In a world chock-full of membership fees, NZXT wants to add one more. With its latest offer, the company now lets you subscribe for a gaming PC loaner starting from $59 per month. With it, you get a pre-built machine with moderate specs and a clean design.
To start, NZXT offers three different tiers, each tackling different frame rates:
- Player: One Flex with Intel Core i5-12400F, GeForce RTX 3050, 16GB of DDR4-3200, and 500GB of M.2 storage.
- Player: Two Flex with AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, GeForce RTX 4070, 16GB of DDR4-3200, and 1TB of M.2 storage.
- Player: Three Flex with Intel Core i7-13700KF, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, 32GB of DDR5-5600, and 1TB of M.2 storage.
The One Flex will cost you $59 per month, followed by the Two Flex at $119 per month, and the Three Flex at $169 per month. Note that these prices include the PC hardware alone, meaning you need to provide your monitor and peripherals. All GPUs seem to be Nvidia Founders Edition models with CPUs getting better coolers the higher you go.
After ordering, you receive your machine within 3-5 business days, with free upgrades every two years to keep the hardware up to date with new games. All of this comes with zero commitment and you can send your rent-a-unit back whenever you like. However, it’s important to understand that this is not a rent-to-own program, thus the PC must be returned after cancelling the membership.
If I had to pick one, I would go with the Two Flex since the 20-ish per cent extra performance of the Three Flex’s GPU isn’t worth the added cost. That said for those playing less demanding games, the $59 per month of the One Flex is hard to beat. The next best thing is cloud streaming solutions like Nvidia’s GeForce Now if you have good Internet.
With that in mind, I am the kind who prefers owning his hardware to be able to tinker with it as I please. Plus, the idea of having to send the machine back even though I paid more than what it’s worth greatly annoys me. I think a better move would have been to ask for, let’s say, 50% extra above the total cost of the hardware, and when a customer reaches that amount after a couple of years, they can keep the PC. A win-win situation, but I guess that’s just finance.
Now, if this solution is not great for PC enthusiasts and those who can stomach the upfront cost of such machines, it can be a fantastic opportunity for those wanting to dip their toes in PC gaming. Think console players who want to join a friend in Total War, Dota 2, or modded GTA Online, especially since they can cancel at any time with zero fees. For now, this program is limited to 48 US states.