WEBVTT 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:06.640 in the last episode of the 69 gaming pc 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:09.040 saga we bought a dell optiplex for 27 00:00:06.640 --> 00:00:13.200 bucks on ebay stuck in a 30 graphics card and got playable frame rates in a 00:00:11.200 --> 00:00:17.440 variety of popular casual and esports games that is depending on your standard 00:00:15.200 --> 00:00:21.760 for playable but 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:26.160 we didn't stop there it's dramatic right so 00:00:24.080 --> 00:00:30.400 for our second installment we're actually taking a combination of our own 00:00:28.720 --> 00:00:34.719 advice yeah and 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:39.760 some from our community to bring that standard that playable standard up by 00:00:37.440 --> 00:00:46.399 upgrading our original system with a few more budget parts and hopefully turning 00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:47.360 it into an actually decent gaming pc 00:00:46.399 --> 00:00:52.879 so can we build it yes we can maybe uh i 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:57.360 actually i don't know i'm not sure is that a bob the builder thing isn't it can we fix it the new be quiet! silent 00:00:56.480 --> 00:01:01.840 base offers great usability and utilizes 00:00:59.760 --> 00:01:05.720 noise dampening events to keep your pc quiet check it out on newegg at the link 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:10.710 below 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:20.880 so here's the deal using current gen parts the cheapest gaming pc that you 00:01:19.520 --> 00:01:27.119 could build today and that would actually be worth 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:28.240 building is probably around 350 to 400 00:01:27.119 --> 00:01:33.680 bucks so in order to make our frankensteinish 00:01:31.439 --> 00:01:39.200 collection of parts worth the time investment and the inherent risks that 00:01:36.320 --> 00:01:43.439 come with buying used hardware we figure we've got to undercut that price by a 00:01:41.759 --> 00:01:50.000 pretty good margin while getting legitimately decent frame 00:01:45.600 --> 00:01:52.840 rates so our goal here is smooth 1080p 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:57.520 gaming at medium or so settings so as a refresher here's our 00:01:55.439 --> 00:02:00.960 original system there are some things we can upgrade in here like the 00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:06.640 cardboard but there are some other things that we're going to be stuck with like the motherboard the cooler the case 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:10.319 and the power supply once we start replacing those core components that 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:13.840 usually means we're better off building something new but that also means that 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:19.440 we're going to have to be stuck with the 255 watt power limit so the most obvious 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:24.319 component to upgrade here given that our gtx 650 00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:29.599 poor thing broken fan had us stuck at 720p and low settings for the most part 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:34.239 is the graphics card but there's been a lot of generations of 00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:36.879 graphics cards since the 600 series so 00:02:34.239 --> 00:02:40.000 which one should we go with newer ones are obviously going to get us better 00:02:38.720 --> 00:02:44.560 performance but they stand to potentially be 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:47.680 bottlenecked and they obviously come with a higher price tag 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:52.959 so to find the best bang for the buck we 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:58.400 hooked up our gtx 750 ti 00:02:52.959 --> 00:02:59.680 a gtx 950 and a gtx 1050 ti and ran some 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:05.040 tests there's some good news here for those of you who are allergic to jank by the way 00:03:02.720 --> 00:03:10.000 i mean we're not no clearly but some people are and that is that 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:14.640 many of these newer gpus actually are so much more power 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:18.800 efficient that we can get rid of that SATA to six pin pci express power 00:03:16.959 --> 00:03:24.640 adapter because they can draw all the power they need from the slot so no more 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:29.040 of this weird cable nonsense yes like this one 00:03:30.720 --> 00:03:37.120 oh great oh oh shoot actually i'm sorry uh we're 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:41.120 still gonna need that pci express riser okay yeah 00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:44.159 yeah charge your right click and then you're gonna get yeah 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:49.280 you can't hold it forever yeah life's tough oh you're dead yep if you 00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:51.440 pressed either you would have lived all right 00:03:53.840 --> 00:04:00.640 okay so that's overwatch looks pretty good wow 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:01.920 look at the CPU usage though 90 00:04:00.640 --> 00:04:06.480 yeah yeah get them 00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:11.680 um so yeah with rocket league we're getting around the same frame rate even 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:15.280 though we've upgraded the GPU so it's actually still very impressive you 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:20.320 know we're getting very playable frame rates here at 80 right now nice and smooth 1080. even as you went through a 00:04:18.400 --> 00:04:23.520 whole particle cloud it was at the 90 right there 