The best PC gamers Acer predator G5900 Review

Acer's Predator range of performance PC is firmly targeted at gamers, with neon orange go-faster stripes, hard angular lines and insect-like mandibles that cover the disc drives. However, the G5900 is a much more modest than the heavily-designed, seriously overpowered and very expensive PCs that made up the original Predators.

The G5900 is part of Acer's a current range, but despite this, its processor is an original 3.2GHz Core i5-650, rather than a more recent - and more powerful - Sandy Bridge i5. In our benchmark tests, the PC achieved an overall score of just 57, which is poor for desktop a system that costs almost £500. 4GB of RAM is modest but adequate for most tasks, but the 500GB hard disk is stingy.

Similarly, the tiny graphics card - a 1.5GB Nvidia GeForce GT 440 - is drastically underpowered for a PC that's targeted at gamers. It failed in our 1,920x1,080 Ultra quality Dirt 3 test and in our Crysis 2 test, although we finally managed to get a respectable frame rate of 57fps out of Dirt 3 when we set it to a resolution of 1,280x720 and High quality. This means that you'll be able to play most of the latest games, but not without some fairly serious compromises when it comes to quality.

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. ...Thank you for watching