MSI Aegis X Mini-ITX Barebones Gaming PC Review

Setting Up The Comparison

It’s been a while since we’ve reviewed a barebones PC, and all of the old data uses older hardware. MSI Aegis X is thus compared to current hardware as both a motherboard and a case/power supply combo.

Comparison Motherboards

The design of MSI’s Aegis X presents somewhat of a challenge to case selection capabilities, as we haven’t tested a riser-card case specifically designed to cool gaming graphics cards since the original ASRock M8 of 2013. Nearly the same height as the Aegis X, Corsair’s Graphite 380T is the smallest gaming case we had on hand.

To help demo its Aegix X, MSI included a pair of Toshiba 128GB M.2 drives in RAID 0. Unfortunately, our comparison system doesn't have two M.2 slots. A recent upgrade in our test software suite made this the perfect time to switch to our new test drive, which is a single 256GB version of the drives MSI had included. Retail-boxed Toshiba NVMe M.2 drives come with a PCIe adapter card that we wouldn't need, and are sold under the OCZ brand.

MSI also included its GTX 1080 Armor OC for the demo, and with all those other changes to the system configuration I ran out of excuses not to upgrade. It's both more powerful and shorter than the GTX 970 we were previously using.

Comparison Cases

We used the same CPU cooler in both systems to make the thermal comparison as fair as possible, but how do we price that cooler if it’s not sold separately? Fortunately, the model it’s based on is available on eBay for $85.

Finished Test Configurations

We could have reduced our theoretical build tally by over $100 through the purchase of a lower capacity power supply, but re-using an old high-end unit that we already had on hand saved us actual money. New system builders could potentially get the ASRock/Corsair baseline configuration down to $400 if they chose a cheaper motherboard model as well, or even push overclocking potential on the expensive setup by starting off with a larger cooler. Of course they’d give up the slenderness of the Aegis X in the process along with a couple of its special features. Then again, we’ve recently seen the Aegis X at a promotional price of $360, and not everyone is die-hard concerning overclocking. Because of the plethora of pricing and configuration options, our conclusion will speak only in general terms concerning Aegis X value.