CES14: Maingear announces new Steambox

PC maker Maingear has thrown their hat into the Steambox ring with a new small form-factor PC perfect for hooking up to the old telly for some Big Picture gaming.

Steamboxes have been something of a buzzword over the last year or so with the leading online retailer of PC and Mac games, Valve’s Steam platform, being chucked behind a brand new initiative to get PC gaming into the living room. Now Maingear has announced their own version of the ‘Steambox’ with the Spark, and it’s a hot little number.

The Spark is small, very small… like weighs less than a pound and has a footprint smaller than a DVD case small. Just because it’s on the diminutive side of things doesn’t mean that it’s lacking where it counts though. Maingear has built this little guy to play in any game while being both inconspicuous in a living room setup and easy to haul around to LAN parties.

Here’s your spec list:

• 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.16GB
• Hard Drive: 1 x mSATA slot support SSD up to 256GB, 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

You’ll notice that the ‘price’ is still to be announced and there’s no release date as of yet either. As soon as we have both here at BG we’ll let you know- and in the meantime, stay tuned for lots more about the Spark and steamboxes in general as our CES 2014 coverage rolls on.