Maingear Retro95 is Essentially a ’90s PC with a Modern Soul

Step into a time machine, but don’t plan to stay in the past. Maingear’s Retro95 PC is a brilliant paradox—a computer that looks like it belongs next to a 1990s CRT monitor and a stack of floppy disks, yet roars with the performance of today’s most powerful gaming machines.

Built in the SilverStone FLP01 case—originally an April Fool’s prank turned reality—the Retro95 captures the essence of the iconic “pizza box” PCs that once ruled the desks. Its beige, boxy exterior, complete with rounded feet for horizontal or vertical placement, is a workstation of yesteryear. Maingear adds to the retro vibe with clever touches: two mock floppy drive bays on the front, one hiding a modern I/O panel with USB-C, USB-A and a headphone jack, the other can hold an optional 24x DVD-R drive—a nod to popping in classics like Carmen Sandiego or Myst for a full nostalgic trip.

Underneath the vintage exterior is a modern beast. The top-tier Retro95 configuration comes with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, playing games like Cyberpunk 2077 with ray-traced visuals, paired with AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor for smooth gaming and multitasking. It supports up to 96GB of DDR5 RAM and 8TB of Gen4 NVMe storage for sprawling open-world games or massive media collections. The base model, starting at $1,599, has an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050, AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, 16GB of T-Force Delta RGB RAM, a 1TB T-Force A440 SSD and a 650W MSI MAG power supply. The fully loaded version, with a 1250W power supply and an ID-Cooling IS-67-XT CPU cooler, is $4,881.

The Retro95 case has modern airflow designs with side ventilation and quiet Noctua fans to keep high-end components cool. Front facing power and disk activity LEDs, and tactile power and reset buttons, are super clicky. One minor omission? No turbo button—a ‘90s PC staple that could’ve been a fun way to toggle overclocking on the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

At $1,599 it’s competitively priced with other high-end prebuilts so the retro design is a nice bonus not a premium. Whether you’re a collector, gamer or just miss the big beige boxes of the past the Retro95 is a unique combination of old school cool and new school performance.