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MSI has been releasing small but powerful gaming PCs under its Trident brand for years, typically by packing premium specs into a compact chassis. But the new MSI MAG Trident S 5M is a little different: it’s a compact PC designed for cloud gaming.
Since it’s designed to stream games from remote servers, there’s no need for an expensive, high-performance, power-hungry graphics card. So the MAG Trident S 5M doesn’t have discrete graphics. But it has plenty of other features that could make it a decent all-around computer for home or office use in addition to cloud gaming.
The computer measures 13.2″ x 7.3″ x 3.7″ and has a volume of 2.6L. It comes with a 120W power supply and the system is actively cooled with a fan inside the chassis.
Inside is an AMD B300 motherboard and MSI will offer models with AMD Ryzen 3 5300G, Ryzen 5 5600G, or Ryzen 7 5700G processor options. Those are 65-watt desktop chips with Radeon Vega integrated graphics.
Other features include dual SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 memory, a 2.5 inch drive bay for a hard drive or SSD, two M.2 2280 slots with support for PCIe Gen 3 x4 SSDs, support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2, and a selection of ports that includes:
- 1 x HDMI 2.0
- 1 x DisplayPort 1.4
- 1 x VGA
- 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
- 1 x USB 2.0 Type-A
- 1 x Gigabit Ethernet
- 1 x 3.5mm mic input
- 1 x 3.5mm mic/headphone combo jack
MSI says the computer’s compact, console-like size would make it seem at home in a living room. And it comes with a few options for gaming and game streaming, including:
- MSI App Player – Android system emulator (with support for multi-instance functions for running different games in different windows)
- Game Stadium Software – launch and control games with a joystick
MSI says you can sign up for a Microsoft PC Game Pass subscription directly from its Stadium software to stream games over the internet. But I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be able to use other game streaming services like NVIDIA’s GeForce Now, Google’s Stadia, or Amazon’s Luna as well.
Honestly, the advent of cloud gaming means that any PC is potentially a gaming PC. But the Trident S 5M does have a console-like design and decent specs, so you could probably do worse if looking for a dedicated machine for game streaming and/or home office use.
The company says the Trident S 5M is already shipping, but it doesn’t appear to be available in stores yet, so there’s no word on pricing.
Too soon. The 6000g APUs will have much better graphics.
I’d also replace Windows with SteamOS, which is designed to wring out as much performance out of low power systems as possible.
If I was just going to give up and surrender all computing to the cloud I’d sooner get a laptop.
Any laptop.
I don’t even care what this box costs.
This feels like a mockery of those still hopeful that a graphics card won’t cost more than a console someday. The PlayStation 2 shape is an additional slap in the face to the idea of owning copies of your games, considering that was the way to get games for that console.
Funny you should say that. About a month ago, I got tired of waiting for new 30XX graphics cards to be available at MSRP prices, so I gave in and just bought a high end gaming laptop. It doesn’t have the same horsepower that a desktop machine has, but the price was great and there was no waiting or hunting around.
Wow this is a very dumb product.