00:04:21.440 --> 00:04:28.160 but uh we're not getting that much of an improvement yeah 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:33.280 once again CPU activity pinned above 90 percent yep 00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:37.199 all the way this is uh 00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:41.680 pretty much all we need to know but why don't we open up one more game just for 00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:45.120 a good measure here okay so 00:04:42.400 --> 00:04:48.880 uh once again we are now running at 1080p what kind of details are we 00:04:46.960 --> 00:04:51.840 looking at here uh it's low everything low everything 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:55.680 and really no improvement to speak of yeah 00:04:53.919 --> 00:04:58.720 still around like 40 something yeah this is this is 00:04:57.120 --> 00:05:04.400 noticeably choppy yeah we were at like i think we got a 00:05:01.520 --> 00:05:07.199 whoa bad guy was that packing good guy yeah i can't tell the difference in cs 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:13.360 go when they don't have big red markers above their heads 00:05:11.440 --> 00:05:17.680 like in overwatch they do they have that in overwatch that's why i like it 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:21.520 so in summary going with a 750 ti but leaving 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:26.479 everything else the same gets overwatch more playable and then similar results 00:05:23.840 --> 00:05:31.120 in csgo and rocket league but this time at 1080p instead of 720p so it's an 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:35.039 improvement but the the issue here is that our frame 00:05:33.360 --> 00:05:41.280 rates are still not great they're about the same they dip 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:44.960 below comfortably playable exactly 00:05:41.280 --> 00:05:46.880 so time to upgrade all right let's do it 00:05:44.960 --> 00:05:51.039 did i leave you hanging there no i i just oh that time i did 00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:55.199 oh this guy's cheating he's definitely using net hacks 00:05:53.840 --> 00:05:58.080 what what is a net hack i don't even know the hacks are the strongest hacks 00:05:56.960 --> 00:06:01.759 there are hacks that interfere with the network connection oh nice did you see 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:06.720 that kill even with a CPU even even with the 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:11.280 system being CPU bound i'm trash in the competition 00:06:09.440 --> 00:06:16.080 okay you're only firing at the like the big guy yeah because that's all you can 00:06:13.039 --> 00:06:18.479 hit he's a big target 35 sds i gotta 00:06:16.080 --> 00:06:23.199 reload let me reload oh i just got my ultimate oh 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:30.800 all right let's go on to the next game okay but you're just gonna play goalie 00:06:32.479 --> 00:06:39.520 i missed it i mean i shouldn't surprise me that much i knew we were CPU bound 00:06:36.880 --> 00:06:42.720 but i i thought maybe yeah and like nothing's happening on screen i'm just 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:45.919 like walking around it's still like well okay now it's at 50 but a second ago was 00:06:44.400 --> 00:06:51.919 that like 40 yeah and you're dipped down under 40 32 there so in summary then 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:54.880 even with our first GPU upgrade we saw 00:06:51.919 --> 00:07:00.639 limited to no improvement and then because of a fairly obvious significant 00:06:58.400 --> 00:07:05.039 CPU bottleneck here well we continued to have the same 00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:08.160 experience as we made our way up the GPU stack 00:07:06.080 --> 00:07:14.880 so the next upgrade is obviously going to be our CPU not only is our original 00:07:11.039 --> 00:07:16.400 one here from 2007 it's also a dual core 00:07:14.880 --> 00:07:21.360 which wasn't a problem for gaming then but it definitely is now so according to 00:07:19.520 --> 00:07:28.560 Intel's compatibility list the most powerful CPU for this chipset the Intel 00:07:23.599 --> 00:07:30.000 g41 express is the core ii quad qx 9650 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:33.830 it actually runs at a similar clock speed but it's got twice as many cores 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:38.950 and we happen to have one 00:07:39.520 --> 00:07:44.720 it's a good thing we did all the testing before i started filming geez 00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:51.440 thanks for being careful with that 00:07:49.840 --> 00:07:54.000 i got a screwdriver too let's do it together 00:07:55.759 --> 00:08:02.319 yes this is not one of those 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:02.319 i'm sure there was a time once 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:07.199 boy it's nice how easy these upgrades are to get at here 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:15.120 this is like a hinge yeah 00:08:12.879 --> 00:08:19.360 great great what's not so great is the fact that 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:24.400 there is more to CPU compatibility than Intel's guidelines i'm afraid it turns 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:26.720 out dell never validated the qx 9650 on 00:08:24.400 --> 00:08:30.080 this motherboard which i guess kind of makes sense since who would put an 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:35.360 extreme edition in a business tower that doesn't make any money 00:08:32.479 --> 00:08:39.279 maybe a crazy person would try that so we needed to find one of the 00:08:36.800 --> 00:08:43.599 processors on dell's compatibility list and our old friends at freegeek a 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:46.640 non-profit electronics recycling outfit located here in vancouver came to the 00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:51.120 