foreign I understand the appeal system Building
looks like a pretty easy gig out of a thousand bucks a pop all you got to do
is sell three of these a day and your million dollar company easy right
except for a few small problems the
margins are piss-poor the chances of shipping damage oh are extremely high
and no offense but the customers are a
nightmare
for everything from game crashes to slow
Windows updates there's nothing I can do about any of that all of which is why I
am extremely skeptical about the survival of star Forge systems
everything about it screams doomed to
fail like the ownership group being a bunch of twitch streamers with no
obvious business Acumen the executive team being composed primarily of
ex-employees of Artesian builds a system builder that only recently imploded in
spectacular fashion and the absolute cherry on top is that the reveal went so
poorly that aforementioned twitch streamers started Perma Banning their
critics of course I am fully prepared to
put my money where my mouth is and find out if I'm wrong so
we purchased their Horizon Creator
Edition PC A system that costs 3 500 US
dollars is it a good deal is it well
built does it work at all by the time it arrives oh and who sponsored this mess
Ridge wallet has redefined the traditional wallet with its compact
frame and RFID blocking plates the Bulge
in your pants shouldn't be from your wallet use offer code Linus to save 10
off and get worldwide shipping right now
I have built literally hundreds of PCS in front of literally tens of millions
of people leading many of them to sensibly ask me why I don't sell the PCS
I build seems obvious right well it's
because it's a deceptively challenging business Newegg screwed it up on their
first attempt ABS was gone for years before it came back Walmart royally
screwed it up and doesn't seem to have recovered and on that subject NCIX
screwed it up too along with everything else too so the road star Forge is
walking is littered with the corpses of everyone else who has attempted to
survive in this business long term just maybe they've got what it takes though
while we unbox the system let's talk a little bit more about the starforge
systems team it was created by a collection of twitch streamers notably
moist critical and one true king Network which includes as Mongol fan a number of
other notable streamers
it's going to be run by the xcoo of
Artesian builds for those of you who aren't familiar with the different c-suite positions the COO is the one
that basically runs the show but doesn't necessarily get to make all the
decisions so they certainly brought in someone with experience however that
experience didn't help them with the launch because there was immediate
backlash to their high prices and supposedly terrible were they terrible
yeah oh and terrible configs and then
Fanning the fire the twitch streamers perma-band users that were critical of
the PCS on their streams starforge systems then responded by dropping all
prices by a hundred dollars and they adjusted their configs based on
community feedback I mean that's pretty smart just crowdsourcing the actual work
of configuring your computers by the way we took a lot of care to order this PC
anonymously so that we wouldn't get any special treatments I actually have no
idea what I just got for 3 500 US Dollars that's a lot oh wait due to the
controversy we actually were refunded two hundred dollars and four weeks and
two days later this is what arrived right out of the gate I will tell you
that they are not using completely proper packing materials
our Logistics Department informs me there actually was a second outer box
but unfortunately it's already been picked up either way double boxing is
effective for both improving the resiliency of your package and making it
less likely to be stolen since apparently it was a completely non-descript box so uh good job
starforge not quite as good as custom packaging but a lot better than just
counting on the case package In fairness to them absolutely nothing seems to have
been damaged in shipping though not even any bashed in screws which can be a
common one this PC has apparently passed 3dmark last I checked 3dmark is not
actually a pass fail test it does issue a score but I'm actually just being a
butthead about that that's a very valid way to burn in a system and make sure
that it is functioning correctly and that its performance is within what's
expected for that config props to starforge systems by the way for using
these these chemical expanding foam bags are not quite the best way to protect
the inside of a system uh that would be maybe the acrylic braces or metal braces
that Builders like Puget systems or tier ones include with their case designs but
given that they're using off-the-shelf Enthusiast tier cases this is about the
best way to make sure that no matter what case they're using all the little
gaps are going to be filled in with that out of the way I guess we can take a
little bit of a closer look at the system we're using three deep cool 120
