For anybody who is not living under a rock then you certainly would know about typically the Acer Aspire Predator. It抯 captivated the industry with its engineered motherboard, over-the-top specs, all draped in among the many sexiest casings, known to make sure you mankind.
Under the Bonnet
It comes with all the main advantages of unified hardware and none for the drawback as Acer will certainly let enthusiasts to overclock or change parts without any harm to the manufacturer's warranty. It抯 the console of PCs but without the lame.
So how does one benchmark a pre-built PC? It抯 not like quite a huge number of high performance pre-built computers out truth be told there. In fact the only other machine worth mentioning would be Alienware but getting one of those pertaining to reviews is near hopeless. It was decided that this Predator should be rough against our Intel not to mention AMD test beds to generate some clarity.
The Predator features some impressive specs. The review model had an Intel Core a couple of Quad Q9550, 8GB DDR2 300 memory, 2x 9800GTXs in addition to a total of 1TB harddrive space. Combine that all which has a DVD Writer, a Blu Ray/DVD copy writer drive, a Creative X-Fi Us platinum, and the most notable of cases and you get the impression the Predator is not a machine to get taken lightly.
The entire package also ships which has a Logitech G5 laser gaming mouse along with Logitech G 11 key board demonstrating that Acer chop exactly zero corners.
The predator is just good looking too; while actually a top notch plastic, the case is functional and even being attractive. The 120mm radiator fanatic is ninja grade quiet even more than capable of keeping the modest water-cooling install under wraps. Acer has included a hot swappable system for those hard drives complete by using clearly labeled OS drive which will keep the noobs from wounding their OS while allowing average folks to frantically copy Linux distros within the next LAN. These drives are hidden behind a bit of door which is worryingly weak and ends up in fears of snapped plastic-type material and tears. The optical drive bays get hold of claw-like doors that look really impressive in the mean time being the biggest throwback to machines namesake; a buttocks ugly alien.
This is all covered by the main door which in turn opens Lamborghini style. Ladies multi card reader which has a USB 2. 0 opening, and if your USB flash drive isn't really excessively large then ?t's going to easily fit behind the main door. On the the surface of the case are more HARDWARE, FireWire, and eSATA ports - in the event that your Lambo door will be closed.
The accompanying Acer G24 24" LCD is a story naturally. Worthy of a independent review, it regularly stirred oohs and aaahs from everyone who saw it. With its burnt red bezel the Acer G24 not simply has the looks so that you can accompany the Predator in addition it has the image quality to carry out the Predator justice.
People cannot however, forget approximately our test rigs. Our AMD test rig comes dressed up in a Lian Li ArmorSuit PC-P80 which usually AMD had customized which has a Spider/Crossfire theme. This custom case provides a price tag of over $700, which in addition to be able to making us gulp will typically be factored into a person's final conclusion. AMD even went as much as to have green as well as red cold cathode florescent lights fitted. AMD combined its Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition by using a Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H, 4GB Adata DDR2-800, as well as top it all from the Sapphire HD4870X2.
The Intel test rig is normally significantly older and somewhat less impressive over the looks side. It carries a Raidmax Aztec chassis but we popped within the recent review processor on the shape of the awesome Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 to compensate. Intel threw in most of the D975XBX2 board and 2GB DDR3-1066 memory space. The system originally included a 8800GT but most people swopped this out by having a 8800GTX that we had going swimming. The value of the AMD system is mostly a nice round $2100 although the Intel rig tops in at a $2600; both these rigs are around half immediately the Acer Predator, making for the interesting comparison.
The predators biggest strength was that this was an all round gladiator, every component was top notch and this is the reason we setup our rigs that should be better in just one particular department. Our tests covered a SuperPi 1. 5 mod 1M go, a Cinebench Rl0 several core run, a rounded of H264 encoding, 3DMark Vantage, 3DMark summer, and of course Crysis and World incompatible. The results were not even close shocking. All CPU intensive benchmarks were during the Intel's favor with the Predator priced a close second; while all GPU biased medical tests saw the AMD released tops with the Predator priced second.
What we did learn was that this Phenom X4 9950 END UP BEING really lets its procedure down, and the results go to show once again that if AMD are looking for any chance of making a direct impact on the high effectiveness desktop market there should be a vastly superior snack and soon. Popping slightly more powerful AMD GPU in the Intel machine would for sure tear the predator an exciting new one but that a great deal should already be painfully obvious. The Predator appear to be the perfect middle ground regarding performance and convenience it also is priced beyond madness and most enthusiasts will scoff at spending a huge amount of on a fairly beneficial pre-built system
For far less you can build a water cooled system with over just a mid-range quad key and two previous age group CPUs. Why the Predator doesn't incorporate at least two GTX 260's is mostly a mystery, it's not for instance Predator was assembled two year period ago; in fact all the test unit had production labels dated as a short while ago as August 2008. Any Predator looks awesome, and once you work out how to remove the side panel also, you see inside you realize just how much effort Acer actually went through. The Predator is a good looking PC, it looks wonderful, it performs well, but isn't worth the asking value of $4000. The AMD and Intel test machines are powerful rigs far beyond average Joe's spending plan but still half immediately the Predator.
Acer designed the Predator to generally be the ultimate solution for non-enthusiasts to perceive what the enthusiasts experience and towards we salute them, but unfortunately they need now taken it from just as one enthusiasts-only experience to your wealthy-only experience.
Acer knows it boasts a good reputation and are banking on the reality that consumers are always concered about warranty to make the Predator a stylish solution rather than receiving a custom rig from any local PC shop, but each and every a warranty have include such a hefty price tag?
