PC vendor Maingear is tapping into 1990s nostalgia again with the Retro98, a desktop that looks like a home computer your dad might’ve owned.
As PCMag reports, the fully built PC harkens back to an era when dial-up internet and floppy disk drives were common in the PC industry. “Welcome to 1998. Where the future was loud, beige, and relentless,” Maingear said in introducing the limited-edition product. It was made possible after PC case maker SilverStone developed the FLP02, a retro chassis that currently sells for $249. It includes dummy disk drives and a “turbo” button to control fan speeds.
But while Maingear’s Retro98 looks old-school, it packs the latest components, including the option to use AMD’s new Ryzen 9 9850X3D chip. It’s also designed to run Windows 11. “It’s all hand-built with Maingear’s signature craftsmanship,” the New Jersey-based company says.
“From the LED fan speed display, turbo button, and power lockout key on the front panel, to the ‘ketchup-and-mustard’ sleeved cable colorways to anti-kink coils on the tubing and a pump/res combo proudly housed in the 5.25-inch drive bay space, every detail plays like a love letter to the golden age of PC gaming.”
The product will be available in four configurations, including a top-tier model called the Retro98a, which goes all out with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card and liquid cooling. On the downside, going old school ain’t cheap. The Retro98 costs almost $10,000.
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