MAINGEAR F131 Pro Reviews

Maingear’s F131 is an impressive machine from several perspectives. It looks great, its performance is excellent, and the interior layout is good for a system of this size. The only question remaining is value. Our review unit rings up at $3,277 on Maingear’s website. This includes a $249 charge for the Fusion Blue paint. Remove that and you’re down to $3,028. To our surprise, a Maingear Shift configured with similar components rings up at $3,732. That’s a serious difference. What about the competition? The Origin Chronos, which you can buy with the same case and almost identical components, is $3,094. A three-year warranty comes standard with the F131 SuperStock but is an optional charge on the Chronos. Falcon Northwest doesn’t offer the GTX 690 in the Tiki or the Talon, so a comparison is unavailable. We think the F131 is a good deal. Its gaming performance nearly matches that of the last Shift we reviewed, and that system was priced at $6,400! Our only serious reservation about the F131 is the substantial noise it generates. If Maingear could find a way to quiet the system and fix the annoying layout, the company would have the perfect system. As it stands, the F131 is an incredible performer and a great value that is brought down a couple notches by some minor, yet noticeable, flaws.

Maingear really impressed us during our review process and everything from the custom made packing materials to the free custom etched side panels and the high level of personal service available to customers really shows that Maingear knows what it takes to impress customers and keep them coming back. It doesn't hurt of course that the F131 as we tested it was easily the fastest computer we have ever reviewed.

The Maingear F131 Super Stock is a fast, powerful PC, but it does sit at the higher end of the mainstream class. For raw processing power, this machine sets some new standards in the mainstream category. In gaming performance it's right in line with the $2254 Origin Genesis Midtower. Although the two computers' builds and prices are similar, the Genesis Midtower offers twice as much RAM, with a pair of standard hard drives (in RAID 0) to keep the cost competitive. If you'd rather have another option, you can save about $400 with the Maingear Vybe Super Stock.

Offering a strong overclock and a readily accessible chassis, Maingear’s F131 clambers to the top of the mainstream PC chart.

The Maingear F131 Super Stock is an overclocked beast for the game grid. It has stratospheric performance, but better yet it doesn't have a stratospheric price tag.

Ignore the side panel. Maingear has an outstanding deal in this high-end F131 gaming desktop, which is one of the fastest PCs we've seen all year. We recommend this system without hesitation to serious PC gamers and those interested in a high-performance, high-value computer.

This overclocked Core i5 desktop is a very solid gaming rig with major expansion potential, but comparably priced models do offer quad-core CPUs and more features.

The Core i7-based Maingear F131 is one of the fastest systems we've ever tested, but you'll have to pay for that speed.

Hoo-hoo! That’s an exact recreation of the noise we made when opening the box containing Maingear’s F131 desktop rig. But “rig” might be too generic a description for the bright-blue machine; “behemoth” seems more appropriate. For in every direction—processor power, graphics, and even the freakin’ weight of the beast—the F131 seems to dwarf its competition.