Acer has a knack for building quality budget desktops. The Aspire TC-1780-UA92 reviewed here ($549.99; $479.99 as tested) has enough performance for the average home user, thanks to its 13th Gen Intel Core i5 processor and speedy 512GB solid-state drive. This tower includes Wi-Fi 6E (the fastest widely available standard), USB Type-C, and a media card reader to fulfill today’s expectations. It even has two HDMI ports for dual monitor setups. This Aspire is a lot of PC for not much money, handily earning our Editors’ Choice award for budget home desktops.Configuration and Design: Upscale Budget LooksThe Aspire TC-1780’s all-black exterior seems basic, but you’ll find more detail here with a closer look. The angled front panel is plastic but has a fine brushed pattern and a reflective stripe to look more interesting. Acer’s logo here is the only branding. This desktop is on the small side for a mid-tower at 13.4 by 6.5 by 13.8 inches (HWD).
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(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The plentiful front port selection includes a USB 3.2 Type-C port, a USB 3.2 Type-A connection, 3.5mm universal audio and microphone jacks, and a full-size SD card reader. Our review model lacks an optical drive, but the cutout indicates that some configurations might have one.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
You’ll find five more USB Type-A ports (one version 3.2 and four legacy 2.0), an Ethernet jack, a trio of audio jacks, and two HDMI ports around the back. Two video outputs are a boon on a budget desktop. This Aspire also runs on built-in Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless. The antennas are built into the case, so you’ll find no external protrusions.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
For servicing, two Phillips-head screws secure the left door. The spartan interior won’t impress aftermarket builders, but this is a basic desktop, and all the essentials are here. The motherboard (about 11 by 7.75 inches) has two DDR4-3200 DIMM slots. Our single 8GB DIMM restricts the memory to single-channel performance, but you can upgrade to dual-channel RAM down the line.The motherboard’s sole M.2 2280 slot is populated in our unit with a 512GB SSD. Two 3.5-inch drives can be installed, for which Acer conveniently provides mounting hardware and SATA and power cables in the box. The motherboard also has one PCI Express x16 and one PCI Express x1 slot. The 300-watt proprietary power supply lacks a GPU power connector, so you won’t be able to add a high-powered graphics card.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Active cooling includes the fan on the low-profile aluminum CPU cooler and another one in the power supply. The CPU fan was audible while running performance benchmarks and is distracting in a quiet room, though those tasks wouldn’t typically be run on this tower. The noise level is otherwise well-controlled.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Acer includes a basic USB keyboard and mouse and a one-year warranty. The Windows 11 installation has many unwanted apps, but they take only a few minutes to uninstall. The most useful included app is Acer Care Center, which provides system updates, recovery options, and support access. It also has a tune-up feature to delete junk files and manage startup applications.Testing the Acer Aspire TC-1780: Everyday Performance EssentialsOur Aspire TC-1780-UA92 is equipped with an Intel Core i5-13400 CPU (10 total cores, up to 4.6GHz Turbo Boost) with onboard UHD 730 graphics silicon, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. Acer’s store sold it for $479.99 at review time.The Dell Inspiron Desktop commands $629.99 direct with a Core i5-14400 and 16GB of RAM. The 8GB of RAM in our Aspire is its sore point for multitasking, but it can be easily upgraded aftermarket. (A quick search showed 8GB DDR4-3200 DIMMs going for less than $30 online.) Acer also sells the Aspire TC-1780-UR12 with a Core i7-13700 and 16GB of RAM, but it’s well outside budget territory at $899.99.
Let’s see how the Aspire handled our tests. We haven’t reviewed many recent budget desktops, so it’s going up against older models including its predecessor, the Acer Aspire TC-1760 with a Core i5-12400, along with two Core i3-1200 desktops, the Inspiron Desktop, and the MSI Pro DP21 mini PC. We also included the ECS Liva Z5 Plus, a mini PC for everyday use on its laptop-grade CPU.Productivity and Content Creation TestsWe run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Third in line, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).At last, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The Aspire TC-1780 handily cleared the 4,000 points we look for from mainstream PCs in PCMark 10’s main test, suggesting it has ample pep for the likes of Microsoft Office. It also had by far the speediest SSD based on its PCMark 10 Storage score.The CPU tests saw the Aspire TC-1780 lag behind the Aspire TC-1760 in Geekbench and HandBrake, though the extra cores on its Core i5-13400 probably helped it eke out a win in Cinebench. Just 8GB of RAM probably held the Aspire TC-1780 back in Photoshop, though, where the ECS—the only unit with 16GB of RAM—scored the highest.Note how much better the Core i5 Aspire duo scored than the Core i3 Dell and MSI. The Core i3 is a fine chip for basic use, but if you’re doing anything more demanding, Core i5 options are often available for not much more.Graphics TestsWe test the graphics inside all laptops and desktops with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).To further measure GPUs, we also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests are rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions while exercising graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation, respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.
Playing the latest games isn’t in the cards for these budget machines, but the Aspire TC-1780 scored in line for its Intel UHD integrated graphics chip. Both it and the Inspiron desktop had trouble with GFXBench for reasons unknown. The ECS pulled in top scores, thanks to its more advanced Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics solution.Verdict: Acer’s Best Budget BuyAcer serves up a fine value with its Aspire TC-1780-UA92. Our Core i5 model is short on RAM, with just 8GB, but that can be remedied later, thanks to the desktop’s easy upgradability. The Aspire otherwise includes everything else we look for in a basic tower, like fast Wi-Fi, USB Type-C, a media card reader, and dual-monitor support. Then we have the price, which undercuts Dell’s Inspiron Desktop by quite a lot. For all of that, the Acer Aspire TC-1780-UA92 earns our Editors’ Choice award for budget home desktops.
The Bottom Line
Acer’s Aspire TC-1780-UA92 is an excellent value, with peppy performance and modern amenities including USB-C and Wi-Fi 6E, making it the top budget desktop right now.
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