Steiger Dynamics Maven Pure Custom PC Review: Game In Silence

A Spark Of Brilliance

Have you ever asked yourself why you need so many boxes in your living room? The cable box, the DVR, the gaming console, the Blu-ray player, the little silent-but-weak PC substitute that checks your Facebook page or Twitter feed—you don’t need all of that, right? Cable companies have gotten on-board with video recorders the size of small PCs, and console makers include Blu-ray drives. And then you can always retreat to your desk for PC gaming, right?

I’ve always said that a home theater PC should be able to do everything all of those other devices do, and faced strong push-back for it from those who think set-top boxes only need to play back media, silently. That a media PC should be limited in order to assure complete silence. That even a few decibels of noise audible in a quiet room is too much. Rather than continue arguing, I ditched the plans I had for covering living room entertainment, put away my own HTPC, and kept on writing reviews of more traditional desktop-class hardware.

Maybe I gave up too easily? Steiger Dynamics figured out that a strong message reaches beyond the silent movement's din (irony?) and into the hearts of true performance geeks. Here we have a machine that gives the impression of silence, relying on the logic that most people either can’t or have great difficulty discerning sound pressure levels lower than 16 decibels in natural environments.

The price for this machine is only $330 over the self-built option, with us using the closest-matching $400 OrigenAE case. If you subtract the $49 overclock fee and $99 cable service, Steiger only has about $189 in mark-up. And even if we deduct another $80 for the LED panel not present on the special Maven case, we’re still impressed by the value Steiger Dynamics offers the high-end PC market. But is the machine equally impressive?