The Acer Predator Orion 7000 (available at Amazon for $2,899.99) was built for gamers who must have the best graphics possible. Its high-end hardware and boatload of features mean high frame rates in the most punishing games (even in 4K), a ton of storage for those games, and a gorgeous RGB-lit case that’s easy to work with. While its suggested retail price is on the higher end, its design and performance feel worth the splurge, so long as you know you’re paying a premium for the desktop’s uniqueness.

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About the Acer Predator Orion 7000 gaming desktop

What we don’t Like

Lots of storage drive slots

The Predator Orion 7000 is a prebuilt gaming PC has a large, spacious case in which to work in.

The Predator Orion 7000 comes in two configurations. We tested the cheaper $2,999 configuration, which has an Intel Core i7-12700K processor, an Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card, 32GB DDR5 memory, 1TB SSD storage, and a secondary 2TB hard drive. The $4,499 configuration upgrades the processor and graphics card to an Intel Core i9-12900K and an Nvidia RTX 3090, respectively.

The Orion 7000's external storage bay makes it easy to swap data as needed, a boon for multimedia hoarders.

Some prebuilts are built as showpieces, or pretty cases meant to be looked at but never opened—not so with the Predator Orion 7000. This juggernaut of a case is easy to handle, easy to take apart and put back together, and it has plenty of space for replacing and adding components. In fact, Acer goes the extra mile by detailing how to replace every part of its PC in the Orion 7000’s user manual details exactly how to replace every part of the PC.

On the outside of the case, there’s a lot going on. There’s two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, a headphone jack, a separate 3.5mm microphone jack, and—drum roll—a storage bay. You can swap out 2.5-inch SATA drives (both hard drives and SSDs) as you please with this externally accessible storage bay, which even comes with an “eject” button that invokes memories of old car stereo CD players. Inside the case, the hard drive cage has a 2TB 3.5-inch SATA hard drive (HDD) installed, and there’s room for a second drive if you choose to install it. This is all on top of the 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD installed on the motherboard.

The GeForce RTX 3080Ti has ample air flow around it to keep it cool.

When I ran our usual benchmarks on the Orion 7000, I felt like the PC was laughing at me for giving it grade school-level work. Getting the desktop to sweat was hard—I couldn’t even hear the fans whirring when I ran Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p resolution on the ray tracing ultra preset (which ran at 73.5 frames per second, by the way).

This PC is made for 4K gaming, plain and simple. We usually conduct our benchmarks at 1080p resolution, but the Orion 7000 shines with higher resolutions. We tested the Orion 7000 with a 2560 x 1440p monitor, and most games easily ran well over 60fps with ray tracing enabled. With ray tracing disabled, Cyberpunk 2077 ran at 120fps on the ultra preset. Meanwhile, Overwatch ran at 251fps on the epic preset. When bumped down to 1080p, the Predator Orion 7000 ran Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 193fps on its highest graphics preset.

4K gaming should shine just as brightly. When we tested the Intel Core i5-12600K and Intel Core i9-12600K processors on our test bench—equipped with comparable hardware to the Orion 7000—the 12th gen Intel CPUs and RTX 3080 scored well enough to keep most games running at 4K 60fps or greater. On their highest graphics settings at 4K, Shadow of the Tomb Raider ran at 74fps, Control ran at 51fps, and Cyberpunk 2077 ran at 37fps with ray tracing enabled. Doom Eternal, a less intense game, ran at 176fps on 4K highest settings— multiplayer games like Overwatch and Fortnite should run at least as quickly.

By comparison, the NZXT Streaming PC Plus, a prebuilt with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X processor and Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics card, ran Overwatch at 120fps and Cyberpunk 2077 at 49fps with ray tracing enabled at the same 1440p presets as the Orion 7000—about half of the Orion 7000’s fps count in both games.

The included AIO water cooler is perfectly fine for the processor, but the case has enough room to swap it out for a 240mm cooler if you'd like.

Unsurprisingly, the Predator Orion 7000 runs smooth even with more intense tasks like 3D modeling and rendering. Rendering a car in Blender took just two minutes and two seconds with its Intel Core i7-12700K processor. The same task took just under four minutes on the NZXT pre-built and two minutes 44 seconds on the MSI Aegis ZS’s AMD Ryzen 7 5800X.

