Corsair One i500 Review: Wood You Drop $4,700?

With PS5 Pro pre-orders just around the corner, there’s been a lot of chatter about the machine’s hefty $700 price tag, as well as comparisons to similarly powerful lower-end gaming PCs, and understandably so. Why drop $700 on Sony’s mid-gen hardware refresh when, for a few more pirated doubloons, you could completely bypass the pesky limitations of the console ecosystem and build a pretty decent gaming PC?

Well, Corsair’s newest top-tier pre-built One i500, with a much higher asking price of $4,700 (as tested, too…something!), doesn’t exactly bolster that particular argument. What is it does The do, however, provides one hell of a sleek gaming experience, equipped with enough solid liquid-cooled horsepower to run the most demanding games rather effortlessly at 4K/60fps and at the highest settings, while taking up almost no space. I guess Sony’s $700 PS5 Pro doesn’t look too shabby now, does it?

Small form, big power, big price

Corsair’s One i500 comes in two expensive (and exclusive) hardware configurations: $4,699 for an Nvidia RTX 4090 and 64GB of RAM, or $3,599 for an Nvidia RTX 4080 Super and 32GB of RAM. Both setups run on an Intel Core i9-14900K and feature a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD, and you can order any i500 set with a Wood Bright, Wood Dark, or Metal Dark front panel. Also, the CPU and GPU are liquid-cooled regardless of which configuration is chosen.

It’s important to note that this time around, the CPU, memory, and storage are all user upgradeable, as the i500 is mostly packed with what you might call common—if admittedly premium—components. However, GPU upgrades still require a system shipment. Terrible, but understandable, because it’s exposed and custom and buried behind a glued panel, which can also be removed to access the boot SSD and power supply.

The One i300, which I reviewed a few years ago, was more limited and proprietary in this regard, so it’s good to see that Corsair has addressed the internal accessibility issue. Obviously, buying such a high-end platform won’t require upgrades for quite some time, as even 64GB of Vengeance DDR5 memory at 6,000MHz is far more than you’ll ever need for gaming. That said, it’s nice to know the option is there.

Getting inside the One i500 to add RAM sticks or another M.2 NVMe drive isn’t difficult at all, and only requires removing the magnetic dust side panels, as well as the metal grill underneath via several screws. Then you pop out some fans and boom, you’re in. Even access to the GPU, power supply, boot drive, extra PCIe port and SATA expansion area is easy, albeit on the other side of the drive. Yes, it’s crammed in there, and fighting small screws and heatsinks on, say, a packed M.2 drive is a royal pain in such a small space. However, it is possible. There’s no room for mechanical discs here, though.

By the way, I believe my review unit was supposed to come with a snap-on headphone jack, but either it wasn’t in the shipping container or I accidentally threw it away in the midst of my unpacking rage (why was there anger?). I’m not sure if you’d want to detract from the stunning simplicity of this amazing, minimalist PC with something as rustic as a headphone jack, but you know it’s included in the retail units.

Less Is More

Speaking of the i300, the i500 is noticeably taller in stature thanks to the 2024’s larger components (and getting bigger over time), though it’s still quite small and cramped compared to typical behemoth PC towers. The key word here is key, as this is an underrated PC by any stretch of the imagination, even in terms of basic styling. You won’t find any tempered glass to observe a distortion of the pulsating components. There is only a discreet, opaque and non-removable front panel. My review unit is equipped with warm walnut. How very 80s. How very Atari. How much Stephen King’s Cocaine Years. I mean, how else do you think THE did it happen

I think I’m a little biased here, as I’m not interested in the flashy, flashy gaming PCs that tend to dominate the market. That said, this is one very beautiful device. It is a conscious computer, deliberate in its design and purposeful in its intent. There’s a clear focus on clean aesthetics, which I really appreciate as it doesn’t try to chase current gamer trends. It’s trying to make a simple, beautiful statement, and I think it does it swimmingly. Admittedly, if you’re into the RGB vomit that adorns most system integration devices (is that critical?), you’ll be sorely disappointed here. Then again, you’re probably not the target customer.

Still, there hectare RGB accents, even if they fly under the proverbial radar. The front panel is flanked by stylish RGB strips and features a shiny Corsair power button in the middle. The stripe runs down the sides of the unit and provides a subtle glow that I really love. What’s nice is that the i500 doesn’t even bother with Corsair’s iCue lighting software, opting instead for a barebones program called Corsair One Dashboard, and a more direct hands-on approach.

