Cooler Master's Sneaker-Shaped PC Costs So Much, You Won't Be Able To Afford Real Shoes
Cooler Master's case modification division, CMODX, was founded in 2019 with the goal of bringing unique products to the PC gaming market. The following year, their SneakerX PC design won the best art direction award at that year's "Case Mod World Series."
The SneakerX hit the market this year, but buying one will set you back quite a bit. The SneakerX retails for $3,499 or $3,799, depending on whether you choose the Enthusiast or Professional model. Both come with an Intel Core i7-13700K processor; the Enthusiast mates it with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB graphics processor, bringing the price to $3,499. Choosing the Professional version upgrades the GPU to a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12GB and boosts the cost to $3,799. The SneakerX also has a 2TB SSD, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and an 850W power supply. A 360-millimeter AIO liquid cooler sits in the SneakerX's sole, and a large illuminated fan is mounted on the side to assist the cooling process.
The SneakerX design has one notable flaw
Also helping to keep the SneakerX properly ventilated are perforations on the sides of the heel and toe areas and cutouts in the front and rear. The red, black, and white color scheme is reminiscent of the original 1985 Air Jordan basketball shoe, which Nike recently reintroduced as the Air Jordan 1 at a retail price of $125. At least you can get your hands (or feet) on a pair of Air Jordan 1s while the SneakerX is currently out of stock at Amazon.
The USB and HDMI ports on the SneakerX are only accessible by removing the back panel. While this is a relatively easy process (only requiring the removal of two thumb screws), Nada Overbeeke of Tech Testers noted that the quirky design made some routine tasks unnecessarily tedious. "Just keep in mind that if you want to change any cables, you will have to remove the back panel again," she said. "Which isn't too bad if you only have to do it once in a while."
She further noted that Cooler Master could have included an external USB port somewhere on the case to allow for easy connection of a hub, flash drive, printer, or other peripheral accessory. She noted that there were many places on the Sneaker X's case where a port could have been placed without disrupting its design aesthetics.