As we already know workstation is a powerful computer system. It is a specialized machine used for purposes such as video editing, producing special effects, high resolution audio editing and engineering tasks. Work computers are rarely reviewed. So when I was given the Acer Altos P130 to review, I immediately agreed because I wanted to see what the difference is between a normal desktop and a flagship work computer.
Therefore, in this article I will share a review about the performance and capabilities of the Acer Altos P130 F9 | i9 13900 after using it for a month from the point of view and experience of use as a video editor (video editor) .
SPECIFICATIONS
Intel Core i9 13900 CPU
GPU NVIDIA RTX A5000 GDDR6 24GB RAM
RAM 16GB DDR4
1TB Internal Storage
Front I/O: 4x USB-A 2x USB-C 1x SD card slot 1x 3.5mm audio jack
Back: 6x USB-A6x DP2x Ethernet Port 1x Serial Port 1x VGA port 1x HDMI 1x Speaker 1x Line in 1x Microphone
Power Supply (Power Supply) 700W 80 PLUS® Gold-level
SIM/Telephony None
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth
Audio Jack Yes
Waterproof None
Scan System None
Selling Price RM18,699
DESIGN
In terms of design, the Acer Altos P130 F9 tower | The i9 13900 is like a regular desktop computer outboard design. There are no curved shapes or unique design additions such as transparent frame sides or colorful LED lights that flash when turned on. This workstation frame comes in black, 20cm high, 34.03cm wide and 45cm long.
Its size is actually a little smaller than most workstations that are commonly seen while saving the space required to place it. In the office I appreciate the small size of this tower for not having a large work space. The compact size prevents feet from accidentally kicking the tower too often. The tower also looks neat and can work well as a protector for the PC's internal components from dirt and dust.
On the outside of the device there are also several slots for HDMI and USB available. But what caught my attention is 4x USB type-A, 2 USB type-C, 1x 3.5 mm audio jack and there is 1x slot for SD card all placed on the front. However, on the device we received, the slot for the SD card was unusable as it was simply an empty slot that was unable to read data on the inserted SD card.
All the ports placed on the front make it easy to reach compared to the computer tower I've used before where they put almost all the ports on the back. This makes it hard to reach for me to plug or unplug the USB cable from the device.
However, there are also several more USB ports placed on the back. I/O options and the total number of ports for USB available on this device I feel are quite a lot and suit my needs as a video editor who needs to frequently transfer the results of recording clips from the camera to the computer for editing purposes. The most comforting thing is that I no longer need to use any adapters and dongles because all the types of ports I want are already available.
KEYBOARD and MOUSE
I also received the keyboard and mouse that came with the Acer Altos P130 F9 CPU. But what I can say, the keyboard provided is with a design that is too basic to make the typing experience using the keyboard less satisfying.
The keys feel very cheap with the switches being of the membrane type. When pressed it feels like using a toy keyboard. It's a little odd that Acer is giving away this cheap keyboard for a work computer that sells for five figures. The mouse provided is also of the basic type. I immediately replaced both of these input devices with a more office-quality mechanical keyboard and gaming mouse.
USAGE & SOFTWARE
The operating system used is Windows 11 Pro and comes with an Intel Core i9 13900 processor type which is the most prominent type of processor chip with 24 CPU cores and operates at a base speed of 2.0 GHz and can be increased to 5.6 Ghz. This is the latest and powerful processor chip offered by Intel in the market at the time the Altos P130 F9 was launched.
It usually takes me about 20 minutes or more to render a video that has been edited with 4K resolution to finish. On this Acer Altos P130 F9, the processing time is shortened up to four times faster than before when I was using the Intel Macbook Pro that I used all this time.
To test the performance, I have done a comparison by processing the same video project using both devices, i.e. Macbook Pro and PC. This is to ensure that each type of recording clip and video software has the same size and type. As a result, a significant comparison can be seen through the speed and length of time taken by both devices to complete the video rendering process.
Not only that, I have also experienced using the Macbook Air M1 for rendering purposes and its power is still not able to match the speed and performance of the Acer Altos P130 for video rendering operations.
