Monday, January 6th 2014

MAINGEAR Unveils the Small and Mighty SPARK Steambox PC

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system builder offering custom desktops, notebooks, and workstations is announcing their Steambox solution with the new SPARK as the perfect performance small form factor PC solution for gamers and PC enthusiasts alike. It boasts top tier hardware such as AMD A8 and AMD Radeon R9 graphics with plenty of storage in its thin and streamline design.

Size Matters
MAINGEAR's SPARK steambox PC offers a small and powerful small form factor that weighs less than one pound and is smaller than a DVD case. With a small footprint of just 4.5" width x 4.23" Depth and 2.34" in Height, the SPARK is the smallest gaming PC solution MAINGEAR has ever offered. With this tiny size, this PC is extremely versatile and can easily be placed in a multimedia environment such as a living room without taking a large amount of space or brought to a LAN party for easy travel and setup.
Power Packed
The MAINGEAR SPARK steambox solution utilizes the powerful 4 threads, 2.1/3.1 GHz, AMD A8-5557M 3.1 GHz processor and the AMD Radeon R9 M275X GDDR5 2GB and offers up to 16 GB of 1600MHz memory. It is equipped with four USB 3.0 ports that offers 10X super speed and offers 1 x mSATA slot that supports SD up to 356 GB and 1 x 2.5" HHD tray supporting SATA III 6 Gb/s. The unique high end wifi module the SPARK houses offers the best next generation of WiFi with Bluetooth combo mini-PCIe card which supports both WiFi IEEE 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0. Gamers can get the full PC gaming experience with the support for HDMI and the DisplayPort that can power 2 displays simultaneously if desired.

The MAINGEAR SPARK steambox PC will be offered in the iconic red and black MAINGEAR colors and will be available online in mid to late Q1 2014. The PC will be configurable with certain components such as memory and storage, pricing has not been confirmed, but it will be an affordable PC solution.

"The AMD A8-5575M CPU and the AMD Radeon R9 M275X GPU are a perfect fit for MAINGEAR's SPARK steambox solution," said Ritche Corpus, Director of ISV Gaming and Alliances, AMD. "Both AMD and MAINGEAR are dedicated to pushing the performance envelope when it comes to PC gaming solutions. AMD is proud to provide top tier components for MAINGEAR's amazing small and powerful PC, designed with gamers in mind."

"The SPARK is a first for MAINGEAR, this extremely small and powerful gaming box will make gamers really look at what they want in a small form factor PC." said Wallace Santos, CEO and founder of MAINGEAR "We have been working with Valve for over a year building what we think is a great performing tiny PC with tons of storage for games and entertainment, we are very excited to be releasing this soon."

Technical Specification:
  • Processor: AMD A8-5575M, 4 threads, 2.1 -3.1 GHz
  • Video Card: AMD Radeon R9 M275X
  • Memory: 2 x SO-DIMM DDR3L, 1600/1333 MHz, Max.16 GB
  • Hard Drive: 1 x mSATA slot support SSD up to 256 GB, 1 x 2.5'' HDD tray support SATA III 6Gb/s
  • Network Adapter: GigabitLAN (Realtek RTL8111G)
  • Audio: Realtek ALC269
  • WiFi: IEEE802.11b/g/n,/ac 2.4 -5Ghz bands, Bluetooth: v4.0/ 3.0+HS, 2402MHz~2483MHz
  • Expansion Slots: 1 x mSATA slot and 1 X Half size mini-PCIe slot occupied by WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + Bluetooth 4.0 & 3.0 combo half mini card
  • Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Professional or Ultimate 64-Bit or Windows 8.1, SteamOS
  • Power Supply: 135W power adapter with power cord, Input: AC 100-240V, Output: DC 19V, 7.1A
  • I/O Ports: 1 x HDMI-Out, 1 x Mini DisplayPort, 4x USB 3.0, 1 x RJ45, 1 x Audio, 1 x Kensington Lock
  • Dimensions: (W)4.5" x (H)2.34" x (D)4.23"
  • Weight: 0.89 LBs
  • Price: TBA
More details will follow on updates to the MAINGEAR SPARK steambox in the coming weeks.
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4 Comments on MAINGEAR Unveils the Small and Mighty SPARK Steambox PC

#2
TheinsanegamerN
cool size, but why not use the mobile a10-5750m? the a8 is kinda slow for a gaming machine....

come to think of it, will they offer upgrade options over the base model?
Posted on Reply
#3
MadMan007
Umm...doesn't SteamOS officially support NVidia only? lol
Posted on Reply
#4
Nordic
MadMan007Umm...doesn't SteamOS officially support NVidia only? lol
At the moment. In time they will have amd support.
Posted on Reply
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