rescue they hooked us up with an Intel core 2 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:56.320 quad 9550 it's a couple steps down from the qx 9650 and it has a slightly lower 00:08:53.839 --> 00:09:00.480 clock speed than even our e 7500 but it's still a quad core so we're hoping 00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:04.240 for a big improvement cs go 00:09:02.880 --> 00:09:09.120 whoa go whoa 00:09:07.200 --> 00:09:14.800 dang buttery smooth that is 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:17.600 way smoother look at that 00:09:14.800 --> 00:09:25.040 and like and this is with the 750 ti this is the 750 ti and 30 more for a CPU 00:09:21.519 --> 00:09:26.959 quad-core CPU wow 00:09:25.040 --> 00:09:32.399 i mean i still can't kill anything but yeah you know so you're hovering around 00:09:29.279 --> 00:09:35.040 90 100 plus right now yeah 00:09:32.399 --> 00:09:38.959 going going up from 45 and far more importantly if you're 00:09:36.800 --> 00:09:42.320 playing something competitive is when there's a bunch of action on the 00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:47.040 screen we're not getting those same kinds of frame drops or dips or hitches 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:51.680 like it's it's smooth when you pan around a corner 00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:55.040 there's no stutter you know it honestly it's blowing me away this is very 00:09:53.040 --> 00:09:58.160 playable yeah boom boom boom boom get him get him get 00:09:56.399 --> 00:10:00.880 him a head shot whoa he went flying 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:07.600 yeah i fired i fire large let's 00:10:04.880 --> 00:10:10.720 you fire large bullets when i play csgo i like to fire a 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:15.440 slightly larger bullet than everyone else i closed it like an idiot but we 00:10:12.800 --> 00:10:19.839 were sitting at only around 60 CPU usage were we so there you go just not running 00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:25.519 into a bottleneck just having a couple of extra cores available to it huh 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:27.760 ended up increasing rfps what like 70 00:10:25.519 --> 00:10:31.440 i'm bad at math that's crazy but it went up a lot all right let's see you pull 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:36.640 some noobs down 204 yeah you're in the menu smart guy let's go let's go 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:41.279 this guy is really bad but you haven't killed him yet no but this is on his 00:10:39.040 --> 00:10:46.480 heart oh man 00:10:43.680 --> 00:10:50.880 now you've got reinforcements i missed the sleep dirt 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:54.959 did you get them eliminated eliminated that's what i do to bad guys 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:59.519 you guys killed each other though interestingly though 00:10:56.560 --> 00:11:03.440 that's our CPU utilization in overwatch so we were still running into a CPU 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:07.839 bottleneck which means that even though we only upgraded our GPU one more tier 00:11:05.839 --> 00:11:12.160 we probably wouldn't get any further improvements out of an even better one 00:11:10.079 --> 00:11:16.000 because we had such a great um experience with cs go and overwatch we 00:11:14.880 --> 00:11:20.880 decided it's the cheapest gaming pc we might as well 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:25.360 add the cheapest free game most popular free game how do 00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:28.959 you just like get rid of your stupid yeah this is this is what's so annoying 00:11:26.800 --> 00:11:34.160 you can't get rid of it you have to land oh that's about 00:11:30.399 --> 00:11:36.079 oh he got him dang 00:11:34.160 --> 00:11:39.920 i'm gonna take his stuff you mind you mind him to death i like this game 00:11:38.079 --> 00:11:43.920 portal yeah i mean it's true somewhat playable what are we running at here so 00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:49.920 this is a 1080p medium okay all right 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:51.680 upgrading the CPU and the GPU got us 00:11:49.920 --> 00:11:56.720 excellent results in terms of price to performance so far 00:11:53.839 --> 00:12:03.279 our optiplex here was 30 bucks the quad core CPU was another 30 bucks 00:11:59.839 --> 00:12:05.040 and a 750 ti is about 60 bucks making 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:08.279 this a 1080p 60fps gaming pc 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:12.560 for 120 bucks and the crazy thing 00:12:11.839 --> 00:12:15.680 is we're still not done yet 00:12:14.959 --> 00:12:24.240 now we won't be improving gaming performance this time around but going from a hard 00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:27.120 drive to an SSD is certainly a quality 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:30.560 of life improvement which is why we actually did it 00:12:28.560 --> 00:12:35.040 before we started running all of our benchmarks and like filming this video 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:38.720 because otherwise we'd waste a lot of time waiting around for that hard drive 00:12:36.800 --> 00:12:43.760 so uh so pretty much anything will do you but we chucked in a Corsair force le 00:12:41.680 --> 00:12:48.800 and with Windows 10 installed it makes this old junker of a machine almost feel 00:12:46.560 --> 00:12:52.959 like a new pc almost 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:59.279 so given that you can get a 120 gig SSD for about 30 bucks on amazon 00:12:55.600 --> 00:13:01.600 150 gaming pc boom 00:12:59.279 --> 00:13:05.279 got it not bad i mean like look at the responsiveness 00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:09.120 here like whether you're just kind of switching tabs like you guys saw me 00:13:06.959 --> 00:13:14.079 opening up photoshop there like let's launch a web browser