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Corsair One Pro review: A Mighty Mouse PC for creatives (or gamers)

Adorbs outside, fire-breathing planet killer inside.

Lori Grunin Senior Editor / Advice
I've been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handed out buying advice for what seems like forever; I'm currently absorbed by computers and gaming hardware, but previously spent many years concentrating on cameras. I've also volunteered with a cat rescue for over 15 years doing adoptions, designing marketing materials, managing volunteers and, of course, photographing cats.
Expertise Photography, PCs and laptops, gaming and gaming accessories
Lori Grunin
4 min read
Corsair One Pro i200

It's got as many connections on the back as a system twice its size.

Sarah Tew/CNET

I'm not one for naming inanimate objects, but from the moment I booted this little monster up, the Corsair One Pro has been my Mooncake: an utterly adorable, fire-breathing little planet killer of a desktop PC. It's not the fastest PC I've tested, but you can also fit about five Ones into the Origin PC Genesis case system I've got on deck. Compared to more bulked-up systems, it performs pretty competitively on the jobs it's intended for, namely photo and video editing. For its winning combination of power, size and features, the Corsair One Pro has earned our Editors' Choice.

8.5

Corsair One Pro i200

Like

  • Powerful set of components and a lot of connections given its size
  • Compact and attractive
  • Quiet

Don't like

  • Expensive

Of course, a lot of problems can be solved by throwing money at them. This solution will run you $4,500 (though it's less expensive than a similar configuration for Falcon Northwest's Tiki). So excuse me while I shove Mooncake into a backpack and sneak out with him.

Work or play

Corsair has crammed a 14-core Core i9, 64GB RAM, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and 2TB SSD into a very well-designed case, just a little larger than a trash can Mac Pro. Thanks to a liquid cooling system, plus a fan pulling air out the top, it remains almost silent and the vented air never feels too hot.

The Corsair One Pro i200 has a lesser $4,200 sibling, the i182. For the $300 price cut, you get a last-generation Intel Core i9-9920X CPU, 960GB SSD supplemented with a 2TB hard disk and, because of the last-gen chipset, it has Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) instead of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), and Bluetooth 4.2 instead of 5.0. The Wi-Fi 6 and bigger SSD seem worth the extra money and if you're already above $4,000, you might as well go for it.

Corsair One Pro i200

Price as reviewed $4,499, £4,299
Size 12-liter mini ITX (7.9 x 6.9 x 15.0 in/200 x 176 x 380 mm)
Motherboard ASRock X299E Corsair One
CPU 3.3GHz Intel Core i9-10980X
Memory 64GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,667MHz
Graphics 11GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
Storage 2TB SSD
Ports 7x USB-A, 2x USB-C, 3x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0a
Networking 2x gigabit Ethernet, Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200, Bluetooth 5
Operating system Windows 10 Pro (1909)

Its gaming analog, the Corsair One, comes with a different CPU, motherboard and chipset (Z370). The two series differ primarily by processor class: gaming gets unlocked K-series Core i7 or i9 processors, while the Pro comes with X-series Core i9 CPUs. Because of the chipset and motherboard differences, the two also have slightly different port configurations -- notably, gaming only has a single Ethernet port and swaps a pair of USB-A 2.0 connections for the USB-A 3.1 of the pro model -- as well as maximum memory limits of 32GB versus 64GB. They also have just the 960GB SSD plus 2TB HDD storage setup. 

The gaming system's big advantage is price: It starts at $2,900 for the i145, equipped with a Core i7-9700K, 32GB RAM, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 (not the newer Super). If you are looking for a system primarily for 1440p gaming, that's a fine configuration -- you don't need more than the eight-core CPU or 32GB RAM and the extra $600 to bump to the RTX 2080 Ti probably won't be worth it for you.

Corsair One Pro is pretty powerhouse of a PC

See all photos

I am bummed that the gaming system comes in black but the Pro only comes in a not-unattractive brownish gray. On the other hand, it also has game-system illumination, something many nongaming systems don't have. You control the lighting through Corsair's iCue software, which also offers some basic performance control -- auto or extreme for the fan -- and a nice temperature and utilization monitoring dashboard.

