MAINGEAR Retro98 Turns the Nostalgic Beige Field Right into a Excessive-Powered Gaming PC

Before gaming PCs grew to become mild exhibits, they had been tasks. Beige towers tucked below desks. Side panels completely free. Parts swapped late at night time since you had been satisfied it might run smoother tomorrow. The MAINGEAR Retro98 faucets straight into that mindset, wrapping a full-fat 2026 gaming rig in a case that appears prefer it hasn’t been touched because the Howard period.

At a look, Retro98 seems as unassuming as pre-2000s desktop towers ever had been. The SilverStone FLP02 case leans arduous into late-90s design language, full with LED readouts, a turbo button and a bodily lockout key on the entrance panel. It’s the other of contemporary PC theatre. No glass. No RGB. No visible flex. And not an oz of irony. MAINGEAR goes all the best way, like Bill Gates vaulting an workplace chair.

That places Retro98 squarely in sleeper PC territory. But not the DIY type constructed from scavenged workplace {hardware}, discussion board bravado or the newest Linus Tech Tips video. This is the polished, boutique-builder tackle the thought, alongside MAINGEAR’s broader run of nostalgic sleeper builds. Behind the beige exterior sits trendy silicon doing ridiculous issues: Ryzen X3D processors, RTX 50-series GPUs, quick DDR5 reminiscence and cooling methods that will’ve sounded absurd in 1998.

Everything highly effective is intentionally hidden. Even the small print lean into the joke, from the old-school “ketchup and mustard” cable colourways to the coiled tubing that nods to early water-cooling experiments. On the acute finish, the Retro98α goes totally unhinged, with a customized Alphacool open loop and a pump and reservoir proudly housed within the outdated 5.25-inch drive bay area. It’s extreme, however for all the fitting causes.

Retro98 isn’t right here to be smart. You’re paying for efficiency most individuals won’t ever see, inside a case that actively refuses to point out it off. The trade-off is airflow. There’s a purpose trendy instances are lined in mesh.

You’re not shopping for Retro98 to chase benchmark charts. As MAINGEAR founder and CEO Wallace Santos places it, “This drop is for those of us who tore open the family PC just to install a 3DFX accelerator. Retro98 brings back that feeling of chasing every last frame, waiting for the dial tone to download driver updates, and building a system that could handle the most graphics-intensive 32-bit games. Except this time, we built the one your younger self always dreamed of.”

That’s who that is for. The individuals who appreciated understanding what was contained in the field, even when no one else did. Retro98 isn’t about going again to 1998. It’s about remembering when PCs felt private.

MAINGEAR Retro98 – Configurations & Pricing (USD)

• Retro98 | RTX 5070 – from $2,499
• Retro98 | RTX 5080 – from $3,499
• Retro98 | RTX 5090 – from $4,999
• Retro98α (Open-Loop Liquid Cooled) – $9,799

Australian pricing not confirmed.

Limited to 32 normal models plus 6 alpha builds, out there completely by way of MAINGEAR. Each system is hand-built by a single technician and backed by lifetime assist.