Maingear MG-1 Review: You Can’t Get More Custom Than This

There’s thing peculiar astir gathering a PC by hand. I inactive person fond memories of my archetypal tower. But we person to look facts: Some radical don’t person the clip oregon patience to place each the parts they request and past the know-how to enactment them each together. Custom PC shaper Maingear has been successful the crippled for years, and judging by its MG-1, the institution knows what the PC gamer assemblage wants: customizability, high-quality parts, and tons and tons of RGB.

Maingear handed maine their MG-1 Legendary desktop with a peculiar astonishment successful the box. The institution included a level sheet with a military-style greenish and achromatic signifier for our reappraisal portion and Gizmodo’s logo emblazoned connected the front. A customized beforehand sheet usually costs $100 extra. 

Yes, it was a mode to food america up earlier we spent clip connected their product, but astatine the precise least, it besides offers a glimpse of Maingear’s doctrine with the MG-1. It’s a emblematic mid-size desktop lawsuit successful astir ways that matter. The parts glow with each the milky RGB lighting you could privation erstwhile it’s running, but it easy fits connected oregon underneath your desktop. That customizable, removable beforehand sheet is similar the cherry connected apical of a heavy vanilla crystal pick cone. It’s a bully happening for Maingear that vanilla is my favourite flavor.

The payment of a prebuilt strategy is that Maingear knows the parts enactment unneurotic and that they acceptable wrong its jazzed-up lawsuit with a customized CPU cooler. It looks good, particularly the liquid cooling apparatus and infinity mirror. When you unfastened it up, you’ll find 2 RGB LED strips moving on the bottommost compartment and the broadside adjacent the beforehand fans. You don’t announcement it unless you’re staring down astatine the solid broadside sheet from above. If the PC sits connected your desk, you don’t person to care. If it’s adjacent your feet, those LED strips look excessively DIY for the added terms of a pre-built PC.

My mentation of the MG-1 came with 2 TB of SSD storage, an Intel Core i9-14900K, 32 GB of RAM, and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super. It volition outgo nether $3,400 if you prime each the parts from Maingear’s website. That is simply a hefty price, but it is not retired of line, considering the RTX 4080 Super is astir $1,000. The Intel Core i9 mightiness travel successful a small little than $500. It’s the outgo of convenience, but determination are other benefits to buying a PC with customized parts. The pros astatine Maingear person specified coagulated cablegram absorption it puts immoderate of my past attempts to shame.

The modern mentation of the MG-1 Legendary without immoderate customization starts astatine $2,700, little than the terms of the Alienware Aurora R16 with comparative specs and performance. It’s a much upgradable PC with 2 spare RAM slots and immoderate spare PCI-e slots.

The institution also offers caller versions of its lineup containing AMD’s latest Ryzen 7 and 9 CPUs. When making a purchase, you’re cementing your allegiance to the AMD oregon Intel ecosystem, but fixed that systems similar the MG-1 Legendary commencement astatine $2,800 for what is ostensibly a coagulated chip, it’s worthy superior information compared to the Intel variety.

Maingear MG-1 Review: Build Quality

© Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo

Maingear made a constituent of telling maine they wanted to connection arsenic overmuch arsenic a standardized Windows 11 acquisition with their PC. It’s packing rather a fewer parts from MSI, and if you’re not careful, you whitethorn accidentally reinstall each the missing bloatware you intended to support disconnected your PC. If you’re similar me, and you trial a batch of products astatine once, specified arsenic Razer’s big glowy mousepad, Blackwidow keyboard, and more, it’s not agelong earlier your PC is afloat to the gills of apps that privation to motorboat connected startup.

As I mentioned before, I bask each the RGB flooding the cavity of the MG-1, prevention for the azygous LED airy portion moving on the bottom. It would look overmuch cleaner to diffuse the airy with a azygous portion of opaque plastic. Otherwise, my favourite added doohickey is the CPU liquid cooler portion with the slick infinity reflector effect. It clicks with MSI’s motherboard to connection a clean-looking interior that doesn’t effort to unreal it’s not a PC. 

