Acer’s getting into SFF gaming with the 4090-wielding Predator Orion X

For years, Acer’s definition of a “compact juggernaut” still took up 18 liters of space — and still looked like a traditional tower PC. But today, the company’s announcing a low-slung SFF gaming desktop that fits the most powerful PC gaming parts into an unusual 15.4-liter chassis.

The Acer Predator Orion X doesn’t look like any desktop the company’s sold before, and not just because the company’s backing away from its “this literal alien will eat you” vibe in favor of something a little more Evangelion. It’s also because the PC has three distinct zones for each of its major component clusters, with items accessible by pulling those “Zone 02,” “Zone 03,” and “Zone 01” lever-latches you can see on the front.

Open up that left Zone 02 compartment, and you’ll find an RTX 4070 Ti, 4080, or even a custom liquid-cooled triple-slot RTX 4090 inside, complete with heatblock and fans designed to mesh right up against the side of the case, as well as twin 2.5-inch SATA SSD or HDD bays.

On the right, Zone 01 houses the CPU (up to a top-of-the-line 6GHz i9-13900KS), power supply, motherboard, up to 64GB of DDR5 memory, and the up-to-2TB primary SSD. Meanwhile, Zone 03 simply lets you pop off the top of the chassis to access the 240mm radiator for the custom CPU liquid cooler.

It’s hard to make it out, but there’s a glass panel that fits over the front of the case, and you can optionally buy this arm on top that rotates out to serve as a headset hanger:

(No, sorry, it’s not a carry handle.)

There’s also an additional hot-swappable NVMe SSD module that appears to pull right out of the front — you should be able to make it out underneath the GPU in the image atop this story. Acer says the whole PC weighs under 20 pounds (9kg) and offers Killer E3100G ethernet (that’s 2.5Gbps) and Wi-Fi 6E from an Intel AX211 card. Ports include “two USB3.2 Gen1 (one Type-C and one Type-A), a mic and combo jack at the front, a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C port, three USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports, two USB 2.0 and a RJ45 located at the rear.”

Ready for the sticker shock? This system starts at $2,999.99 for the POX-650 with an Intel Core i5, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and a 4070 Ti with air cooling only and an H770 motherboard. You’ll pay $5,000 for the POX-950 with an i9-13900KS and liquid-cooled RTX 4090, alongside just 32GB of memory and 1TB of storage and a Z790 board.

Yes, a 4090 and that i9 could easily run you over $2,300 all by their lonesome. They’re pricey parts. But Acer is charging plenty for the rest of this PC, too. It’ll arrive in North America this September, giving you plenty of time to save up.

Acer’s introducing a pair of new monitors alongside the PC — a 34-inch curved OLED that runs at 3440 x 1440 up to 175Hz, called the Predator X34V, and a 44.5-inch VA panel at 5120 x 1440 and 165Hz, called the Nitro XZ452CU V.