Acer Predator G1-710-70001 Gaming Desktop Review

Gaming Benchmarks

Alien: Isolation

The Acer Predator G1 gets similar placement in our gaming benchmarks, achieving lower average framerates against systems with nearly-identical GPUs in the Alien Isolation benchmark. It bests the GTX 1070 test platform, but whereas the differences between the Vanquish 5 and our test rig’s GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition are less defined, the Predator G1 falls considerably behind at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440, illustrating the shortcomings of its H170 platform and lower clocked CPU.

Ashes of the Singularity

We don’t see much of a difference in the Ashes of the Singularity results, with the Predator G1 falling slightly behind the other GTX 1080 gaming rigs by a small margin and beating out the test rig loaded with a GTX 1070 Founder’s Edition GPU. The G1 is the only GTX 1080-equipped system to fall below 60 FPS in the 1080p test (by 0.2 FPS), and it’s definitely starting to appear as though the Predator’s graphics subsystem is held back by its overall platform performance.

Bioshock Infinite

The Predator G1 falls behind the Vanquish 5 and SyberM by a noticeable margin, with the two boutique-shop machines trading blows and leaving Acer’s offering in the dust. The CPU-intensive Bioshock Infinite benchmark puts a magnifier on the Predator’s lower clocked processor, which places it in its now familiar slot behind the custom-built desktops and GTX 1080 reference system, and ahead of the GTX 1070-equipped test rig.

DiRT Rally

We see similar results in the DiRT Rally benchmark, with the Predator G1 beating only the GTX 1070-equipped reference rig. The game enjoys respectable performance gains from higher CPU clock rates at 1920 x 1080, with the Vanquish 5 and reference system (with GTX 1080) beating the Syber M’s factory-overclocked GPU and the GTX 1070 coming within striking distance of the Predator. However, this has diminishing returns, and higher resolutions reinforce the GPU hierarchy, with the Vanquish 5 and GTX 1080 test rig score within 1 FPS of each other, the Syber M’s higher-clocked EVGA GPU on top, and the Predator’s seemingly-stunted Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 trailing behind.

Grand Theft Auto V

For GTAV, we felt that cherry picking the scene best representative of real-world performance would provide the best analysis of what to expect from playing the game. The Chase presents us with an extended gameplay-simulating workload, and we’ve added the minimum framerate back to the charts (whereas we've excluded them before).

The Acer Predator G1 continues its trend of trailing the other GTX 1080-equipped systems. GTAV likes to stress the platform at all angles at its maximum settings, and even the Syber M falls behind the default-clocked test rig by small margins, despite its factory-overclocked GPU. However, the G1 falls slightly further behind that, and the test rig with its Founder's Edition GTX 1070 nips at the heels of Acer’s SFF gaming PC.

GRID Autosport

The bottom really drops out for the Acer Predator G1 in the GRID Autosport benchmark, which favors platform and CPU performance along with GPU horsepower. This is especially evident when we see that the GTX 1070-equipped reference system bests the G1’s GTX 1080 at 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440. We were shocked that this was possible (and appropriately retested both systems just to be certain), but the results are legit. We can infer that GRID isn’t particularly taxing to the GPU (easily, when the tested systems all exceed 70 FPS, even at 4K), and it’s not until we crank it up to 3840 x 2160 that the Predator reclaims its lead over our GTX 1070 test rig.

Hitman

The Hitman results place the Predator G1 back into a familiar spot between the reference system’s Founder’s Edition GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, with the G1 achieving the lowest average framerate among the GTX 1080-equipped competition thanks to lower minimum framerates. The performance cap shrinks when you turn up the resolution, and by the time you reach 3840 x 2160, the Predator only trails the GTX 1080 pack by less than 1 FPS.

Metro: Last Light Redux

The Metro: Last Light Redux benchmark gives us a fantastic snapshot of pure GPU performance, with the Vanquish 5 and reference system netting near-identical (and at 4K, identical) average framerates with their identically-clocked GPUs. The Predator G1 comes close too, but noticeably trails the pack of GTX 1080-equipped systems by a slightly higher margin. This performance gap also diminishes as you turn up the pixel count, but by now we’re convinced that the Acer’s platform holds the GPU back from being all it can be, even if by only narrow margins.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

The Predator G1 continues to trail the other GTX 1080-equipped systems and beat out the GTX 1070 in the Tomb Raider benchmark, with the margin of difference becoming smaller as you increase the display resolution. None of the systems in the field offer playable framerates with maximum settings at 4K, and the Predator (and other GTX 1080 systems) only average above 60 FPS at 1920 x 1080.

The Division

The Division results offer a similar pattern of performance placements, with the Predator G1 falling behind the Vanquish 5, Syber M, and GTX 1080 reference system by smaller margins as you raise the resolution. The G1 is the only GTX 1080 system to fall below 60 FPS average at 2560 x 1440, and the GTX 1070-equipped test rig comes dangerously close to the Predator’s performance at 3840 x 2160.

Thief

The Predator G1 ends our benchmark suite on a somewhat bad note, with the GTX 1070-equipped test system once again besting the Acer SSF gaming PC at 1920 x 1080 in the Thief benchmark. Similar to GRID Autosport, the test doesn’t particularly stress the GPU until you dial up the resolution, and the overall platform capabilities can impact performance more than the GPU alone when the game is pushing over 100 FPS. However, the Predator falls back into its familiar placement among the competition at 2560 x 1440 and 3840 x 2160.