A Clean, Serene Gaming Machine for a Premium Price

Maingear’s first MG-1 PC from 2024 would’ve had all the makings of a great pre-built PC—if it hadn’t felt so DIY. Maingear’s back again with a new “MK II” version of that same case. There’s good news and bad news: it fixes my one big complaint with the first edition, but it also comes in at a price point that just seems excessive, even in today’s RAM-ravaged wasteland.

For review, Maingear dropped off a midsize tower from its New Jersey headquarters right on Gizmodo’s doorstep. The system has a relatively standard layout, but it’s filled with components that could tear through benchmarks if they were packed inside a shoebox with an ice pack. Maingear supplied a Founders Edition Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 GPU alongside AMD’s latest Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition. It’s literally the pinnacle of consumer-end gaming PCs on sale today.

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You can probably already guess that this thing is going to be pricey, but I’d still suggest that you swallow any water you happen to be drinking before reading the following. The case starts at $2,509 for a version with an Nvidia RTX 5060, an Intel Core Ultra 5 225F CPU, and 32GB of RAM. That’s already pricey for such low-end specs, but watch what happens when you aim as high as you can go: my MG-1 (2026), with the latest and greatest CPU/GPU combo, comes out to around $6,816.

Believe it or not, that price is not out of bounds with other pre-builts in 2026. An HP Omen Max 45L that I reviewed earlier this year costs $6,500, though it comes with more RAM and an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, not the version with the extra 3D cache that makes these CPUs so good for gaming. Maingear’s systems are usually more expensive than alternatives. An iBuyPower Trace X PC with an RTX 5080 and the best-for-gamers Ryzen 7 9850X3D came out to around $3,450 when I reviewed it last month. A Maingear MG-1 “MKII” with similar specs costs $4,473.

This PC is part of Maingear’s BYO RAM program, which means you can send the company your own memory sticks to hopefully save some money on this PC. But when any device costs that much, you expect it to look like it came off the line blessed by the gods of personal computers. Maingear’s MG-1 would look like practically any other case if it weren’t for the customizable front panel.

Better than before, but not a leap

This new case is not the “MG-2.” Maingear told us that this design was more of an evolution than a revolution from its original PC case. While I wish Maingear had done something more radical with its entry-level design, at least the tower no longer looks like something you can just build yourself with a quick trip to Micro Center and some tape. Rather than a glue-on light strip, the new version includes a small light bar sitting just above the PSU shroud, emblazoned with the Maingear logo.

The front panel now features a magnetic front plate that’s shorter than the previous version. With the panel removed, you can clearly see the sloped section that allows the intake fans to draw in more air than the previous version could. The panel is held together by nine magnets and connects to the PC via a series of pins to enable the RGB glow. Those magnets are strong enough that a careless elbow won’t knock them off.

The pre-built PC maker sent us their custom “Crimson Ink” panel art with an embossed golden texture and the “Honcho Street” art slab, both sold individually for $99. I personally prefer the calming, 16-bit Miyazaki-like image compared to the anime waifu PC look that seems to scream, “Don’t come into my room, Mom.” Just to prove a point, I used our Anker EufyMake E1 UV printer to print the Gizmodo and io9 logos on the front panel of Maingear’s PC.  So, speaking from experience, you can really customize these panels however you like and change them out to suit your mood.

This case doesn’t look quite as prestige-worthy as Maingear’s own Rush desktops with multiple glass panels. Instead, the customizability is the MG-1’s greatest strength—something that fits so well with the theme of desktop PCs in general. There’s an elegance to the simplicity, though we, again, have to admit that Maingear missed the mark with the price tag.

I want to tear this side panel out with my teeth

If there’s one thing that Maingear does better than any other pre-built PC maker out there, it’s cable management. Specifically, it’s the fact that you can peer through the glass facade of your PC case and see only two wires sticking out of the motherboard, namely the cables that enable the AIO liquid cooler’s RGB lighting effects. Maingear’s config sent to me for review included an MSI MAG X870E Tomahawk Max PZ motherboard that packs enough shielding over the various PCIe slots to make the insides look elegant without hiding the electronics.

Personally, I prefer to see my case with that asymmetrical anarchy of wires darting to and fro, but the real beauty of this design lies behind the scenes. On the MG-1, Maingear employed its MG-RC (Maingear rear connection) apparatus, its proprietary method for connecting power cables behind the motherboard’s backplate. Once you remove the side panel, you’ll see all your cables in orderly rows flowing down to the PSU underneath.