like 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:19.120 it doesn't feel like a decade old computer at all the 00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:24.480 only thing that's left is to deal with this measly four gigs of RAM 00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:27.519 but upgrading RAM on older systems like this 00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:31.839 one can be a little bit challenging and it 00:13:29.760 --> 00:13:35.440 can even be pretty confusing to even get started 00:13:33.279 --> 00:13:40.639 now according to the spec sheet for the dell optiplex 380 our system only 00:13:37.839 --> 00:13:45.200 supports four gigs of RAM two two Gigabyte dimms but since we have 00:13:42.880 --> 00:13:49.360 some ddr3 lying around we figured we just might as well throw in another four 00:13:47.040 --> 00:13:54.560 gig stick and see what happens come on riley don't screw it up again 00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:58.240 oh i love the sound of that click 00:13:58.880 --> 00:14:02.959 i'm not checking your work i'm just appreciating 00:14:04.480 --> 00:14:10.079 wait are we expecting this to work or not 00:14:07.839 --> 00:14:14.880 i'm not sure i've never done this before so oh wow 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:20.320 it worked what was it supposed to 00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:21.920 um not sure uh really doing this for the 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:25.199 first time so uh don't know about RAM 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:31.600 is it all is it all detected properly uh i thought you prepared this video yeah 00:14:30.079 --> 00:14:37.120 it's uh it's all that look at look at that yeah eight gigs of ddr3 maybe oh it 00:14:34.399 --> 00:14:41.910 worked oh thank goodness okay i really can't tell did you think this was gonna 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:47.680 work or not i'm not sure 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:53.199 so there can be any number of restrictions on the kind of memory that 00:14:51.199 --> 00:14:58.000 you can run in these sorts of pre-built systems what speed the stakes run at whether 00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:02.639 they're single-sided or double-sided dimms and even just straight-up hardware 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:07.760 locks so that they'll only work with certain brands or certain models 00:15:05.279 --> 00:15:11.760 and given that our RAM upgrade actually didn't have that much of an effect on 00:15:10.079 --> 00:15:17.920 gaming performance our take here is that if you have some 4 00:15:14.959 --> 00:15:23.279 gig ddr3 dimms lying around give it a shot but otherwise it might 00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:28.639 not be worth it especially since once you cross that 200 threshold or once you 00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:32.880 need to do more than just game like if you have to get actual work done 00:15:30.800 --> 00:15:37.199 it might be time to start thinking about spending a bit more to get something 00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:41.680 more modern with that said a bit of frustration on 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:46.240 the RAM upgrade doesn't change that overall this was an incredibly 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:50.480 successful experiment i mean we're not saying that we'd recommend that everyone 00:15:48.880 --> 00:15:54.399 you know tries this at home you know buying new pcs is dead yeah that would 00:15:52.800 --> 00:15:58.560 be the that would be the click the clickbait thumbnail but don't do 00:15:56.240 --> 00:16:03.920 clickbait but it does show that contrary to popular belief pc gaming isn't that 00:16:01.839 --> 00:16:07.440 expensive to get into provided that you're willing to do some bargain 00:16:05.680 --> 00:16:12.639 hunting which i am you hunted this that's why 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:16.320 it's dead now it looks dead my computer it's like dismembered you know 00:16:14.320 --> 00:16:22.399 i can't recommend enough the mass drops sennheiser hd 6xx headphones these are 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:24.160 based closely on one of sennheiser's 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:27.759 all-time best pairs of headphones they're actually the ones i use at home 00:16:25.839 --> 00:16:31.920 and they're one of massdrop's all-time best sellers with over 40 000 of their 00:16:29.920 --> 00:16:36.639 members picking them up to date they have not changed the driver and sound 00:16:33.920 --> 00:16:40.240 structure compared to the hd650s meaning you get a nice balanced mid-range and 00:16:38.560 --> 00:16:44.000 natural sounding bass they've got a detachable six-foot cable though instead 00:16:42.160 --> 00:16:47.759 of a 10-foot cable based on community feedback and they've got three and a 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:52.079 half millimeter and quarter inch jack compatibility for everyday use it comes 00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:56.320 included with sennheiser's long-term support and you can check out the link 00:16:53.680 --> 00:16:59.680 below in the video description so thanks for watching guys if you 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:02.720 disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:06.720 subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description 00:17:05.439 --> 00:17:10.240 also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:13.439 community forum which you should totally join is that going to be our thumbnail 00:17:11.919 --> 00:17:19.600 yeah i think i'm thinking something like this are you editing are you editing our 00:17:15.760 --> 00:17:21.600 thumbnail on the machine wow yeah it's 00:17:19.600 --> 00:17:28.480 like thumbnail seption it's like it's it's good for work and play that's very 00:17:23.919 --> 00:17:28.480 stylized i know yeah what about this