The Orion 7000 also scores well in benchmarks, with over 14000 points in Geekbench 5’s multicore test and 21000 points in Cinebench’s multicore test—whereas the MSI Aegis ZS scored just 8665 points in Geekbench and about 15000 points in Cinebench. It’s clear the Intel Core i7-12700K is not only leagues ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X processor but is so fast that it’ll be a long while before you’ll think of upgrading the central processor.

The included motherboard can only support a maximum of 64GB, despite its 4 DDR5 DIMM slots.

While the Orion 7000 is a feature-loaded machine, it does omit a few things that are common across the best prebuilts. While there’s enough cooling to keep the CPU and GPU from overheating when we ran them through our benchmarks, it would have been nice to have a 240mm radiator instead of the included 120mm radiator for the all-in-one (AIO) CPU water cooler. The current radiator keeps the CPU running at around 70 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Fahrenheit) when running games, but if you decide to upgrade the CPU to an Intel Core i9-12900K or similar, you’ll need to invest in a better cooler to keep it at the same temps.

Meanwhile, the 800W power supply, the motherboard, the RAM, and the storage drives are all custom-made for this PC. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to include custom parts in a pre-built, but in this case it seems like those custom parts were chosen to save money. The RAM modules are plain green printed circuit boards (PCBs), and the motherboard only supports up to 64GB of RAM instead of the more common 128GB limit on 12th gen Intel compatible motherboards.

With such a powerful CPU and GPU, it would have been awesome to have the option to install 128GB of RAM for the intense workloads seen in professional creative and scientific environments. RAM is one of the most common bottlenecks when it comes to 3D modeling, high-resolution film, physics simulation, and software development work.

The glass side panel has a hinge that makes it easy to pull off the panel without dropping it.

I’m sure someone out there appreciates the extended trials of Norton Security Ultra, the constant pop-up reminders from Acer Care Center, and the esports-dedicated social network of Planet9, but I don’t. They take up precious space on the main storage drive. Norton Security adds extra steps to installing 3rd-party apps beyond its firewall, and I felt like I was constantly having to dismiss pop-ups from Acer Care Center and Norton until I uninstalled them from the PC.

There is one really useful bundled app though: Acer’s Predator Sense control center. It provides critical temperature readings across the PC’s components, the fan speeds, and other performance stats that help monitor the PC. You can also control overclocking here, if you want to push your components past their preset limits. You don’t need Predator Sense to do any of these, but having the software pre-installed simplifies the process.

The front fans on the Orion 7000 add an eye-catching flair that's also practical.

At $2,999, the Acer Predator Orion 7000 is not just expensive—it’s pricier than some of its competitors, which have the same or similar specs for hundreds of dollars less. However, you do get some really unique benefits with the Orion 7000, like an external storage bay to quickly swap between drives, a ton of ports in the front of the case, a stylish aesthetic, and a case that’s easy to work with for repairs and upgrades.

The desktop’s incredible performance can play just about any game at 4K resolution 60fps or more on the highest graphics presets. It’s the best performance you can get unless you’re willing and able to dump four to five thousand dollars on a PC with an Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics card and Intel Core i9-12900K processor (e.g. the flagship PCs that are made for professionals working with a sizeable business budget).

The Orion 7000 has a lot of standout features, but it’s also missing some features that would be expected for its price and specs. The 120mm AIO cooler may not be powerful enough to keep a future processor cool, and the motherboard only supports up to 64GB of RAM despite having four RAM module slots. Other prebuilts (like the MSI Aegis ZS) also have heatsinks for their SSDs and power switches for their PSUs, despite costing less than the Orion 7000. If you can’t find the Orion 7000 below its suggested retail price, the MSI Aegis RS (the Aegis ZS’s big sibling) has the same processor and graphics card for $2,599—the downside is it only comes with 16GB of memory. Meanwhile, the iBuyPower TraceMR desktop offers a great value at just $2,099.

If you have the money to spend, the Orion 7000 is a great prebuilt gaming desktop, even if it’s not the best value for its specs. Its Intel Core i7-12700K processor and Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card will feel fresh and snappy for 4K gaming for years to come, and it’s an easy PC to modify. This is the PC made for gamers who expect the best without the need to fiddle and tinker for its hardware to shine.

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Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.

Adrien is a staff writer for Reviewed, mainly focused on reviewing laptops and other consumer tech. During his free time, he's usually wandering around Hyrule.

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