MAINGEAR MG-1 Silver Gaming PC Assessment

Introduction and Pricing

MAINGEAR has been constructing customized PCs for over 20 years, the MG-1 being their present flagship, and is obtainable in a number of SKUs denoted Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Legendary, and Final. For our assessment, I opted for a silver construct to see how nicely it will carry out on the discount value of $1149.

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Our construct is printed above, beginning with an Intel Core i5 13400F; this offers us six efficiency cores, hyper-threading, and one other 4 effectivity cores. MAINGEAR has deployed this gaming PC on an MSI Professional B660M motherboard, whereas the reminiscence for this machine is 16GB DDR4 3600MHz in our construct. Discrete graphics for our machine included the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060.

The enlargement consists of 4 PCIe slots, the highest slot supporting Gen4 whereas the opposite three use PCIe Gen3 from the chipset. Storage consists of choices for 2 m.2 NVMe slots, the primary supporting Gen4 and the opposite at Gen4 from the chipset. Legacy connectivity is on the market with six SATA ports, 4 from the B660 chipset and the opposite two from an ASMedia 1061 chip.

The connectivity consists of 9 USB 3.2 ports, cut up up with 4 Gen 1 ports on the again utilizing the normal Kind-A connections, whereas two Gen 2 ports can be found in pink, one utilizing Kind-C. We additionally word two USB 2.0 and HDMI on the rear panel, with 2.5Gbe LAN and Wi-Fi 6.

The MSRP of the MAINGEAR MG-1 Silver, as configured, is available in at $1149.99 with a one-year guarantee. As famous in our picture above, you may lengthen the machine’s guarantee as much as three years for an extra price.

The MG-1 and BIOS

Packaging and BIOS

The MG-1 arrived with the accent package seen above, full with a guidelines and signature from the builder.

The MG-1 usually comes with a black entrance panel. As seen above, MAINGEAR stunned us with a customized TweakTown panel.

The rear I/O consists of USB 2.0 and PS2 on the prime, adopted by HDMI, USB 3.2, and the two.5Gbe connection.

The chassis I/O consists of two Kind-A USB ports, Kind-C, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

Opening the aspect panel, the MG-1 is meticulously constructed with very clear cable routing and a customized 3D-printed graphics bracket. Additional, now we have RGB strips alongside the underside of the chassis. Followers embody three intakes and one exhaust.

Spinning the chassis round, the again panel exhibits the cable routing and the customized fan controller that MAINGEAR makes use of.

A more in-depth have a look at the system’s prime portion, now we have T-Drive reminiscence and a Cooler Grasp Hyper 212 cooler for the CPU. The GPU is from PNY, the GeForce RTX 4060.

With the room lighting turned down, we will get a great have a look at the RGB on this chassis.

BIOS

The BIOS is MSI Click on BIOS 5, and the primary web page offers a straightforward mode to configure the most typical choices.

Superior menus embody settings for PCIe, USB, and built-in peripherals. We even have energy administration and the flexibility to safe erase any SSD you’ve put in.

Boot settings might be seen right here, and the MG-1 has many choices.

The motherboard can be prepared for overclocking, with choices for CPU and DRAM.

Final, now we have fan tuning by connection, labeled up prime.

Cinebench, PCMark and AIDA64

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been closely relied upon by each Intel and AMD to spotlight their latest platforms throughout unveils. The benchmark has two assessments: a single-core workload using one thread or 1T. There may be additionally a multi-threaded check that makes use of all threads or nT of a examined CPU.

Beginning with R23, now we have 1756 single core and 14068 multi-cores.

Crossmark

Crossmark gave us 1814 general, with creativity and responsiveness each being strong workloads.

AIDA64

AIDA64 gave us 47K learn, 49K write, and 45K copy in reminiscence throughput, whereas latency landed a bit excessive at 88.7ns.

PCMark

Diving into PCMark, the MG-1 Silver scored 10062 on this workload.

UL Benchmarks and Charts

3DMark

CPU Profile began at 979 single core, and transferring to sixteen cores, we see 6878.

3DMark Velocity Means confirmed 2516 for the MG-1 and the RTX 4060.

Working by means of Time Spy, the MG-1 scored 10547 general and estimated recreation efficiency over 100 FPS in BFV.

Storage efficiency was good. We picked up 3098 in 3DMark, with bandwidth at 530 MB/s.

Charts and Comparisons

our charts, our R23 comparisons do present the MG-1 Silver on the backside with the 13400F.

CrossMark confirmed strong efficiency from the MG-1 as nicely.

PCMark workload confirmed implausible efficiency in necessities and productiveness, with DC and gaming taking a again seat.

CPU Profile has our MG-1 on the backside, however we see strong single-core efficiency by means of 4 threads.

Time Spy comparisons confirmed the MG-1 on the backside of our chart above.

Velocity Means, too, has this machine on the backside of our charts, 2516 for the MG-1.

Evaluating storage, the MG-1 lands in the midst of the pack with its 530 MB/s throughput.

Gaming Workloads

For gaming, now we have our Cyberpunk 2077 built-in benchmark, and with the discharge of Starfield, we use NVIDIA FrameView to benchmark a scene strolling by means of Akila Metropolis.

Cyberpunk begins off with a implausible 124 FPS in 1080p, drops barely to 82 FPS at 1440p, and continues to be playable at 4K with 40 FPS.

Starfield gave us 63 FPS at 1080p Excessive whereas 1440p drops to 43 FPS, and 4K lands at 26 FPS.

Worth and Closing Ideas

Worth

The MG-1 Silver lands on the prime right here fairly simply merely due to its low price and average efficiency stage, a implausible construct spec for entry-level gaming.

Closing Ideas

That is the primary MAINGEAR gaming PC now we have examined in nearly three years and our first have a look at the MG-1. Preliminary impressions are good. The chassis itself is a customized design, and extra importantly, customization is on the prime with interchangeable entrance panels with good diffusion within the LEDs. Cable administration is finished very nicely on the again of the chassis and inner to the system. Additional, the system options off-the-shelf components from recognizable manufacturers, permitting the end-user to develop with and improve the system over time.

Efficiency for this machine was fairly good for the construct, and we by no means anticipated it, with its entry-level components, to carry out with the higher-end methods in our charts. R23 confirmed nice numbers from the 13400F. We picked up nearly 1800 in single-core and 14K in multi-core. Comparable benchmarks included 3DMark CPU Profile, the MG-1 Silver grabbing 979 single core, and 6878 at sixteen threads.

System benchmarks have been CrossMark and PCMark Prolonged, each exhibiting strong efficiency for the MG-1. Gaming itself was stunning, with Cyberpunk pulling 124 FPS at 1080p and 82 FPS at 1440p, furthering absolutely the discount that this machine is. Starfield has admittedly been onerous on {hardware}. We examined on Excessive settings strolling by means of Akila Metropolis, which introduced us 63 FPS on common, and at 1440p, that dropped to 43 FPS; each playable with none points, however 4K is a no-go.

Pricing is maybe the place the MG-1 Silver steals the present. At $1149.99, it is nearly as if MAINGEAR dares us to attempt to construct it cheaper, and so we tried to and got here up practically lifeless even utilizing the most affordable part in every class direct from Newegg – our price was $1116. That does not think about the assist workforce and guarantee MAINGEAR supplies – construct it your self, and it is on you.