How many times have you guys asked a question online just to get several different responses like what CPU should
I use? >> Or how much RAM do I need?
>> Will you guys stop? >> NO. >> WELL, AT least they can all agree on
that. But it does make me wonder, do we, the writers of Lionus Tech Tips all give
different answers to arguably objective questions? And if we don't, can we give
a convincing reason as to why we think the way we do? Each one of us is going
to read off a prompt, give our answer, and see what arguments come out of it.
Ray tracing is path tracing. Okay, so when they just they just lied the whole
time. They lied the whole [laughter] time. It's like how no it's not okay, you know. And to make it even more
interesting, some of these questions Lionus has already answered whether it
was on WAN Show or in another video. We may not know in the moment when we're
debating, but you guys will see this little popup. How about we start with
that first one? How much RAM and storage do you need for gaming in 2025? I would
make the argument that you only need about 16 GB of memory and 1 TB of
storage. If you're doing more demanding tasks like Photoshop editing or video
editing, then I would argue for more RAM, but I feel like 1 TB gets you
enough of a handful of games. >> We got to use the paddles. >> Oh, we got paddles.
>> I It's close. It's really close. I think that one tab is enough for games and I
think 16 gigs of RAM is starting to be on the low end if you're running Windows
11 and if you're doing any kind of extra like I have uh my Plex server on my
computer and so I've been getting low memory warnings with 32 gigs of RAM
>> uh when I try to launch a game if I have stuff running in the background. >> That's a fair point.
>> He only said gamings. He only said gaming. That's true. >> I would also agree with you in so far as
that the difference in price between 16 and 32 is not that big.
>> Yeah. >> [music]
>> and you are going to get a lot more long-term value out of a 32 GB kit.
>> There's really good value DDR5 kit. So, if you're building a DDR5 machine, I
would push towards 32. But if you're going so budget that you're on DDR4, 16
is probably still adequate. But like everything we're going to answer today,
I think it's going to be a it depends. It also depends on your internet speed
and if you are capped on data cuz if it is a big deal to download games that
takes 2 days and you are limited to 200 gigs a month, then you want to have a
lot of storage. What are you guys playing this? Okay, click. >> Yeah, see you in 10 minutes.
>> Yeah, >> just like you should click the link down below to our sponsor, Corsair. Their
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below. Who wants to take the next one? Oh, David. What is better for most
people, a pre-built or a customuilt PC?
I don't want to answer this. Most people is too hard of a of a term to to kind of
lock down. For most people, if we're including literally everyone on this
planet, most >> pre-built. I think that it is a better choice for most people. I have been
shocked with how difficult it is to optimize your PC in 2025. Getting
resizable bar working for normal people is enough of a obstacle that you will
not get the most out of your GPU. And if it's pre-built and they're optimizing it
for you, then you are actually getting your money's worth. That's assuming those settings are done out of the box,
which we've seen from our Secret Shopper series that sometimes they don't take
the time to configure the BIOS, maybe missing XMPP or some other settings,
right? I think it's still good to do a onceover, maybe watching a video that
can help you get the most out of your PC, even if you do buy a pre-built. But
I would agree for most people a pre-built is probably the way to go. >> I've had multiple friends reach out for
help and I've given them like full tutorials on here's what you need to do.
Here's your parts list. Here's how it'll go. I'll walk you through building it.
And then a week later they just like I bought this pre-built and they send me a
link. And I'm [laughter] like that's cool, man. I'm happy for you. You've got
a computer and whatever. It can be a daunting task. Yeah. Right. They get
afraid. >> It's just it's the same thing. It's like should you change your own oil?
Probably. It's not that hard. So you save a lot of money. You can dump it
down the drain. Uh, and [laughter] but 90% of people just go to the quick
lube and then say no to anything that they offer you and get your oil changed.
>> I hope so. >> Like, let's go, Adam. >> What is the biggest waste of money when
building a PC? >> This is hard to yes or no because
>> I mean, we're going to agree. >> Well, yeah, we got to wait for him. >> Answer.
