Maingear Spark Packs A Punch Despite Small Size

Just like how we should not judge a book by its cover, so too, should we avoid purchasing a gaming desktop because of its relatively small size. Maingear is not all that famous in terms of its branding, but the gaming computer manufacturer has started to sell what it deems to be its smallest gaming desktop to date. Known as the Maingear Spark, it measures all of just 4.5″ x 4.23″ x 2.34″, although it does come with an AMD A8-5557M quad-core processor alongside Radeon R9 M275X graphics to keep it humming along just fine, with a starting price point of $699, depending on the final hardware configuration of your choice.

Just in case you have a sense of deja vu that the Maingear Spark looks familiar, that is because this could very well be a Gigabyte BRIX gaming PC in disguise, albeit featuring Maingear’s name on top of it. Apart from that, since Maingear first introduced the Spark in January this year, it has been touted to be a Steam Machine computer that is capable of handling the upcoming Steam OS.

As Steam OS will remain under cover until 2015 arrives, this looks as though Maingear could not wait any longer and decided to roll out the Maingear Spark while running on Windows, where you can choose from either Windows 7 or Windows 8. Do take note that the $699 base price does not include the price of the operating system. Other hardware specifications in the base model include 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive, which can be upgraded to 16GB RAM and 1TB of hard drive/SSD, respectively.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers, Gaming
Tags: maingear, spark