Conclusion - Maingear F131: Solid Contender

Problems

We had no real problems to speak of with the F131. It booted immediately upon arrival, which is practically unheard of, and partially attributable to a good packing job (and partially to luck). The system was stable throughout our testing, and other than slight anomalies like the stray noise, we did not observe any problems.

Pricing

Our test configuration of the F131 is available on the Maingear website for approximately $2130 before shipping. The margins on components are quite high, particularly on hard drives and video cards. The cooler used retails for about $140, so clearly the $300 premium over the Intel heatsink goes towards the cost of labor. The closest that we came at Newegg with a very similar configuration was about $1530. This isn't that far off the mark from other system builders, but it would really help solidify Maingear's position if they could reduce their margins on video cards to allow for less expensive gaming upgrades.

Final Thoughts

First off, the good: Maingear builds quality systems without bloatware or clogged installations, ships them well, and all evidence shows they support them 100%. Their website is easy to order from, overclocking is "free" and covered under warranty, and their component choices are solid. You really do get the impression that these systems are hand-built with care.

Now then, here are the negatives. We find ourselves acknowledging that Maingear is a solid contender in this market, and understand why they garner customer loyalty, but this system just didn't clinch us completely. We honestly expected to see a bit more performance at this price point. This is supposed to be "the ultimate custom gaming machine" in Maingear's own words. For instance, instead of water-cooling, we would have opted to spend some of that money on a quad-core CPU (for those into video encoding) or a faster video card (for the gamers).

When paying for a system like this, one wants the performance to back up the cost. We also feel that a system like this should come with a 3-year warranty standard; it's an investment surely intended to last more than one year, and quite a few competitors in this area offer 3-year warranties at about the same price. As a third point, while the Silverstone case is elegant and functional, it lacks the glitz and glamour that some people might look for in a gaming system. The ability to choose a couple case alternatives would help. Customization options are available for most components, but they are more limited than other vendors and the price premiums are higher than average.

As we said when opening the review, we like the F131 and are very pleased with its reliability and by all accounts the huge emphasis that Maingear places on support. They are definitely worth a place on the short list of top quality PC suppliers. However, if support is not number one on your list, you may want to look around at some other suppliers to compare prices.

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