 I think Acer has finally figured it out. For the first time ever, as far as I know, Acer has done a pre-built gaming rig that ships with Nvidia's top-of-the-line graphics card installed. And the Predator G1 borrows a lot more from enthusiasts and boutique system builders than just the idea of packing a proper GPU inside. Let's take a closer look. Intel's Skull Canyon Nook features a sixth-generation Core i7 processor and Thunderbolt 3. You can learn more at the link in the video description. Inside the box you'll get the following. A Predator G1 gaming PC, some extra screws and cables, a surprisingly competent set of peripherals, the mouse's clicks are pleasantly tactile and it includes extra buttons for back-forward and toggling between three preset DPI settings, and the keyboard is dual-color LED backlit with a toggleable gaming mode and KiWa mechanical keyswitches mounted to what seems to be a steel backplate. Then if you get the special edition launch bundle, there's also a copy of the Division and, this is a new one, an Acer Predator-themed luggage with cutouts to carry your gaming rig for when you travel, leaving, last but not least, two standard PC power cables and two laptop power bricks in a neat-looking holder that... wait a minute... whaaaa? Two power bricks? Yes, my friends, the idea that I pitched to Cooler Master's product manager almost three years ago of moving the power supply, or two as it were, outside an otherwise standard desktop chassis for improvements to both thermals and size, as I'm a genius, has officially come to life courtesy of Acer of all people. Well, whatever. Let's see if it worked. But first, I need to know if they impose limits on the hardware that can be used in the Predator G1. So let's pop her open, which reveals a very interesting layout. The centerpiece is a Core i7-6700 non-K quad-core hyper-threaded CPU, so no overclocking. There's 32 gigs of DDR4 RAM and a cleverly positioned blower case fan that should draw air across the front, where a 512 gig M.2 SATA SSD, a slim DVD writer, and a 2 terabyte hard drive reside, across the memory sticks and CPU area, and finally, over the motherboard heatsinks that cool both the CPU power delivery modules and the DC-to-DC converters that take 19 volt external power and turn it into the 12, 5, and 3.3 volt juice needed by your computer guts. Not something that you often see on a pre-built motherboard. Mind you, there's not much about this motherboard that's normal. Contrary to the statement made by this unfortunate Acer spokesperson who's totally getting called out right now, like a mini ITX board, it has only a single PCIe 3.0 16x expansion slot, but it's closer in total size to an MATX board. So what is the extra space being used for? A number of things. LED headers for the three-zone LED illumination that can be configured, regrettably not to all operate on the same cycle for some reason, using Acer's Predator Sense software, one of only a couple bloaty pre-installed applications, by the way. There's more room for memory sticks, so thanks to its four DIMM slots, the Predator G1 can be upgraded to 64 gigs of RAM. There's power distribution for the converted input power. The inclusion of an extra PCIe power port and cable is a really nice touch, by the way, for someone who might want to upgrade the graphics card in the future. And the very open CPU socket area, which should help the performance of the fairly OEM-looking cooling solution that Acer has pre-installed. We'll talk about how well this works later. For now, there are a couple more items to highlight in here. Acer has included an extra 2.5-inch drive cage with pre-run cables and screws, in case you want to add another 2.5-inch SSD or hard drive, which is much appreciated, and I want to take a closer look at the way the GTX 1080 graphics card is installed. So it's covered with a Predator-branded shroud, but the unmistakable green glow visible from the bottom tells us two things. It's a Founders Edition, and it's installed upside down. So Acer used a hard PCB link to extend the PCI Express 16x slot, meaning that you can't admire your graphics card with the side panel off, but shorter links are less prone to signal degradation, and in theory, the way that they're pulling fresh air in from the other side panel, keeping it contained then within its own cooling zone and exhausting it out the back, should deliver really solid thermal results. Which we'll get to, but first a look at the outside. So the top and front of the Predator G1 features Acer's aggressive tank tread styling, that I personally think works better here than it did on the G6 due to the machine's smaller size. There's a power button flanked by two headset holders for some reason, the optical drive we saw on the inside, and front I.O. So an SD card reader, a USB 3.0 10 gigabit type C port, a USB 3.0 5 gigabit type A port, and a couple of audio jacks. Around the back, the rest of the I.O. is actually pretty lackluster. The three DPs, HDMI and DVI provided by the graphics card, are accompanied only by 7.1 audio jacks with no digital output, four USB 3.0 5 gigabit ports, and the DC input jacks, that may be at least partially responsible for the limited number of USB ports on this machine. Remember that external USB devices can draw up to seven and a half watts each through the USB charging specification. And while the dual power supplies confused the bananas out of my power meter, some napkin math tells us that we're not that far off of their rated output. So then, let's answer the big question. Was this approach worthwhile when Silverstone just released a power supply that we featured in our most compact gaming PC V2 over there, that's cheaper, smaller, delivers 50% more power, and with some creativity, should be possible to integrate into a similar size chassis, especially if you're willing to give up the optical drive. Well, actually, it's looking pretty good for the G1. While being no louder than the graphics card would be on its own in another enclosure or even on an open air test bench, the Predator G1 managed to turn in better thermal performance than its bigger brother, in spite of its much smaller size. Not to mention that it's summer now versus March when we were checking out the G6. And it did all this while being rock solid stable throughout my testing, avoiding any and all thermal throttling on the CPU, and letting the GTX 1080 boost its clocks, albeit not fully, even with a synthetic stress test running on the CPU and the RAM concurrently. That means that whether we're talking about light workstation use or gaming on a conventional screen, a G-Sync monitor, or in VR, the Predator G1 will perform. All of which leads us then to a pretty interesting conclusion. Acer has learned a lot over the last few years, going from poorly balanced gaming PCs with lackluster graphics cards and overpowered CPUs with too much RAM, to correctly configured gaming PCs that unfortunately suffered from OEM-grade thermal management, all the way to this compact, no compromises, mini gaming rig that stood up to everything I could throw at it as long as I didn't want to overclock or run the drives in RAID or anything like that. Okay, customs still has some advantages. They still have some things to learn about making a product really feel premium. The inside should be black to go with the black PCB motherboard, which is a step forward in itself, by the way. The cable should be sleeved, an NVMe M.2 SSD should have been included for a flagship product, and I'd like to see the next Predator aesthetic reimagining move to more premium materials. But, with that said, the main complaints about pre-builds from the 2000s, crappy motherboards and power supplies, limited to no upgradeability, and high prices are quickly fading away. Which isn't to say that the Predator G1 is cheap. Okay, the price is still high. But, you're getting a lot of firepower in a surprisingly compact little battle station, if you're willing to pay for it. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or even check out the link to where to buy the Predator G1 in the video description. 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