Maingear slims down its F131 gaming PC and outfits it with custom liquid cooling

Boutique builder Maingear is back with another version of its F131 desktop, this time with an overall smaller footprint and an optional liquid cooling setup the company calls "Apex." The latter seems to have been a major motivator in retooling the F131, which Maingear designed in-house from the ground up.

"The launch of our new F131 desktop sets a new benchmark in gaming desktops" said Wallace Santos, CEO and Founder of Maingear. "While most manufacturers add liquid cooling to a system as an afterthought, the new F131 and Apex where designed together to provide unparalleled performance."

Buyers can opt for soft or hardline open loop cooling, the latter with options for clear acrylic or metal tubing. Going with the Apex cooling solution is a pricey proposition though—it costs $299 on top of the required $500 Epic 420 custom liquid cooling upgrade, so $799 to go all-in. For those who can afford the fancy cooling setup, the resulting build is worthy of being prominently displayed.

There are three starting points to choose from—Z370 ($1,785 and up), Ryzen ($1,599 and up), and X299 ($2,599) up. Each is also available in a "Superstock" configuration that comes with the Apex cooling option, for a premium price of course.

The final tally will depend on your component selection and how much you're willing to throw down on a PC. Fully loaded, you can deck one of these out with 64GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, dual Titan Xp graphics cards in SLI, and three storage drives. And if you still have cash to spare, you can opt for an automotive paint job.

You can customize and order an F131 now. Here's a handful of F131 configurations we saw at CES this week:

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Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).