Maingear's $2,999+ GTX Titan Z desktops are surprisingly good value

Scorpus

Posts: 2,156   +238
Staff member

Maingear has recently launched a new selection of their Battlebox gaming desktops, each powered by an Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Z graphics card, that present surprisingly good value for anyone looking to buy an extremely powerful PC.

All of Maingear's F131, SHIFT and VYBE Battleboxes are designed for gaming at 4K resolutions, and pack multiple Nvidia GPUs inside. As the Titan Z has two Kepler GK110 GPUs on the one PCB, you only need one in the system for it to qualify.

What makes these systems such good value is that they barely cost more than a standalone (and ridiculously expensive) GTX Titan Z; in fact the base VYBE system, which starts at $2,999, is the exact same price as a single Titan Z through Newegg and other retailers. Buying this system essentially means you're getting a Titan Z plus a free, fully-functional and decently-specced PC to put it in.

For something a little more pricey, the F131 base model starts at $3,199 and the SHIFT starts at $3,499. Each system comes with slightly different components and cases, although all come pre-loaded with an Intel Core i5-4590 CPU, 8 GB of DDR3-1600 memory, a 1TB hard drive or hybrid SSHD, a 750W PSU, and Windows 8.1.

Configuring each box could lead you to add in fast SSDs, up to 32 GB of RAM, an Intel Core i7-4790K CPU and even a second GeForce GTX Titan Z in SLI.

For more information on these systems, you can head to Maingear's pages for either the F131, VYBE or SHIFT Battleboxes. Orders start shipping out next week.

Permalink to story.

 
$3500 and I get an i5? Those are very nice systems but they are anything but a good value, even if your paying retail for 'certain' components.
Will an i5 even push GPU's at 4k?
 
Last edited:
It's a good value....if you're willing to waste three grand on NVIDIA's nonsensically priced card anyway. Is AMD's latest dual-GPU solution so bad that it negates being half the same price?
 
Did a quick calculation, and the entry-level Vybe is a few hundred cheaper than if you get two Titan Blacks in SLI with the same parts (and build it yourself), and a thousand cheaper than if you get a Titan Z.

Conversely, it's more expensive if you use two GTX 780 Tis in SLI
 
$3500 and I get an i5? Those are very nice systems but they are anything but a good value, even if your paying retail for 'certain' components.
Will an i5 even push GPU's at 4k?

The bottleneck is more likely to shift to the GPU at high resolutions making the CPU less important once you reach a certain point.
 
$3500 and I get an i5? Those are very nice systems but they are anything but a good value, even if your paying retail for 'certain' components.
Will an i5 even push GPU's at 4k?

The Core I's don't suffer from the old bottlenecks of the Core 2's and older because of the direct connection between CPU and RAM and not through the old CPU-chipset-RAM with the limitations of the FSB frequency. In non-CPU dependent games, even the i3 will be great for gaming at max quality, almost at the same (<10% less) FPS than the i5 and i7.
 
How do people still not understand that Titans aren't marketed at gamers? Why even bother comparing a Titan Z to a 295x2?
 
Back