MSI’s Vortex compact gaming PC is a tiny machine with dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980s (Updated)
High-end desktops don't have to take up a lot of space anymore (at least this one doesn't). The MSI Vortex is a no-compromises take on what a compact, high-performance gaming PC should look like.
The Vortex manages to pack dual desktop-class NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 cards inside.
Updated on 17 March 2016: The Vortex will cost US$2,199 in the US.
Originally published on 8 January 2016:
The days when gaming machines comprised of solely towering desktop form factors or clunky notebooks are long past. With advancements like the ability to cram desktop-class NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 cards into a notebook form factor, gaming systems are more mobile than ever. At CES 2016, MSI showed that it was ready to capitalize on the shift toward greater mobility with its first ever small form factor (SFF) gaming PC, the Vortex.
The 6.5L cylindrical chassis is clearly a godsend for anyone who wants a powerful system but just doesn’t have the space for it. This is no lightweight SFF PC, and it has been expressly designed to fit high-performance hardware into a small space, while still providing sufficient airflow to all components.
MSI is calling this 360° cooling approach Silent Storm Cooling, and it is supposed to still effectively cool the PC’s innards even during intensive gaming sessions.
But the most attention-grabbing aspect of the Vortex is probably the fact that it packs not one, but two, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 desktop-class graphics cards in SLI. Before you question how MSI managed to fit the cards in such a small case, we’d like to highlight that these are actually notebook versions of the full-sized desktop card.
So, no GeForce GTX 980Ms, but full-fledged GeForce GTX 980s in a smaller package. As we mentioned in our initial coverage, the notebook version has not been whittled down in any way, so you should theoretically be able to achieve very similar performance to the full-sized cards.
The Vortex can be configured with sixth-generation Intel Skylake processors, dual PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 SSDs in RAID 0, and up to 64GB of DDR4 memory. Combine that with the GeForce GTX 980s in SLI, and you pretty much have everything you could want in a gaming system.
But if you’re already getting ready to pull out your wallet, you’ll have to wait. Like most of what is revealed at CES, the Vortex still doesn’t have a price or release date.
Source: MSI
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