This Acer Predator Orion 7000 with an RTX 5080 turned me into a die-hard PC gamer — here

I now want a gaming PC on my desk, and the Acer Predator Orion 7000 is to blame.

I’ve tested my fair share of the best gaming laptops that arrive and have always been impressed with the performance they dish out. I mean, playing AAA PC games life Cyberpunk 2077 on a portable machine, with high frame rates and equally high settings? That’s very much my jam.

But there’s a certain feeling of satisfaction when booting up a demanding title like Black Myth: Wukong on a tank-like, RGB-lit desktop with whirring fans and a clear view of its internals, cranking up settings to maximum and playing it at 4K resolution with frame rates going beyond 120 FPS (with DLSS 4 helping out, no less).

That’s exactly what the RTX 5080-equipped Acer Predator Orion 7000 has given me, and by George, is it a delight. Do I need it? No, but as with every avid gamer who strives for peak performance, it’s easily the first gaming PC I want.

This isn’t to say I haven’t had my own taste of gaming PCs before — I used to rock an RTX 3070 rig before hopping countries. But with Nvidia’s latest RTX 50-series now out and about, it’s become clear that gaming performance has reached a higher bar, and it can only be done on a desktop.

The Predator Orion 7000 is a chunky beast; just look at it compared to a PS5 above. And it isn’t even the highest performance you can get out of a PC — that currently goes to the Alienware Area-51 or Corsair Vengeance i8300.

But for optimal gaming performance for a price that won’t rock my socks off (though it’s still something to save for), this is a desktop that I’ll be trying to find an excuse to pick up for a while.

A (somewhat) fitting price

Not unlike the Predator Orion 5000, which sits as one of the best gaming PCs for value, this 7000 model comes in at a fitting price. Well, as “fitting” as it can be for a latest-gen desktop at £3,299 , as that’s still quite the expense. (There’s no U.S. pricing yet, but I can imagine it being around a similar $3,299.)

Considering an Alienware Area-51 with similar specs will set you back $3,749, while the beastly Corsair Vengeance i8300 with an RTX 5090 is at a whopping $7,399, I’ll settle with the more affordable option, thanks.

I know, gaming PCs of this caliber can be more of a niche at these prices for many of us, but here’s another comparison: the Alienware 16 Area-51 gaming laptop with an RTX 5080 comes in at $3,749, and as much as it impresses, it won’t match the performance a full-blown desktop can dish out. (More on this in a bit.)

Look, a desktop isn’t for everyone, especially when laptops like the Asus TUF Gaming A18 I tested or a PS5 Slim can pump out incredible performance for most at well over half the price. But for optimized gaming in 4K, along with all the speedy productivity or demanding creative tasks that come as standard, the Predator Orion 7000 makes a great case as a worthy machine to consider.

A 4K treat

Thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF CPU, RTX 5080 GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB SSD, the Acer’s Predator Orion 7000 can pull off wicked, smooth 4K gameplay with frame rates topping just over 160 FPS with DLSS 4 enabled in the most demanding of PC titles.

That’s with settings topped out and ray tracing (or the more advanced path tracing where available) turned to max, and it all come out stunning without a hint of stutter on the BenQ 4K monitor I had yet to make full use of.

It’s an impressive feat, but what really caught my eye was comparing these results to other gaming PCs, along with the Alienware 16 Area-51 with its RTX 5080 laptop GPU. When turning DLSS 4 off and testing at 4K resolution in Doom: The Dark Ages, Black Myth: Wukong and Cyberpunk 2077, here’s what I saw:

Now, of course an RTX 5080 GPU with its 16GB GDDR7 video memory (it should have been 24GB) wouldn’t beat an RTX 5090 with 32GB of VRAM, but honestly, the differences here aren’t far off — especially in the Cyberpunk 2077 result. And having that RTX 5080-powered Alienware 16 Area-51 shows the difference between a desktop and a laptop GPU (read: that’s testing at 1080p).

When DLSS 4 with multi-frame gen x4 gets involved, those frame rates skyrocket. In benchmarking, I was seeing Doom: The Dark Ages at 120 FPS with path tracing, Cyberpunk 2077 at 153 FPS and Black Myth: Wukong at 166 FPS. And yes, gaming at these settings is stunning.

Seeing sunlight glint off ripples of water in Wukong, along with the blankets of snow our staff-equipped monkey protagonist glides through while fending off sparks of lightning from dragon-like beings, brings pure immersion that’s hard to look away from.

Just for good measure, you can also see how the Predator Orion 7000 measures up in other areas, and again, at this price, it isn’t too shabby.

Sure, not the fastest, but not too far behind, either. It was worth the effort to lump this machine on my desk and start going about my usual computing tasks, as it wouldn’t bat an eyelid when I had 30 Chrome tabs open while listening to music and having a Netflix show running, all with a game being paused in the background.

As you can guess, for those scrolling through multiple spreadsheets, editing videos or photos and using graphic design tools, this machine could easily handle it all.

Is the Acer Predator Orion 7000 worth it?

Now, I could easily suggest that this RTX 5080 configuration of the Acer Predator Orion 7000 is well worth it, as I’m already eyeing up this gaming PC as an excuse to future-proof my setup. But not everyone needs this kind of power — especially at prices this high.

But ultimately, for those after top-tier 4K gaming performance anyway, you can get a lot out of a gaming PC such as this, and it comes with a higher capacity of performance compared to what you’d get in an equally priced gaming laptop.

Sure, you’d also want one of the best gaming monitors to go along with it, along with a gaming keyboard and mouse. But if I was looking for my next desktop to adorn my desk (and I suppose, now I am), I’d have the Predator Orion 7000 on my mind.

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More from Tom’s Guide

• The RTX 5090 is the best graphics card I’ve ever owned — but there’s a catch for living room PC gamers
• I played Doom: The Dark Ages on RTX 5080 vs RTX 5070 Ti gaming laptops — and the results surprised me
• I just built an RTX 5090 gaming PC — here’s what I used and how to build your own

Darragh is Tom’s Guide’s Computing Editor and is fascinated by all things bizarre in tech. His work can be seen in Laptop Mag, Mashable, Android Police, Shortlist Dubai, Proton, theBit.nz, ReviewsFire and more. When he’s not checking out the latest devices and all things computing, he can be found going for dreaded long runs, watching terrible shark movies and trying to find time to game