Derrick
ლ(ಠ_ಠ )ლ
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
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- 5,085
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Many readers will look at the price of the Acer Predator Trooper II and think that Acer must have lost it. How do you justify the price of this computer? It’s difficult, I know, but after having had the Trooper for the better part of two days, I’d say (and remember, it’s my opinion) that the Trooper is worth every cent.
Some journos will look at the price and immediately start looking for reasons to slam the Trooper. To me, reviewing a piece of art (and that’s what the Trooper is) is about finding everything that’s right bout the product. The Trooper has its weaknesses, let there be no doubt about it, but it more than makes up for any shortcomings with what it has to offer.
It has one of the most striking chassis I’ve ever laid my eyes on – a real design masterpiece. It’s obviously inspired by the Predator in the Predator flicks, from its flip-up front cover, its menacing looks, to the ‘mandibles’ that you pul open to reveal the DVD rewriter and Blu-ray drive.
It also oozes class at the ame time and the attention to detail is immediately evident, not to mention the build quality. Acer has built every conceivable input/output port into the trooper’s chassis, and everything is easily accessible. The Trooper, to mention a few, has an eighteen-in-one card reader, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, five USB 2.0 ports at the back and five at the front, all the necessary audio input and output jacks, two eSATA ports and the obligatory FireWire port.
It’s powered by he excellent (and expensive) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 clocked at 2.83GHz. It ports two very capable GPUs in the form of two NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTXs in an SLI setup. The custom-branded nForce 780i SLI MOBO, although not using the latest chipset, is capable, fast and can support a three-way SLI setup. Moreover, the BIOS is easy to navigate and if you know what you are doing, you’ll be able to overclock the CPU, the RAM and the GPUs, giving you quite an increase in performance.
If you make a mistake by being too confident in your overclocking prowess, and the PC refuses to POST, the Trooper sports a CMOS clear button at the back, which – no doubt- will come in useful and is an excellent feature.
The weaknesses in the Trooper’s armour? The outdated MOBO, the notso-optimal water-cooling system, the cheap Nanya Technology RAM clocked at only 800MHz and the fact that the Trooper doesn’t sport a decent soundcard. However, replace the MOBO with a high-end one, chuck the RAM ith the funny name and replace with 8GB of Mushkin 1,066MHz RAM, install a decent cooling system, and you have yourself a rig that’s future proof.
As or bragging rights, the Trooper will be the envy of many if you’re a gamer and regularly attend LANs.
Some journos will look at the price and immediately start looking for reasons to slam the Trooper. To me, reviewing a piece of art (and that’s what the Trooper is) is about finding everything that’s right bout the product. The Trooper has its weaknesses, let there be no doubt about it, but it more than makes up for any shortcomings with what it has to offer.
It has one of the most striking chassis I’ve ever laid my eyes on – a real design masterpiece. It’s obviously inspired by the Predator in the Predator flicks, from its flip-up front cover, its menacing looks, to the ‘mandibles’ that you pul open to reveal the DVD rewriter and Blu-ray drive.
It also oozes class at the ame time and the attention to detail is immediately evident, not to mention the build quality. Acer has built every conceivable input/output port into the trooper’s chassis, and everything is easily accessible. The Trooper, to mention a few, has an eighteen-in-one card reader, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, five USB 2.0 ports at the back and five at the front, all the necessary audio input and output jacks, two eSATA ports and the obligatory FireWire port.
It’s powered by he excellent (and expensive) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 clocked at 2.83GHz. It ports two very capable GPUs in the form of two NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTXs in an SLI setup. The custom-branded nForce 780i SLI MOBO, although not using the latest chipset, is capable, fast and can support a three-way SLI setup. Moreover, the BIOS is easy to navigate and if you know what you are doing, you’ll be able to overclock the CPU, the RAM and the GPUs, giving you quite an increase in performance.
If you make a mistake by being too confident in your overclocking prowess, and the PC refuses to POST, the Trooper sports a CMOS clear button at the back, which – no doubt- will come in useful and is an excellent feature.
The weaknesses in the Trooper’s armour? The outdated MOBO, the notso-optimal water-cooling system, the cheap Nanya Technology RAM clocked at only 800MHz and the fact that the Trooper doesn’t sport a decent soundcard. However, replace the MOBO with a high-end one, chuck the RAM ith the funny name and replace with 8GB of Mushkin 1,066MHz RAM, install a decent cooling system, and you have yourself a rig that’s future proof.
As or bragging rights, the Trooper will be the envy of many if you’re a gamer and regularly attend LANs.