We first saw the Corsair Bulldog DIY living room gaming PC back at Computex 2015. Now, nearly a year later, it has finally started to come up for sale, albeit for pre-order only at this time. The spec doesn't appear to have changed since we published a follow-up article last August revealing the 'production' version of the kit. Yesterday we saw Corsair launch the Lapdog, with a full review of that gaming peripheral here on HEXUS, and the Bulldog looks to be the perfect living-room mate for that rather pricy peripheral pooch.
Corsair has put up the Bulldog for pre-order as two SKUs. There's one including a motherboard and one without. The CS-9000001-NA costs $399.99 and includes the Gigabyte Z170N-WiFi Mini-ITX motherboard. The CS-9000003-NA is the same kit but without that motherboard. Both SKUs come with free shipping during the pre-order period.
So what do you get for your cash? As a reminder, this barebones system includes the Bulldog Mini-ITX SFF chassis with room for two expansion slots, a Corsair SF600 600-Watt 80 Plus Gold SFX12V power supply, a Hydro Series H5 SF cooler, and a couple of case fans. Inside the chassis there is room for graphics cards up to 300mm in length, CPU coolers up to 90mm tall and PSUs up to 190mm long (but a PSU is already included and fitted).
With specific regard to graphics cards, Corsair recommends the fitting of the MSI Corsair Hydro GFX, the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, the MSI Sea Hawk, or any card equipped with Corsair HG10 bracket and Hydro Series H55 cooler.
Corsair repeatedly refer to this barebones system as a 4K and VR gaming machine but of course its capabilities are bound to the CPU, memory, storage and graphics card that owners decide to buy and fit. I think the point is that its design enables a powerful 4K/VR build in a small form factor suitable for places like your living room – depending upon taste.