millimeter fans at the bottom they've got a bottom to top airflow
configuration that's valid top mounted
radiator meaning that our pump is at the lowest point so from a longevity
standpoint it's a nice little nice to have I would have liked to see little
peels like this probably pulled off since there's no need for the customer
to remove that but that's a nitpick oh that's fun though I like them I don't
know this four pin is not quite seated that clip's not fully engaged it's
probable that the system will work but if I pull on this you can see it's not
actually secured in any way oh my God this this other one has half of it not
engaged either okay that's not good you got you got to make sure the clips are
engaged guys especially if you're going to ship the system I want to make it clear that I'm not approaching this
skeptically because it's twitch streamers doing it I'm approaching it skeptically because I know how easy this
business appears to be and yet how many little things are very difficult to get
right 24 pan is seated correctly USB 3
of a more different USB 3 cable management actually I would say is a
strong A minus oh actually this is tucked in I'd give
it an A on the front I haven't looked at the back yet
not bad this case hides cable mess well though whoop
though any points that you've assign for the case you know is points for the SI
they picked the case didn't they
okay courtesy connector for a future GPU upgrade actually do like to see that
even though it's a modular power supply extra cables such as the hard drive
cages I'm fine with that EVGA 850 G6
yeah a perfectly good power supply I
would expect to find it on more like 1700 computer what am I gonna find when
I dig deeper let's take a look at the included accessories at any rate
wait did they just attach
second I typically left a courtesy PCI IE GPU
connector did they just attach all of the cables to a modular power supply
these are courtesy cables so you can plug in a hard drive without actually
running any cables what were the rest of my cables then and I didn't get a single
Molex connector modular power supplies are not an excuse to not give me the
capability to plug in the other cables the dumb part is that you guys already
have an accessory box that you could have put them in there's no benefit
whatsoever to holding on to them what are you going to do with your mountain
of modular SATA cables no David don't cut the camera I'm demoing one of the
best features of the LTD store screwdriver you can pick up big thumb
screws and they don't fall off when you're trying to get them into position see that
love it ltdstore.com Wi-Fi antennas
power cable yes is this just some trendy thing that I'm
not trendy enough to understand okay 3080 TI that seems pretty reasonable at
this price point assuming pandemic pricing if you buy the Creator Edition
PC now you get a 30 90. you get a 30 90 in this
same machine if you buy it now yeah so we have the option of a hundred dollar
refund so our 3500 purchase was knocked
down to 3 400 because of the Scandal and then was knocked down another hundred
because this tier has a 30 90 now and we
kept the 3080 okay okay all right all right all right okay does it have 32
gigs of RAM at least yes 3600
megatransfer cl18 wait hold on a second this is an Intel platform board why are
we using ddr4 uh
guys this is interesting oh wait it's
just loose in there I had assumed that that was some kind of print that they
had done on the case itself which I guess means their deception was
effective oh the lighting on it so that's kind of cool so it's an acrylic
Light Panel do dad magismo
might end up looking kind of neat I'd say that level of modding has got to be
worth at least like a you know a 50 up charge 100 up charge even definitely a
couple of mistakes and I have some big lingering questions about the value
proposition but nothing too egregious so
far let's go ahead and peel the front panel and Moment of Truth you guys ready
oh that is a very uninspiring light up
feature surely it lights up a little more than that okay oh there we go
hey see see wait till wait for Windows
okay that's pretty cool that's pretty
cool looking they did a cool thing in there too starforge systems is that
customizable or is that just an insert it could be a deep cool product based on
that they're using deep cool fans which to my knowledge basically nobody is this
just paper foreign are you guys serious oh hey that's what
that thing is Alex it's this thing well wait why wouldn't
they give me a me a blank one where's the r
I got the G and the B and it has RGB
lighting anyway why didn't they just do it this is such an ass backwards way to
change the color definitely going to be a polarizing feature but I for one
appreciate that they chose a penis rocket for their logo this is clearly
supposed to be a and balls do you deny that this is no it's clearly a
penis rocket okay
very quiet good fan curve tuning well good fan
curve tuning for quiet we'll have to see that it ramps up appropriately under
