We Love It
The Corsair One is the best small form factor gaming PC you can buy right now, period. Corsair has hit the nail on the head with just about every aspect of this machine, from its design to its cooling solution.
The aluminium chassis used here is one of the best on the market. It looks fantastic, and it's reasonably compact despite the powerful off-the-shelf hardware included inside. The unique shape makes it stand out from the crowd as well, and I think the design makes it well suited to being shown off on a desk, or in the living room.
Internally, the Corsair One is kitted out to the maximum. Entry-level buyers get a Core i7-7700 and a GTX 1070, while buyers who spend more than two grand pick up a GTX 1080 and an i7-7700K. The best part about the One is how every component is upgradeable, including the graphics card, motherboard and power supply. Some of these parts can be tricky to access, but you'll be able to swap it all out in the future. This makes the upfront price point a bit easier to swallow.
The cooling solution is fantastic, providing plenty of thermal headroom for overclocking the CPU and GPU, while keeping reasonably quiet during load. It's not a dead silent system, even at idle due to the liquid cooling pumps, but unless you place the One right next to you during games, it's not a system that will bother you during operation.
In terms of performance, the Core i7-7700K and GTX 1080 in my review unit performed as expected. I managed to overclock the 7700K to 4.8 GHz without blowing up the cooler, while I gave the GTX 1080 an extra X MHz without struggle. In fact, the overclocking headroom on the GPU is fantastic thanks to the liquid cooler. The only real performance disappointment is the SSD, which is only SATA; there's no room for an M.2 SSD in this system, which would have been a nice improvement.
In terms of price, the Corsair One does come with a standard pre-built system premium. A small form factor system I quickly whipped up on Newegg would set you back around $1,400 for the same hardware as the entry-level Corsair One, which costs $1,800. Other SFF systems like the MSI Trident 3 are cheaper as well, at closer to the $1,500 mark. However, pre-built systems always come with a premium price point and this one is exceptionally well built.
My review model, which costs $2,300 through the Corsair website, would set you back $1,900 if you built it yourself. The margin is similar to the entry-level model. Amazon sells the same system for $2,200 trading the 960GB SSD for a smaller 480GB SSD in combination with a 2TB HDD.
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Despite the high price tag, those looking for an excellent small form factor gaming PC should look no further than the Corsair One. Its fantastic level of upgradeability and beautiful design is enough for me to highly recommend it.
Pros: Outstanding design both inside and out. Every component is upgradeable. Quiet, effective cooling solution. Great out-of-box performance with plenty of overclocking headroom.
Cons: No room for an M.2 SSD?