Asus ROG GR8 II 4-litre gaming PC announced

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thing is, it's not really competing with actual games consoles. There are plenty of people out there who want the console experience, but specifically want a PC.

A lot of that is down to YouTube and more recently Twitch, with games like Minecraft bringing in a new generation of PC gamers.

As you've pointed out, it does sound absurd, but there's a market out there for this kind of thing.

It's the price for the small size, it's not like previous upgradeable SFF machines were anywhere near as small as this.

I have been using SFF PCs as my main ones for a decade. This is meh - if you don't mind soldered on components,you might as well get a Brix or a laptop.

Only an utter noob would spend £1000 on this so they can dispose of their PC and that is what Asus is counting on,ignorance.

For someone moving from a console it would eventually drive them back to a console,because:
1.)It has only a 3GB version of the GTX1060 so as time progresses will start to hit limitations quicker,and Asus is on purpose making sure the PC ages quicker by not using the 6GB version.
2.)The graphics card is not-upgradeable(essentially) so they will be forced to spend another £1000 just to get a new graphics card,even though the rest of the PC is fine,and will come to the realisation that they could spent under £300 instead of another £1000.

Edit!!

Also volume measurement also ignores the shape too - its a longish case,so if you can't fit one of the bit larger SFF cases,I doubt this will either.

Then it ignores the fact you need space for a monitor,so unless you have some really small monitor,that 24" one they demoed it with will be taking up a decent amount of space on the desk.

You might as well spend a bit extra and get a gaming laptop if space is at such a premium that you need to get a computer with a non-upgradeable card. In fact more and more laptops seem to support external graphics card boxes too.

Also at £950,once the XBox Scorpio is out it will blow it out of the water I suspect - if the PS4 PRO has a downclocked RX480,which should be not far off a GTX1060 3GB,then the new XBox is going to destroy this PC in terms of graphics power. I suspect they will count on people not realising this as the "PC is better than a console",etc.

PCMR indeed!

[Fatti]

"MSI Trident 3" is way more upgradable than this.

[Rubarb]

Small from desktops I see the appeal but ... naghhh . I would like to upgrade components in time so my "will never buy award go's to .......... this one"

[darcotech]

Question is, is this the box that you would like to have in your living room next to your big TV and home cinema speakers? Not me.

[EvilCycle]

A solution looking for a problem.

You want the highest performance gaming rig? Build/buy a desktop.
You want to casually play games on a small box under your tv? Buy a console, it's cheaper and just "works".
You want a computer that is more portable than a standard desktop? That'll be a laptop or a tablet!

For this type of spec and portability and if you wanted a full computer experience rather than use a console, IMO you would just be better off sticking a laptop under your TV connected over HDMI and a mains output with wireless peripherals, at least then if you want to take it anywhere it would have it's own dedicated screen and battery etc.

[mtyson]

[3s-gtech]

Looking at the new product page, the display outputs aren't on the mainboard any more. If you look at the Game Cool, Play Silent section of https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-GR8-II/ you see what looks like a discrete card. It's missing a display output where you'd expect one which makes the bracket look too short. The rest of the page doesn't mention upgradeability of the GPU, but it does mention to storage. I suspect it is discrete and can be upgraded with a little gentle modding. Would be much cheaper for them to build rather than build a custom motherboard.

Well, I was wrong! The GPU is custom