maingear posts

There's an argument to be made that most PC games that are released today can and do run just fine on a PC that, if built with the right hardware, can be made and/or sold for less that $1,000. But some older PC game fans remember a time where having the best gaming PC rig cost several thousands of dollars. In today's economy most would likely think that kind of price tag was excessive and they might be right.

But then you get to check out a gaming PC built by Maingear. The New Jersey-based company has been generating tons of accolades for its systems in the past few years, especially for its Shift-branded series of desktops. The company offered to let us play with a custom-made Shift system for a few weeks. While you can read on for the full review let's just say we were very sad to pack this system back up and send it back to Maingear (in fact the system we got to play with will be shown at Maingear's CES suite next week in Las Vegas).

While Black Friday and indeed the entire holiday shopping season is in full swing, PC gamers live not just by the games they play but the PC gaming rigs, controllers and other hardware set-ups they play their games on. We've already given you our list of PC games to gift for the holidays but now we have another list featuring various PC hardware rigs and other items that your PC gamer might love to get.

The items here range from the reasonably priced to stuff that's, well, something to perhaps dream about getting this year (or if you win the lottery or have a rich uncle). We have full PC game rigs to tell you about today along with some other items like PC gaming mice, keyboards and more. As always be sure to shop around and ask your potential holiday gift target what he or she wants beforehand.

Much like Dell's Alienware gaming PC division revamped their entire lineup of desktops last month, other gaming PC makers are doing the same with their products. Today Maingear announced a major revamp of their own desktop line which they have named Shift. Along with the new desktop line comes a new logo for the company and a new case design made specifically for the Shift brand. Inside the case Maingear plans to allow for a ton of high end hardware choices and with prices starting at $2.199.

Big Download got the skinny from Maingear founder and CEO Wallace Santos about Maingear's "shift" in direction, along with what he thinks about the newly launched Windows 7 and the future of gaming PCs.

Remember how Alienware sometimes launches a teaser site when they have a major product announcement? Well it looks like fellow PC gaming maker Maingear is doing something similar. The company's main site has been changed with a countdown clock that is pointing to an announcement on Monday morning.

So what is it? We have no idea although the weird animation of a red cloud sky thingie and the "Something Wicked This Way Comes" on the teaser site makes us thing that something downright sinister is going to launch. And we are all about sinister here. In any case we should know Monday morning if Maingear will launch a new PC or if the apocalypse is due.