Steiger Dynamics Blends Luxury and Power with Maven Home Theater PC
There will be no deduction of geek cred points if you've never heard of Steiger Dynamics, a relative newcomer to the scene. However, from this point forward, you may want to make a mental note of the company, which is breathing some fresh air into the growing home theater PC (HTPC) market. Introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year, the Maven is one of the company's newest products, and it's now available to order.
The Maven comes in three different lines. They include the Maven Pure (media center capable of 4K playback), Maven Core (for hardcore gaming), and Maven Reference (an enthusiast configuration).
Pricing starts at a modest $999 for what's also a rather modest configuration consisting of an ASUS H81M-Plus micro-ATX motherboard, Intel Core i3 4130 dual-core processor, 4GB of DDR3-1600 memory, Kingston HyperX 120GB solid state drive, 4X slot-loading Blu-ray drive, Seasonic 360W power supply, and a few other odds and ends (sans OS) wrapped in a silver or black hand-brushed full aluminum chassis.
You can custom configure any of the Maven lines (and obliterate your budget in the process, if you desire), or select from a stock setup. In the Maven Reference line, the stock configuration runs $3,431 and includes an ASUS ROG Rampage IV Formula motherboard, Intel Core i7 4930K processor with professional overclocking, 16GB of DDR3-1866 memory, EVGA GeForce GTX 780 graphics card, Samsung 840 Evo 250GB SSD, 3GB Western Digital Red hard drive, 4X slot-loading Blu-ray drive, Seasonic 1050W PSU, and Windows 8.1 64-bit.
The Maven comes in three different lines. They include the Maven Pure (media center capable of 4K playback), Maven Core (for hardcore gaming), and Maven Reference (an enthusiast configuration).
Pricing starts at a modest $999 for what's also a rather modest configuration consisting of an ASUS H81M-Plus micro-ATX motherboard, Intel Core i3 4130 dual-core processor, 4GB of DDR3-1600 memory, Kingston HyperX 120GB solid state drive, 4X slot-loading Blu-ray drive, Seasonic 360W power supply, and a few other odds and ends (sans OS) wrapped in a silver or black hand-brushed full aluminum chassis.
You can custom configure any of the Maven lines (and obliterate your budget in the process, if you desire), or select from a stock setup. In the Maven Reference line, the stock configuration runs $3,431 and includes an ASUS ROG Rampage IV Formula motherboard, Intel Core i7 4930K processor with professional overclocking, 16GB of DDR3-1866 memory, EVGA GeForce GTX 780 graphics card, Samsung 840 Evo 250GB SSD, 3GB Western Digital Red hard drive, 4X slot-loading Blu-ray drive, Seasonic 1050W PSU, and Windows 8.1 64-bit.
