Luxury PC company Maingear launches '90's style Retro95 beige PC — company known for flashy rigs with custom cooling and automotive paint brings old-school aesthetics to modern hardware

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This 'sleeper build' comes with up to a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, GeForce RTX 5080, 96GB DDR5, and 8TB storage.

Maingear Retro95
(Image credit: Maingear)
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New Jersey-based system b uilder Maingear has launched a beige desktop to tempt in fans of retro PCs who, despite themselves, crave modern processing power. The new Maingear Retro95 is what some might call a ready-made ‘sleeper build,’ a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The “limited drop” Retro95 is available today, with prices starting at $1,599.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
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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.

15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Dr3ams
    WTF!? Why? The last thing I want is a retro horizontal case and a CRT shaped monitor on my desk.
    Reply
  • cknobman
    Went and built one for right at $2400.
    If that build was using a 5070ti instead of a 5070 then I would buy.

    Very cool though.
    Reply
  • Exploding PSU
    This sort of aesthetic is before my time.
    And I'm a hardcore sucker for hypermodern, angular, LED-ridden, slather-everything-in-super-bright-colours aesthetic (blame my Mirror's Edge upbringing for that)...

    But I kind of like how this looks!
    Reply
  • gburke
    Admin said:
    Maingear launches its Retro95 beige desktop, hoping to tempt in fans of retro PCs who, despite themselves, crave modern processing power.

    Luxury PC company Maingear launches '90's style Retro95 beige PC — company known for flashy rigs with custom cooling and automotive paint brings ol... : Read more
    It would be fun to play Doom 2 on that. : )
    Reply
  • nookoool
    Reminds me of an Amiga 2000/3000. The entire thing is kinda of a fail since it doesn't come with a compliment beige white keyboard and monitor.
    Reply
  • LolaGT
    If you come from the 1990s then you remember these case styles. I think they still look great and I'd be all about a mini/mid tower XT beige 1995 sleeper build, if I could just get the case only.
    Reply
  • DS426
    My era. :) Kind of cool, though I wouldn't spec it really high as I'd want my big 32" 1440P monitors for high(er)-end gaming. Anyways, I'm one to appreciate sleeper builds, and then you throw in retro... good stuff.

    I customized it on their website and have to say it's a no-go for lack of choice: absolutely zero Radeon GPU's available. Also, strangely, they offer one Intel CPU alternative, a 245K. No 265K option, really? Some people might actually want to use this for things over than just gaming.

    Looks like I'd also be in the camp of just buying that case and building it myself.

    Fun fact: ever wondered why the C: drive is the first drive letter assigned on your PC? It goes back to the floppy drive days where a PC might have two floppy drives to copy data from one to the other. Windows will assign A: and B: to them by default, though that could be changed just as today. The crazy thing is that Windows will still do it, lol!
    zZV4jSeBvFsView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZV4jSeBvFs
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    LolaGT said:
    If you come from the 1990s then you remember these case styles. I think they still look great and I'd be all about a mini/mid tower XT beige 1995 sleeper build, if I could just get the case only.
    Read the end of the article...this product is based on a case that is being sold and is just slightly modified.
    Reply
  • Unolocogringo
    Reminds me of my first computer.
    A 94 model Packard Bell.
    P75
    16 MB ram
    4 MB Cirrus logic video.
    850 MB Conner hard drive
    Running a upgrade disk to Win 95 from 3.1.
    Bought if from a graduating college student for auto-cad.
    Then the games began. o_O
    Special DOS boot disk for Janes flight simulators.
    Reply
  • garioch7
    Being a Canadian, I was fortunate enough to purchase a Maingear desktop that served me well for many years. When it finally began to cause problems, I sent it back to Maingear, but the shipping both ways was over $2K CA, and the repair only $600.00 US. For that money, I could have bought a new computer. It started to die again a year later, but I could not afford the exchange rate when I replaced it with a 2019 Dell XPS 8930 SE, which is still running fine.

    Back when I bought my one and only Maingear, which I loved, they had an "Angelic Warranty": free technical phone support for life! It was a great service.

    The computer was awesome. I wish I had had the money to purchase another, but there was a divorce, and that reduced my income and savings so drastically, that I had to forgo buying another Maingear. The exchange rate added another almost 40% to the price of the Maingear computer I was looking at, and then there were the draconian shipping costs!

    I do a lot of HD video editing, so I need a high-end computer. Maingear fit the bill, and it handled HD video editing without a sweat.

    All of that said, that newest offering by Maingear would not interest me at all. I don't want a retro computer.

    Just my two cents. Have a great day.

    Regards,
    Phil
    Reply