My first professionally-built gaming PC was a Maingear X-Cube, a charming little black box filled with joy and wonder. It looks almost nothing like the younger, sleeker models Maingear’s just announced. They have come from the future.
My X-Cube has no glowing window, unless you counted the flickering of the motherboard network port light through the empty 13cm bay in front. It had no water-cooling, but it did have soda-failing. And you could turn it on its side, just like the new model, but it wouldn’t look cool. It would just sit there helplessly, making plaintive beeping noises. Ah, here it is.
I take it back. It’s almost entirely the same thing.
Is it odd that one of this new case’s most attractive features is the ability to turn it so the lighted window is at the top? I always wind up with the window facing away from me on my desk. This one gazes up my nose lovingly, and would serve as an excellent battleground for futuristic action figures.
Here’s what’s in the new box:
Technical Specification:
- Processor: Up to Intel Core i7 5960x 3.0GHz/3.5GHZ
- Cooling: Epic 240 CPU cooler (optional)
- Video Card: Up to dual graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 or AMD Radeon R9 290x
- Memory: Up to 32GB Corsair Dominator 2666 MHz Memory
- Hard Drive: 3x 1TB SSD, 3x Mechanical drives
- Network Adapter: Gigabit Ethernet
- WiFi: Up to 802.11b ac, Bluetooth: v4.0
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows® Windows 8.1
- Power Supply: Up to Corsair 1200i
- Dimensions: (W)10″ x (H)12.5″ x (D)15.5″
- Weight: 20lbs
- MSRP: Starting at $US799
The all-new X-Cube goes on sale today over at Maingear’s website, starting at $US799. To celebrate the new look, they have also got an X-Cube Battlebox Edition featuring Nvidia’s Geforce Titan Z GPU starting at $US1,499
My original X-Cube has been sitting in a corner of my dining room since we moved into the new place several months back. The plan was to put a new hard drive in it for my sister, but it turns out she doesn’t deserve a new hard drive. Maybe I’ll fix it up for the kids, so one day we can all reminisce about how much we loved its stupid face.
Comments
9 responses to “Maingear’s PC Gaming Cube Has Changed”
It’s a rebranded Corsair case.
I don’t game but I enjoy keeping up with it all on kotaku.
Can someone get this straight for me? Thats a thermaltank case isn’t it? I was looking at that exact case for a VM server build. It doesn’t fit full sized MB’s but it’s got heeps of space for harddrives and it separates the MB from the HDD area allowings for better cooling. Everything has a tray as well from memory, the MB tray slides out to.
So for people in Aus who want a build like this, you don’t need to get it from the states. Most online IT stores carry that case now.
Dorim corrected above, Corsair
Edit: I’m sick to death of being on a moderated list for over a year..
corsair air
540240 case. it’sATXmATX.http://www.corsair.com/en-au/carbide-series-air-240-high-airflow-micro-atx-and-mini-itx-pc-case
The 540 looks like the old model, this the new 240 model ITX
fixed, thanks. Though the current 540 has the same styling as the 240.
Actually its the Air 240. Its the Mini/Micro ATX version.
my mistake 😛 it’s obvious now.
Those are the starting US prices. They have one key selling point (ie, Titan Z in the latter case), then everything else is relatively under-spec:
Processor: Intel® Pentium® Anniversary Edition G3258
Memory: 8GB Corsair® Vengeance™
Hard Drive: 500GB Seagate® Barracuda™
Sure, they offer (even encourage) the opportunity to customize and select more reasonable hardware that would often be expected of a gaming machine sporting a Titan Z, such as more memory, faster CPU, more/faster storage, etc., but then you’re getting into the multi-thousand dollar range.