Despite its small size, the Corsair One Pro manages to supply as many connections as most full-size desktop systems. It has three DisplayPort 1.4 connections from the graphics card and they've been driving two 4K and one QHD monitors without issue for a while. The HDMI 2.0 port is at the bottom front along with two USB-A for easier VR access. However, if you want to connect a monitor via HDMI instead, it may be a little awkward.

As I complain about with every Windows desktop, there are no Thunderbolt 3 connections, just a pair of 10Gbps USB-Cs. It's potentially more of a drawback for the One because you can't add a Thunderbolt card, nor can you replace the graphics card down the road, just the storage and memory. Plus, if you're looking for a livestreaming system, keep in mind this is one of the few Corsairs that doesn't ship with an Elgato card. Those are the tradeoffs you make for its compactness.

Corsair One Pro i200

The design of the side vents adds a stylish touch.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Very stable, genius

As is typical for this class of system, editing 4K video goes pretty smoothly, but it starts to struggle with 6K and higher. Lightroom imports -- and most importantly, thumbnail renders -- felt somewhat sluggish compared with the last system I tested, a Falcon Northwest with a Ryzen 9 3900X. Thanks to the 2080 Ti, it serves up 4K gaming quite well, too.

The Corsair One Pro doesn't seem to max out the potential 4.6GHz speed of the 14-core i9-10940X processor, even on a single core, which is disappointing when it bottlenecks during video editing and Lightroom imports. But it's also the first of this CPU I've had a chance to test, so it's not clear if it's the CPU or if Corsair intentionally throttles back to prevent overheating (which is admittedly more important in a workstation-class system than hitting the 4.6GHz boost clock).

The most important takeaway, especially if you're considering this for professional work, is that despite having so much high-end hardware packed into a tiny chassis, it's delightfully stable.

Geekbench 5 (multicore)

Corsair One Pro i200 12766Origin PC Big O (PS4 Edition) 10138HP Envy 32 All-in-One 7511
Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

Cinebench R20 CPU (multicore)

HP Envy 32 All-in-One 3202Corsair One Pro i200 6197Origin PC Big O (PS4 Edition) 7099Falcon North West Talon 20th AE 7143
Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

3DMark Fire Strike Ultra

HP Envy 32 All-in-One 5650Origin PC Big O (PS4 Edition) 10144Falcon North West Talon 20th Anniversary Edition 11590Corsair One Pro i200 12979Origin PC Millennium (2019) 22130
Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

3DMark Port Royal (RTX)

HP Envy 32 All-in-One 5641Origin PC Big O (PS4 Edition) 5921Falcon North West Talon 20th AE 6630Corsair One Pro i200 8723
Note: Longer bars indicate better performance

System configurations

Corsair One Pro Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (1909); 3.3GHz Intel Core i9-10940X; 64GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,667MHz; 11GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti; 2TB SSD
Falcon Northwest Talon 20th Anniversary Edition Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (1909); 3.8GHz AMD Ryzen 9 3900X; 32GB DDR4 SDRAM 3,200MHz; 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super; 2TB SSD RAID 0
HP Envy 32 All-in-One Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909); 3.0GHz Intel Core i7-9700; 32GB 2,667MHz DDR4 SDRAM; 6GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q; 1TB SSD+32GB Intel Optane
Origin PC Big O (PS4 Edition) Microsoft Windows 10 Home (1909); 3.8GHz AMD Ryzen 9 3900X; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM tk; 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super; 1.5TB SSD (2TB SSD for console)
Origin PC Millenium (2019) Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64-bit); (oc) 3.2GHz Intel Core i9-9900K; 16GB DDR4 SDRAM 2,666MHz; 2 x 11GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti; 512GB SSD + 2TB HDD 7,200 RPM
8.5

Corsair One Pro i200

Score Breakdown

Design 9Features 8Performance 8.5