Corsair One A100
Return of the king.
The Corsair One returns with, at first glance, no discernible changes. But this isn’t the same machine we’ve seen and loved before, because inside that outer shell is an AMD Ryzen processor.
It’s a Ryzen 9 3950X, a 16-core beast of a chip that currently occupies the top of the Ryzen pecking order. When it comes to gaming, AMD finally has a Ryzen chip that can compete with Intel’s similarly powerful offerings. The RTX 2080 Ti unsurprisingly powers through gaming in any resolution. 4K Ultra is definitely an option here. The Ryzen processor holds up well in CPU-bound games too, as seen by its excellent performance running Total War: Warhammer II at 4K Ultra.
CPU performance is strong in other areas too, with 32 threads working hard to handle rendering and encoding workloads. Both components run cool thanks to Corsair’s dual liquid-cooling system, which dissipates heat through two radiators on opposite sides of the case. The interior layout hasn’t changed from previous models; it’s still incredibly compact, with a flexible PCIe riser that allows for the GPU to be mounted upright and a single 140mm fan at the top of the case. The upper grille gets hot at times, but the core system temperatures rarely rise above 50C.
That intelligently designed interior does have one key drawback: Upgrading any Corsair One will likely prove a difficult and arduous process. Memory and drives should be straightforward, but getting the case open properly is challenging enough, and swapping out the GPU will require some serious water-blocking dexterity.
Perhaps the most interesting addition to this One is PCIe 4.0 support, coming with the new Ryzen processor and the custommade X570 ITX motherboard. The a100 comes with a 2TB HDD to bolster its storage capacity but boots from Corsair’s own 1TB Force MP600 SSD, a 4thgeneration NVMe drive that offers transfer speeds close to 5GB/s. That’s a performance improvement of over 40 percent compared to the 3rd-gen drives found in the a100’s Intel counterparts.
Even with the price tag, we can’t help but love the Corsair One. Simply put, the a100 is an absolute joy to play games on. Setup takes no time at all, and the compact case means that even a small desk nook becomes a viable gaming space. If you’re a supporter of Team Red, this could be the gaming PC for you. CHRISTIAN GUYTON
“This isn’t the same machine we’ve seen and loved before, because inside that outer shell is an AMD Ryzen processor.”
Awesome gaming performance; super fast SSD; compact footprint, though tricky to customise.