The broadside sheet is held unneurotic by 4 thumb screws that instrumentality a small longer to region than I’m utilized to with astir customized cases. The broadside sheet past slides backmost and out, revealing those annoying LED strips and the customized mounting bracket for the GPU. The equine is made retired of 3D-printed plastic, but that 4080 Super is mounted truthful securely it doesn’t adjacent wiggle aft tugging astatine it. The downside is you would request to region the beforehand sheet wholly to entree the screws keeping the graphics paper successful place.

Despite that, the PC is good enactment together. I removed the backplate and recovered superb cablegram absorption that kept each ligament unafraid portion delineating wherever each goes. And you person to springiness Maingear props for its customizable beforehand plate. It locks successful with respective magnets and stays unafraid contempt accidental knocks oregon shudders. 

This beast is quiet, for the astir part. The instrumentality systems don’t thin to buzz with chopper strength, adjacent erstwhile nether stress. At most, it’s a debased growl that lone made my coworkers moving astatine the desks astir maine glimpse up with curiosity alternatively than annoyance. 

Maingear MG-1 Review: Performance

© Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo

The Legendary is simply a strategy made for high-performance gaming. I didn’t person to archer you that, did I? Look astatine the specs; you tin already archer this strategy manages conscionable fine, going up to 4K autochthonal without upscaling with the highest imaginable settings connected aggregate demanding games. No, it won’t assistance you the precise borderline of what’s imaginable connected a PC without a RTX 4090, but it should beryllium much than enough.

I played and benchmarked aggregate games astatine 4K resolution. The Intel Core i9-1400K is simply a hefty CPU, though it inactive whitethorn not beryllium arsenic top-tier arsenic the latest AMD Ryzen 7 7800x3D that you get successful the astir caller mentation of the MG-1 Legendary. The 4080 Super and the CPU unneurotic are capable to assistance you deed 60 FPS oregon much astatine 4K oregon ultrawide (3440 by 1400) resolutions. 

That doesn’t mean determination won’t beryllium compromises. With a ray tracing acceptable to ultra, I tin deed 50 FPS on Cyberpunk 2077 benchmarks astatine sub-4K without immoderate upscaling oregon framework generation, but erstwhile I added the DLSS prime acceptable to automatic, I was pushing past 100 FPS. At 4K resolution, you’ll request the other boost from DLSS to scope 60 with each the ray tracing trimmings and settings astatine precocious oregon ultra. 

It’s a akin script successful different games I tested. Horizon: Forbidden West ran smoothly arsenic butter, and Black Myth Wukong was nary match, adjacent erstwhile I turned disconnected the upscaling. A crippled similar Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 needs the other upscaling assistance astatine 4K with each the settings acceptable to their max, but adjacent erstwhile I relied connected the native, it wasn’t dipping beneath 49 FPS adjacent arsenic the Tyrranids were swarming each over.

The CPU successful my reappraisal portion is nary longer what you get with the MG-1 Legendary unless you physique it yourself. Still, the Intel Core i9-14900K is simply a coagulated processor for a instrumentality of this type. It inactive beats the Intel Core i9-14900KF successful single-core and multi-core CPU benchmarks with Geekbench and Cinebench. The 14th-gen Intel CPUs are under aggravated scrutiny for their caller instability issues, truthful it’s fair capable to privation to enactment distant until Intel yet confirms everything is vessel shape.

Maingear MG-1 Review: Verdict

© Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo

When you look consecutive on, the MG-1 is simply a sleek, effectual PC that leaves capable country for aboriginal customization. You whitethorn privation to drawback immoderate portion of translucent 4th tube to marque the LED strips vibe much with the full design, but that’s a niggling contented for specified a coagulated build. 

There’s not overmuch spare space, and the size mightiness constrain you if you ever privation much than 2 SSDs connected the motherboard. I’d besides beryllium wary of aboriginal Nvidia RTX 50-series releases, arsenic we inactive don’t cognize however large they mightiness get. At the precise least, the motherboard supports gen-5 PCI-e slots for future, perchance monstrous GPUs.

But astatine this point, there’s not a azygous crippled you can’t play connected the MG-1 Legendary’s specs. It’s a coagulated instrumentality that won’t request overmuch upgrades for years on, prevention for the modular TLC a PC deserves. The customizable beforehand sheet offers conscionable the close magnitude of flair. The MG-1 whitethorn look humble, but that’s lone due to the fact that it knows it doesn’t request to compete.