>> There's so many ways to waste your money. Custom cables. >> Ooh,
>> custom cables. That's pretty good. >> I would broaden cables into aesthetics.
I think that aesthetics is the thing that people spend the most money on and
most people have their computers tucked beneath their desk. >> That's a fair I agree with that one.
>> As much as I fully agree with you, I am also the person who will absolutely go
and spend an extra $200 on RGB back plate, custom cables that match my bill,
extra RGB light strips. >> I'm in the school. I'm in like the Milford man type computer. Okay. A
computer should be neither seen nor heard [laughter] >> like children. I agree with that. And I
No, let's finish this. I have another one. >> Okay. You know what? No. If you guys are going to talk over each other, use the
screwdriver. It's the talking screwdriver. >> Go first on. >> No, I want to hear David's point.
>> Oh, I What I think people waste the most money on in PC building is impatience.
They don't wait for the right deal. And it's like, unless you have a broken
computer and you need that computer next week to do work, just wait for the
sales, man. Like, and buy peace meal. Don't buy it all at once. Wait for there
to be a motherboard and like RAM combo. Wait for there to be a C CPU and storage
combo. And you can save literally $1,000 on a $2,000 computer. Like you can save
so much money if you just wait a little bit. >> Yeah. Should I use an air cooler or an
AIO? >> Oh, wait. [laughter]
>> Now, >> you're up first. >> This is really tough cuz I think that
most people can use an AIO just fine. And they've gotten a lot more reliable
>> and cheap >> and cheaper. But I don't think you can
beat the reliability that is fan plus hunk of metal. So, I'm going to vote for
air cooler. >> I 100% agree with you >> for most people. >> Yes. Yeah, [snorts]
>> especially with Thermalite being king recently, their prices on their air
coolers have come down so much. >> They also sell like a $50 AIO.
>> That's what I That's what I have. I have two of them. >> That's the thing. But the fact you can
also get a similar performing $20 dual like tower cooler.
>> And I'm confident that my air cooler will work in 15 years, whereas my AO,
there's no way it's making it pass. No, >> the water will evaporate at some point
slowly over time or the pump might fail. Going back to the long-term use of it,
companies like Noctua basically promise any sort of mounting as new sockets come
out, right? You can email them and be like, "Hey, I still have this cooler
with proof of purchase. Can I get the newest mount?" And they'll send you >> Don't have proof of purchase. It costs
$7. >> I think we're all pretty much on the same page though about an air cooler.
>> Get an air cooler if you're worried at all. >> Should I buy a good headset or surround
speakers? >> Oh, depends. >> I feel like this one might be a Linus
one. He's talked so much on WAN about how he misses like his 5.1 surround
setup that he used to have. I still think because I live with my wife, I
would get a headset. There's no way I could justify a surround experience
>> exact same dollar amount. What is our dollar amount? What is your living
situation? There is so many factors that decide what is better for your
situation. If I have to make a blanket statement for everyone, I think a
headset is more >> universally use useful. But I don't want
to make that statement. I'm I refuse. I'm surprised that this is even like the
comparison. I thought you were gonna say good headset plus or get a separate mic
and headphones. That's where I thought he was going. That's a great question, too. >> That's a bigger question to me because I
think should you buy surround speakers for your computer? No. [laughter]
>> Stupid. Let's debate that other question cuz I think we're actually more interested in the minutia of that. I am
>> headset with mic built-in or headset and mic combo separately with unlimited
budget. Of course, having separate devices is better. >> 100%. >> You have a $100 budget. Oh, okay.
Headset probably >> like the combo or like the
>> for 100 bucks. Yeah, because you're not going to get a decent pair of headphones and a decent mic for 100 bucks
>> if you're buying brand new kind of I I completely agree with you on that. I would
>> cuz on top of that you have to contend with the fact that then you have to you deal with two devices which is either
twice as many things to charge or twice as many wires. You have to deal with
usually there's less convenient sound management like you have to manage your
mic. Often times your if it's a USB mic it's also an output. There's so much to
deal with if it's on your desk and especially if it's cheap. It'll pick up all of your desk noise every single time
you bump it. Whereas a headset mic might be lower quality overall in terms of
your speech intelligibility. >> It's going to be less annoying to
everybody on the Discord call with you. >> Yeah, that's fair. I would rather just spend 100 bucks on headphones and
pretend like I don't have friends. [laughter] >> That's
headset versus speakers. I would think it's got to be a headset over surround.
