Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re a high-end gaming PC manufacturer, why not just time your desktop launches for when the latest pixel-blasting GPUs come out? That’s exactly how Maingear rolls, so it’s just announced three new machines based on NVIDIA’s freshly launched GeForce GTX Titan. The new flagship graphics card borrows its name (and some of its tech) from the Kepler-based Titan supercomputer and packs 2,688 CUDA cores and 7.1 billion transistors, along with 6GB of GDDR5 RAM and a 384-bit interface. That lends it 4,500 Gigaflops of horsepower, displacing the company’s GTX 690 model at the top while letting modders overclock and overvolt the cards with “higher limits than ever,” according to NVIDIA.

Maingear will ship three units armed with the Titan: the SHIFT, which will be available in dual or three-way GTX Titan configurations, the F131 with one or two cards and the single-card only Potenza. All feature a 90 degree rotated motherboard design to vent hot air out the top for better cooling, along with with AMD or Intel processors up to the Core i7-3960X six-core model, SATA 6G, USB 3.0 and up to 64GB of RAM. You’ll also get 4K max resolution on four simultaneous displays, thanks to two dual-link DVI, HDMI and Display Port 1.2 connectors. There’s no word yet on pricing, but for a three-way SLI SHIFT PC? Think big.

Filed under: Desktops

Comments

Power and portability is a tricky balancing act, and if you’re in the market for a gaming laptop that satisfies both, Maingear’s Nomad 15 might be the one. Apart from the 15.5-inch 1,920 x 1,080 anti-glare screen, pretty much every other bit of hardware is customizable on the Windows 7 notebook. You’ll have the choice of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 670M, 670MX, 675MX or 680M for the GPU, up to an Intel i7-3840QM quad-core beast running at 3.8GHz, and a maximum of 32GB RAM. Which optical drive it comes with is also your decision, and for storage, up to dual 256GB SSDs or dual 750GB HDDs are supported. A wireless card is optional, with Ethernet joining the stock ports, including HDMI, DVI-I and S/PDIF outs, two USB 2.0’s, three USB 3.0’s and a lone Fire Wire. The important part comes after you’ve finished selecting the guts — picking the right color finish to match your style. It might not be delivered as quickly as Maingear’s other similar sized lappy, but the Nomad 15 certainly packs a heavier punch. Unfortunately, the price is pretty weighty as well: a solid $1,549 for the most basic model.

Continue reading Maingear announces Nomad 15 gaming laptop: small in size, big on specs

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

Maingear announces Nomad 15 gaming laptop: small in size, big on specs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Nov 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

It’s time to take a peek at the MAINGEAR Potenza, a desktop gaming machine that’s small enough to fit under your desk if you wish, or sit right up out in the open with its powerful innards hidden by a perfectly stripped-down black and red outer metal body made of anodized aluminum with a steel frame inside. The unit we’ve got here utilizes the fabulous GeForce GTX 660 Ti for graphics, cutting the cost of the final build while it keeps with the Kepler power NVIDIA is known for. The Potenza is a customized (and customizable) machine that places heavy emphasis on hand-constructed and quality-assured building from MAINGEAR’s own highly-skilled staff of PC geniuses – and it shows.

Hardware

This beast is not light in between 20 and 30 pounds, but it’s certainly small at just 14.75 inches tall, 7.5 inches wide, and 9.25 inches deep. You’ve got all metal on the outside with the Maingear logo set up front in red lights cut into the surface. Everything you need to plug in to this system sits up top of the machine with a plastic grill set with large access points made perfect for securing cords as they slide through the area provided on the sides and back of the top area.

This machine was designed specifically for you to have cords coming upwards out of it and/or out the back of the top, certainly made for easy access at a floor level. Though the system can indeed be as simple as the black totem you see here, you can also get it aesthetically enhanced with laser-etched designs, automotive paint jobs, and “over 200 color combinations of internal and external colors” direct from MAINGEAR – go big with Burple, Citrus Fire, or even Organic Green if you dare!

The front and the back of the setup here are easy to remove as the top with pressure-clips holding them in place until you make the effort to pop them off. Inside you’ll find your hard drive and graphics card ready to look at, admire, or replace at will. Everything else is locked in tight – but if you REALLY want to un-do the precision construction here, there’s a multi-tool included in the box.

In fact, the package you get this computer in also includes every bell and whistle that would normally come with the components that make up the the final product as well, just incase you might ever need them. This set of components includes a couple of external antenna that make your wi-fi signal usable – you can do wireless web without them, but the metal makes it a bit less excellent than we’d like. You can also just toss these in the corner, too, as this amalgamation is ready for action right out of the box.

One you get past admiring the free MAINGEAR t-shirt you’ve likely gotten in the package, you’ll be having another peek at what’s under the grill up top. Here you’ll find a riser cutting the array in half, with a space for the power cord to find its way up and out the back area and the power and reset buttons to stay high. This riser also has the headphone and mic ports popping out the top along with two USB 3.0 ports. All of this sneaks its way out through the top grille when its closed down tight.

Besides the riser you’ve got a collection of ports of all kinds: a couple more USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, jacks for Wi-fi antennas, Ethernet, and a couple of powered e-SATA/USB ports. These sit near HDMI, DVI, and DisplayPort connections all ready for action. All of this is hidden if you wish it to be, but when you’re making with the massive amount of connections at once, you’ll have an octopus of wires attacking your desk. This isn’t any different from the rest of the desktops out there, of course, but the one-ness of the system without cords can be deceivingly clean looking – you might just want to put the system up on its own on your desk just for the light. It looks that good.

