MAINGEAR Vybe Gaming PC Review – Intel Core i7-6700K & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti

MAINGEAR Vybe Z170 Skylake i7-6700 System Review

If you haven’t heard of MAINGEAR, they are a a custom system builder with close to 15 years in the business using the latest technology to build computer systems that offer the best performance for the money. Using standardized components, makes the systems fully upgradable by the end user, allowing the system to keep up with changes in technology. Rather than having systems pre-built and modified depending on the few options that are available, MAINGEAR hand builds every system taking extreme measures to ensure proper thermal management with optimal cable management, specialized cooling options, and ends the build process with a 72 hour test process and a 100 point check before packaging the system for shipment.

Currently, MAINGEAR offers nine desktop systems, ranging from a tiny mini-ITX system up to a “Super” Tower capable of support a huge number of components. Keeping up with the latest in technology, each of these systems can be customized with various components to meet with the end users needs.

One of these nine desktops is the Vybe, one of their lowest priced systems. MAINGEAR’s Vybe system starts at $799; that’s for a basic system with MAINGEAR’s custom touches (think Intel Pentium G3258 dual-core processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 graphics card). From there you can add components to increase the performance of your system and enhance the overall visual quality and your wallet is the only real limiting factor on what hardware you want to put inside the Vybe. MAINGEAR recently sent use their latest version of the Vybe, the Z170 which is based on the latest Skylake CPU from Intel the i7-6700K CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti video card and an MSI Z170 Krait Gaming motherboard to take a look at. This system is pretty much loaded up making it one of the higher priced Vybe systems priced at $2,326 with MAINGEAR’s 1 year warranty.

Here is a quick run-down on the system components that MAINGEAR included in our demo system

Maingear Vybe Z170
Chassis	Vybe Windowed Chassis Mid-Tower
Exterior Finish	Space Grey with Matte Finish
Interior Finish	Rosso Scuderia Red with Matte Finish
Motherboard	MSI Z170 Krait Gaming
Processor	Intel Core i7-6700K Quad-Core
CPU Cooling	EPIC 120 Supercooler
Memory	16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2666 1.4V (4x4GB)
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 980Ti 6GB
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 750 B2 (110-B2-0750)
HD One	Samsung 850 EVO SSD 500GB
HD Two	Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM
Optical Drive	24X Dual Layer DVD Burner
Audio	Audio Boost 3 with Audio Shielding
Ethernet	Intel i219-V Gigabit LAN
Operating System	Windows 10 64-Bit
Warranty	Lifetime Angelic Service Labor and Phone Support with 1 Year Comprehensive Warranty

As you can see by the list of components, MAINGEAR is using standard hardware that can be purchased from many online e-tailers. A few items that appear to be custom is the chassis and CPU cooler. While MAINGEAR lists the chassis as a Vybe Windows Chassis, taking a closer look at the chassis it is really the Corsair Graphite 230T Battleship Grey, with a custom painted interior. The CPU cooler is listed as MAINGEAR’s EPIC 120 Supercooler, but we know it as the Corsair H60i AIO liquid cooler with a custom water pump cover.

While the base Vybe starts at $799, while placing the order you can customize many aspects of the system. Some of the customization options include LED light strips (starting at $39.00), more advanced motherboard, different processor, memory, graphics card, power supply, cable sleeving, hard drives, software and more. MAINGEAR does not tell you what system is best for you, they offer a great starting point, and offer a large amount of customization options using standardized components to make the system uniquely yours. This is the advantage of purchasing a system from MAINGEAR rather than one of the mass produced big box retail systems.