Acer AspireG Predator Trooper

Verdict: [+] PredatorDistinctive case; good build quality
[-] JuniorMerely adequate cooling; struggles with Crysis; no soundcard; pricey for the performance on offer

Science fiction creatures don't come much cooler than the star of the 1987 Arnie flick 'Predator', so naming a PC after the invisible hunter gives Acer's new AspireG Predator PC some big, stealth-camouflage boots to fill. Acer has taken aesthetic inspiration from the creature, from the PC's armour-like exterior plates to the mandible-like covers for the optical drives. Although it resembles a cross between a Predator, a tank and a stealth satsuma, everyone who laid eyes on this PC had positive things to say about its appearance. SPECIFICATIONS
The dramatic-looking case houses a liquid-cooled Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 running at its stock speed of 2.66GHz, while a pair of Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX graphics cards in SLI take care of gaming.Our Trooper system is in the middle of the range of four models on offer, and has 4GB of PC-6400 (800MHz) DDR2 memory, with timings set to 6-6-6-18. Acer has used the 64-bit version of Vista Home Premium to allow the PC to address all the memory. LIQUID COOLING
The CPU is the only liquid-cooled component in the machine. Acer has used Asetek's LCLC, which HP also uses in its Blackbird Dream PC, and which NorthQ rebrands as the dire NQ-3580 Siberian Tiger.The single fan on the 120mm radiator is the only dedicated exhaust fan in the system, so the air that passes over the radiator is hot from the rest of the components, which impacts on its cooling efficiency. Under full load, the CPU ran at 81°C, while the GPUs hit a more reasonable 65°C.OTHER COOLING
Acer's flashy Predator mini-site claims its use of the LCLC means that only the single slow-spinning fan of the radiator is needed to cool the Predator. However, apart from the two fans on the graphics cards and the PSU fan, Acer has also seen fit to add a whiney 40mm fan to the Northbridge heatsink, as well as tucking a 60mm fan into the lowest 3.5in bay.The 60mm fan attempts to blow air through a hole in the floor of the 3.5in bay into the hard disk caddy, but airflow to the fan is so restricted that it shifts very little. The Predator has sliding server-style hard disk caddies - you simply open the door in the lower section of the front and slide your disks in and out without even needing to shut down the PC. Acer has helpfully marked the disk that houses Windows with a clear warning sticker too.With little direct cooling of the disk bays, we're concerned that hard disks may be more prone to overheating, and therefore likely to fail. SPECIFICATIONS
The Acer-branded motherboard uses the Nvidia nForce 780i chipset, while a Delta Electronics 750W PSU dishes out power, providing a fairly standard four 12V rails rated at 18A each. Storage is provided in the form of two 640GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS hard disks, one of which is partitioned to provide a 250GB storage drive, with the rest dedicated to the OS.Sound is handled by the adequate Realtek ALC888 codec on the motherboard, although we're disappointed by the lack of a dedicated sound card in a £1,700 PC. As the four Predator models have fixed configurations, you have to buy a more expensive model to obtain a dedicated sound card. However, the Predator's one-year warranty allows you to add and change the hardware without voiding your cover. Even with the two dual-slot graphics cards installed, there are still two free PCI slots and one free 1x PCI-E slot. There are also two hard disk bays and two external 5.25in bays free. The Trooper system offers Blu-ray in the form of LiteOn's DH401S Blu-ray reader (which also writes DVDs), as well as a DVD writer. Press the eject button for these drives and the disc tray pushes out a pair of mandibles that resemble the Predator's four-pronged mouth. The Predator's overall build quality is particularly strong. The exterior is manufactured from tough, high-grade plastic, which is fixed securely to steel construction beneath. The lifting mechanism for the front panel, while a touch jiggly, works well and the front door sits neatly on top of the PC when up. Inside, Acer has opted to hide the messy cabling with moulded plastic sheets. PERFORMANCE The Predator didn't fare well in our benchmarks, with an overall score of only 1,099. Maybe our terrible Arnie impersonations put it off, but this isn't a great score for such a pricey PC. Matters improved a little for the Predator when gaming. Call of Duty 4 and Race Driver: GRID were playable at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA - the former game running with a 49fps minimum and the latter a 47fps minimum.Crysis was a different story, as this game hates multi-GPU setups. With SLI enabled, we saw a 16fps minimum and 23fps average at 1,280 x 1,024. Disabling the second graphics card made the game run at a minimum of 22fps and an average of 36fps. OVERCLOCKING
The need for more speed was obvious, so we set about overclocking the Predator. Acer's BIOS is unintuitive, with the overclocking controls on the right-hand side of the main menu. It displays the FSB after quad-pumping is taken into account too, which forced us to use a calculator a little too often for our liking. You can add extra voltage and FSB frequency by hitting the plus and minus keys, even though the options look greyed out. As the LCLC is only marginally better at cooling than a lemming, the CPU temperature is the first limiting factor to consider when overclocking. By increasing the FSB to 425MHz (1,700MHz effective) and the CPU voltage to 1.5V, we achieved a 3.4GHz clock speed. This was stable, but the CPU reached 98°C under full load, which is far from ideal.The overclock boosted the CPC benchmark scores to a more respectable 1,846 points in the video encoding test, and a score of 1,261 overall. With SLI disabled and the overclock applied, Crysis ran at a 24fps minimum and a 40fps average at 1,280 x 1,024. CONCLUSION Acer has clearly pushed itself with the Predator. The case looks excellent and the mandibles on the optical drives and the hot-swappable hard disks are cool touches. It's also good to know that upgrading the PC yourself won't void your warranty.However, the LCLC isn't a particularly effective cooler, which makes the use of liquid cooling in the Predator more of a tick-box addition than a worthwhile feature. What's more, the case relies solely on the LCLC's radiator for its exhaust system, which further undermines the efficiency of the LCLC. The final nail in the coffin is the lack of speed for the price, both in applications and games.You can buy the Acer AspireG Predator Trooper for £1,699.99 inc VAT from CCLonline (price correct at time of review)For more information on the Preadtor Trooper, Visit Acer's website