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Corsair unveils Bulldog SFF DIY PC, brings 4K gaming into your living room

By Koh Wanzi - on 2 Jun 2015, 5:02pm

Corsair unveils Bulldog SFF DIY PC, brings 4K gaming into your living room

The Corsair Bulldog is a DIY small form factor PC that provides system builders with the foundation to take 4K gaming into their living rooms. (Image Source: Corsair)

Corsair has taken the wraps off the Bulldog, a small form factor PC that wants to help you bring 4K gaming to your living room in a stylish package. First teased in this video and a smattering of coy images, the Bulldog at first looked like it might be another high-end gaming chassis.

As it turns out, there is indeed a case involved, but it’s quite a unique one. Before we go into further details, it’s important to get one thing out of the way first. Bulldog is not a boutique gaming PC per se – Corsair has termed it a “DIY kit” that provides system builders with the framework they need to install high-performance 4K gaming PCs in their living rooms.

As a result, it’s also completely user upgradeable like any other desktop PC that you built from scratch, complete with a builder-friendly layout and tool-free features. The base configuration of the Bulldog includes an Intel ITX motherboard (Corsair didn't specify  which), a H5SF CPU liquid cooler that has been specially designed for the Bulldog’s compact size, and a fully modular 600 watt SFX power supply, the latter of which should support even the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X.

Users will be able to swap out these parts for their own and install other components of their choosing. According to Corsair, it’s aiming for a retail price of US$399, but this may be subject to change.

Bulldog’s announcement comes at an opportune moment. We are just beginning to see the release of cards that can handle 4K gaming on their own – the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X and 980 Ti come to mind – and it’s now possible to achieve playable frame rates at 4K with a single graphics card in a compact system like the Bulldog.

The Bulldog will accommodate ITX motherboards and a single full-size, dual slot graphics card up to 300mm in length. (Image Source: Corsair)

Corsair has even managed to cram liquid-cooling for both the CPU and GPU, which is quite impressive considering that the Bulldog measures just 43.18 x 38.1 x 12.7cm. While CPU cooling is handled by the H5SF cooler, Bulldog will fit a dual-slot graphics card (up to 300mm in length) with Corsair’s HG10 bracket and Hydro series H55 liquid cooler. To this end, MSI will be offering cards with the bracket and cooler pre-installed for a small premium.

The Bulldog is designed to work with the H5SF CPU cooler (left) and Corsair's HG10 GPU bracket. (Image Source: Corsair)

But if you don’t wish to go this route, Bulldog will also work well with standard air-cooled graphics cards.

On the connectivity front, Bulldog sports two front USB 3.0 ports along with headphone and microphone jacks behind a fold-down door. The chassis cooling is handled by high-pressure, low-noise 92mm fans.

To complete its living room experience, Corsair also announced Lapdog, a lapboard designed to allow users to use their keyboard and mouse on their couch. It features a four-port USB 3.0 hub and a fifth charging port, a mouse cable tether, and internal connections for both keyboard and mouse.

Corsair Lapdog. (Image Source: Corsair)

Coming from a cost and performance perspective, Corsair also decided to go for a wired implementation this time round and Lapdog will come with an approximately 5m cable.

The keyboard fits into a niche on the left of the board, and Lapdog is currently compatible with all of Corsair’s tenkeyless keyboards. Corsair is targeting a price of US$89 for the board alone and US$199 for the board and a bundled Corsair Gaming K65 RGB keyboard.

Both Bulldog and Lapdog are expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Source: Corsair (1), (2)

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