Maingear Unveils Drift Steam Machine, Starts Taking Pre-Orders

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Drift PC console moves full Steam ahead

It's taken a lot longer than anticipated, but official Steam Machines are scheduled to release in November of this year, Valve announced at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC). That means you can expect plenty of Steam Machine announcements, some of which have already started rolling in. One in particular is Maingear's Drift, an ultra-compact Steam Machine and gaming PC that you can pre-order today and have in your hands next month.
How is it possible to own a Steam Machine before November? Well, Steam OS won't arrive until November, but as we've seen, OEMs and boutique builders aren't waiting around -- they're shipping systems now that run Windows and have the option of booting directly into Steam's Big Picture mode. So it goes with Maingear's Drift.
It offers full-size desktop performance in a console uni-body constructed from aluminum. There are several color options and, for a fee ($199 to $299), Maingear will happily paint the chassis using Glasurit paint, the same that goes onto the likes of Porcshe and BMW.
There are two main (and customizable) configurations to choose from. The first is the Drift with an Intel Pentium Anniversary Edition G3258 processor slipped into an MSI H81-I motherboard, 8GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics card, 500GB Seagate Barracuda HDD (7200 RPM), 8X DVD burner, 450W Silverstone PSU, and Windows 8.1 64-bit. This configuration starts at $949.
The second starting point is the Drift SS beginning at $1,949. For that, you get bumped up to an Intel Core i5 4590 CPU, Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WIFI motherboard, Maingear Epic 120 Supercooler, Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, and a 250GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD to go along with the 500GB HDD.
If you're interested, you can head over to the Drift's product page and customizable your build right now.
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