For the past year or so, I’ve been on a mission to find the ultimate compact gaming PC, something I could fit on top of my desk and in a bag and still be able to play the latest AAA games without difficulty. Recently, my quest has landed me on the Corsair One, a line of high-end gaming PCs that have surprisingly small cases and form factors. Fortunately, Corsair just released a new version of the One with support for the latest processors from Intel and GPUs from Nvidia.

My colleague Vlad tested the first version of the Corsair One in 2017, back when the best model you could get included a 7th Gen Core i7 processor and an Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti graphics card for the substantial sum of $2,599.99. The new version of the One is now available with an 9th Gen Core i9 chip and Nvidia’s top-of-the-line RTX 2080 Ti GPU. Those upgrades have pushed the One’s sticker price into the stratosphere: the i160 model I’ve been using costs a heart-stopping $3,599.99, a full grand more than the prior model. Even the entry point for the One has risen considerably: the i140 version, which steps down to a Core i7 chip and the non-Ti RTX 2080, costs $2,999.99.

Those prices certainly reflect the higher costs of Nvidia’s GPUs and Intel’s processors over what they were a couple of years ago, but there’s no getting around the fact that this is an expensive machine. If you were to build your own gaming rig, you could spend anywhere from $500 to $1,000 less for the same components and performance. On top of that, you’d have greater flexibility with upgrades: the only things that can be easily swapped on the One are RAM and storage. Upgrading the CPU or GPU, while technically possible, is out of the reach of most people (it’s certainly well beyond my abilities), and it’s not supported by Corsair.

But the thing you pay for with the Corsair One is the meticulous engineering that makes such an overpowered machine possible in such a small enclosure. The reason you can’t do much maintenance or upgrading of your own is that most everything inside this box is tailor-made and bespoke.

Our review of Corsair One i160 Verge Score 8 out of 10 Good Stuff Ultra compact and quiet design for the amount of performance

Absolute gaming powerhouse

Two-year warranty on the whole system Bad Stuff Hugely unaffordable

No Thunderbolt 3 ports

Limited upgrade options Buy for $3,599.99 from Corsair Buy for $3,599.00 from Amazon

The appeal of the One is it’s a fully built gaming PC with the best components available in a surprisingly compact, nearly silent case. It’s a machine you can take out of the box, plug in, download your games on, and you’ll be playing in as little time as possible. There’s no tinkering necessary because Corsair has already done all of the hard work for you. On top of that, it is all encased in a form factor that you can’t easily replicate in the built-your-own world. Like Vlad noted in his review of the original, the One offers a console-like hardware experience — complete with a full-system two-year warranty — for PC gaming.

The One’s deep bench of specs make it an incredibly powerful PC for basically anything you need to do

Beyond gaming, the One’s list of specs makes it an incredibly powerful PC for basically anything you need it to do. It’s obviously overkill for my daily productivity needs, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate its seemingly endless power and incredible speed while managing dozens of tabs in Chrome and switching between Slack, Twitter, Mail, Word, and other apps I use on a constant basis. Video editors will admire the One’s ability to crunch through export times with ease, though, as I’ll note later, there are things about the One’s design that make it a bit less appealing for creatives than it could be.

In terms of exterior design, the new One is very similar to the original. The case is all aluminum and consumes a mere 12 liters of volume, compared to the 35 liters a typical tower might take up. It’s still too large for me to fit in a backpack, and it’s far too heavy to transport easily, but it is small enough to fit on top of my desk instead of underneath it. There are two RGB LED strips on the front of the tower that can be programmed to a variety of colors or turned off entirely. If you happen to use Corsair’s iCUE gaming mice and keyboards, the lights of your peripherals will sync in tandem with the tower. (The One does not come with a mouse, keyboard, or display, you’ll have to supply those yourself.)

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The vertical shape of the One is reminiscent of the Mac Pro, but it’s more angular and aggressive, as one would expect from a gaming PC. The airflow of the system is also similar to the Mac’s: cool air is drawn in from the sides of the tower and is then forced out the top by a single large fan. This system produces very little noise and has a zero-spin fan setting at idle, which is perfectly silent. I love that. Many times, I had to visually check the fan to see if it was moving to know that it was working as it should; it rarely spins up to an audible level outside of intensive gaming sessions.

Internally, the One is built around a custom liquid cooling system with independent coolers and radiators for the CPU and GPU that will activate as necessary. This allows Corsair to cram truly high-end components into such a small case and still maintain acceptable working temperatures, but it’s also the reason why upgrading the CPU and GPU is so difficult.

Corsair One i160 specs Processor: Intel Core i9-9900K

Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

Memory: 32GB DDR4-2666

Storage: 480GB M.2 NVMe SSD, 2TB 5400RPM 2.5”HDD

Motherboard: MSI Z370 Mini-ITX

PSU: Corsair SF600, 80 Plus Gold

MSRP: $3,599.99

The only significant external difference between the first-generation One and the new model is the movement of the ports on the front of the computer from the top to the bottom. Here, you’ll find easy-access HDMI and USB-A ports for hooking up a VR rig, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. Inside the case, though, Corsair has done a total overhaul, and it claims to have greatly reduced operating temperatures, which my tranquil testing experience confirms.

I do wish Corsair had also added a few Thunderbolt 3 ports and an SD card reader to the One (the lone Type-C port on the back of the computer is limited to USB 3.1 speeds), as that would have made this PC way more attractive as a creator’s machine. It also lacks support for 10Gb Ethernet, so there’s no way to hook up to the fastest portable drives (over Thunderbolt) or connect to a high-speed networked storage system, like many video editing studios rely on. The One definitely has the horsepower to crunch through video exports. It just won’t integrate into a studio’s editing bay as nicely as it could have if it had those I/O features.

Thunderbolt 3 ports and 10Gb Ethernet would have made the One far more attractive for creators

The main use for the One is gaming, and the experience is exactly as you might expect from a Core i9 paired with an RTX 2080 Ti: amazing. There’s nothing I can really throw at the machine that will cause it to stumble. Games like Star Wars Battlefront II, Battlefield V, and Forza Horizon 4 run well over 60 frames per second at 4K resolutions and ultra settings. Drop down to 1440p, and you’ll be able to hit 100 fps or more in virtually any game; 1080p gaming is child’s play for the One. Even the new Anthem beta is playable at 4K in its current state. (I assume the final version of the game will be smoother still.)

Much like the first generation of the One, this updated version is a very specific type of computer for a very specific customer: someone who wants a high-end gaming PC without any of the hassles or headaches that come with building their own system. Beyond the out-of-the-box convenience, the One is smaller and quieter than a computer built from off-the-shelf components. And since it’s Corsair’s flagship product, it benefits from dedicated and informed support should you ever need it.

The One is a strong candidate for the best gaming PC you can buy

The cost for that convenience and design is steep, and even compared to the last model, the One’s price tag will induce a double take. And if you’re the type of gamer who always wants the best GPU and CPU available, the One’s limited upgradability is going to be hard to live with. But if those things don’t give you pause, the Corsair One is a strong candidate for the title of the best gaming PC you can currently buy.

The One is a terrific example of a maxed-out gaming PC reduced to a third of its size and a fraction of its noise. It doesn’t quite match my desires for a truly portable gaming rig — it would need to be a third of its current size and weight for that — but it’s still an incredibly impressive machine.