Especially since competing PC's sell with the 1060 6GB leaving you with money to spare. For $500 this is a good deal, but even then the target audience is better off with a PS4 Pro if gaming and VR are the desired applications.
Saw the 3gb memory on the 1060, doesnt that also use a cut down die making it closer to 1050ti than the 1060 it is named after? makes this product a little less interesting at the $800 price point
The mobile 1060 is in no way "much weaker" than the desktop card. It has slightly stricter power limits, but other than that, the specs are identical. Any weakness shown in laptops is due to too-small thermal solutions causing thermal throttling.
Intel's memory controller is so good there is negligible performance impact across most applications between single and dual channel. That's why they ditched triple channel early on, and left quad channel to the HPC market. There just isn't much of a difference when the memory bandwidth of high speed DDR3/DDR4 is already so high.
I just built two i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 1060 OC 6GB computers for my twin 15 year old boys for $850 each, including the Windows 10 licenses, RGB mechanical keyboards and mouses. They are also the quietest computers I've ever built. The upgrade path on those are phenomenal, and this thing has almost none.
Too expensive, and has no future. This is not a good deal. Heck, it's not even a very good gaming computer.
Looked this thing up, I'd definitely agree with you. A quick search pointed me to a $899 model that came with an MSI keyboard/mouse (RGB lighting, but probably not mechanical) and it's using a desktop 7th-gen i5, regular PCIe GPU, and at least it's got a 7200rpm HDD.
Spinning rust should still be secondary storage only though.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I think of "premium gaming experience" the first thing that comes to my mind is definitely "5400rpm notebook drive" - the achingly long load times give me a chance to read the helpful on-screen tips like "Press X to Not Die" and "Oh god Windows is updating again, please kill me"
This must have been on the drawing board 1-2 years ago. Today, you could get a Ryzen 1600x ( 6 cores ), an RX580, a motherboard, memory and even an SSD, and you're still under $1000 bucks, including Windows 10 license. Much more powerful, fully up-gradable.
I really don't see the point of this device. The Silverstone ML08B-H is very close to this size, supports a full-size 2-slot graphics card, SFX PSU, ITX mobo and actually has a couple 2.5 drive slots. I'd hope for a more significant size advantage to justify the cost of the machine.
This is the kind of computer a 14 year old kid on Steam would buy without any research, then he'll be on the forums after two weeks asking how he can upgrade his computer for cheap.
If this thing is full of mobile parts anyway, it might be of more practical use to just get a laptop for around the same price. Yes, it'll be a bit slower, but at least you can take it someplace and do something useful with it instead of being chained to a desk, power outlet, and external monitor.
I'm not entirely sure a laptop with similar components even has to be more expensive or lower performance than this. This is basically a large laptop which helps with the thermals for prolonged use but doesn't necessarily indicate higher performance than a laptop.
The core market for this is people who don't want to fiddle with their PCs (much of that group would be buying a somewhat larger case and building their own); that includes not wanting to deal with separate OS and data drives. A model with a 512GB or larger SSD would be sweet, but at close to $100 more expensive I'd still expect a spinning rust powered base model below it.
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jordanclock - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
I thought this sounded like a nice package but I saw that it has the 3GB 1060. That is barely what I would call VR ready.Samus - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Especially since competing PC's sell with the 1060 6GB leaving you with money to spare. For $500 this is a good deal, but even then the target audience is better off with a PS4 Pro if gaming and VR are the desired applications.thesavvymage - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Saw the 3gb memory on the 1060, doesnt that also use a cut down die making it closer to 1050ti than the 1060 it is named after? makes this product a little less interesting at the $800 price pointjordanclock - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
The 1060 3GB is considerably ahead of the 1050ti, but you're right that it has fewer cores in addition to the smaller memory.HideOut - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Is this even a desktop 1060 or a laptop version thats much much weaker?Valantar - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The mobile 1060 is in no way "much weaker" than the desktop card. It has slightly stricter power limits, but other than that, the specs are identical. Any weakness shown in laptops is due to too-small thermal solutions causing thermal throttling.abrowne1993 - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Mobile CPU, 3GB 1060, 8GB RAM, HDD, and hardly upgradable? No thanks.Lonyo - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Single channel RAMDiji1 - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Oh no, a whole 1% difference in games!DanNeely - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Single channel ram is often a 10-30% performance penalty.Samus - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
When using an iGPU...Intel's memory controller is so good there is negligible performance impact across most applications between single and dual channel. That's why they ditched triple channel early on, and left quad channel to the HPC market. There just isn't much of a difference when the memory bandwidth of high speed DDR3/DDR4 is already so high.