Maingear does a great job of keeping everything tidy. The problem is that everything is so tightly packed that it’s nearly impossible to dig into the power supply to remove or add any single connection. Maingear supplied my unit with an MSI MAG A1250GL PCIE5, a 1,250W fully modular power supply that seemed to be designed for little Victorian-era orphan children who can stick their hands into small crevices to deal with the mess of power cables. If I really wanted to change out my components, I’d have to remove the PSU shield first.

For all the effort that went into the cable management, Maingear clearly didn’t give any thought to how you’re supposed to close the case. Two thumb screws keep the side panel in place, and four ball joiners are supposed to slot into three grooves at the top-left, top-right, and bottom-left edges. Simple, right? Wrong. I tried over and over and over to get this panel seated correctly. Every time I thought I had it right, I found that one edge was misaligned. In this day and age, when many rigs with tool-free exist, Maingear went back to an era when simple slide-and-latch systems were a bourgeois extravagance.

At least, the motherboard’s rear I/O offers plenty of options. I counted two 40G USB-C, one 10G USB-C, four USB 2.0, three USB 10G (one for flashing the BIOS) and an extra ethernet plus HDMI, in case something should go wrong with your graphics card. The front connectivity is, unfortunately, very limited, with a single USB-A port, a USB-C port, and a headphone jack.

Maingear put such forethought into other parts of the design; the lack of front I/O and the dumb, awful, rage-inducing side panel seem incongruous with the rest of what this PC offers.

A tower of power

Do you need the highest-end CPU? If you just want to play the latest titles at the highest possible frame rates, then no. AMD’s 16-core Ryzen 9 9850X3D2 Dual Edition features twice the amount of 3D cache as the company’s other graphics-heavy processors. More cores and more cache don’t always translate to better gaming performance, even when combined with what is still the most powerful gaming GPU, the RTX 5090.

And between the Maingear MG-1 (2026) and the previously mentioned HP Omen Max 45L with 64 GB of RAM, I saw very little to no performance difference in the games I tested. For instance, in Black Myth: WukongI netted identical performance across tests at both 1080p and 4K resolutions. I should note that HP’s PC has a small edge with its AIO cooler positioned outside the case, ostensibly keeping more hot air from circulating inside and adding a small performance boost.

In more CPU-heavy games, like Total War: Warhammer IIIthe Maingear with the more expensive CPU delivered higher frame rates. With so much happening on-screen, the Maingear with the Ryzen 9 9850X3D2 Dual Edition gets 34% better frame rates at 4K in Warhammer III’s Mirrors of Madness benchmark. It also managed 18% better 4K performance while running Horizon: Zero Dawn Remastered on high graphics settings.

You’re more likely to notice a difference in very specific scenarios where the processor is handling a heavy graphics task on its own. In Cinebench 2026 tests, which measure a CPU’s rendering capability, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is 50% better than a Ryzen 7 9850X3D inside an iBuyPower Trace X and 33% better than the regular Ryzen 9 9950X3D on HP’s Omen Max 45L. This CPU made me realize I may need a new Blender test, which times how long it takes both a CPU and a GPU to render a scene of a BMW. This PC gets the task done in 15 seconds thanks to the Ryzen 9 Dual Edition chip. Most other CPUs will take more than a minute.

That’s incredible, but you have to remember the price you’re paying. If you’re a serious individual who likes gaming as much as they need a PC for hardcore game development, this is certainly a chip to look at, whether or not you buy it with Maingear’s desktop. The benefit of the second-edition MG-1 is that you are spoiled for a case that looks clean from the front and tidy from the rear.

PC prices really are wild, huh?

I still think back to Maingear’s first MG-1, with a top-end 14th-gen Intel CPU and an RTX 4080 Super, which cost $3,400. Even back in 2024, that was expensive. Now, it’s on par with competitors. Maingear is still selling its gear at a markup, which means a Maingear PC with all the fixings demands such a premium that you’re allowed to wish the case had more pizazz beyond that admittedly cool removable front panel.

If Maingear’s case didn’t have that terrible side panel, I’d have no reservations in recommending this PC as a pristine example of what preconfigured desktop towers could be. Small things make a big difference in this space, especially at this price point. I may sound like a fairy godmother when I say this, but you have to remember that with Maingear’s MG-1, it’s what’s inside that counts.