22 MARCH2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE385
ACERHASN’TSOmuch dipped atoe in
professional editingand content creation
hardware as leaptinboots-first. ConceptDis
an entirelyoriginal range of premium PCs,
laptopsand monitors, including such bold
products as theConceptD9–across between
alaptop andaSurface Studio,withits rotating
touchscreen suspended on articulatingarms
–and this, theConceptD 500 workstation.
True,at£3,200it’samajorinvestment,
but it has the specs to match. There’s the
octa-core,16-thread IntelCorei9-9900K
processor,adedicatedNvidiaQuadroRTX
4000 graphics card, 64GB of RAM, Windows
10 Pro andnot just a1TB SSDbut dual 2TB
hard disks as well. This isn’t even the most
kitted-outversion, either: £3,500 nets you
double the HDDstorage, on topofeverything
else.There are also significantly cheaper
specs,starting with the £2,100 version, which
has an Intel Corei7-9700KCPU, 16GB of RAM
andGeForceRTX 2070, so is more of agaming
PC in smart-casualclothing.
MAKE LIKEATREE
That comes with an emphasis on smart.
TheConceptD 500 looks,despitehaving a
conventionalmid-tower form factor,unlike
anyother PC on themarket.
Abig part of this is the
faux wood panel on top,
whichlooks and feels
convincing enough to
pass as the real thing,
but thecleanwhitecase
anddistinctive triangle-
pattern airvent further
contributetothe suitably
grown-up aesthetic.
It’s all nicelybuilt, too.
Alot of Acer products can
feel plastickynext to more
robust alternativesfrom
thelikes of Asus andMSI,
but the ConceptD500
has amuch sturdier
constitution. It’snot exactly
asilent runner,asthe CPU
coolerwill noticeably whirr
under load and the GPU
occasionally produced
some coil whine,but it’s
no worsethan the Asus
ProArt PA90 (Shopper
384) in this regard. This
compact,cylindricalPC
could also make some
ACER ConceptD500
★★★★★
£3,200•From store.acer.com
VERDICT
The ConceptD 500 is astylish andmonstrously powerful
PC forcontent creators; even at this price,it’s worth it
DESKTOPWORKSTATION PC
considerablenoise,in spiteofitsmore
advanced watercooling system.
ThePA90atleastoffersthe same
Corei9-9900K forless cash –the specwe
tested was£2,779–butthen thisalso
comes withhalfthe RAM, as well as less
storage space and aslowerQuadro
P4000 GPU.However,the PA90 still came
out slightly ahead in ourCPU-reliant 4K
benchmarks. The ConceptD 500scored
182 in theimage-editing test, 286inthe
video-encoding test and346 in the
multitasking test, for299 overall.
These areall great scores, but thePA90
managed slightly better video and
multitaskingresults,for 311 overall.
Sincebothsystems scored 182inthe
single-core image test,wereckon the
PA90’s more aggressive coolinghelpsit
engage higher boost clock speedsunder
load. Then again, it’s onlya4% difference,
which isn’tthe kind of gapyou’d notice
unless you were timing tasks with a
stopwatch. The ConceptD 500isinarguably
apotent media-editing andproduction PC,
thanks to the massive RAM allocation and
highcore/threadcount of theIntel processor.
SERVICES RENDERED
The RTX4000,despite its
similar nametothe P4000,
is also the superior graphics
card. It’sbuilt forhardware
acceleration in 2D and 3D
graphics creationsoftware
rather than gaming, like
Nvidia’s GeForceGPUs,
but even in the latter
the ConceptD 500
outperformed thePA90.
At 1,920x1,080, it produced
153fpsinDirt Showdown
and 81fps in Metro: Last
Light Redux, with both
games running on their
highest quality settings;
the PA90 managed 139fps
and 62fps respectively.
It wasthe same story at
2,560x1,440,asthe
ConceptD 500 scored
140fpsinDirt and47fps
in Metro,tothe PA90’s
121fps and35fps.
Forthiskindofmoney
you could still get amuch
morepowerful PC just for
gaming, but we also ran the Luxmark
GPU-only test, in whichthe ConceptD 500
scored 5,647–abrilliant resultthat shows
how good theRTX 4000isatserious
rendering work.
The SSD, too, performssuperbly.Even
besidesthe fact that it’s avast 1TB drive,
we measuredasequentialreadspeed of
3,004MB/sand asequentialwrite speed of
2,678MB/s. That’s absolutely amongthe top
tier of storage speedsyou can get from a
PCI-E3.0, M.2-mounted SSDlikethis one.
Havingtwo largehard disks is alsoa
boon, and not just forcapacity. Youcould
potentially set these up in aRAIDarray, so
anything saved on onedrive is automatically
mirrored on the other, creating instant
backupsfor anyimportant work.
The only shame is that you can’t add any
more disks. There are only two 3.5in trays
inside the chassis,and both arefull.There
arenospare M.2slotsor2.5in bays, either.
We can forgive this lack of upgradespace,
however, as what youget outofthe box
should be sufficientfor years.
LOCK BOX
We will saythatthe interior of theConceptD
500 isn’t quiteasmodern as the exterior.
The greymetaland top-mounted PSU are
distinctly old-fashioned,and thereiseven
what appears to be a5.25in traycage,even
though there’s no gapfor opticaldrivesonthe
front. It’salso somewhattime-consuming,
though not technically difficult, to open: you
