While Intel has been proudly showing off its Lunar Lake mobile processors at IFA this week, news on its latest desktop chips, codenamed Arrow Lake, has been relatively quiet. Acer, however, has released a promotional video showing off its Predator Orion 7000 gaming PC, complete with Intel Arrow Lake CPUs.
Given that we don't yet have a launch date for Arrow Lake, releasing promotional materials for a 2024 model featuring the chips strikes as a bit of a jumping of the gun. Still, the product page also confirms that the new PC will be "powered by [an] Intel next-gen Arrow Lake processor".
Which Arrow Lake processor remains a mystery, as we still haven't had any confirmation of the naming scheme. Recent rumours have hinted at three Arrow Lake-S series chips, called the Core Ultra 3 205, the Core Ultra 5 235 and the Core Ultra 5 245, but this remains speculation for now.
Regardless, whatever chips end up featuring in the 2024 Predator Orion 7000, it looks like they'll get some serious cooling. That's thanks to a 360 mm radiator as part of a substantial-looking liquid cooling system, with a thicker cold plate and an upgraded pump.
There's also the expected AI features to write home about (or ignore entirely, depending on your preference), including Acer Intelligence Space, "your central hub for intelligent device features". This is said to detect your system hardware and recommend compatible AI applications, in order to "optimise performance, enhance your gaming experiences, and discover new tools effortlessly".
The 2024 Predator Orion 7000 can be specced up to an RTX 4090 in the GPU department—although seeing as we're getting ahead of ourselves here we might as well say that it'll probably be available with Blackwell GPUs eventually as well, whenever the consumer versions decide to show themselves.
Current speculation on that, by the way, is also running rampant, with rumours suggesting that the designs for the RTX 5080/D and RTX 5090/D are scheduled to be finalised in September.
Still, this is the first PC builder (to my knowledge, at least) to openly advertise Intel Arrow Lake CPUs in its PCs. All that's left now is for them to be launched, released, and tested. There might be a while to wait yet though, looking at how things currently stand—although we do know that the new chips will be manufactured primarily by TSMC thanks to Intel's ongoing node issues, and that they won't be affected by the previous Vmin Shift Instability issues of the Raptor Lake chips.
In other news, in future I will be older, and the Sun will rise tomorrow morning. Probably. I'm hedging my bets here, just to be safe.