load we've apparently already loaded up some games really what I want is to play
my favorite game called Hardware info does you have Hardware info on here uh
no you have OBS no wait this is from a
streaming company why don't they have OBS installed that's a good question and
the reason actually has to do with end user license agreements that's a big
part of why you are not able to not only install software on a pre-built computer
without a special agreement but in many cases even set up Windows so you have to
go through that out of box experience Ubi and that's because the end user has
to set that up themselves or they technically have not agreed to the terms
of using that software oh wait I think that it came with Windows already set up
it had a Creator account yeah you should double check that because they're not
really supposed to do that I mean they're not the only ones who do it but
it's not the right way I mean it has a Windows license hey where the hell is my
Windows license it's got to be on the bottom uh okay this is getting kind of
not funny where the is my Windows license there wasn't anything in the accessory box and I don't see the KOA
anywhere on the chassis technically because the license is digitally bound
to the motherboard now I should be able to continue to use this license as I
normally would even without the little sticker but you are super not supposed
to do that also confirmed set up by star Forge when it arrived and it was set up
by starforge when it arrived okay yeah that's extra not not how Microsoft wants
you to do it random streamers who've never run an SI yeah I I get how you
could Overlook that but xcoo of Artesian should know better enough faffing about
what is this thing okay it's a 12900 KF
at this price and bucks on the onboard Graphics
actually that's one of the things that they changed now when you buy this PC it
comes with just the K because people got really mad at the Creator PC didn't have
quick sync yeah it does not have quick yeah okay
32 gigs RAM okay do they have XMP enabled this is a good thing to check
yes we're running at 3600 Mega transfers per second I just noticed something
oh no oh
this light is supposed wait is it possible that on this case they intend
for this light to be a drive activity indicator let's check it is possible
that that was miswired or was intentional uh thanks to Liam Lee it's
also possible that starforge hooked up the front panel indicator LEDs
incorrectly power led oh my God the power LED is plugged in
backwards it won't affect the performance of the system but there's
just no excuse for it when the legend for what plugs into wear is silk
screened right onto the motherboard less than an inch away from these headers
it's also a royal pain in the butt for the end user to try to fix this and then
hard drive LED yes is plugged into hard drive LED so that is intended to be the
hard drive LED it's a constant blue illumination and then it blinks red with
Drive activity so it was only blinking red man you can't be a professional PC
Building Company and be bunging stuff up like that I do still have questions
about the thermal configuration of this machine I would really prefer to see
some intake right here normally this case would have a spot for fans so that
you're drawing some nice fresh air in for the aios instead of relying on
preheated GPU air I can't fault the
Acoustics still quite quiet All Things Considered no complaints about
performance either I mean 12 900 KF is a
12900 KF and it's hard to go wrong with a 3080 TI okay penis rocket computer
company after a couple of little errors out of the gate although kind of
embarrassing ones I think it's time for us to take a look at what else is in the
market and see how you stand up while
their system was in the lab starforge also responded to some of our other
comments first explaining why they feel being owned by twitch streamers is a
huge Advantage for them first it means that their marketing costs are
essentially zero and second that it adds
a level of credibility to their company that kind of sounds like the same thing
to me that's pretty much marketing but I will admit that while starforge has
existed for only a couple of months having streamers behind it means at the
very least there are public personas who can suffer damage to their brand
reputation if starforge screws over their customers and it means that they
will have fairly Deep Pockets to keep the company running in at least the
short to medium term and from what I can tell anyway they seem to be building
towards doing everything properly in the long term while they did kind of screw
up the Ubi from what I've been told Windows these days is typically a
digital key with no physical COA required anymore and they're currently
in the process of being on board into the Windows SI program so anything that
needs to be changed there should be changed soon as for the Artesian build stuff well I
can't tell you everything they told me because it's still getting litigated and
