Maingear And MSI Team Up To Make One Of The Sleekest Gaming PCs We've Ever Seen
In 2022, boutique PC builder Maingear joined hands with Gigabyte to create the Aorus Project Stealth, a build that had no visible cables — the computing kit of dreams. At CES 2024, the company is bringing that patented design in a refined form to the market in partnership with MSI, cramming high-end innards inside a package that offers one of the cleanest looks you will ever see on a PC.
Maingear calls it the MG-RC, which is short for Maingear Rear Connection. The design entails tucking all the cables to the rear or underside of the motherboard, creating a look where no messy wires are visible and you get a pristine view of the inner components through the clear glass shell. Beyond that, there are oodles of requisite LEDs that are also customizable using the MSI Dragon Center program or front panel controls.
Maingear is offering the kit in two configurations. The first one is called the MSI Zero Drop, which features an MSI B760M Project Zero motherboard fitted inside the company's MAG Pano M1000 PZ chassis clad in a white or black paint job. Built atop the compact mini-ATX format, the Zero Drop also includes an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super, while the motherboard serves perks such as an extended heatsink, PCIe 5.0 slots, a dedicated kit to keep the SSDs from thermal throttling, and extra choke thermal pads.
The aesthetic PC of dreams
The other PC Maingear is showcasing is the NV9: Zero Concept. This one is actually something closer to a preview for a future PC built around an MSI Z790 Project Zero motherboard packaged inside the Phanteks NV9 chassis. Targeted at flagship gaming, the NV9: Zero Concept combines an MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Super 16GB GPU with an Intel Core i9 processor.
However, aside from its raw performance credentials and impressive thermal chops courtesy of a 420mm Phanteks Glacier One AiO liquid cooler, this concept design also serves as a fully customizable in-case LCD display. Maingear says the NV9: Zero Concept will hit the shelves at some point in the first quarter of 2024.
If that sounds too vague and you are eager to get your hands on an MG-RC kit, the MSI Zero Drop edition will go up for sale on January 24. However, the company warns that supplies will be limited, and given the pace at which previous drops have gone out of stock, you might want to keep the cash or a credit card handy. Neither Maingear nor MSI has said anything about the asking price, but if the Maingear Project Stealth is anything to go by, a thousand dollars will be the absolute lowest you can expect to spend.