Acer Predator Orion 7000 (2025)

This high-end gaming PC is worth considering if the price is right-but it needs to duck under £3,000

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There's plenty of storage expansion, including two 3.5in hard disk bays

This is the fourth PC I've tested with a GeForce RTX 5080 inside, but the first from a non-British PC manufacturer. It's also the first to choose a Core Ultra 7 265K processor as its partner, with others opting for either the Core Ultra 9 285K (CyberPowerPC Infinity Z890 Elite, issue 367, p53) or Ryzen 7 9800X3D (Scan 3XS Edge iCue, issue 367, p50; Wired2Fire R7X3D RTX 5080 Beast, issue 367, p52).

The Core Ultra 7 265K isn't a terrible choice: as the “K” indicates it’s unlocked, so with the liquid cooler and a “CycloneX 360” triple-fan cooling system I suspect Acer has eked as much out of the chip as is possible. But so do Acer’s rivals with their superior gaming chips, and that’s probably the reason why the Predator Orion 7000 was always at the bottom of our gaming benchmarks.

"The Acer stays cool without stressing the fans. Arguably a small drop in frame rates is worth it in return for near silence"