Corsair may have started off as a memory company, but these days it competes in a much broader set of categories, including storage drives, power supplies, gaming headsets, keyboards, custom coolers, chairs, and more. More recently, Corsair announced the acquisition of Origin PC, an established builder of high-end gaming PCs. The purchase presents a prime opportunity to expand even deeper into the hardware category, but don't hold your breath waiting for any Corsair branded motherboards or graphics cards in the near future.
Simply put, it's not happening, at least not in the immediate future. That is the message Corsair relayed to our friends at Anandtech, anyway.
"While Origin PC certainly needs large quantities of graphics cards and motherboards, we have no plans to expand into those product categories at this time and both Corsair and Origin are well served by our current motherboard and GPU partners," a representative for Corsair said.
It's an interesting rebuff. Corsair is a popular brand and one that is generally well regarded. It also sells its own custom desktops, including the One and Vengeance lines, two of the best gaming PC options around.
Even if Corsair wanted to steer clear of transitioning Origin PC into a high-dollar outlet for its own hardware, the One and Vengeance product families give the company a ready-to-go avenue to distribute branded motherboard and graphics cards. I imagine there would be plenty of interest in the standalone market, as well.
It's hard to fault Corsair for playing it cautious, though. The company has been around for two and a half decades, so obviously it's doing something right. It's also been careful about its expansion efforts. Around this time last year, for example, Corsair acquired Elgato, which effectively made it a player in the streaming space. Now it can add boutique builds to its growing portfolio.
Still, it would be interesting to see how Corsair would fare in the motherboard and graphics card categories. Perhaps Corsair is waiting to see how the expansion works out for NZXT, which began dabbling in motherboards last year. Never say never, in other words.
