A compact gaming rig that does every thing proper

Mafia: The Old Country calls for to be performed on an infinite display screen. As a lot as I like my 32-inch Alienware OLED gaming monitor, it does not do justice to Mafia’s cinematic vistas of Sicily. But, I additionally wished to play that recreation in its full 4K glory, with not one of the compromises of at this time’s recreation consoles. So why not simply shove a tiny gaming desktop underneath my house theater? Enter the Fragbox, Falcon Northwest’s revamped small type issue gaming PC. While it’s totally costly, beginning at $3,997, it is extremely highly effective and provides you the liberty to simply improve the {hardware} down the road.

I do know what you are pondering: “A $4,000 desktop, in this economy?” That pricing additionally does not embrace upgrading from the inventory NVIDIA’s RTX 5070 GPU, in addition to including extra RAM and bigger SSDs, all of which might drive the value up hundreds extra. I initially deliberate to evaluation the FragBox again in early December 2025, earlier than the AI-induced RAMaggedon made reminiscence, storage and different elements dramatically costlier. Falcon Northwest is especially often known as a boutique and high-end system builder, so its wealthier clientele can probably climate the pricing storm. If you are searching for a deal, although, you will not discover it right here.

Falcon Northwest

The FragBox packs in the entire energy of an enormous gaming rig right into a tiny field. The solely draw back is its huge value.

Pros

• Incredibly quick
• Elegant {hardware} format
• Relatively moveable
• Quiet and funky efficiency

Cons

• Expensive
• So so costly

So what, precisely, is a FragBox? Imagine a typical mid-tower desktop squashed right down to a system that is solely 10.2-inches tall, 10.5-inches vast and 15.9-inches deep. When Falcon initially debuted the FragBox in 2004, it was notable for being a genuinely small PC that used full-sized components. That’s nonetheless a foremost promoting level at this time: It can nonetheless slot in giant NVIDIA GPUs, together with the beefy RTX 5090, in addition to both Intel’s newest Core Ultra chips or AMD’s Ryzen 9000 CPUs. An enormous 280mm radiator sits on the high pulling out scorching air, and it additionally serves as an All-in-One (AIO) liquid cooler for the CPU.

At 25 kilos, the FragBox is not precisely gentle, however its sturdy steel deal with makes it simple to maneuver round. Most mid-tower desktops normally weigh between 20 and 35 kilos, relying on their case materials. But they’re additionally a lot bigger and tougher to squeeze into tight areas. The FragBox’s comparatively squat dimension makes it simple to shove into a house leisure heart, or simply sit on the nook of your desk. I do want the deal with was detachable, although. It was about half an inch too tall for certainly one of my cabinets.

Despite its density, the FragBox’s elegant design makes it a cinch to entry to the entire system’s elements. Just unscrew the aspect and high panels and you’ll simply take away the GPU, RAM, storage and different main elements. There are three slots of M.2 SSDs, in addition to two areas for two.5-inch drives and a spot for a big 3.5-inch HDD. The system is bundled with a 1,200W energy provide, which must be greater than sufficient to deal with future GPUs and CPUs.

Ports are plentiful as nicely: There are two USB-A and one USB-C connections proper up entrance, alongside a headphone jack. On the rear, you have acquired your typical assortment of mid-tower connections, together with 4 USB-A 2.0 connections, seven USB-A 3 ports, one 20G USB-C 3.2 port, 2.5G Ethernet, HDMI and ShowPort. Our RTX 5090 evaluation unit additionally included three ShowPort jacks and one HDMI connection (which you will see on most GPUs). Wi-Fi 6E can also be built-in, although at this worth it could have been good to see Wi-Fi 7.

The FragBox, fortunately, lacks the garish LEDs and tacky thermal glass you discover on extra ostentatious gaming rigs. Falcon Northwest’s aluminum case appears to be like and feels stately, like an old-school luxurious automotive. If you need one thing flashier, you may shell out an extra $400 for a customized UV printed case or $149 for a UV-printed entrance panel.

Our evaluation unit was geared up with AMD’s Ryzen 9950X3D CPU, NVIDIA’s RTX 5090, 96GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB SSD. So positive, even earlier than benchmarking or operating any video games, I anticipated it to be a beast. In PCMark 10, the FragBox scored a whopping 13,810, which is round 500 factors larger than my mid-tower system with the identical CPU and GPU. It additionally scored the very best 3DMark Speedway and Port Royal ray tracing scores I’ve ever seen. Even extra spectacular, the FragBox’s followers had been barely audible underneath load, and the CPU and GPU sat at a chill 52C and 65C, respectively

To get again to my preliminary level, it ran Mafia: The Old Country in 4K flawlessly, with each graphics setting cranked all the way in which up. While taking part in on my 120-inch projector house theater setup, the sport reached 62 fps natively, and flipping on DLSS upscaling and body era bumped that as much as 120 fps. Not that you simply want a brilliant larger framerate for a slow-paced, principally cinematic motion recreation. I used to be simply blissful to be taking part in with none compromises — even the PS5 Pro cannot attain the identical stage of graphical constancy because the monstrously highly effective RTX 5090.

I’m no stranger to big-screen PC gaming, however beforehand I’ve needed to run a laughably lengthy HDMI cable from my desktop to make it work. I’m simply too outdated for that mess now. And it additionally does not work constantly, particularly at larger framerates, due to the huge bandwidth required to pump out 4K at excessive refresh charges. In-home recreation streaming can also be an choice, however that is not nice once you’re blowing video games as much as an infinite TV or projector display screen. It’s simply too laborious to disregard the imperfections of streaming compression. (Admittedly, I would like to check newer high-bandwidth choices, particularly after I used to be impressed by NVIDIA’s GeForce Now improve final yr.)

The FragBox additionally made it simple to leap into all of my current Steam titles, together with Mewgeneics and Arc Raiders on a giant display screen. Unfortunately, Windows itself stays a key stumbling block for house theater PC gaming. You’ll nonetheless have to maintain a keyboard and PC round to take care of the preliminary OS configuration. And even as soon as I enabled Steam’s Big Picture mode, which gives glorious controller choices, I nonetheless often needed to take care of Windows Updates and different annoyances.

Microsoft is at present making an attempt to optimize Windows for gaming handhelds, and it is reportedly doing much more to make a future PC-powered Xbox really feel extra console-like. For now, although, utilizing a Windows PC in your house theater does not really feel a lot completely different than it did a decade in the past. Steam is your savior, Windows is your enemy. Or you could possibly simply save hundreds of {dollars} and purchase a $500 PlayStation 5 or $700 PS5 Pro, as a substitute. The latter will nonetheless get you clean framerates and a wholesome dose of ray tracing, with out the annoyance of Windows, keyboards and mice.

But in the event you simply desire a compact and insanely highly effective gaming desktop, and you do not thoughts spending a premium, it is laborious to disclaim that the FragBox will get every thing proper.