With CES upon us, Acer has taken the opportunity to update its Aspire Predator gaming desktop series, adding a third version alongside the Predator G5 and G7 – the latter of which we reviewed a few months ago. Externally, the new Predator AG3600 favors a less aggressive design than the G7, but it features similar black and orange color scheme.
The system packs Intel's new Core i5-2300 processor with Turbo Boost 2.0 and H67 chipset, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and 1.5TB of storage. It's odd that Acer has opted for Nvidia's GeForce GT 420 graphics card, which is hardly ideal for modern gaming, and if you're buying a pre-assembled rig, you probably don't want to be hassled with swapping GPUs.
Connectivity includes three PCIe x1 slots (no mention of spare x16 slots), 10 USB 2.0 ports (four on top, six in back – no word of USB 3.0), mini-HDMI, DVI and VGA outputs, as well as a multi-card reader. The AG3600 is available today with a one-year warranty for $899, and while won't go as far as calling the system overpriced, it sure seems like a poor value.