 For far too long, the console form factor has been solely occupied by, well, consoles. But I say no more. This, right here, is exactly what I have been asking for, for literally years. So you can watch me gushing about it at CES here. But can it live up to my expectations? Well, I hope so. I hope we'll have a new living room king today. The MSI Trident 3. Synergy is the amazing software that lets you share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers. Check it out now at the link in the video description. The Trident 3 comes in slightly bigger than the PS4 at 4.71 liters, though in fairness the PS4 also has an internal power supply, and much smaller than the original X-Bone. So it easily fits under an arm, and it comes with a cloth bag, so you don't have to worry about scratches if you want to cart it around to a friend's house or to a LAN party. It does have a mild case of the gamer aesthetic, but the only really eye-grabbing aspect of the industrial design IMO is the RGB light on the front, and in fairness to MSI, I think Trump signed an executive order or something saying that all gaming computers need RGB lighting, so is it really their fault? I.O. is strong. On the front you'll find two USB type A's, a USB-C, audio ports, and, if you're into that sort of thing, a second HDMI out for VR. Then around the back you'll have another five USB ports, gigabit LAN, microphone, line-in and out, DVI, display port, and a whopping four HDMI ports. Though it should be noted, one of them is for the VR link at the front, one of them is for your monitor, and the other two are the input for the VR link at the front and off the motherboard itself, which most people won't want to use. The specs of the MSI Trident 3 prove that the days of mini PCs being only suitable for productivity are over. With its Core i7 and GTX 1070, this thing should be able to crush games at 1080p or 1440. Though, as we've seen time and time again, when powerful components get crammed into a small case, thermals can quickly become an issue. So we booted up I264 and sent the CPU off to the races. At normal room temperature, the Trident 3 did get a little hot, with the CPU peaking at 92 degrees Celsius, but to its credit, it never thermal throttled or had to downclock. So with the powerful Core i7 that's in there, the Trident 3 could survive video rendering sessions or crunching cosmology equations, as long as you're not doing it 24-7. The GPU cooling is even more impressive. During the Furmark GPU stress test, the powerful GTX 1070 version didn't even sweat, reaching a max temperature of 72 degrees Celsius. And remarkably, the Trident 3 was able to maintain these temperatures while remaining virtually silent. So good on you, MSI. This doesn't tell us if it's actually performing up to snuff though, so to test if the smaller case is an issue, we set up an identically specced test bench and ran it alongside it. And from these tests, we saw virtually no difference between the Trident 3 and our open-air bench, with all our results being within what I'd consider margin of error. Let's talk about expandability now. Typically not a strong point for these tiny PCs, and the motherboard is, as expected, non-standard, meaning that you're stuck with this basic platform for good. There is also some good news though. The CPU, GPU, and RAM can all be easily swapped, with only the storage requiring a complete disassembly in order to get at. It should be noted though, if you're going to upgrade the GPU, your options will be somewhat limited. So for the 1060 version of the Trident 3, you will also have to upgrade the power supply to the more powerful 330W version if you want to put in a graphics card that sucks more juice. Though, if you have the 1070 version, which comes with that power supply, you might even be able to put in a hypothetical future graphics card and enjoy a nice FPS boost. The included keyboard and mouse look a little over the top, as do many gaming peripherals these days, again, I think there was an order, but they are actually surprisingly functional. The mouse is comfortable in the hand, moves smoothly and accurately, and even has adjustable weights, and while the keyboard isn't mechanical, it was actually good enough to fool John into thinking it was using Cherry MX Browns. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I was also comfortable typing on it at the very least, so good on MSI for bundling peripherals that we don't need to immediately throw in the trap recycling. If I had to nitpick a bit, it does come with a lot of pre-installed bloatware. Most of it is at least gaming related or gaming version, but it's still annoying for a freshly booted computer to prompt me to register for several things that I didn't ask for and I don't care about. As for the inclusion of Norton, well, I'm sure you all know how I feel about that. Though, maybe if they included like a gaming version of Norton, it could just have one button, uninstall. Bottom line though, is it worth it? For the MSI Trident 3's compact size, you'll be spending around $200 more than you would on an identically specced full-size pre-built desktop that would be easier to upgrade in the future and, unless you're very unlucky, would have better cooling. With that being said, unless you're a single dude in college, putting a full-size gaming desktop in your living room probably won't fly, making the Trident 3 a great way to get non-cinematic frame rates on your big screen. It definitely gets a recommendation from me. Do you like anime? No, really though. 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