Corsair’s One is a stunner and a beast, and that was before this year’s component bumps.
The Corsair One now starts at $2300 for the previous models, and goes all the way to three grand for the Elite:
- CPU - INTEL I7-8700K, LIQUID COOLED
- GPU - NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti, LIQUID COOLED
- DRAM - 32GB 2666MHZ DDR4
- STORAGE - 480GB M.2 NVME SSD, 2TB HDD
- MOTHERBOARD - Z370
- PSU -500W SFX, 80 PLUS GOLD
The headline increases are the move to Intel’s I7-8700K Coffee Lake Processor (my nickname at the office) and of course the addition of that Ti to the GTX 1080, and you can still save $200 by dropping the memory from 32GB to 16. By far the most obvious criticism of the first models, the use of a 2TB HDD to supplement the 480GB SSD hasn’t been addressed, yet. 5400RPM is like traveling back in time at this point.
The Corsair One remains at an unmatched intersection of powerful, small, cool, and quiet in the gaming PC space. The noise it produces is negligible, and it’s small enough to go behind your monitor or get portable in a pinch. As Corsair puts it, the One has the same volume (size not sound) as four squirrels.
If you’re seeing the One for the first time, you’ll be shocked, shocked to find no RGB lighting to sync with Corsair’s peripherals on this chassis. The serpentine blue lights on the matte black case (which you can turn off) are respectable, and the biggest light sources the One has are actually the illuminated ports on the back. Those include all the usual suspects plus USB-C (can I get a hell yeah?), though (no surprise) the One didn’t work out of the box with my LG UltraFine.
I’ve been spending a lot of time with the One since it arrived on February 20th, and while it’s worked beautifully with the Massdrop Vast, I’m sure we’re all more interested in 4K frame rates. Suffice to say though, and no surprise, there’s not really anything to throw at the One Elite that it won’t laugh off at 1440p. It turned in a 9339 on Time Spy.
While the Corsair One Elite may be aimed at the creator as well as the gamer, it’s not meant for the tinkerer or anyone on a budget. You can build something similar in power for less, but it’s likely going to be bigger, louder, hotter, and uglier. The Corsair One Elite is the complete package.
Updates incoming as I put the One through its 4K paces. Stay tuned.