Acer’s Predator machines have been prowling the higher echelons of the PC world for a few years now, but the latest addition to the range, the G5900, weighs in at only £480.
It’s probably the cheapest PC with gaming pretensions we’ve come across and, while others in this price bracket make do with flimsy, bland cases, the Predator is something of a shock to the system. It certainly doesn’t look like a budget PC: the front is dominated by bulbous black plastic, and it’s liberally scattered with the orange accents that made the original Predator so distinctive. The whole chassis stands at a slight angle, too, adding to the dramatic effect.
Acer has kitted out the Predator with more unusual features: press a button on the front and a flap lowers, revealing two spring-loaded, hot-swappable hard disk cages; and the optical drive’s disc tray slides out from behind an angled door. While these feel a little flimsy, build quality is good for the money. If we were told this PC cost twice the price, we wouldn’t be surprised.
Pop the side panel off, though, and the Predator begins to show its true colours. The interior is made from bare metal, the motherboard tray is hardly utilised, and a bargain-basement power supply trails cables throughout the interior. It’s not quite as messy as recent Medion or Advent machines, though – at least all the main components are accessible.
Upgrade room is a mixed bag too. The two hot-swappable drive bays are accompanied by one free side-facing 3.5in bay (which can be removed, if you’d like to install a longer graphics card) and there’s a pair of 5.25in bays vacant. A pair of free DIMM sockets can only handle an additional 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and there are only a couple of SATA/300 sockets free.
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