MSI has been rolling out 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 for Cloud To play.
Because it’s designed to stream games from remote servers, there’s no need for an expensive, powerful, and power-hungry graphics card. So the MAG Trident S 5M has no discrete graphics. But it has plenty of other features that could make it a decent all-around computer for home or office use aside from 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 case.
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 integrated Radeon Vega graphics.
Other features include two SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 memory, a 2.5″ drive bay for a hard drive or SSD, two M.2 2280 slots with support for PCIe Gen 3 x4 SSDs , WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 support , and a choice of ports including:
- 1 x HDMI 2.0
- 1x DisplayPort 1.4
- 1 * VGA
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
- 1x USB 2.0 Type-A
- 1 x Gigabit Ethernet
- 1 x 3.5mm microphone input
- 1 x 3.5mm Microphone/Headphone Combo Jack
According to MSI, the computer’s compact, console-like size would make it feel at home in a living room. And it comes with a few options for games and game streaming, including:
- MSI app player – Android system emulator (with multi-instance support to run different games in different windows)
- Game Stadium Software – Start and control games with a joystick
According to MSI, you can sign up for a Microsoft PC Game Pass subscription directly from the Stadium software to stream games over the internet. But I see no reason why you couldn’t also use other game streaming services like NVIDIA’s GeForce Now, Google’s Stadia or Amazon’s Luna.
Honestly, the advent of cloud gaming means just that any PC is potentially a gaming PC. But the Trident S 5M has a console-like design and decent specs, so you could probably do worse if you’re looking for a dedicated device 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 in stores just yet, so there’s no word on pricing.
press release