Maingear’s Apex Rush Gaming Desktop makes laziness look so, so good

You can build your own PC. It’s not that difficult. The time commitment may be too much for some people, but the end result is usually more appealing since you know what happened and what can inevitably be updated. Custom PC makers like Maingear need to find some compelling reasons to sell a more expensive tower. You can already see from the photo above that there is a big reason why you should choose the Maingear Apex Rush before another PC. Your ultra-expensive tower can look like a work of art as long as you treat it well.

The last Maingear desktop I reviewed, the MG-1, was a carefully built, customizable PC that looked a lot like something I might have built, at least judging by the exterior. Inside, the tower was much better than that, thanks to bolt-on GPU support and cable management that would leave even the most demanding IT pros nodding in approval. The interior was inlaid with a strip of RGB lights that offered a subtle internal glow. It was the kind of sloppy DIY project that anyone building their own PC could easily tackle.

When Maingear first announced its Rush PCs at CES 2025, the company’s CEO Wallace Santos told Gizmodo that they tried to create a desktop that felt truly unique, hence the special “Artist Series” designs that promote a unique case while offering an internal design with everything gamers expect. This design doesn’t come cheap. My review unit, with a high-end AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage, and all the special cooling gear with RGB lights in and around the case, costs $4,325. That’s $1,000 more than the previous generation MG-1, which featured a top-of-the-line 14th Gen Intel CPU and an Nvidia RTX 4080 Super. The Artist Series GPU costs an extra premium above units without the exclusive artwork.

If I try to build a very similar PC using custom parts, I can build something for around $2,600, and that’s without chasing discounts. You are paying Maingear for the hassle-free experience. At this price, the Apex Rush should be the last PC – gaming or otherwise – you buy for a long, long time. The MSI Pro B850-P motherboard has enough RAM and PCI-E slots to make upgrading easy. But you can find many other much cheaper desktops with similar components for under $3,000, like a specific version of the Cyberpower PC Gamer Supreme. Will the beauty of your case last that long? It depends on whether you’re willing to protect your case from any blunt instruments or cats that would use your PC as a launching pad for the windowsill.

Don’t scratch your cover

Just look at this thing. THE Grand Theft Auto: Vice City the vibrations are almost enough to get me in the gaming mood on their own. The sides of the aquarium on the front and left of the tower are covered in vinyl art and surrounded with RGB LED strips. There are three different artworks to choose from, including a cyberpunk-style “Machina” version and a pan-Asian “Good Fortune” edition, although I found the “Night Drive” version I reviewed much better suited to the internal glow of the RGB fans, RGB RAM sticks, and RGB liquid-cooling CPU unit. The only thing that spoils the look is the neon “gamer” signage on the front. It also features a giant “Maingear” logo that is more distracting than fun.

Maingear is so confident in its build quality that it ships its units without foam inserts inside the case itself. The GPU is firmly secured with a printed bracket screwed into the case. The Apex Rush is a heavy unit, as you might expect from a midrange desktop tower full of high-end PCs. It’s probably a good idea that you don’t drag the unit from room to room, as the painted artwork on the glass could get chewed up if you scratch it during transport. I’ve held onto Apex Rush long enough; I had to move it from table to table and in that time I managed to scratch the paint on the top of the glass and the edge of the top panel of the table. The metal parts of the case fare much better. Still, it’s best to treat the Apex Rush with more care than your regular black aluminum turrets.

Many PC towers place their front ports at the top of the unit. Not only does this look ugly with the tumors of various peripheral dongles sticking out, but it also means you have to plug wired connections into the PC if, for example, you need to plug in a headset or mouse. The Apex Rush sets its front I/O right next to the right foot of the tower. You will only have access to one USB-C, two USB-A and one headphone jack. I would have preferred more USB-C and perhaps placed it on the side closest to the user.

As for the back, there’s a similar lack of USB-C, something I appreciated on Alienware’s massive Area-51 desktop tower. There’s an HDMI port, four USB-A 2.0 ports, plus two USB-C 10G sockets. With the number of peripherals I regularly connect to my desktop, I quickly ran out of USB.

Maingear knows how to build a PC

Inside, the Apex Rush’s motherboard is not covered with any covers to make the components look “clean”. I’m in the camp that prefers a PC to look like a PC. There’s a unique elegance to silicon soldered onto a motherboard surrounded by heatsinks and wires. The Maingear versions look sleeker than other PCs I’ve used, thanks to their expert eye on component selection and cable management. All motherboard, CPU, and GPU wiring exits the stage through several hatches just behind the motherboard. If you remove the back panel of the Apex Rush, you’ll find all the cabling in neat bundles down to the side-mounted power supply or power supply unit. Behind a metal panel mounted on a hinge, you’ll find all the wires tied together with Velcro straps that make it easy to find the right component connected to the power supply. You won’t have to do any finger gymnastics to get to each port.

My test case came with the 850W MSI MAG A850GL, which is enough for the RTX 5080 GPU, but barely enough power if you want to connect an RTX 5090. It’s not a very large unit that will offer more upgrade paths, but there is a 16-PIN PCIe connection for the Nvidia GPU and enough connection options if you want to fall back on an AMD in some apocalyptic future where the RTX 5080 no longer works.

With these specs, of course, Apex Rush performs well

If Alienware’s absolutely gargantuan Area-51 desktop PC was all about girth while still delivering expected performance, the Apex Rush pre-built lineup offers more subtle beauty without the promise of getting the most out of every game possible.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D is considered one of the high-end CPUs for a reason. In benchmarks against an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, AMD’s chip is simply better for gaming purposes. Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs got a bad rap at launch, performing poorly even compared to 14th generation high-end consumer chips. Intel has released several fixes over the months to bring gaming performance back to expected levels, but it hasn’t been enough to defend Intel’s top-of-the-line chip. AMD’s X3D chips use a special layered cache for extended memory inside the CPU. This primarily benefits gaming scenarios, which is why gamers look to these chips in the first place, while Intel’s Arrow Lake has fallen by the wayside.

Enough time has passed since the launch of the RTX 50 series that Nvidia’s drivers have paved the way to squeeze a few more frames out of most games compared to previous months. I first tested the RTX 5080 Founders Edition on an Origin PC Neuron 3500X version, and after many moons, I can say that the platform is relatively bug-free and stable enough to enjoy your games without the hassle of reinstalling drivers or fiddling with the BIOS. With AMD’s best gaming CPU, I can outpace older systems in the 3DMark Speedway tests by just over 200 points. In 3DMark Steel Nomad, the difference is close to 500 points. Game scenarios may look like I can get about five more average frames in Cyberpunk 2077 benchmarks running with ray tracing enabled and balanced DLSS settings on the Maingear build than I could on the Neuron 3500X’s Core Ultra 9 285K with the same GPU. CPU-heavy games like Total War: Warhammer III benefit even more.

You really can’t expect much from a PC like this, despite the price. If you have any hope of outperforming games without any AI upscaling like Nvidia’s deep learning super sampling (DLSS), you’ll need to opt for an RTX 5090 and spend even more. Even so, you will leave disappointed. I still believe the RTX 5080 is what a demanding gamer needs for 4K gaming. If you want an Apex Rush with a high-end GPU, you could end up spending more than $7,000.

The premium price on top of an already expensive PC is hard to swallow. Again, building a PC yourself can be cheaper and more fun. However, Maingear promises lifetime product support and free repairs. The company doesn’t fill your PC with bloatware that you have to delete. The build quality of the Apex Rush is, as usual, spot on.