Maingear RUSH SuperStock X99 Review: PC Gaming Like A Boss
Maingear RUSH SuperStock X99 Design And Layout
Tinted glass makes the RUSH's mood-lit interior a "VIP Room" for very HOT hardware.
The Maingear RUSH's tempered glass sides no doubt add to its weight significantly but the effect is sleek and polished. Four thumbscrews hold the side panels in place. However, once you pull those, things get pretty sexy real quick.
What you're looking at here is Maingear’s Superstock Crystal Hardline Tubing, which is a custom open loop system that uses a special green anti-freeze, anti-microbial, non-conductive cooling liquid and it flows through a labyrinth of shatterproof PETG tubing and EK water blocks. With the system's LED lighting, the whole rig glows a very cool green and blue hue.
When it comes to reservoirs, go big or go home.
The cooling system is a dual radiator setup with a 360mm copper core radiator in the rear and a 280mm copper core radiator in the front, with high-flow, low-noise static pressure fans strapped to both. There are 8 total fans in the system, five of which are strapped to the radiators. This is also a dual pump setup (one at each reservoir) with a huge reservoir in the top of the chassis and another smaller reservoir and pump setup by the radiator in the rear. The system offers a ton of flow through its waterblocks and tubing, even when dialed down to 40% in the BIOS, which also keeps it rather quiet.
Like a reverse mullet, the Maingear RUSH is party in the front, all business in the rear.
Cable routing is handled via the backside of the motherboard and the right side of the chassis. As you can see, it's easily just as meticulous as the main component and motherboard area. Everything is zip tied down super tight and clean. Here you can also see the 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD as well, with a spare 2.5-inch drive mounting bracket still available.
The In Win chassis selected here, however, does have one somewhat notable drawback and that is the back side of the case is extended to make room for liquid cooling solutions but that also puts the motherboard back panel IO plate recessed inside behind a passthrough trim plate on the rear of the chassis. Removing that back plate gives you clear access to the rear liquid reservoir and pump but getting to that back panel IO on the motherboard can still be a reach in spots. If you’re a set it and forget it type, this shouldn’t be a problem and there still are three USB 3 ports, USB-C and audio ports on the left side bottom edge of the case, but if you want access to the rest of the ports on the motherboard IO panel, you’re going to be digging on occasion.
Also onboard the system is 32GB of Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4-3000 memory, and again both a 400GB Intel SSD 750 NVMe SSD for the boot volume and that 1 terabyte Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD drive for speedy bulk storage or perhaps a games library. The ASUS motherboard supports Gigabit LAN, 3x3 dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, 10 rear panel USB 3 ports, two USB 2 and the system comes with three more side panel USB 3 ports, a USB-C type Thunderbolt port and a front panel audio ports. The ASUS Rampage V Extreme also sports ASUS SupremeFX 2014 audio with extra shielding and premium capacitors.
For graphics, Maingear setup the system with none other than 3 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics cards in 3-way SLI. Yes, that’s about $2000 of graphics firepower and for 4K gaming and VR, these GPUs will shred the latest game titles on ultra image quality settings. More on this in the pages ahead. All of this light-dimming, monster, benchmark-busting technology is powered by a 1200 Watt Corsair Professional Digital Series AX1200i power supply that is 80+ platinum certified with green origami wiring no less.
For graphics, Maingear setup the system with none other than 3 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics cards in 3-way SLI. Yes, that’s about $2000 of graphics firepower and for 4K gaming and VR, these GPUs will shred the latest game titles on ultra image quality settings. More on this in the pages ahead. All of this light-dimming, monster, benchmark-busting technology is powered by a 1200 Watt Corsair Professional Digital Series AX1200i power supply that is 80+ platinum certified with green origami wiring no less.
