UK Gaming Computers ‘Minos’ Mini PC Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

For the baseline system, the Minos comes with a price tag of just over £1600 inc VAT. We know the majority of this price comes from the inclusion of the Titan GPU and as we’ve seen extras such as the custom paint jobs that UKGC can provide do add a substantial cost on top. The system that I’ve looked at today would set you back £1,829.79 once you take delivery into account, but as far as a totally unique custom system goes, the price is not too far off being reasonable.

Overview

UKGC are not so much new comers to the pre-built systems market, but getting your name out there and more well know is never an easy task, especially as there are so many competitors out there that dominate the UK markets. To set themselves apart, UKGC make it clear that their systems are built with quality in mind from the moment the component comes in to their shop to the moment the completed system leaves. Quality over quantity is their focus and this is why they do stress that you will pay a little extra for this and rightly so in my mind.

Looking at this particular system, we can not avoid mentioning the fantastic custom paint finish that the Minos has been given. At this moment in time I don’t know of any other major reseller that offers this service, let alone one with so many different paint colours and finishes at that. The beauty of many of their finishes is that each and every single system that is given the same paint style will end up looking slightly different and this make each system just that little bit more unique.

Looking at the hardware and its performance, for a system the size of a show box (as UKGC quote), the Minos is not short on processing power. The Powerhouse Titan paired alongside a lightly overclocked 4770k is going to be more than enough for any current games out there on the market and for some time to come as well. The only component that I would recommend that you upgrade whilst in the process of buying this system is the SSD. Whilst the Minos comes with a reasonably sized 120GB Force LS, by the time your OS is installed along with all your core software, there is not a great deal of space left to play with. Granted there is the additional 1TB of storage on-board courtesy of a Seagate hard drive, but many avid gamers like to have their main games installed on to an SSD for quick load times and with only 120GB of space, there is not a lot of space to play around with, thus the recommendation of upping this to the 240GB drive instead.

The only other item that I feel could do with an upgrade is the memory. When spending this amount of money, 1600MHz to me does seem a bit out of place. with 1866MHz and even 2133MHz becoming far more affordable, I feel that one of these kits would be far more beneficial for the Minos.

Overall I have to give it to the guys at UK Gaming Computers, they’ve built a mighty little system that I can be sure would put a huge smile on anyone’s face when they get it out of the box, especially if they have a custom paint finish like we have had on this review system.

Pros

• High end gaming components
• Compact – Ideal for LAN events
• Unique paint options available
• 3 Year warranty
• Very well packaged
• Excellent cable management inside
• Lifetime technical support

Cons

• Limited customisation options during purchase
• 1600MHz memory

“Being a not so well known system integrator to the UK market is a barrier that any company wishes to move past but with the option of custom paint finishes, a high level of attention put into any build and most of all systems that are built to perform. The Minos flagship system is a shoebox sized system that UK Gaming Computers should be very proud of. If you’re a gamer that’s looking for a compact system that will never look like any other, then this is the system for you.”

Thanks to UK Gaming Computers for providing this review sample.