How do you upgrade a man who already has
seven computers?
Well, we're going to have to figure it
out because our very own king of Labs
benchmarking, Mr. Nick Harris, just won
an AMD ultimate $5,000 tech upgrade.
Congratulations, Nick. Here's one stick
of memory.
>> This This is mine.
>> I know. I borrowed it for this bit. We
actually got a whole bunch of really
cool stuff, including some pro
networking gear, a new test bench, some
smart lighting, and he even had room in
his budget for a friend. Isn't that
cute? Oh god, it's weird.
No need to hurt his feelings, my friend.
He had so much fun with Riley. I'm going
to have fun with him as well.
Wait, that's phrasing is kind of bad on
that. Yeah.
And he's also got some sick new gaming
gear from our sponsor AMD. Let's see
what someone who tests hardware for a
living would buy for himself.
>> Hello LT viewers. I've been told that
our recent giveaway segments have been
too much fun. It's got to stop.
>> And AMD representatives have requested
that this giveaway contain no thrilling
or comedic aspects whatsoever and zero
flights of fancy.
>> With that said, then it brings me no joy
to tell you that AMD is giving away two
amazing gaming bundles containing AMD
Ryzen 7 9800 X3D CPUs. Basically the
best CPU on the market and Power Color
Hellhound Radeon RX970 XT 16 gig
graphics cards. basically the best 976
game as well.
>> By entering using the link below, you
too can have so much fun that you'll get
a talking to from somebody, maybe your
dad.
>> Tell your dad you love.
>> But what your dad won't have is one of
the best gaming combos on the market.
Unless he also received one of the two
giveaway bundles that can be yours by
entering the giveaway using the link in
the description.
>> Click the link, nerd.
>> Have fun gaming with your dad. Okay,
back to the video. How do I put this?
This is one of the most vanilla nerdom
spaces that I've ever been in. Sorry,
I've never been called vanilla before.
No,
>> no. I mean, no matter what nerdom it is,
it's represented here. We've got Star
Wars, we've got Lego, we've got Dungeons
and Dragons, we've got computers, we've
got Star Trek, we've even got some of
those those vinyl things, Funko Pops.
There's everyone has seems to have like
a niche that they're into, but somebody
has to be a normal nerd. There's a bunch
of 1enters, but who's part of the 90%.
It's like that moment when you're in
traffic and you realize I am the
traffic. You're the type of guy who goes
to ComicCon. No fan expo.
>> Even worse, I like your lowfi Lego Star
Destroyer, though.
>> Uh, it's a work in progress.
>> Wait, is that how the Star Destroyer
actually works? Like, it uses Technic
for the inside? Uh, not in the movies.
No.
>> Well,
this seems controversial.
>> I mean, I'd have ours if we had one.
>> Let's look at your upgrade, which I can
barely even get to without tripping over
a computer or two.
>> Well, that's why we're not building one
today. We're upgrading all the
infrastructure around the computers.
We're solving networking for me once and
for all. Tel has had a 5 gigabit deal.
Now most of my devices are only like 1
gig or 2.5, right? So with Ubiquiti, I'm
like future proofing. I no matter if I
move again or whatever, I'm like all my
stuff is 5 gig with 10 gig SFP ports if
I choose to.
>> Cool. Okay. All right. Let's let's do
some networking first then. I don't want
to say you're in the way, but
fine. I'll tell you guys about the USW
Pro Max switch over here. Then we've got
a really nice mix of ports and
functionality here. We've got eight PoE
plus ports that run at gigabit speed,
eight PoE++ ports that run at gigabit
speed, and then eight PoE++ ports that
run at 2 and 1/2 gigabit speed. Then
we've also got a couple of 10 GB SFP
uplinks. This allows him to run as much
security camera or home automation crap
as he could pretty much want because it
has a total of 400 watts of power that
it can deliver over Ethernet. And then
of course highspeed networking. What are
you working on?
>> A disc. Wow.
>> Yeah.
>> You know what? Good job. Thanks.
>> No. Yeah. Just just be natural. Just
talk to us. That's
>> like vanilla natural.
>> I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to be
like mean. I just
>> No. I don't know. Vanilla is not a bad
thing to be. Not everyone has to be
spicy all the time.
>> I just feel a little bit like your place
is how the Big Bang Theory might have
set up like a nerd's apartment, you
know?
