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Correction | Gigabyte and MAINGEAR's AORUS Project Stealth launches to make PC building "easier"

The first-gen Project Stealth. (Source: AORUS)
The first-gen Project Stealth. (Source: AORUS)
Building a custom rig can be a rewarding and fulfilling experience; however, as Gigabyte asserts, it can get frustrating, especially when it comes to fitting things (mostly cables) around other things. The OEM has launched the new AORUS Project Stealth, a PC that requires assembly rather than building, as a new solution to these potential issues.

According to Gigabyte, there is a market of enthusiasts who enjoy, or like the idea of, custom PC builds, but may become discouraged when it comes time to find adequate space to plug in the cables that might be involved. The OEM has partnered with MAINGEAR in a bid to eliminate all those fiddly and potentially rage-inducing steps with the inaugural AORUS Project Stealth PC assembly kit.

It consists of the new and customised mid-tower AORUS C300G STEALTH case, which comes with the compatible ELITE STEALTH motherboard pre-installed and with the corresponding GAMING OC STEALTH card based on 8GB of RTX 3070 graphics on there by default in turn. The kit's cables and their attachments (which, as the original press release failed to mention, are designed by MAINGEAR) in a bid for a more streamlined connection experience.

Therefore, all the user really has to do is install their chosen memory, using the 4 DIMM slots that support up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM, and other components that could populate 3 PCIe slots (1 of which runs at x16); 4 M.2 connections with PCIe Gen 4 and 6 6Gb/s SATA connectors.

Due to the nature of the kit, the user is restricted to using the LGA 1700 socket and Z690 chipset, although this means any 12th-gen Intel CPU can complete the build (sorry, assembly). Therefore, as Gigabyte asserts, using the kit can make the process more fun. That could be up for debate, although it is more certain that it would be much more user-friendly for desktop enthusiasts of any level of skill or experience.

On the other hand, the prospect does imply much less choice and flexibility than normal: even the fans are pre-installed. Furthermore, this "revolutionary design" pre-determines the I/O (including a total of 2 USB type-C ports, 4 HDMI ports and 3 DisplayPorts), not to mention the PSU (650W max).

Finally, it's honestly not clear if each main part will be available standing alone (or can even be sold as such), or whether they will be compatible and interchangeable with any subsequent STEALTH-line products or not.

Either way, the AORUS Project Stealth is available from now, although MAINGEAR indicates that pre-built versions of the first-gen Project STEALTH PC with choices of CPU up to the Core i9-12900KS, Ignition PSUs and its own-brand RGB liquid cooling systems are "coming soon".

The AORUS C300G STEALTH case... (Source: Gigabyte)
The AORUS C300G STEALTH case... (Source: Gigabyte)
...comes with a Z690 ELITE STEALTH motherboard... (Source: Gigabyte)
...comes with a Z690 ELITE STEALTH motherboard... (Source: Gigabyte)
...and an RTX 3070 GAMING OC STEALTH card by default. (Source: Gigabyte)
...and an RTX 3070 GAMING OC STEALTH card by default. (Source: Gigabyte)
The MAINGEAR x AORUS Project Stealth PC. (Source: MAINGEAR)
The MAINGEAR x AORUS Project Stealth PC. (Source: MAINGEAR)
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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2022 05 > Gigabyte and MAINGEAR's AORUS Project Stealth launches to make PC building "easier"
Deirdre O'Donnell, 2022-05-22 (Update: 2022-05-28)