MSI has recently added a new member to their Vortex family of gaming solutions with the minuscule Vortex G25. Unlike its predecessor, the Vortex G65, the G25 has abandoned the cylinder shape in favor of a sleek console design. The specifications are nothing short of impressive for a system crammed into a 2.5-liter enclosure weighing in at just 2.5 kilograms. Based on Intel’s latest Z370 platform, the Vortex G25 is powered by a 8th Generation Core i7-8700 processor with six cores, 12 threads, and a boost clock up to 4.3 GHz. MSI’s Cooler Boost Titan solution, consisting of eight heatpipes and dual Whirlwind Blade fans, provides adequate cooling for the Coffee Lake processor and Pascal graphics card.
According to the manufacturer, the Vortex G25 was designed with focus on expandability. It’s equipped with four DDR4 SO-DIMM slots to house DDR4 2400 MHz modules and support up to 64 GB of memory. In terms of storage, two PCIe 3.0 M.2 slots are available for creating high-speed RAID arrays with NVMe drives. Another 2.5″ slot is present to provide additional storage if need be. Performing upgrades to the Vortex G25 is a walk in the park thanks to a rapid disassembly design that employs slotted screws.
Not only is the Vortex G25 easy to upgrade, it’s also very VR-friendly. The front panel incorporates a 12V DC power jack, a HDMI 2.0 port and two USB 3.0 ports to power VR headsets. MSI also provided one push VR Ready and Nahimic VR buttons for optimizing the Vortex G25’s performance and enabling the virtual surround sound effect. On the audio front, MSI implemented an ESS SABRE HiFi audio DAC into the Vortex G25 to give users with the best audio experience possible.
MSI plans to release two different models: the Vortex G25 8RE and the Vortex G25 8RD. The 8RE variant is the high-end model and comes equipped with a GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB graphics card and Killer DoubleShot Pro networking, while the 8RD model utilizes a 3 GB or 6 GB version of a GeForce GTX 1060 and Intel GbE LAN. There’s no official statement on pricing and availability yet though.
