Acer’s first Alder Lake gaming desktop is crazy powerful and coming soon

By Jacob Roach Published October 19, 2021

Acer just announced its Orion 7000 gaming desktop at the Next@Acer event, and it looks like it could be one of the best gaming desktops when it launches. Although it technically sits below the Orion 9000 Acer currently offers, it’s hard to imagine a machine more powerful than the Orion 7000. It comes packed with up to an RTX 3090, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and — most critically — an Intel Alder Lake processor.

We’ve seen an Alder Lake desktop leak, but the Orion 7000 is the first Alder Lake gaming desktop we’ve seen shown off on a large stage. Intel hasn’t announced any specific Alder Lake chips yet, and Acer didn’t confirm what kind of chip the Orion 7000 comes with, but given its specs, we expect up to a Core i9-12900K.

Acer Orion 7000 sitting on a desk. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Given that Intel hasn’t announced when Alder Lake chips are arriving, Acer didn’t give a specific date for the Orion 7000. The company said the desktop is arriving toward the middle of 2022, which should be months after Alder Lake launches. Although Acer didn’t provide U.S. pricing, the machine should start between $2,500 and $3,000 based on the prices in other regions.

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One interesting note from the presentation is that Acer said the Alder Lake chip would be overclockable out of the box. We’ve assumed that Alder Lake chips will be overclockable — there’s no reason for them not to be — but this is a public confirmation.

Keeping the chip cool is an all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler, which appears to feature a 240mm radiator. The cooler comes with a microchannel cold plate to get as much heat away from the processor as possible, as well as reinforced sleeving. Acer’s Predator FrostBlade 2.0 fans keep air moving for the AIO, and there are another three FrostBlade 2.0 fans dotted throughout the case. All of them support ARGB lighting as well.

The Orion 7000 comes with the latest connectivity options, too. That includes 2.5G LAN, Wi-Fi 6E, and an array of USB ports, including two USB-C connections. You can pack up to 2TB of M.2 PCIe 4.0 storage into the machine — with an upgrade to PCIe 5.0 when it’s available — but the Orion 7000 comes with upgradeable storage, too. You can add another two 2.5-inch SSDs and two 3.5-inch HDDs.

To add your drives, or to swap out any of the other components, you can take advantage of the tool-less case. The case looks more in line with a standard midtower than the Orion 9000 and its Alienware-like design.

Acer announced a bunch of other products at the event, too, including a range of eco-friendly devices like the Chromebook Spin 514. For gamers, Acer unveiled the GD711 4K projector with variable refresh rate and support for up to 240Hz at Full HD, as well as the Predator Gaming Desk, which comes with a mouse pad for a top.

The desk and projector are arriving in December in Europe, but there’s no word on if they’ll come to the U.S. yet.

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Lead Reporter, PC Hardware

Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…

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