Corsair One Pro
SYSTEM INTEGRATOR CORSAIR. WAIT, WHAT?
CORSAIR HAS LONG been a trusted brand in the PC building world, known for its quality and high-end components and peripherals. But until recently, the company hadn’t jumped into offering complete, pre-built systems in the same way as MSI, ASUS and Gigabyte do.
With the One, Corsair has clearly established itself as a true pre-built system manufacturer, setting itself up with a strong foundation in this machine. It’s a triumph of clean design, excellent performance, and small-form-factor engineering. Measuring 20 x 17.6 x 38cm, the One stands only a few inches taller than a Mac Pro, but has a look that’s more reminiscent of Tron than the Mac Pro’s dustbin appearance.
One of the more impressive features is its cooling solution. Both the CPU and GPU are cooled by their own individual 240mm radiator. But rather than outfitting each of those with their own fans, the entire system is cooled by a single 140mm maglev fan up top that, through convection, draws cold air in through the radiators and exhausts it out the top. The result is a well-cooled system with a minimal footprint that runs whisper quiet.
The overall design is impressively compact. There’s no doubt that you could build and even buy Mini-ITX systems that are smaller than this beast, but Corsair utilises every internal square inch of the One to full effect. There’s no wasted space, and no add-ons just for the sake of it. The One takes the best that Corsair has to offer, and distills things down into a very svelte machine. And did we mention it’s powerful?
Packed inside is an Intel Core i7 processor, an Nvidia 10-series GPU, as well as plenty of storage, varying by tier — the One starts at $2,499 for an i7-7700, GTX 1070, 240GB SSD and 1TB HDD, and goes up from there. The ‘Pro’ unit we tested featured an i7-7700K, GTX 1080 and 960GB SSD, for a price of $3,149.
The Corsair One punches out some serious performance, too, hot on the heels of much larger, beefier systems. Gaming performance fell short of setups with dual-GPU loadouts, but the One’s single GTX 1080 beat almost all of the other single-card systems we’ve tested in the last year.
The Corsair One more than delivers on the promise of excellent gaming performance in a small package. Even better, it does so without relying on large, loud fans to keep everything cool. For most small form factor systems, heat management is often their Achilles’ heel. Not so with the One — performance remained stable even after running our high-load benchmarks simultaneously.
Of course, pre-built systems are well known for adding a small price premium over the cost of building the rig yourself. However, if you add together the individual cost of everything packed inside, you reach a price not much cheaper than the cost of the complete system, especially when you add in Windows and the time it takes to build it. Either way, Corsair brings a lot to the table here. For one, small form factor systems are especially tough to build, and the innards of the One are manicured with precision. Similarly, the One’s custom chassis isn’t the kind of thing you can easily recreate yourself. There’s also the added benefit of a manufacturer’s warranty — the One comes with two years of parts and labour covered. But most of all, it’s the ease of having a plugand-play gaming system that looks great and performs even better.
The One is nothing short of a major milestone for Corsair. Having made components and accessories for decades, the company is now in a position to fuse all of its strengths together into one beautifully designed tower of power.
IT’S A TRIUMPH OF CLEAN DESIGN, EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE, AND SMALLFORM-FACTOR ENGINEERING. THE ONE STANDS ONLY A FEW INCHES TALLER THAN A MAC PRO, BUT HAS A LOOK THAT’S MORE REMINISCENT OF TRON THAN THE MAC PRO’S GLORIFIED DUSTBIN APPEARANCE.