The bottom of this unit has some rubbery bumpers so you’re not scraping metal against your desk or your floor, and the hardcore black power of its appearance demands that you get a monitor (or set of monitors) to match it. The way the unit is situated, you’ll still be able to work with your CD/DVD slot (you can even get a Blu-ray drive if you wish) extremely easily (that’s the slit up front of the unit, if you did not know), and you’ll have no trouble with overheating in any respect.

This unit uses vertical head dissipation with its motherboard rotated 90 degrees so that when heat needs to escape and rises to do so, it can come right out the top easily. It’s got an intake fan mounted at the bottom as well as a self-contained liquid cooler, all of which keeps the system less than hot with only a small amount of sound overall.

Inside this beast you’ve got a set of innards that’ve been custom installed and quality assured by MAINGEAR’s finest. You’ve got an Intel Core i5 (Ivy Bridge, 3rd Gen) processor at 3570k clocked at 3.4GHz/3.8Ghz with Turbo 6MB L3 Cache HD 4000, for starters, and it’s Redline overlocked to boot – that’s a pro job, if you did not know. Keeping it all cool you’ve got a MAINGEAR 120 Supercooler, and right up front you’ve got the beast – an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti – MAINGEAR gives you a vast collection of options in this graphics arena, and we’ve chosen the 660 Ti because of the waves it’s made in recent news blasts. Value with power!

We’ve also got a 30GB Corsair Accelerator SSD Caching Drive, 500GB Seagate 7200rpm hard drive with 16GB Cache SATA, and up front is an 8X Dual Layer DVD RW Drive Slot Loading SATA so you can watch Lord of the Rings – or whatever you do with a DVD drive these days. The motherboard here is made by ASUS, the P8Z77-I Deluxe with Lucid Virtu MVP and those lovely USB 3.0 ports next to SATA 6G, Bluetooth, and wi-fi connections.

Software

Inside this machine you’ll get a rather stripped-down version of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit with so little bloatware you’ll wonder if someone made a mistake and provided you with a dream. You’ve got a couple of shortcuts on your desktop right out of the box that offer you just a bit of added security for your system if you wish, but for the most part you’ve got an operating system that gives you just what you payed for – Windows 7 and the basics. With this you’ll have no cleanup duty to perform before getting down to business with hardcore gaming galore.

Benchmarking

With this system, as it is with all systems we test here on SlashGear, we give it the one-shot test with GeekBench. In addition to this we’ve tested a selection of games from Arkham City to World of Warcraft, each of which performed perfectly well, especially considering the fact that this isn’t the absolute most powerful system we’ve ever had on the testing bench. Performance on this system with maxed-out gear inside have been extremely favorable for the Potenza, and with what we’ve got in this build, we certainly cannot argue the possibilities.

If you’re planning on working with this beast with Windows 7 (which is what it comes with right this minute) or with Windows 8 (coming soon), you’ll be busting up skulls without a hitch. You’ll be the belle of the ball with whatever you’re playing too, as any limitation you’ve got here can be modded out if you do so please. Have a peek at some more specifications from inside this build here, as well.

Wrap-up

The MAINGEAR Potenza has a really good chance of bringing you much more power and performance than you paid for, and the construction of the system – the attention to detail and final product – are nothing to scoff at. The MAINGEAR Potenza is without a doubt one of the finest gaming systems we’ve come across, especially considering the cost. While it wont destroy the gaming universe with perfectly top-tier benchmark smacks with a basic build, it’s certainly one of the best mid-tier gaming desktops you can buy – that’s a category not often attacked – MAINGEAR does it well right here.

The build we’ve got right here will ring in at right around $2,000 – and you’ll start at closer to $1,000 without adding on the beastly bits. You can also ring up quite a bit larger bill with boosts here and there in your own customizations too, so keep that in mind! You get a beast in any case!

MAINGEAR Potenza Review is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In a move to make its desktops more palatable to the masses, Maingear is bringing AMD’s integrated A-Series APUs to its F131 tower and X-Cube desktop PCs. Upon learning the news, we took a peek at the manufacturer’s website and found a customizable X-Cube available with a $649 starting price, which compares favorably to its $939 Intel counterpart. Unfortunately, the company has yet to update its website with AMD customization options for the F131. Regardless, we’re told that shoppers can expect to find both standard and Black Edition options for AMD’s chips, the latter which should appeal to overclockers. To scope out the company’s latest gear, just hit up the source link below.

Continue reading Maingear welcomes AMD A-Series APUs to its F131 and X-Cube desktop PCs

Filed under: Desktops

Maingear welcomes AMD A-Series APUs to its F131 and X-Cube desktop PCs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Maingear  | Email this | Comments

When it comes to portable gaming, you can either rely on handheld consoles such as the Sony PS Vita or the Nintendo 3DS, while there is also another market which is pretty mature – the gaming notebook. The thing about gaming notebooks is this – they tend to be clunky, and are not showfloor material for obvious reasons. Most of their bulk and weight are due to the kind of innards such notebooks possess, and the Maingear Nomad 17 is no different, especially when you consider the rather massive 17” display. It will run on the latest generation of Intel Core i7 processors (up to 3.8GHz), carry a massive 32GB RAM when fully maxed up, accompanied by a choice of hard drive configurations.

Other hardware specifications include NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 675M or 680M graphics chipset, a 1,920 x 1080 resolution count that will definitely complement the combo Blu-ray optical drive, Wi-Fi connectivity, USB 3.0 support, DVI-I, HDMI and FireWire ports. The starting price of $1,599 certainly reflects the kind of goodies you will be able to find underneath the hood. The thing is, can you explain to the missus the justification of such a purchase? There are also half a dozen colors for you to choose from, where it is described by Maingear as “hand-painted premium automotive paint jobs.”

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Maingear updates Vybe desktop series, Western Digital Nomad rugged case offers more than simple protection,