Acer will go up against Alienware with a new range of desktop PCs aimed at PC gaming enthusiasts.

The new Aspire Predator desktop range offers an "outstanding gaming experience" the company says and an original, "aggressive" chassis design conceals the latest generation technologies expert players demand.

The front of the body can be raised revealing a rewritable DVD and Blu-Ray reader while the USB and audio ports are on top combined with a multi-card reader all highlighted by light effects created by blue LEDs emitting from Predator's face.

Especially of interest to advanced users is the easy access to the hard disks via a special door on the front of the lower part of the chassis: the standard Acer Easy-swap Hard Drive solution makes the four Serial ATA 3Gbps high capacity hard disks removable even when the PC is turned on and in use.

RAID 0, 1, 5, 1+0 modes with NVIDIA MediaShield storage technology guarantees data security in the event of disk failure while Dual LAN technology means fast transfers and performance or two concurrently running connections in teaming mode.

Acer says the most advanced innovation is the Predator's cooling system that offers liquid cooling rated for 5.7 years of continuous operation without fear of pump failure or coolant evaporation.

The Aspire Predator incorporates the overclockable Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor with 1333MHz FSB. The nTune overclocking utility claims to offer simple control over overclocking the CPU, RAM and graphic cards without the need to reboot after adjustments.

In addition the NVIDIA nForce 780i SLIR MCP, 3-way SLI capable motherboard offers 2 x G9600GT, 2 x G9800GTX or even 2 x G9800GX2 (4 x GPU) extreme graphic cards depending on the configuration.

Complete with multimedia gaming keyboard with illuminated keys, a gaming mouse, Dolby Home Theater audio enhancement as well as EAX4.0 support, there are four different models available - the Aspire Predator Sniper, Aspire Predator Trooper, Aspire Predator Crusher and Aspire Predator Eliminator with prices ranging from approx £1400 to approx £3200.