The last time we wrote about Acer's Predator Orion 9000 gaming desktop line was when the company showed off prototype units in Berlin all the way back in August of last year. Back then, Acer said the Orion 9000s could be fitted with 18-core Intel Core i9 Extreme CPUs and quad-Crossfire Vega setups. In the intervening eight months, though, AMD's Radeon RX Vega cards haven't gotten any easier to find. The company adjusted its plans for the Orion 9000. Two of three now-shipping configurations sport eighth-generation Core i7 processors, and all models come with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards.
The base configuration includes a liquid-cooled overclockable Intel Core i7-8700K CPU with 16 GB of DDR4 memory and the aforementioned Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. The system boots from a pretty pedestrian 256-GB SATA SSD flanked by a 2-TB hard drive for bulk storage. Acer didn't specify the speed of the system RAM, but it did say the motherboard has four DDR4 DIMM slots and supports up to 64 GB of memory. Acer didn't say if the board has any M.2 slots, but there are two full-length PCIe slots for graphics cards, plus two PCIe x2 slots for other add-in boards. The middle-tier configuration is similar, except the memory capacity is doubled to 32 GB and the SATA SSD swells to 512 GB.
The top-of-the-line configuration is the closest to what Acer was showing off at IFA. The full-fat Predator Orion 9000 packs an 18-core Intel Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition processor along with a whopping 128 GB of DDR4 memory. The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics and all-SATA storage configuration from the mid-level Orion 9000 carry over. An X299 motherboard is part of the Core Extreme package, and the board inside the top-dog model has four PCIe x16 expansion slots and eight memory slots.
All models come enclosed in a bespoke case measuring an exceptionally-bulky 25.3" tall, 11.8" wide, and 27.6" deep (64 cm x 30 cm x 70 cm). The base configuration weighs in at a colossal 42 lb (19 kg), necessitating a pair of wheels and a carrying handle. All versions come with Gigabit Ethernet connectivity along with 802.11ac Wi-Fi in case the behemoth is too bulky to move near a network jack.
The base configuration described above lands at $2500, and the step-up unit with memory and storage capacities more in keeping with the PC's aggressive appearance costs $3000. The top-level Predator Orion 9000 configuration with the Core i9 CPU will cost buyers the triple-take-inducing sum of $8000.One shudders to think at how much the version touted last August with that CPU and four Radeon RX Vega cards would cost. To be fair, the Core i9-7980XE processor alone rings in at $1900 and a 128 GB DDR4 memory kit costs about $1500. Acer backs the Predator Orion 9000 with a two-year warranty.