In fact, during the process of commenting, I was once told by the editor to edit the video produced at the last minute. Because of this powerful Acer Altos P130 F9, I was able to complete the editing process in only about 5 minutes for a 6-minute 4K video. No more issues with editors complaining about slow completion of work.
A very noticeable difference can be seen from the two screenshots. The time taken by the MacBook Pro to process a finished edited video is more than 20 minutes and sometimes much longer than that. Imagine that to run the rendering process on a 4K video with a duration of only about 4 minutes I had to wait for more than 20 minutes to complete.
But in the next figure, you can see the duration to complete the rendering process only takes less than 10 minutes using Altos P130 F9. As a video editor, I have no complaints even if I have to re-edit the video at the last minute because this fast processing time makes me quite relieved.
The use of the NVIDIA RTX A5000 GDDR6 24GB graphics card is also very helpful. This is a GPU developed specifically for graphics purposes and not for gaming. There are 8196 CUDA cores which are very useful in software like Premiere Pro which uses these cores to process video. With a power of 27.8 TFLOPS, it is no surprise that video editing and processing can be done without any issues.
Normally I will use Adobe Premiere Pro software for video editing and there have been several times when I had to deal with a situation where the display of the software became blocked coupled with a rather severe time lag issue when using an older Macbook Pro before.
In addition, it also comes with a total memory storage capacity of 1TB. As a video editor , 1TB is a relatively small size for data storage space. Usually the size for one video project file is 10GB to 30GB, so for a week the use of memory storage space can reach 100GB.
However, it still depends on how each one is used. But I feel that the issue of small data storage space is not an issue that has no solution. There are slots for additional SSDs and HDDs on the inside if needed.
POWER SOURCE
Next, the power supply of the Acer Altos P130 F9 device is 700W 80 PLUS® Gold-level and I admit it is not the best power supply value but for use to do video editing work, the 700W power supply is sufficient. I say that because with that level of power supply, it can handle NVIDIA RTX & Core i9 well.
During my video editing and rendering process, there was no experience of the computer suddenly dying and the display becoming stiff. Everything went very smoothly and the work was completed faster because there were less interruptions and technical problems.
BENCH MARK
In order to test, measure and obtain accurate software performance test results, Cinebench R23, Cinebench 2024 and CrystalDiskMark are used as measuring tools. Based on the results of the tests that have been done, a better evaluation can be done. Here I include the test results for all three benchmark tests.
After testing we found that the Intel Core i9 13900 scored higher in the single-core and multi-core tests when compared to the Apple M2 Ultra. The GPU capabilities of the NVIDIA RTX A5000 also exceed the GPU capabilities of the M2 Ultra. In other words, Acer Altos P130 F9 is an alternative to Mac Studio or Mac Pro for those who are more comfortable with the Windows 11 system.
In the SSD benchmark test, the storage can read at a speed of around 6.4GBps and write at a speed of around 4.9GBps. It's not the fastest SSD I've seen in the our labs but it's more than adequate for work needs throughout the review period.
I feel this is very useful because as a video editor I often transfer out and transfer data from the PC to the hard disk as well as transfer data from the SD card of the camera to the computer for editing purposes. It's time to edit the video, it takes a long time, I certainly don't want the data transfer process to be time-consuming.
CONCLUSION
What I can conclude in this review is that the Acer Altos P130 F9 is a very powerful work computer. Based on the experience of using it as a video editor , the performance is adequate and able to give me satisfaction throughout the period of use.
The price of the Acer Altos P130 F9 that I reviewed is RM18,699 which on paper looks quite expensive. But as you can see above, the performance is faster than a Mac Pro or Mac Studio that sells for almost twice as much. If you are indeed looking for a powerful video editing work computer, the Altos P130 F9 is a good choice.
I personally feel that there is no problem if you want to spend more money to buy a slightly expensive CPU as long as it is able to provide excellent performance and satisfaction throughout the usage experience.
PROs and Advantages
Very satisfactory performance for video editing.
Sufficient variety and number of I/Os.
Easy access to the necessary ports.
Speeds up the video rendering process.
CONS and Cons
SSD size is not big enough.
The price is quite expensive.