KingBacon - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
I just built two i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 1060 OC 6GB computers for my twin 15 year old boys for $850 each, including the Windows 10 licenses, RGB mechanical keyboards and mouses. They are also the quietest computers I've ever built. The upgrade path on those are phenomenal, and this thing has almost none.Too expensive, and has no future. This is not a good deal. Heck, it's not even a very good gaming computer.
pencil_sharpner_man - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
Hey could you share your build details ?I'm considering building a low profile sub 800$ build.
TallestJon96 - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
An i5 and gtx 1060 system could be good for $799, but that I5 and that GTX 1060 (3gb) isn't great. And it isn't upgradable!The trident seems better.
Anonymous Blowhard - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
> The [MSI] Trident seems betterLooked this thing up, I'd definitely agree with you. A quick search pointed me to a $899 model that came with an MSI keyboard/mouse (RGB lighting, but probably not mechanical) and it's using a desktop 7th-gen i5, regular PCIe GPU, and at least it's got a 7200rpm HDD.
Spinning rust should still be secondary storage only though.
marees - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The cyberpower gaming xtreme on amazon is cheaper $700+ only.Anonymous Blowhard - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I think of "premium gaming experience" the first thing that comes to my mind is definitely "5400rpm notebook drive" - the achingly long load times give me a chance to read the helpful on-screen tips like "Press X to Not Die" and "Oh god Windows is updating again, please kill me"zodiacfml - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Only slightly bigger but I'm going with the ROG GR8 IIzaza - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
they should have used the T-series desktop CPU and the GPU upgradeable even if mini size. It would have made the device more "future proof"Shadowmaster625 - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
This is exactly the market that AMD could take by storm with a Raven Ridge APU with 16GB of HBM2.zodiacfml - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
It couldn't come fast enough. Right now they're busy with the Vega GPUscocochanel - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
This must have been on the drawing board 1-2 years ago.Today, you could get a Ryzen 1600x ( 6 cores ), an RX580, a motherboard, memory and even an SSD, and you're still under $1000 bucks, including Windows 10 license. Much more powerful, fully up-gradable.
lmcd - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
I really don't see the point of this device. The Silverstone ML08B-H is very close to this size, supports a full-size 2-slot graphics card, SFX PSU, ITX mobo and actually has a couple 2.5 drive slots. I'd hope for a more significant size advantage to justify the cost of the machine.lmcd - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Just went through for the fun of it and it's pretty trivial to undercut the machine listed here, while still getting an upgrade-ready machine.DanNeely - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
At 12.25 liters vs 5.5 liters, that Silverstone case is more than twice as large as the MSI. Hardly very close to being the same size.HomeworldFound - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
This is the kind of computer a 14 year old kid on Steam would buy without any research, then he'll be on the forums after two weeks asking how he can upgrade his computer for cheap.BrokenCrayons - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
If this thing is full of mobile parts anyway, it might be of more practical use to just get a laptop for around the same price. Yes, it'll be a bit slower, but at least you can take it someplace and do something useful with it instead of being chained to a desk, power outlet, and external monitor.fanofanand - Friday, April 28, 2017 - link
I'm not entirely sure a laptop with similar components even has to be more expensive or lower performance than this. This is basically a large laptop which helps with the thermals for prolonged use but doesn't necessarily indicate higher performance than a laptop.damianrobertjones - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Builds a desktop with a standard ish case. Saves a lot of cash, puts it behind the TV.Done.
Ej24 - Monday, April 24, 2017 - link
Not even a measly 64 or 128gb ssd for the OS? Unacceptable in 2017.DanNeely - Tuesday, April 25, 2017 - link
The core market for this is people who don't want to fiddle with their PCs (much of that group would be buying a somewhat larger case and building their own); that includes not wanting to deal with separate OS and data drives. A model with a 512GB or larger SSD would be sweet, but at close to $100 more expensive I'd still expect a spinning rust powered base model below it.fanofanand - Friday, April 28, 2017 - link
Wow, $800 gets you the 3GB 1060, the four thread i5, and a spinning rust platter, where do I sign up?????Itselectric - Saturday, April 29, 2017 - link
That doesn't look like the most capable thermal solution, even for laptop-grade parts.