New Jersey-based system b uilder Maingear has launched a beige desktop to tempt in fans of retro PCs who, despite themselves, crave modern processing power. The newMaingear Retro95is what some might call a ready-made ‘sleeper build,’ a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The “limited drop” Retro95 is available today, with prices starting at $1,599.
In Maingear’s words, the new Retro95 is “brings back the unmistakable style of a ’90s-era horizontal desktop, now supercharged with cutting-edge hardware.” Some of the hardware you will find in top-end configurations will include theAMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D,Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, up to 96GB DDR5 RAM, and 8TB of PCIe Gen4 NVMeSSD storage.
In addition to those performance component essentials, Maingear says that the Retro95 is “engineered with modern thermals and whisper-quiet air cooling for high performance with low noise.” That means no liquid or hybrid cooling, but it is good to know that high-end systems will come withNoctua fansand an 850W PSU. These cases also have capacity for an optional optical drive.The case caught our eye, and we recognized it asSilverStone’s FLP01 horizontal desktop case. A Maingear spokesperson confirmed that this is a “customized iteration of the Silverstone FLP01.”
“Honoring the classic era of gaming”
“This one is for the gamers who lugged CRTs to LAN parties, swapped out disks between levels, and got their gaming news from magazines,” said Wallace Santos, Maingear CEO and founder. “The Retro95 drop is our way of honoring the classic era of gaming, with a system that looks like the one you had as a kid, but runs like the monster you’d spec from Maingear today.”The $1,599 starter version of the PC will come with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050, AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, ID-Cooling IS-67-XT cooler, stock fans, and MSI B650 VC-WIFI II motherboard, 16GB T-Force Delta RGB DDR5 6400MT/s (2x 8GB), a 1TB T-Force A440 SSD, and 650W MSI MAG A650GL power supply. This pre-built PC is a limited edition, with Maingear stating that “Once they’re gone, it’s game over.”
TheSilverStone FLP01casetranscended April Fools statusto become a real PC chassis several months ago. Moreover, we saw the PC tower styleFLP02(also beige and retro) unwrapped atComputexin this May. If you are a 100% PC DIY devotee, or are outside the range of Maingear shipments, or miss this limited edition, then the empty SilverStone cases are probably for you.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom’s Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