>> Dude, that's me.
>> Yeah. See, that's
>> Wow. That's really
>> went from vanilla to like Big Bang
Theory. Say bazinga. Say bazinga right
now. You're joking.
>> Bazinga.
>> I don't really do networking in rack
mount.
>> Yeah. No, that I I did pick up on that.
So, if you're not familiar with Nick,
he's mostly on like the software side.
So, developing benchmark tools, uh,
methodologies,
um, and it's mostly on like consumer
hardware, whereas like this stuff is
kind of a different beast. Like I wasn't
familiar with all the, you know, various
standards for rack mounting crap until I
had to be because of work either.
>> Basically, if it's physical, I don't do
it. And that's exercise and networking.
>> That's not even true. You've been coming
to badminton night, by the way.
I don't think I have ever seen this
before. Where on earth did you get
Robertson rack screws?
>> Whoa.
>> I don't know. I don't know him. Who's
Robertson?
>> You know, the square ones, like the the
Canada only ones.
>> Adam, you appreciate this is super
weird, right?
>> Yeah, that's crazy. I've never seen a
Robertson rack screw. Oh, sorry. Let me
try again. Whoa. You know, Nick, I
wouldn't have been as surprised you
didn't know what a Robertson screw was
if I had seen the absolute hack job that
you did on this.
>> I didn't do that. It came like that.
>> This is dangerous.
>> I should have warned you about that.
>> You should have.
>> I uh forgot it was
>> This is a freaking weapon. Question for
you, Mr. Harris. Would you like your
switch to go in from the front or do you
prefer your switch inserted from the
rear? normally from the front like a
normal person. Thank you.
>> Uh well, some normal people do like it
from the back. It's
>> a lot of prep work.
>> Would you like me to explain the pros
and cons both ways?
>> No, no, that's fine. Just in the front
is fine.
>> Yep. Okay. With the main switch
installed, let's have a look at some of
the other networking gear. What's this?
>> Right. This is the Cloud Gateway Max. I
don't know. I wanted to give it a shot.
I think it has like stuff.
The premise in software development life
cycle is get it working first and then
iterate and optimize after. So get it
working and then condense.
This explains why markbench is never
done.
>> Wow. Okay. You know what? If this is
going to be my platform to defend Labs
things. Okay. What? Markbench is in
rustbench and it's actually all
automated now and we have a queueing
thing that is you don't care about that.
>> No, I do actually. Markbench is super
cool. Like we did a ShortCircuit on a
GPU recently and like the testing was
really fast.
>> I'm trying to Why did I buy this?
>> Presumably so that you could use a
single keyboard and mouse for up to four
computers.
>> I can read the box as well. Thank you.
So I did another NAS as well though cuz
I was going to do the 321 rule where I
have three drives in the one NAS, two
drives in this one, and then one drive
in the cloud.
>> That is really not Oh, that was funny
though. One drive in the cloud. I like
that. Why don't you explain 321 to the
fine folks? What is that?
>> I have a truness box that has three
drives in it.
>> I have this UNESC box with two drives in
it.
>> Okay, that's not 321.
>> Three copies of your data in at least
two different mediums, one of which is
offsite. For drives, we've gone with a
couple of 8 TB Iron Wolves. We don't
need the Pros cuz it's just two drives
in this box. And we don't even need a
ton of capacity because Nick's not, you
know, putting all of his seven movies on
here. Uh it's just going to be
presumably the the bare essentials, you
know, photos, documents, that sort of
thing, right?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. How did it take me this long to
notice the chair that was on his kitchen
island? Did this just get put here?
Okay. Where do you want your Naz?
>> Oh, it's all going on top.
>> What is the point of a rack?
Yeah. Okay. Nope. Do what the client
wants.
>> Goi gave us like uh a leveler your size,
but it looks like ubiquity's got you.
>> What are you doing? Are you going to do
>> No, don't worry. No, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm not going to do that. No. Yeah, it
was going to be hidden up there.
>> What if I
>> You don't need to access it. That's
>> the whole point of the network access to
>> I won't be able to read the little LED
on the front. It's got a light.
>> Why would you need to do that? And yes,
you will because there's slots slats
here.
>> You know, I can re You know what? I
really I can rearrange it after.
