MAINGEAR's DRIFT Ultra-Compact Gaming PC Promises To Be Ultimate Steam Box
"Steamboxes" are a dime a dozen, but MAINGEAR has done well to craft some of the most exquisite, jaw-dropping options. In fact, where its new DRIFT is concerned, the company says that it's not only fully customizable, but also "devastatingly powerful". Perfect!
While it's called an "ultra-compact" PC, MAINGEAR hasn't gone out of its way to make the DRIFT as small as possible. Instead, it's aimed to make it small without sacrificing performance. Under the hood of this baby, you can have Intel's top-end Core i7-4790K, as well as NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 or AMD's Radeon R9 290X.
Like all good Steamboxes, the DRIFT will be available in a configuration with an OS; meaning you don't have to pay for a Windows license you might not use. If you do want Windows, you'll have that option as well. MAINGEAR notes that if you want to keep with the Steambox theme, you should simply have the PC boot into Steam's Big Picture mode.
The DRIFT can be used either vertically or horizontally, much like most consoles. But unlike any console, DRIFT supports some 4K gaming, if the right GPU is equipped. As you can see in the shot below, it can also be configured in a variety of automotive quality paint. How anyone can choose one is beyond me; they all look fantastic.
The default DRIFT configuration costs $949, and includes an Intel Pentium processor, NVIDIA's GTX 750 Ti graphics card, and 8GB of memory. You can of course customize the PC to better suit you. If you want to spend at least $1,949, you can opt for the Drift Super Stock edition, which includes the Core i5-4590, GTX 970, 8GB of memory, and comes with a hard-shell traveling briefcase.
This coming November, a special SteamOS version of the DRIFT will become available - presumably to allow the OS to mature a bit more before MAINGEAR can truly trust it as an option.
