Corsair ONE i164 Compact Gaming PC Review

Like all good prebuilds, the level of bloat on Corsair’s ONE is minimal. The most standout addition is Corsair Diagnostics, a piece of monitoring software that keeps a company logo in your systray. While Corsair’s peripheral software iCUE has the tendency to use more than the usual amount of CPU cycles, the included diagnostics feature impacts nothing.

When we first booted into the ONE’s fresh desktop, we had to wait a couple of minutes for NVIDIA’s driver to clue in that it had work to do with installing itself, but before long, we were off to the races. A good first stop for any new owner would be the aforementioned Diagnostics software. For that extra taste of confidence, you can run all available scans and make sure your Windows is completely up-to-date.

For power users, Corsair’s diagnostics software might not seem too useful, but we’ve used a lot of software like this, and we have to say this is one of the better implementations. As seen in the corner of the application, Corsair Diagnostics is built by PC-Doctor, and in all of our use, it’s worked well, and has largely stayed out-of-the-way.

Corsair Diagnostics and MSI Live Update

 

 

 

If there are any complaints we can come up with for this software, one would be the fact that it sometimes claims there is an available Windows update even if the WU feature is paused. When we first set up the machine, we paused the updates to prevent them from interfering with our testing, and at that time, the Diagnostics software showed a green checkmark next to updates. But, after a week, and with the updates still paused, the software changed its mind.

Diagnostics is aptly-named, as it’s not used for updating the system as you may suspect. Instead, MSI’s Live Update holds those duties, able to find any new driver for hardware specific to the motherboard. For the GPU, you’ll need to manually update your drivers, or take advantage of GeForce Experience’s ability to automatically download the latest update for you.

We return to Corsair software with iCUE. Oddly, the version that came preinstalled didn’t detect the PC at first, but an update took care of that quickly. There’s really not too much that most people will want to adjust outside of RGB. The light pipes on the front of the PC have four zones each, so you can keep that in mind when designing your own themes, or take advantage of one of the many Corsair includes.

iCUE software on Corsair's ONE

 

 

 

 

It’s not possible to adjust the pump speeds, but you can change and adjust the profile of the fan. After seeing how this PC was able to handle itself through our gauntlet of testing, we can confidently say that you can safely ignore manual fan control, as the PC does a good job on its own keeping things cool and quiet. Still, the ability to adjust at all is welcomed.

The EFI on this PC will look familiar to any MSI board owner. The only standout detail that helps this EFI look unique is the mention of Corsair in the motherboard name. You can’t control the PC’s RGB from in this EFI, but you can adjust the fan profile (which is pretty easy, given the PC has only a single controllable fan.)

MSI Z370I EFI (BIOS)

 

 

 

There’s not much else to say about the i164’s software, but it is worth pointing out that while this SKU has Windows 10 Home, the equally-spec’d webstore and Microcenter-only i165 bundles Windows 10 Pro instead – and for the exact same price. The Windows license is the absolutely only difference between the two models.