(Credit: Maingear)
PC vendor Maingear is turning back the clock with a custom desktop that channels the 1990s.
The Retro95 is styled after old-school PCs from the likes of IBM, Compaq, and Gateway. Instead of a tower PC, the Retro95 adopts a horizontal layout and the infamous beige coloring, which was in vogue back in the day.
The company is hoping the product appeals to consumers who grew up in the 1990s when LAN parties, dial-up internet, and floppy disk drives were common. “The Retro95 drop is our way of honoring the classic era of gaming, with a system that looks like the one you had as a kid, but runs like the monster you'd spec from Maingear today,” says CEO Wallace Santos.
Indeed, the desktop PC can be configured with the latest components from Nvidia and AMD or Intel. But to capture the 1990s feel, customers can also add a DVD drive. The casing also appears to contain a dummy floppy disk drive.
Maingear also notes: “Retro95 may flaunt '90s flair, but it's also engineered with modern thermals and whisper-quiet air cooling for high performance with low noise.” Another feature is a hidden front-panel that contains modern-day ports.
The Retro95 starts at $1,599. The base configuration includes an entry-level Nvidia RTX 5050 graphics card, and AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X CPU, along with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Customers can max out the desktop with an RTX 5080, but it adds $1,250 to the price.
Maingear plans on selling the product in limited quantities. “Once they're gone, it's game over."