I quote we don't want to give that man any more money but the whole executive
team for starforge was already assembled and signed with otk before Artesian
imploded and Nick the CEO of starforge and xco of Artesian got pretty emotional
when we brought it up saying that his wife had wanted him to leave for years
but he knew if he did the jobs of everyone he had would be at risk and he
left and well he was right everyone that
worked for him lost their job and some of them didn't get their paychecks
that's a heavy situation and I wish nothing but the best for Nick and the
rest of the refugees from Artesian builds I'm not going to bring them up
anymore but I'm also not going to be giving you guys any pity points you do
need to figure out the QC errors that resulted in some of our connectors not
being fully plugged in and some of them being incorrectly connected we've
provided the serial number and they say they'll be looking into it so they can
help to fix their processes you also need to be delivering a solid price to
Performance ratio if we're going to be able to recommend your system and I have
some great news for you guys LTT Labs is finally set up enough to start testing
systems for us and the starforge system here
actually did pretty well compared to
this system with similar specs their performance was plus or minus five
percent which I guess shouldn't win the many awards but when you compare them to
the competition where system integrators might forget or forego features like XMP
while the likes of Dell might give you a proprietary motherboard that has no
expandability or HP might have the power
limit of your CPU set so low that it actually does have much worse
performance I think they actually do end up with an award here judging the value
proposition though is a little bit more difficult obviously when compared to a
DIY system starforge gets crushed we
were able to build something with identical specs that cost I kid you not
900 dollars less In fairness to starforge that did
include a recent price drop on the 3080 TI but even so it was way cheaper in a
similar vein we were actually able to build a system with a 30 90 TI rather
than a 3080 TI while still spending the exact same amount so yes building a DIY
system will save you money I should hope so but things start to get more
interesting once we start comparing to other sis not everybody wants to build
their own computer so while I buy Power will build you a PC for roughly the same
price that one doesn't come with a light up and balls in it I consider that
a big downside and looking at the tier 2
fancy system Builders things get even more interesting origin PC costs about a
hundred dollars more but with ddr5 and main gear will sell you a system with
these same specs for a casual forty seven hundred dollars so at this point I
think it's fair to say that starforge's pricing broadly makes sense especially
since their hundred dollar drop and their build adjustments starforge also
offers a two-year warranty where if something breaks they will actually pay for shipping both ways and fix your PC
if the fix can't be done over the phone which is pretty impressive if they can
actually manage to pull that off in the real world I still don't know if I can
wholeheartedly recommend them for the same reason that I don't wholeheartedly
recommend buying a car on its very first model year but while they clearly have a
couple of Kinks to work out I'd say if they're still around in six months and
you like the streamers in otk then starforge seems like they might be as
good an option as any other SI on the market of course the best option is
always the option to segue to our sponsor nordpass repeated delays cause
frustration and threaten the timely delivery of work projects how can you
eliminate these disruptions and increase your productivity by using nordpass
business password manager why not save time and energy and focus on what
matters most to your team nordpass eases the burden of access to business
accounts making it possible for your team to work across devices and apps
uninterrupted with nordpass you can forget about account resets because all
your credentials are saved in one secure place with just one click you can
identify vulnerabilities and learn if any of the credentials payment
information emails or company domains have been compromised and login
information is pulled up and populated into forms instantly so you can pay for
orders ads and invoices in just a few seconds see for yourself how automating
the manual aspects of storing online accounts and sharing sensitive data can
save your team hour throughout the work week while keeping your information safe
seeing nordpass business in action now with a three-month free trial at
nordpass.com linusbusiness or by using the code
linusbusiness at checkout if you guys enjoyed this video gosh we don't really
do a whole lot of pre-built PC reviews I guess I'll throw back to the last secret
shopper because that's the last time we did anything similar go check it out