Maingear Vybe Review: Dual GTX 1070s And Kaby Lake Cranked To 5GHz
Maingear Vybe: Software And BIOS
Maingear separates itself from bulk OEMs, even before booting up the system for the first time. Included with each Vybe is a personal folder with a few goodies inside. Ours arrived with a Maingear mousepad, remote control for the interior lighting, a Windows 10 recovery USB flash drive, MSI's motherboard driver disc, documentation for the CPU cooler, a paper outlining the Vybe's port layout, and a QA sheet with a 55-point checklist that is signed by the person who actually built the system. Excess cables from the power supply are also included.
The first boot on a new system is always telling. First of all, does the system even boot at all, or is there some troubleshooting that is involved? Sometimes during transit a graphics card or cable can wiggle loose and prevent the system from properly booting into Windows.
In this case, we did not run into any issues. The Vybe fired up without delay and took us a to a clean desktop with just two icons—the Recycle Bin and a shortcut to NVIDIA's GeForce Experience utility—and Maingear's custom wallpaper showing its brand name and logo on a red-themed background.
The first boot on a new system is always telling. First of all, does the system even boot at all, or is there some troubleshooting that is involved? Sometimes during transit a graphics card or cable can wiggle loose and prevent the system from properly booting into Windows.
In this case, we did not run into any issues. The Vybe fired up without delay and took us a to a clean desktop with just two icons—the Recycle Bin and a shortcut to NVIDIA's GeForce Experience utility—and Maingear's custom wallpaper showing its brand name and logo on a red-themed background.
MSI's Afterburner utility came pre-installed on our Vybe configuration. This allows uses to monitor and tune various graphics card vitals, such as clockspeeds, voltage, power limits, and fan speed. It also gives a glance at the driver version that is installed, which can come in handy when troubleshooting.
BIOS
Navigating the BIOS on MSI's Z270 Gaming M7 motherboard is fairly straightforward and easy, even in Advanced mode. There is quite a bit to play with and it never feels overwhelming.
Unlocked processors like the Core i7-7700K are easier to overclocked than locked chips. For users who don't want to get their hands dirty, Maingear will perform overclocking on its end for a $49 charge. In our case, Maingear pushed the Core i7-7700K to 5GHz, which proved mostly stable.
Unlocked processors like the Core i7-7700K are easier to overclocked than locked chips. For users who don't want to get their hands dirty, Maingear will perform overclocking on its end for a $49 charge. In our case, Maingear pushed the Core i7-7700K to 5GHz, which proved mostly stable.
We didn't run into any trouble running our gauntlet of performance benchmarks, nor did the system ever crash or overheat during our testing. However, it did have trouble with extended Prime95 runs, and more annoyingly we noticed that desktops icons would often take longer than normal to appear. For example, it would take several seconds for an icon to appear after a file would finish downloading from the web or when dragging and dropping a file or folder from a USB flash drive. It's a minor quirk, but a quirk nonetheless.
In every other instance, whether running a benchmark or playing a game, the Vybe ran like a champ.
In every other instance, whether running a benchmark or playing a game, the Vybe ran like a champ.
