After having a chance to meet the older sibling Orion 7000, we follow it up with a look at the more compact Predator desktop PC the Orion 3000. As an owner of a Predator Ultrawide monitor which has lasted me over 5 years now, I have tremendous respect for the brand. Acer adds Predator power to the mid-tower size rig in an attempt to deliver a best-in-class desktop PC. Orion 3000 is equipped with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700F 12-Core Processor (Up to 4.9GHz), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Graphics with 8GB GDDR6 Video Memory, 16GB DDR4 Dual-Channel 3200MHz Memory, 1TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD and 1TB 7200RPM SATA III Hard Drive priced at $1999.
As a mid-tower case you are always going to lose space and display less extravagance from the design aspect. As a Predator branded PC one thing we can always expect is maximum design efforts. In this case, they did a great job with utilizing the space given to keep that edgy Predator look and feel. A sleek black case with a clear glass side panel surrounds the main part of the case. On the front, you will find a clear panel with an RGB lit Predator logo and fan. An inside light bar provides a solid light show for a mid-tower rig for all you hardcore RGB fans out there all controlled via the PredatorSense software. If you purchase a mid-size PC for ease of mobility, then you will enjoy the handle at the top front part of the case.
Onboard you will find the following connections:
- 1 – USB 3.2 (Type C) Gen 2×2 port (up to 20Gbps) (Front)
- 1 – USB 3.2 (Type A) Gen 2 port (Front)
- 2 – USB 3.2 (Type A) Gen 1 ports (Rear)
- 4 – USB 2.0 (Type A) ports (Rear)
- 3 – DisplayPorts 1.4a and 1 – HDMI 2.1 port
- Intel Wireless Wi-Fi 6E AX211 (Gig+) supports dual-stream Wi-Fi in the 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz bands, including UL MU-MIMO
- Killer Ethernet E2600 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN
- Bluetooth 5.2
Rounding up the bells and whistles you will find a Predator RGB Gaming Keyboard & RBG Gaming Mouse inside the box. Enough to get you started after a big purchase like this! While personally, I would never game competitively on wireless internet, the Orion 3000 does have Intel Killer wireless technology supporting dual-stream Wi-Fi up to the 6Ghz band. Very fast. DTS X: Ultra audio is supported which is designed for gaming featuring multi-channel and object-based audio that can be tuned to suit different games. Aside from the hardware statistics, it’s important to take into account the technology on board these rigs. If you have done your research on pre-built desktop PCs you will find the Orion 3000 is priced competitively.
On paper, this rig has the power to run any game on the market right now at max settings on up to a 4k 16:9 monitor. You will see some drop in frame rate if you are running a 2k or above 21:9 ultrawide monitor. No graphic single graphic card in this current generation can run a 4K 21:9 monitor at max frame rate. The Nvidia 40 series is coming soon though! With this power feel confident this PC will keep you gaming and running Virtual Reality on max settings for years. Plenty of power for live streaming at max settings, post-production video editing, and animation rendering in up to 4K. We did see some struggles when editing or rendering footage at 6K or above.
Orion 3000 will get your hardcore gaming and content creating journey started at a reasonable price. A great combination of looks and performance in a smaller compact mid-tower case. I think this pre-built PC is priced right and would make a great addition to any gamer’s battle station.
