The Acer Predator G1 is super fast and quiet

This article is more than 12 months old

Sep 23, 2016 06:00 am

REVIEW BY MIKE LEE

Don't judge a book by its cover.

The Acer Predator G1 may look small, but inside beats the heart of a high-end gaming machine that offers immediate gaming bliss.

Our review unit came with top specs - the latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card, 6th generation Intel Core i7-6700 processor and a whopping 16GB of RAM. Pretty much all the horsepower you'll need to run the most demanding games in ultra-high resolution is right here.

Usually, computer gaming hobbyists would need to build their own machines to get the raw power they crave, but now it works out of the box.

To get started, just plug in the two power adapters, the wired keyboard and mouse, and hook it up to your monitor. For this review, Acer loaned us an XB-1 Gaming Monitor too.

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I was pleasantly surprised that both the 16-litre chassis of the Predator G1 and the 27-inch XB-1, plus the bundled keyboard and mouse, took up less space on my already cramped desk than expected.

For that matter, the compact chassis can be comfortably carried around to LAN gaming parties. Its arrow-inspired design aesthetic will also attract admiring looks.

Meanwhile, the XB-1 sports a minimalist design with super-slim bezels. Mounted on a nifty red base, its screen is easily height-adjustable.

Booting up the Predator G1 is amazingly fast with the 512GB SSD (solid state drive) used for the operating system. A 2TB 7,200rpm hard disk provides additional data storage capacity.

If you must have the smoothest Internet connection for gaming, the Predator's Killer DoubleShot Pro feature let you use your wired and wireless connections simultaneously for speedy downloads. You can even prioritise your bandwidth usage via the Killer Network Manager.

It took me just minutes to install the latest games, including the Fifa 17 demo. After setting all the rendering settings to maximum, the Predator churned out breathtakingly detailed graphics at the XB-1's 2560 x 1440 resolution.

"The players look so real," exclaimed my wife. I even noticed details like arm veins and glistening beads of sweat on the soccer stars.

You won't be sweating over the need for speed. The Predator G1 supports 4K2K Ultra High Definition visuals, and G-Sync - supported by the XB-1 too - synchronises display refresh rates to the graphics processor.

All this translates into all-round buttery smooth gaming. For those into synthetic benchmarks, the review set scored 15,915 and 6,254 in 3D Mark Fire Strike and Time Spy respectively.

Acer's PredatorSense software let you check and control system vitals such as CPU temperature and fan speeds, and also adjust the multicoloured "growl lights" on the Predator's front chassis.

The PC is kept cool with its IceTunnel Cooling system, with airflow channelled through front and left and expelled from the rear.

The fans run quietly. I never noticed them during intensive processes like gaming, working on photos in Adobe Lightroom, or exporting video files with Handbrake.

In any case, you will want to have your gaming or music audio levels up to fully enjoy the immersive sounds piped out by the Predator's Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi MB5 and 7.1 channel audio support.

If you are using headsets, you can even hang two of them by the side of the chassis with slide-out cradles.

With such thoughtful design coupled with sheer processing power, I would consider the Predator G1 seriously if I were in the market for a premium gaming PC.

ACER PREDATOR G1-710