Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5 Desktop Review

The Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5 Desktop is an exceptional performer that’s excels equally at powering daily office work and home day-to-day tasks as well as being a light multimedia editing platform. It also rings up good value as a business premises desktop for medium to large corporations.

Under the hood, it packs an 8^th Gen Intel i5-8400 processor which is a total beast for run-to-the-mill tasks, 12GB of RAM and 2TB of hard drive storage. We loved the fact that it offers extreme performance and IT-friendly serviceability and upgradability.

Pros

• Classy design
• Desktop excels in performance
• Case is accessible easily
• Option for storage expansion
• Ports are adequate
• Heat emission is low
• DVD-RW drive available

Cons

• No SSD
• Slow booting time

The Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5 Desktop is among Acer’s most powerful no-frills home desktop. Judging from the features it sports, it’s a desktop meant for users looking for performance on a budget and value for money. The system comes with the latest in terms of processor, that is, the 8^th Gen i5-8400 processor, 12 GB memory and a large 2TB mechanical hard drive.

It’s no hulk of a desktop, but the Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5 packs enough components to muscle through your home and office tasks. What’s more, is it has some extra space for expansion should you decide to throw in a graphics card in the future. In this review, we try to figure out how it stacks up in performance.

Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5 Specs

Processor	8th Generation Intel Core i5-8400 Processor (Up to 4.0GHz)
Memory	12GB DDR4 2666MHz
Storage	2TB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
Graphics Card	Intel HD Graphics 630
Measurements/ weight	13.78 x 6.42 x 13.39 inches/18.6 pounds
Ports	1 x USB 3.1 Type C Gen 2 port (up to 10 Gbps), Single USB 3.1 Gen 2 Port, 2 – USB 3.1 Gen 1 Ports, 4 – USB 2.0 Ports & 2 – HDMI Ports & 1 – VGA Port

Design and Features

Packed in a 16-liter chassis, the Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5 Desktop seems as harmless as any other subtle office desktop. But there’s nothing subtle about this 18.6-pound beast. At its core is the state of the art 8^th Gen processor that promises to unravel every challenge you hurl its way.

A side-by-side look at it with other desktops reveals just how stylish the build quality on this new Acer TC series case is. The chassis comes with uniquely ridged edges which give it a sleek and sharp aura. It certainly stands out in an office desk space among other office desktops.

At 13.78 x 6.42 x 13.39 inches and 18.6 pounds, the Aspire TC won’t take much of your desk space. Neither will it be burdensome lugging it around the office especially if you move offices often. The tower can stand upright or sit on its side, the latter courtesy of its raised upfront face. The side panels are strong enough which means you can rest the PC on its side without worrying about the panel scratching.

Getting inside the hood is easy, not as easy as a tool-less case, but easy as just-need-to-unscrew-a few-nuts-at-the-rear-easy! Inside, the internal components are laid out neatly and so st the cable management. The motherboard allows a few more upgrades should you want to in the future. As it stands, you have a single PCIe x16, PCIe X1, one M.2 for SSD and one M.2 for WLAN/Bluetooth. Generally, from a first onset, there is enough space to whip in a few components should you desire an upgrade.

Sufficient Amount of Ports

Our unit came along with a complimentary wired keyboard and mouse which is regularly packaged with desktops nowadays. They both do a decent job but if you want a convenient set-up we recommend upgrading to wireless keyboard and mouse. As for connectivity options, the front face of the PC holds a single USB 3.1 Type C port, one USB 3.1 port, microphone, and headphone jacks and an SD card reader.

There is also a DVD-RW drive which is great in the event you ever want to run a software installed in a CD or play movies.

The rear has a host of ports. The bulk of the ports are located here. You’ll find two more USB 3.1 ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports (which can be used for mouse and keyboard connecting), two HDMI ports and one VGA port. Other connectivity options include 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0.

Performance

The highlight of the performance section is none other than the processor. The Acer Aspire TC-885 brags of an 8^th Gen Core i5-8400 processor, a CPU considered the best to ever come to Coffee Lake. The processor easily compares to the AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600 in the race for whose mightier in PC gaming. And thankfully, it’s also one of the most affordable Coffee Lake chips you can actually buy right now.

We also loved this choice of CPU because it offers serious computational chops and for a whole lot less. That means, because of the chip’s budget price Acer could afford to sell this PC at an affordable price making it easily available to most users.

That aside, the Core i5-8400 comes with six cores but without hyperthreading meaning it remains right at six threads of processing power. The processor throttles at 2.8GHz base speed and is capable of topping a maximum of 4GHz on Turbo. However, all this is only on single-core performance, with the chip generally sticking to a 3.8GHz frequency on standard usage. Moving on, the Core i5-8400 also sports 9MB of L3 cache and a low-rated TDP of 65W.

On gaming performance, there isn’t much difference in gaming performance between the Core i5s and Core i7s. However, the Core i5-8400 provides the best-in-class gaming performance, especially when paired with a dedicated graphics card. That means, if you’ve got the cash, upgrade to a dedicated GPU, say Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050, 1050Ti or 1060. With any of those in play, you should be able to play most of the latest titles at high frames rates and without any hitches.

Meanwhile, for those who don’t,  I mean for those users who spend most of their time working on their PC than they do playing games…listen. For those, I’d say, don’t fret. Even with the discrete graphics card (Intel HD 630 Graphics), the CPU alone should deliver a promising future. It should still be capable of muscling through any computing tasks; web browsing, office productivity, and anything in between.

Memory and storage

Among the other dizzying array of features that impressed us on this PC are the 12GB DDR4 memory and 2TB mechanical hard drive. 12GB memory is more than the average (8GB) required memory for most casual use PCs. Therefore, it can handle any multitasking tasks with aplomb, including running multiple open Chrome tabs, playing music, and run Ms. Office suits.

As for the storage, the 2TB mechanical hard drive is more than sufficient for saving your multimedia files, data, software, and games. We also recommend topping that off with a solid-state drive, perhaps a 128GB SSD or even 512 GB SSD. The SSD should serve to reduce boot times and load software fast. If you mind more about speed over quantity, the SSD storage is a sure way to go.

Conclusion

A decent PC that costs slightly shy of $500 and one with all the right features is a no-brainer. Users will find this PC incredibly versatile because of its assortment of components: Core i5-8400 processor, 12GB HDD and 2TB hard drive. But what positions this PC as a go-to-desktop for daily productivity and light gaming is its performance and upgradeability.

All these perks make it an ideal choice for medium-sized offices, workgroups, and individuals looking for a workhorse computer. Better yet, it also can serve as a starting point for aspiring gamers looking to take a dip in the gaming sphere. We easily recommend it as a remarkable choice for home/office and light gaming use.