable. Note that we sometimes take a look at at 1080p, nonetheless, so a better decision will lead to slower body charges. In common, the RTX 4070 ought to ship distinctive 1080p and 1440p gaming alike, particularly once you flip on Nvidia’s numerous DLSS options in video games that help it.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Rise of the Tomb Raider is a 2015 third-person motion sport developed by Crystal Dynamics, the place Lara Croft jumps, scrambles, and shoots her manner via Tibet. We take a look at at 1080p utilizing “Very High” settings, and the Predator Orion chews via the sport.

Though the 2018 sequel, Shadow, was developed by Eidos-Montreal, although utilizing an enhanced model of the Foundation engine developed by Crystal Dynamics. Again, the Predator Orion 3000 has no issues.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Metro: Exodus is a 2019 first-person shooter, which tracks the protagonist throughout the post-apocalyptic Moscow steppe. It makes use of the 4A Engine from 4A Games. We run our exams at 1080p decision utilizing the Extreme setting.

Here, the Predator Orion 3000 struggles with the elevated complexity of the scenes. A framerate of 72 fps might be marginal for a lot of avid gamers.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Mark Hachman / IDG

Since we added Cyberpunk to our testing repertoire comparatively not too long ago, we don’t have a collection of notebooks to match it to. But we are able to say that the Predator Orion 3000 delivered 116 frames per second at 1080p, Ultra settings, with none upscaling energetic. That’s barely lower than the 123 fps that the MSI Raider delivered — so the pocket book wins that spherical.

One word: You won’t care about AI efficiency, however the rule of thumb appears to be that VRAM is king. This RTX 4070 contains 12GB of GDDR VRAM; if AI issues, you would possibly need to select (one other) PC with extra VRAM, maybe working an RTX 4060TI with 16GB of VRAM.

Should you purchase the Acer Predator Orion 3000?

Charging $1700 for a 13th-gen Core i7 mixed with an RTX 4070 appears cheap, although it additionally appears cheap to imagine you’ll need to spend about $55 or so and fill the out there RAM slots with an extra 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR5 DRAM. That’s the one actual (semi-)shortcoming, on paper, that wants addressing, and in the true world, the inventory 16GB of reminiscence ought to maintain up simply tremendous within the overwhelming majority of video games.

Otherwise, the Acer Predator Orion 3000 is a pleasant, compact desktop that might use some enhancements in cable administration, however affords some value-added options just like the aspect panel, mouse and keyboard. All of these add as much as make the Acer Predator Orion 3000 a great worth for 1080p and 1440 gaming.