That wooden front panel I mentioned? It has a black touch-sensitive duct that reaches above and below the power button so you control the color and behavior of the distilled RGB lighting. Dragging your finger across the top changes the current shade (if you want something static), while holding and releasing the bottom adjusts the active pattern. And that’s not the i500’s only touch-sensitive feature.

On the back of the machine, there’s an empty area of ​​the case right above the I/O, and pressing that turns on a small LED that illuminates all the ports, so you’re not digging around in the dark trying to swap out cables. Genius! A small addition, but appreciated.

Physical RGB controls aside, I actually prefer the aforementioned Dashboard app to Corsair’s somewhat bloated iCue software, so sometimes it’s nice to be able to adjust RGB digitally via this simplified digital path.

Nuts and Bolts

On the I/O note, just below the front panel, there’s a headphone jack, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port. There are no ports at the top around the machine’s cooling rack, which I found disappointing as I would have enjoyed a few more options on the front. I tend to find these lower ports a bit difficult to use as it’s hard to get any kind of secure leverage when disconnecting. A pinch, but it’s there.

Around the back, there are four USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C port, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, one 2.5G LAN port, Wi-Fi antennas -Fi, optical port, HD audio jacks, one HDMI 2.1 port and three DisplayPort ports (1.4a). Tons of connectivity here, and I’m sure most people won’t want to in terms of opportunities to connect things.

Game performance

It should come as no surprise that the i500, packed with a liquid-cooled 4090 and plenty of memory, performs like a champ when it comes to gaming. Check out the benchmarks below:

Black Myth: Wukong (4K, Full Ray Tracing, Very High, Cinematic): AVG 75, MAX 106, MIN 46

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (4K, Ultra): AVG 105, MIN 88, MAX 133

Cyberpunk 2077 (4K, Ray Tracing: Overdrive): AVG 73.22, MIN 63.59, MAX 81.03

Forza Horizon 5 (4K, Ultra): AVG 166.5, MIN 150.6, MAX 180.9

Despite the horsepower under the hood, the unit doesn’t sound that loud, not in my opinion. It increases when playing demanding games, loud enough to be noticeable, but if you have some decent computer speakers or use headphones, it won’t be a problem.

My only complaint is that, even with liquid cooling, the CPU would reach 100 degrees Celsius at times, mostly during CPU-intensive tasks like editing and rendering. Gaming tended to be largely unaffected, with temperatures staying within acceptable ranges, though I did see some spikes beyond 85 degrees at times. The stripped GPU, by comparison, stayed pretty cool, between 45 and 55 degrees Celsius.

Intel’s i9-14900K is notorious at this point for excessive power consumption and higher temperatures, so it was definitely an option to include it in the i500 alongside a relatively low-powered 122mm AIO. I did all these tests with out-of-the-box settings, so maybe I’ll revisit the benchmarks and see what the temps are like once I can update the BIOS and whatnot. I have a suspicion that the higher thermals are mostly related to a small cooler, but we’ll see. Corsair is working with limited space here, so I can’t fault them too much.

So while the CPU ran some alarming temperatures, gaming on the i500 is a dream. I had forgotten how incredible Cyberpunk it can be seen with the right hardware and play something older like Forza it felt like it was launched from a rocket in terms of frame rate and terrible visual details.

Folding

Is Corsair’s One i500 ridiculously expensive, especially for the best option? Yes, without a doubt. That said, at nearly $5,000, you’re not only paying for some of the best PC gaming components out there, you’re also paying for a cleverly designed form factor that could really be your cup of solid tea, or something that’s so underrated it almost negates the its insane asking price. It depends on the aesthetic preference and the space you have in your office.

Then there are the thermal issues, which I would attribute more to Intel than Corsair. However, putting a pesky i9-14900K in a compact chassis with an overkill liquid cooler is definitely an option and absolutely affects CPU performance. Other than that, it doesn’t affect gaming so much more productivity work so if you are buying an i500 purely for speedrun Outlaws of Star Warsthen it might not be an issue.

Gaming really shines through Corsair’s micro-engine, so to speak, and if you’re looking for the best of the best, crammed into a case that can fit just about anywhere, well, you honestly need to pay the mortgage for the rest of the year. year; I think not.

If you are, you know, responsible or whatever, PS5 Pro pre-orders go live in a few days. Good luck.

Revelation: Corsair provided review product for coverage purposes.