A superb gaming system (Acer Aspire G7700 Predator)

Member Name: Mattster2k9

Product:	Acer Aspire G7700 Predator
Date:	13/08/09 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It has great specs for a great gaming system

Disadvantages: Possibly none, maybe the OS only because there's a new one coming out even better

The Acer Aspire G7700 Predator has to be one of the best manufactured made PCs I've ever seen to date and I've been wanting it ever since I had my first Acer Aspire system. Now, The one unique thing about this system that I've never seen on another system made by a company is the case, If anyone has been curious how you get to the CD drive and such you just lift the front panel which was a really neat design and have never seen anything like that before (Though chances are there's other system with the same door, just I've never seen a computer like this before). The price is about £1,599 if I'm right and you can order a cheaper price from certain places that have a few less specs than the more expensive one. The great thing about this system is how much that has been put into it, it's designed to be a gaming PC, not just a PC to browse the net.

As a side note I will add in price details of the components inside this when I give some detail about each component and see if it adds up to the full retail price which is about £1599. This may give you a fair idea whether to get this, or get your own system built - for the computer savvy people anyway.

Now, the case from how I see it will be a big base unit so prepared to give it some space in your house. Starting off with the Central Processing Unit (CPU)(Practically the brain of the system(Or 2nd anyway)) which is the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650, on a website I use to compare products with their benchmarks (Basically where they stand compared to other products) and on the high end CPU chart this CPU is at rank #28. Now don't let this put you off it, at 3GHz this CPU is still a great CPU of today and the near future. I won't go in to depth about what it's FSB or cache levels are to keep the less computer skilled people at minds rest, put it this way, they're defiantly high, though just baring in mind this is more powerful the the Quad core range for anyone who thinks the Quad core must be better; it isn't - Extreme, Quad, Core 2 (That's the order high to low). This system supports 64-Bit Operating Systems, so remember if you decide to custom build your system with this CPU, or any CPU that supports 64-Bit, always get a 64-Bit OS, plus the fact a 64-Bit OS can read above 3GB of RAM. This CPU sold separately is about £650 (Inc VAT), so that leaves £1000 left to put this system together.

Now to the RAM (Random Access Memory), Who needs so much memory? Oh gamers of course, Though I'd prefer 16GB of RAM for much more flexibility which is a lot. But 8GB is still a lot of memory, I currently only run on 4GB and I'd love that extra 4GB upgrade. You get 4 sticks of 2GB inside the system, as well as being at the highest range of DDR2 RAM sticks (DDR2 is the most used RAM stick, DDR3 is the latest, DDR2 is the most common as well as cheap and DDR is the old stuff). 8GB is still a lot of memory to use, so you can practically do a lot of things, most likely including having multiple virtual OSs running on your system for what ever reason. Now since it doesn't say the manufacturer of the RAM is I will just have to go for a wild guess. I'm going to say around £100 for 8GB.

Time for the Hard drive which is where you will be storing your personal files, music, games saves and most likely more. Now the system on this review has 2 x 1TB as well as 2 x 150GB, which in total is 2.3TB which is heck of a lot of space, quiet literally a huge amount in my opinion. It runs on the latest technology which is SATA, which is very good quality in my opinion. Again, it doesn't tell me much else about the Hard drives so I could compare them if you buy them separately, so it's another guess. About £130.98 for 2 x 1 TB and for the 2 x 150GB I'm unsure if it's the latest hard drive standards which is quiet expensive at the moment, for now I'll assume it is since Acer won't tell me, so that's £298.88 for 2 x 150GB (Which is the latest technology at the moment for hard drives).

The Optical drives, sweet and simple, there's 2 of them and that's as much as it will say. For anyone who doesn't know what an Optical Drive is (And I know someone won't) it's basically the CD Drive (Don't worry if you don't know, everyone starts somewhere). The first drive is a Blu-Ray Drive, and the second drive is our beloved DVD+- Drive, which can read practically any disc excluding Blu-Rays. A guess the Blu-Ray drive will be about £100 seperatly and you can get the DVD drive for about £20.

This system also comes with a card reader, so those cards you have in your mobiles, cameras and what ever else carries cards, this system can just read off the card which makes life much easier.

Now the Graphics card, I just quickly checked my benchmark site and the one in this system offers the 2nd best graphics card. Which well, sounds like you just got a great card and I envy you because mine is no where near the standards of this card. Again, I won't go in much detail for a simple reason. The figures on this card is very high and any hardcore gamer who knows his thing would easily recommend this. This card is about £130.

It has an integrated 7.1 channel surround sound card for anyone who likes their high quality sound as well as it being surround sound. You get a nice Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard which is £48 and looks really nice. As well as a standard laser mouse to make those moves count! The computer system also comes with liquid cooling to keep your system extremely cool when you decide to play high range games, as well as being Windows Vista Home premium and getting the standard Acer products as you would do on any Acer Aspire product I've seen.

Here's the estimated calculated price of the system if I bought the components separately excluding the case and OS: £1477.86

Obviously my estimated price isn't exactly the best thing to go against but I did my best I guess. Now I have 1 final problem with this computer system, the Operating System, don't get me wrong I love Vista it is a great OS but Windows 7 is coming out on October 22nd and I don't know if Acer are offering a free upgrade with this computer, nor do I know if the the companies selling this system are either. So if you do get this system try check out to see if they offer a free Windows 7 upgrade (Unless Acer update the system) because Windows 7 is a must have considering I've been using it since Beta testing)

Summary: A great gaming OS

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