Japanese firm launches hyper-realistic capsule toy PC parts ‘you can assemble and play with’ — tiny motherboards, cases, and CPUs are coming after Tarlin inks collab with the ‘big four’ PC parts makers

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Gachapon toys of ASRock, Gigabyte, MSI, and Intel parts will be coming to vending machines soon.

Gachapon motherboards, cases, and CPUs
(Image credit: Tarlin International)

Leading Japanese capsule toy maker Tarlin International has announced an official collaboration with “the four major manufacturers” of the PC components industry. The teased result means that gachapon fans will be able to get their hands on tiny models of ASRock, Gigabyte, MSI, and Intel parts (plus fans, PSUs, and cases), accurate enough “that you can assemble and play with.” In 2026, PC building has become so expensive that perhaps Tarlin’s latest wares will fill an emotional vacuum in the market.

In the image above, you can see Tarlin has inked some kind of official licensing deal with ASRock, Gigabyte, MSI, and Intel. There’s already been four series of networking equipment gachapon launched by Tarlin, for some context.

As far as we can see from the social media posting, the new Tarlin gachapon series includes three branded miniature motherboards: the ASRock Z890 Steel Legend WiFi, the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Elite WiFi7 Plus, and the MSI MEG Z890 Ace. Premium stuff. Intel’s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus seems to be the only CPU choice. There are also case fans, a PSU, and a tower case for your minuscule components PC build.

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Tarlin’s eccentric gachapon pedigree

Compared with gachapon rivals like Bandai and Takara Tomy, Tarlin has carved a niche, eccentric furrow in the industry. It has a reputation for turning everyday, mundane, or highly technical objects into accurate scale miniatures.

Examples of other incredibly niche Tarlin-produced capsules include its Temporary Toilet Series, a realistic Articulated Crayfish, and its series of Cisco rackmount network gear toys. In this context, it's “serious spec” PC component capsule toys, which are made to such exacting precision that they can be assembled to make tiny tower PCs, aren’t so unusual.

In 2024, we spotted a Japanese capsule toy machine filled with Intel CPUs. One gacha chancer acquired an Intel Core i7-8700 CPU after inserting 500 Yen (around $3.25) and twisting the customary knob.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • usertests
    Finally, RAM we can afford.
    Reply
  • scottscholzpdx
    Would be pretty cool to pick up my motherboard and CPU.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    I don't usually go for stuff like this, but it might be kinda neat. I wouldn't play the gachapon, machines though. I'd rather pay a bit more and select the parts, like I do for real PCs.

    On a loosely-related note, I'm still a bit sore that Lian Li never entered the case market for Raspberry Pi. I wanted to get a black, aluminum tower case for it, to match my other black, aluminum Lian Li cases.
    Reply
  • Syntaximus
    Dating myself here, but these should absolutely get branded as "Micro Machines."
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Syntaximus said:
    Dating myself here, but these should absolutely get branded as "Micro Machines."
    zLP6oT3uqV8View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLP6oT3uqV8You have to watch the video to truly appreciate. I'm not sure modern social media influencers have anything on that guy.
    Reply
  • Syntaximus
    bit_user said:
    zLP6oT3uqV8View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLP6oT3uqV8You have to watch the video to truly appreciate. I'm not sure modern social media influencers have anything on that guy.

    This guy was an absolute legend in advertising!
    I remember this as a kid + the FedEx ones - so iconic he was a teachable benchmark in production/messaging.

    NeK5ZjtpO-MView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeK5ZjtpO-M
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Syntaximus said:
    This guy was an absolute legend in advertising!
    I remember this as a kid + the FedEx ones - so iconic he was a teachable benchmark in production/messaging.

    NeK5ZjtpO-MView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeK5ZjtpO-M
    I'm not sure whatever really happened to him, but I assume he was a victim of his own success. Probably the novelty of this pitches wore off and then maybe there wasn't much more work to be found.

    Going onto a further tangent about 80's culture, I re-watched Ghostbusters 2, not long ago. I really liked how that movie started out, in the way that it implicitly acknowledged the "15 minutes of fame" phenomenon that had become somewhat entrenched, by that point.
    Reply
  • Syntaximus
    You nailed it, he burned out as a type-cast, but his impact never left the industry.
    Reply