>> You know
>> what? No, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Let
me go back. This is brilliant. I like
this. Put it there.
>> Okay, this is what I was talking about.
So, we can have the gateway just hidden
away up there. And we just have this one
little Ethernet cable and everything's
clean.
Everything clean. Everything fine. I'm
using the Ubiquiti Wi-Fi Man app to scan
your apartment for where you have the
weakest signal. Currently, it's your
bathroom, which means that's where we're
putting the access point.
>> I mean, it's where I do my Wordle
everyday.
>> Exactly.
>> Did you see the Mandalorian theme of the
washroom, though?
>> What?
>> What? Okay, I want to see this.
>> Uh, what?
Adam, you haven't even seen the best
part
>> with matching toilet cover.
Yeah, you didn't see the floor mat.
Okay, Nick, I have the switch. I have
the gateway. I have the Naz. What else
am I putting in this rack? Please tell
me it's as many things as possible
because that's the point of racks.
Oh, that was me. Uh, this is going
underneath.
>> Okay. And then I also need a UPS.
>> Yeah, I guess the UPS can just go right
back on the shelf. What's this?
>> Uh, that is a 2.5 GB network card.
>> Helpful. I knew that. Uh, what are you
doing with it? Uh, it's going in one of
these seven computers
>> because they all
>> very helpful. You're getting even more
helpful every time.
>> Yeah.
>> So, which one?
>> I don't know yet.
>> You know the PC that's in front of you
or behind you, the Proxmox,
>> right?
>> That one was supposed to go up here.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> But it's feet, even without its feet,
it's like just too big.
>> Okay.
>> So, the idea was I was going to put it
into the smaller fractal pink case cuz
that fits in with a just a little bit of
a
>> Okay. So, this is the true NAS box.
>> Okay,
>> I just put a new uh replacement drive,
so it should be good to go back in the
rig.
>> By the way, this is like not the right
size at all.
>> Earthquake stuff needs to like move
around a little bit.
We're going to have a lot of stuff left
over from this one on the cutting room
floor. LMG.gg/flat
plane. We'll see you there. All right,
check this out. The reset switch is
right here. Which means that if I tuck
this thing in here under the shelf.
There we go. Oh, buddy. You can totally
still reach it
right there. Boom. And the best part is
now it's a structural nest. Look at
that.
>> Are hard drives okay being like that?
>> Yes. Yes, they are. Look how nice that
is. We have the UPS, we have the NAS, we
have one system, dude. And we've only
taken up like half your rack now. Is
there a reason you felt the need to put
a gigabit StarTech network card in this
system?
>> Yeah. Well, one of these systems didn't,
whether it's the Proxmox OS or Truness,
didn't like the onboard motherboard, so
I put this in here.
But I can't remember which. I'm going to
assume this is the one that needs to be
the add-in card because there would be
no other reason on this green earth to
put this card in a system.
>> Why?
>> Cuz it's horrible. Look at it.
>> It's tiny.
>> Yeah. Well, it's a micro network card.
By the way, what is up with this? The
cable management of the system is
actually really nice. This is the one
thing you cable manage.
>> I cable manage the PC builds, but not
the rest of the house. Cuz if you I did
the small form factor gaming rig, and
it's actually pretty great.
>> Yeah. What? What's up with that?
>> This is the one part that people don't
see.
>> I know.
>> I don't understand why you don't
understand.
>> Big moment. Mr. Harris, try your chair.
>> Yep. It's mesh.
>> What?
>> See, this is the the one thing I have no
idea how it works are these sensors. My
understanding is that they're like
battery, but I have a plug on this.
>> Wait, what are these are? Hydrometers.
>> This is for in the washroom. One in here
and one in there. For what reason?
>> Just to know the humidity.
>> Yeah, I literally was just looking for
stuff to put on the wall that connects
to Home Assistant. You could have gotten
like motion detectors. You could have
had your bathroom so that
>> I know when I'm moving the lights turn
on.
>> Uh later.
>> No GPU in here, right?
>> Do you see one? Well, no, but I don't
remember if it had one before. Wait,
wait, did I hear that correctly? Your
Proxmox system has a 7950X, like a 16
core in it.
>> Yes.
>> And then trass is a 5600G.
>> How many cores do you have in this
doicile?
>> 7950X 5600G.
