(Credit: Maingear)
PC vendor Maingear is tapping into 1990s nostalgia again with the Retro98, a desktop that looks like a home computer your dad might've owned.
The fully built PC harkens back to an era when dial-up internet and disk drives were common in the PC industry. “Welcome to 1998. Where the future was loud, beige, and relentless,” Maingear said in introducing the limited-edition product. It was made possible after PC case maker SilverStone developed the FLP02, a retro chassis that currently sells for $249. It includes dummy disk drives and a “turbo” button to control fan speeds.
(Credit: Maingear)But while Maingear’s Retro98 looks old-school, it packs the latest components, including the option to use AMD’s new Ryzen 9 9850X3D chip. It's also designed to run Windows 11.
“It's all hand-built with Maingear’s signature craftsmanship,” the New Jersey-based company added. “From the LED fan speed display, turbo button, and power lockout key on the front panel, to the ‘ketchup-and-mustard’ sleeved cable colorways to anti-kink coils on the tubing and a pump/res combo proudly housed in the 5.25-inch drive bay space, every detail plays like a love letter to the golden age of PC gaming.”
The product will be available in four configurations, including a top-tier model called the Retro98a, which goes all out with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card and liquid cooling. On the downside, it costs nearly $10,000.
The other configurations will set you back $2,499, $3,499, or $4,999. But Maingear is only creating 32 units, along with six Retro98a units. So interested customers should place an order now while supplies last.
(Credit: Maingear)Last year, Maingear released the Retro95, another throwback, but it avoided the desktop tower design for a horizontal layout, channeling old-school home computers from the likes of IBM, Compaq, and Gateway. It was also sold in limited quantities, and sold out fast.