You know Maingear, even if you only read our pages here occasionally. The company is a widely known and respected boutique OG PC builder based in New Jersey. Over the years, Maingear has assembled eye-catching, cutting-edge gaming PCs that generally sport impeccable build quality with impeccable cable management, fit, and finish. A few years ago we took a look at the Vybe, Maingear’s more affordable mid-tower platform, in both an all-AMD Ryzen and Radeon configuration, as well as an 11th Gen Intel configuration with a GeForce GPUs. However, Maingear has revamped and refined the Vybe since our 2019 reviews, and we now have much more powerful silicon motors on board to handle gaming workloads and push pixels.
Introducing the new for 2022 Maingear Vybe, and it’s powered by the current fastest gaming processor on the planet, AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and one of the fastest graphics cards in the mighty and powerful Radeon RX 6950 XT. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is a deadly gaming platform ready for action.
Let’s break down the rest of the specs, build design, and other relevant details, then we’ll just push the game and see how it performs…
Specifications and Features All-AMD Maingear Vybe (2022)
Find AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D on Amazon – Under $450
What to say, which has not already been said about such a system? This is AMD’s mature X570 platform at its best, with a multi-gigabit Ethernet port and Samsung’s fast and fat 2-terabyte PCIe 4 SSD. However, what’s missing here are perhaps some of the newer comforts of Intel’s latest platforms like Thunderbolt 4 connectivity and Wi-Fi 6E. None of these features are likely to be a hit for most gamers, but it shows how the market is gearing up for AMD’s upcoming Zen 4 platform and all the next-gen IO goodness it brings.
That said, again, if we’re looking for the fastest gaming CPU AMD has to offer right now, and the fastest on the market right now, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU in this machine is the one. Throw in a Radeon RX 6950 XT, which is also the fastest graphics card AMD currently offers, which trades blows with a GeForce RTX 3090, along with 64GB of DDR4-3600 memory, and you’re looking at a monster configuration that’s tied together to deliver great gaming performance. But let’s look at the rest of this Vybe’s design and flow – or layout, cooling and airflow, more specifically.
Maingear’s Vybe Chassis is a fairly understated, almost utilitarian design, but with some key features that serve both function and form. For starters, the chassis is heavy-gauge rolled aluminum with a plastic faceplate and bottom legs that lift it off the surface the machine is standing on about an inch. You also get three USB-A ports and a single USB-C port on the front left edge below the power button, as well as discrete 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks. Placement is great here on that side where the glass side panel is, because you’ll want all those pretty, powerful PC components and pristine buildup on top of your desk for all to enjoy.
You could argue that all of those ports and the power button should be on top, but that would add up to longer cables for pretty much any motherboard design, for the front panel button, lighting, and IO wires. Side note, you can also connect this RGB lit button to a storage activity wire, which was not configured that way for our build, although we have already built our own Vybe with Maingear’s DIY kit and that we really liked this little feature. There’s something satisfying about knowing when your data is accessed and it’s obviously a good diagnostic tool.
Maingear Vybe 2022 design and build quality – still delightfully pristine
Conversely, we really liked the thoughtful inclusion of the Vybe’s removable, magnetically attached top grille vent. Just pull this bad boy out and you can rinse it with water and let it dry, blow it out, or vacuum it up.
Maingear Vybe Software Setup – Just the Tools You Need
Speaking of which, we see you taking a look at this Cinebench run, so let’s get to the benchmarks…