That'll be a 5600 XT. That's a 12
something Apple something. and then 7800
X3D as the gaming rig. Oh, actually the
12900K and the two 3090s.
>> That is freaking ridiculous. I can't
believe I'm building a system with a
7950X in it and it doesn't even have a
GPU. Are you going to do GPU pass
through in the future?
>> Yes. Yes, I will. GPU pass through for
um Plex. Okay.
>> Hey, but look at this. Ah, so tidy,
right?
>> It's great. Yeah. Was this mounted here
before?
>> No, I just kind of hang it once in a
while. I'm kidding. No, I didn't have
the hardware the time.
>> Oh, okay. Do you now?
>> Nope.
>> Why are we even here? Are you sure you
have that whole thing of screws? Can I
just check and see if there's a screw
happen?
>> Sure. But this wasn't the monitor.
Actually, this is the monitor.
>> The screws are right here. The very
first ones I picked up. He has four of
them. He 100% has them.
Nice.
Nick just informed us that his bedroom
is more humid than the rest of the
apartment. I just want to know what is
actionable about that. I can open a
window.
>> What is this thing?
>> It's pixel light.
>> Pixel light.
>> I'm going to have put the weather on it.
>> The only reason Google still lives is
until the Reichi Mini is who I talk to
to turn my lights on and off. So, it'll
be that for like display, like weather,
time, alerts, whatever. And then the
Reachi Mini is my voice.
>> Yeah,
>> there we go. Hear me out. What if we put
this in here instead?
>> No, that's going in there.
>> So, we're going to have a mouse and
keyboard that are going to be right here
in the event that they are needed
because
I don't know, we didn't remote into
these systems for some reason.
>> Whenever I need to remote in, it's
usually cuz the network's down. And to
fix it, I just need to plug in a
keyboard anyways.
>> I'm with you.
>> That looks so much better than it was
when we got here,
>> right?
>> Yeah.
>> We can put the desk there now because
I'm actually done with the rack.
>> I didn't realize how small this desk
was.
>> Micro desk.
>> Nick, do you have a power bar back here?
>> Oh, he has a power bar. Adam,
>> I just unplugged the light and the
speaker. Wait, what? Don't you want your
light and speakers plugged in for when
you like live here?
>> No, I'll use the longer one that only
has two cuz I only need to plug in two
things.
>> What about the test bench?
>> I'll take I'll take the power bar from
my gaming rig.
>> Actually, now's a great time to talk
about what you're doing with that test
bench. So, you picked up a Ryzen 7 5800
XT as well as an RX960 XT. And my
understanding is this is something to do
with Linux testing.
>> I had an extra motherboard and RAM.
Yeah, I put it together cuz I don't
know, Basite and Catchy are catching on.
So, we did some see catchy catching on.
Get it? Anyways, uh at the last we did
some testing and it was super easy. So,
I went and found on marketplace a 3600
to put in the AM4. So, we're doing this
today. So, I picked up long live AM4
socket. Like the fact that I can find a
3600 from how many years ago?
>> Yeah. and then find a processor not even
a year like a year old.
>> And then what's the plan to do with
that? Would it move to like a dedicated
PC for the TV possibly or like
>> uh nope. This desk is going in the
corner and it's
uh just try.
>> All right, let's let's build it up. To
get all the networking set up, we're
going to have to get this test bench
configured. Off comes the 3600.
And on goes the 5700 XT.
>> Sorry, you're changing the cooler out.
>> It came with a better cooler. It even
has RGB.
>> For someone who doesn't like RGB, you
sure put a lot of it in here.
>> It's to play with home automation. I
don't know. I got sensors now.
>> Yeah, for hyromation.
>> The lights can show. The lights can be
the same color as the temperature so I
can be like, "Oo, it's getting hot in
here."
Really? No. No one. Take off all your
Whatever. Fine. I do think their stock
coolers are an underappreciated thing
about AMD. They really set themselves
apart from the competition as part of
the the kind of the Ryzen comeback and
then that's something that they've just
stuck with ever since then, just having
dramatically superior stock coolers
wherever they do include them.
That's that. I guess I haven't talked
about it at all. We've got a Challenger
960 XT 16 gig from ASRock, which is not
the most powerful card in the world, but
for something that just needs to be able
to handle basic game testing, it is more
than enough.
