I'm not sure if MSI's MPG Trident 3 still qualifies as a console form factor, because looking at the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, traditional designs have gone right out the window. What I am sure of, however, is that this prebuilt PC for $949 is a good deal (it's roughly comparable to building your own).
This small form factor gaming rig usually lists for $1,299 but is on sale for $1,099 at Newegg, which is a decent price. However, applying coupon code 93XQB48 at checkout knocks $150 off, bringing it down to $949, making this is a solid bargain—it touts an 8-core, 16-thread Intel Core i7 10700F Comet Lake CPU with a 4.8GHz max boost clock, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU with 6GB of onboard GDDR6 memory.
That's a solid foundation for a midrange gaming PC, and should be capable of playing games at 1080p at high settings, as well as some games at 1440p. You don't get dedicated hardware for ray tracing, but that is not unusual at this price point.
I'm not quite as stoked at the 8GB of RAM. Fortunately, RAM is affordable these days, so you could upgrade to 16GB of 32GB and still be well ahead of the game. And for storage, you get a fast 512GB NVMe SSD paired with a 1TB HDD (7,200 RPM) for bulk storage.
Other features include the latest wireless standard (Wi-Fi 6, or 802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.1, and both USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A and Type-C ports. This PC comes with a keyboard and mouse, too.
Not digging this? Check out our roundups of the best gaming PCs, and cheap gaming PC deals.
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