Compared to the similarly-priced Dell XPS 8940 we reviewed last year, the Orion 3000's results look a little disappointing. The two PCs deliver roughly equivalent performance in every game we tested on both, which makes sense since they both have a Core i7 CPU and an RTX 3070 GPU. However, the XPS 8940 we tested consistently delivered a few more frames at 1080p than the Orion 3000, even though its 10th Gen i7 CPU is a generation behind the 11th Gen in the Orion 3000. Of course, the XPS 8940 also had twice as much RAM — 32GB vs the 16GB in Acer's desktop. Thankfully it's easy enough to install more RAM in the Orion 3000, if you're willing to splurge on the upgrade. And again, given how scarce reasonably-priced RTX 3070 GPUs are right now, the Orion 3000 is a reasonable buy if you're just looking for a 3070 in a pre-built PC that's reasonably easy to upgrade. Acer Predator Orion 3000 review: Overall performance This product is not designed for cryptocurrency mining uses. Damages to your product arising from cryptocurrency mining or related activities are excluded from your product’s warranty. Likewise, our review unit took roughly 8 minutes (7:57) to complete our Handbrake video editing test and achieved a transfer rate of 730.4 MBps in our 25GB multimedia file copy test. Those are decent results that make the Orion 3000 a good enough desktop to get some serious creative work done, especially if you'll be moving big files around. However, similarly-priced gaming PCs like the XPS 8940 and Alienware's Aurora R10 Ryzen Edition were able to put up higher scores in Geekbench and faster times in Handbrake.

The Orion 3000 comes with an optional glass panel you can swap in on the right side, giving you an RGB-lit look at its well-organized internals. (Image credit: Future) When we ran our Orion 3000 review unit through our suite of gaming benchmarks, the results were good but not great. The machine averaged a solid 84 frames per second running Assassin’s Creed Valhalla at 1080p, but struggled to get above 44 fps running the game at 4K. We saw similar results in benchmarks for Far Cry 6 (72 fps @ 1080p, 46 fps @ 4K), Red Dead Redemption 2 (84 fps @ 1080p, 32 fps @ 4K) and a number of other games, cementing my belief that this is a solid gaming PC — as long as you’re not trying to play at 4K. The Orion 3000’s disappointing performance here is balanced out by its relatively affordable price tag. While it can't compete with the best gaming PCs on the market, it also costs less than most of them — often times thousands of dollars less. And in my own time using the Orion 3000, I had no trouble taking care of every task my day-to-day workflow throws at me, including light photo/video editing while multi-tasking between way too many Chrome tabs. Acer Predator Orion 3000 review: Keyboard and mouse In a lot of ways, I think the Acer Predator Orion 3000 is the perfect first gaming PC for someone looking to get into the hobby.The Orion 3000’s case feels sturdy and looks good on a desk, with an oblong front panel sporting two LED light strips and crowned by a glowing power button. Near the bottom of the front panel is Acer’s 92x92 mm FrostBlade fan, which is lit by customizable RGB LEDs. The customization is conducted via Acer’s PredatorSense software, which comes pre-installed and is also used to manage the internal RGB lighting and the pair of vertical light bars which flank the fan and run up the front panel. The only pre-installed software I ended up getting any real use out of was Acer's PredatorSense and PredatorArc utilities, which are used to customize the Orion 3000's RGB lighting, fan performance, and mouse button bindings. Acer Predator Orion 3000 review: Verdict You can customize the RGB lighting of the keyboard and mouse using Acer's PredatorArc app, which comes pre-installed and also lets you customize what the two side buttons on the mouse do. The keyboard comes with no such customizable keys out of the box, though it does some media controls built into the top-right corner. The mouse feels a bit more comfortable, and I found its complement of two top buttons, two side buttons, and a scroll wheel with a DPI button below it (for on-the-fly sensitivity adjustments) to be just the right amount of inputs for my gaming needs.

When we put this compact gaming PC through our general performance testing regimen, the Orion 3000 turned in solid but unremarkable scores. In the Geekbench 5.4 multicore CPU benchmark our review unit earned a result of 8,048, which is decent, but well below what we usually expect from gaming PCs, and what I expected from this PC with an 11th Gen Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 3070. Acer is refreshing the Orion 3000 line with Intel’s new 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs in 2022, which should help these compact mid-range gaming PCs achieve even better performance than what we measured from the 11th Gen CPU in our review unit. Acer Predator Orion 3000 review: Design Acer's Predator software makes it easy to customize the PC's fans, RGB lighting, mouse bindings and more. (Image credit: Future) The case is roomy enough to make swapping out RAM, drives and cables light work, even for someone with stupid big hands like myself. I tried not to mess with the components too much during the review since this is a pre-built loaner PC, but I had no trouble getting into the case and fiddling with component and cable placement. The GPU, storage drives, RAM and CPU should be pretty straightforward to swap out if you feel the urge, but you might run into trouble if you try to replace the motherboard, as it's an Acer board with a unique design. Acer Predator Orion 3000 review: Gaming performance Intel ® technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configuration. No product or component can be absolutely secure.I found the keyboard to be serviceable but unsatisfying to type on, as the keys feel somehow both a bit too stiff to depress and too mushy to easily tell, by feel, when you've fully engaged the key. That said, I had no trouble using it to play games like Cyberpunk 2077, Total War: Warhammer II, and Typing of the Dead. I had a bit more trouble running Cyberpunk 2077, though it was still plenty smooth enough for my plebeian tastes. With all the bells and whistles cranked up, our review unit could reliably deliver between 30 to 40 frames per second at 1440p, though that number slipped into the mid-20s during heavy action. However, when I switched on Nvidia's DLSS dynamic resolution scaling tech in-game, it started running at a near-perfect 60 frames per second, only dipping into the mid-50s during heavy action. An extendable headset holder and a small port array are hidden on the front of the Orion 3000. (Image credit: Future)