Hey, Nick, what's this SSD for?
>> More games.
>> On where?
>> The test bench.
>> Oh, okay. So, we've just got a PCIe Gen
5 drive for games on a test bench. You
are a confusing man. We have a couple of
things here that are going on your desk
in your bedroom. So, what are you What's
the point of adding these two things to
your jerk station?
>> Come on, you can't call it that.
>> It's in his bedroom. That's what it is.
This is replacing my G502. This is an
audio interface from MOTU, who I've
never heard of. How did you find out
about MOTU?
>> Oh, Motu's been around for a while, like
Eteral and Roland and stuff like that.
>> Okay. So, they're like an established
audio brand. They're well known.
>> This bas This is basically like a Focus
right Scarlet 2i2. You have two on the
front that can either do quarter inch or
XLR. And on the back you have a MIDI in
and a MIDI out as well as a couple of
other outs for monitors. This is pretty
slick. And I see that you have a bass
guitar and a pedal.
>> Are you going to play for us?
>> You kind of have to.
>> Why not?
>> Sorry.
>> But you can't get an upgrade for your
instrument and not play it for us.
>> Yeah, I can. I just watched Sven not do
it.
>> That's cuz Sven doesn't know how to
play.
>> I don't either. Do we have a keyboard?
Oh,
>> this is for the test bench.
>> Yeah, it's a gravar Mercury.
>> Oh, that's pretty funky.
>> What is this, too?
>> That's cool, dude. Look at this corner.
This is like command station corner. I
freaking love it. Wa.
>> Just here tuned in and ready to help.
Like a pocket-sized assistant without
the pockets.
>> So, this is just tuned into Open AI or
is it running a local LM?
>> N Open AI right now. Would the goal in
the longer term be to run a local LLM
for it to do all your home automation
stuff? Because I can't imagine you'd
want to burn OpenAI tokens to turn your
lights on and off?
>> No. Uh the idea is to be local. Yes. So
the idea is that he will sit beside the
pixel display and the Google Nest goes
away.
>> Yeah.
>> And then I can just talk to him.
>> Do these do anything or are these just
for show?
>> They're just for showing. It's got a
plethora of emotions. So you can ask it
to like look something and it'll
>> okay scared surprise.
>> Can you do your best impression of an
angry horse?
>> Can't do animal impressions, but I can
show a frustrated emotion if you'd like
a humanish equivalent.
>> Sure. Do your best.
>> Best take on frustration. No horse
sound, but hopefully it gives you the
idea.
>> You know what? Good job. What is going
on here? I was trying to We're getting
things kind of cleaned up for the, you
know, the after pictures and stuff. You
know, this is not where art goes, right,
sir?
>> Yeah, that needs to go on the wall
still.
>> Yeah, we should have put this up today.
That's so cool.
>> I think Adam even has exactly the place
for it.
>> Oh
>> Right.
>> That actually works really well.
>> Boom. If you told me that Spider-Man
came flew in and zed me.
>> What do you think?
>> I don't know. It was underneath the TV.
It was doing just fine there, but now
it's up, so it's good.
I think this is about to boot.
Yep, memory training just finished and
it's rebooting. She's up and running. I
think we're done. We got your rack
completely sorted out. You've got way
more hardware in it than you did before.
There's no computers to trip over in the
entire dining room, living room area.
Did you guys even change anything over
here? Why does it feel so much nicer?
Honestly, I think we just cleaned up.
>> Hey, the RGB the RGB lighting doesn't
hurt.
>> Hurts me. It hurts me. What else did we
even do?
>> Uh, we added his new mouse and his audio
interface to his computer. We upgraded
your Wi-Fi with your new Ubiquiti access
point. Uh, that's in the back. I put up
little sensors everywhere. You got your
hyrometers. His backups are now
officially 321. And of course, the
centerpiece of the entire setup, the
Reichi Mini, that for now is kind of
expensive to run, but in the long term
is going to be a fun project to get a
locally run AI assistant to help, I
don't know, do something when your
humidity changes. Turn the lights red.
>> Sure. Thanks, AMD. This has been another
fantastic AMD Ultimate $5,000 tech
upgrade. And if you guys are looking for
another one to watch, hey, why not check
out one of the other members of the Labs
team, Lucas.