Also, Lapdog keyboard shell
The Witcher 3looks nice in 4K. This is neither something unexpected nor something my six-year-old, 30-inch living room television would be able to teach me. But I visited with computer hardware and peripheral developer Corsair to see itsnew Bulldog PC kithooked up to a 4K television and it was impressive.
Impressive because Bulldog is designed to be a living room PC, which means a small form factor and that it can’t scream along like a banshee. And, to its credit, the muscular, pitbull-shaped living room solution was dang quiet while playing things likeWitcher 3andProject Carsat 4K, 30-60FPS.
Its cute shape, which gives it good ventilation, coupled with some liquid cooling solutions help keep the Bulldog running quiet. It’s here where the do-it-yourself options present themselves because Bulldog isn’t a fully boutique “have-’em-build-it-for-you” PC. Nor is it meant to be comparable to many console-quality, non-upgradeable Steam machines, which take up a large mind share of living room PCs.
The entry level Bulldog kit is $400. This will not get you 4K gaming, of course. Youget the chassis, Mini-ITX motherboard, CPU cooler, and power supply. Where you go from there is up to you. You addCPU,RAM,hard drive, and graphics card.Maybe you want 32GB ofDDR4 and a liquid-cooled Titan X. If you have a 4K TV I assume you’re able to afford it, despite assurances that 4K TVs like the monster set we demoed on are now “affordable” at $1,800, or the same price as my weekend trip to the ER for a badly broken finger (yes, typing one handed is slow. Wiping lefty is also uncomfortable.)
If you’re going from scratch and buying everything fresh, you’re looking at anywhere from $939 to $2249 (on the high, liquid-cooled Titan X end) to put together a nice little living room PC.
If you’re interested in dropping a liquid-cooled GPU solution into some other non-dog-shaped computer, perhaps your own, that’s possible too. Corsair is selling the GPU liquid-cooler in a separate kitthat will support all current and upcoming AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.
Corsair also announced the Lapdog, which is not a laptop, but rather a big old tray you can set on your lap. It has a giant mouse pad area and Corsair’s mechanical gaming keyboards can dock with its powered USB hub (go ahead and charge your phone from it, too). It’s wired, which is a weird compromise between living room form factor and PC gaming precision. Also $90 (or $200 with a keyboard packed in).
I like living room PC gaming. I have a nice, old tower hooked up to the aforementioned 30-inch living room television. I don’t notice the noise, whether I’m playing a new game on high settings or just using it mainlineDinosaurson Netflix. Usually I just use a controller, or the wireless mouse and keyboard sitting on the coffee table. That’s me. Poor, simple me. Corsair’s cool tech might be for you, though.
