Toasty CPU? This microwave PC build demonstrates that you ain’t seen nothing yet

Here’s one for you: Imagine you’ve built a neat little app that acts as a one stop shop for synchronising all of your RGB devices, regardless of which manufacturer made it—how would you go about getting eyes on your free app? If you’re SignalRGB, the most obvious answer was apparently by giving away wonderfully improbable and lightly cursed PC builds.

This time SignalRGB is giving away a custom PC built inside of a microwave, complete with a spinning motherboard screensaver. To be clear, this isn’t the shell of an old microwave simply acting as an unorthodox PC tower case—it’s an all in one setup with a tiny, fully functioning monitor mounted into the microwave door itself. There are no reheated nachos to speak of here.

Before you ask, yes, the buttons are functional; besides typing in ‘1337’ and hitting ‘start’ to boot the contraption, those microwave buttons have been repurposed to also offer Stream Deck functionality. Naturally, everything inside and out has been lined in RGB lighting too.

As for that spinning motherboard, it’s the MPG Z890I EDGE TI Motherboard—though don’t worry, it doesn’t actually spin while in use. Mounted on top of that wee mobo is an Intel Core Ultra 5 225 CPU, and then off to the left-hand side is a Nvidia RTX 5060Ti 16GB GPU. So…it’s not the most powerful gaming setup I ever did see, but the prospect of playing something like extraction shooter Arc Raiders on a literal microwave is compelling all on its own.

Thankfully, Arc Raiders’ community is surprisingly chill, but I’m still charmed by this microwave PCs jokey warning labels about how ‘toxic lobby chat may leak through vents.’ That Intel chip, however, is catching direct hits such as ‘May reach temperatures hotter than actual microwave’ and ‘Reapply thermal paste every 30 days.’ Oof.

If you want to be in with a chance of this novel PC build gracing your desk or, heck, your kitchen counters, all you need to do is comment on SignalRGB’s original Reddit post. This is far from the first cursed PC build its given away, revealing this PC toaster earlier this year, so if you’ve missed out on this one, there’s likely to be another unholy kitchen appliance conversion in the near future.

While I’m definitely a fan of the ‘Looks like [thing] but is actually a functioning gaming PC’ genre of tech tinkering, it’s always an added bonus when that PC in disguise is also decently functional. The monitor mounted into the microwave door plants this firmly in the realm of novelty builds, but I still sort of hope there’s a way to plug a separate screen into this setup. Besides, screens mounted inside of your desktop tower are hardly unusual these days.