>> I refuse to answer. just too situational right in the middle.
>> So I agree with David. First question is not a comparison that's relevant to
anybody who normal. >> And then for the second question about should you get a combo headset mic or
separate >> on a budget. >> On a budget, I think it's got to be
combo. >> If you're as close to 99 as possible and you're not going used, the combo.
>> No, I think you should still go separate. Just get a crappy mic to start
and then plan on investing in a $40 mic down the road.
>> Fair. The man preaches patience. >> What is a better investment? balling out
on a high-end system today or spreading out the same money over several small
upgrades. I'm a believer in using your money economically. And there's such a
big point of diminishing returns and PC building that you should you should aim
for good enough today with smart upgrades that you know you're going to
do in a couple years. >> I agree.
>> Oh, I might be the only one that disagrees. Tell us why you disagree,
Elijah. My idea behind this is let's say it's $5,000 over five years. I don't
know that's a really top-of-the-line system. By the way, I think like if you're buying that good of a computer in
our current state of gaming and how it's been the last couple years, you're going
to be totally fine in that 5 years versus trying to get to that same
performance by the time it's at that 5 year mark. >> I buy a $3,000 system right now and then
I buy a $2,000 graphics card 5 years from now, I'm going to have a better system. Maybe it just depends on them
what your starting and end budget is, right? Cuz I think if you start with
$1,000, I would totally agree on doing a
more upgrade path, right? >> I think it's tough cuz there's always a
little bit of like crystal balling and like I think that GPUs will be better
better value in 2 years. So, I'm going to plan for that to be the time that I
upgrade my GPU. But, you never really know like something catastrophic can
happen in the world or things can change or someone has breakthrough technology and all of a sudden there's $250
graphics cards that are really freaking good. And I feel like that's playing a dangerous gambling game in some elements
versus you know what you can get right now. This is what you can get.
>> Yeah, but what you can get right now sucks. >> I agree on that part.
>> Let's reduce it from 5,000 cuz that's way more than >> go 2,000 total. $2,000.
>> $1,000 PC, $1,000 of a index ETF.
[laughter] Okay. And then >> honestly, >> and then sell that in two years.
>> But then you have to pay taxes on the income you make. >> No, I put it in my TFSA. It's a tax
sheltered account. Obviously say use my registered account. Elijah, [laughter] this is financial advice.
>> No, no, no. >> I think again it comes down to situational, but I would agree for
probably most people. I would probably lean back towards you guys. And I would
agree that doing the incremental upgrades is better >> for most people.
>> When you're buying crypto, you go you dollar cost average. Okay, dollar cost
averaging. That's when you space out. That's why you even out your losses. Is
ray tracing worth the FPS hit? Absolutely not. Ray tracing is yet to be
an un is a still unproven technology. It is a perform worse button. Um half the
time unless you're using the ultra ray tracing settings, you're getting worse than the bakedin lighting. Uh that's
true for the middle and below settings on Cyberpunk. It's true in Allen Wake
until you get to the really high settings which absolutely nuke your performance. ray tracing. It was a
solution looking for a problem that has been shoved down our throats by NVIDIA
and now everyone's doing it for some reason because it has been the hype thing and also NVIDIA is now a $5
trillion company. So if you just kind of you know work with NVIDIA then you get
that NVIDIA money. Okay, so here's the thing. Okay. No, no, no. It's not okay.
It's not okay. Ray tracing sucks. >> Raid tracing is bad. They said, "What if
we chose what if we just tried to make the most infinitely difficult thing to
compute and what if we made us do it now instead of rendering out like nor like
like everyone else?" Like they just chose an impossible task and then said, "Let's yeet hardware at it." And they
failed for 10 years straight. I agree with the prompt and I disagree with you
guys. I think that it's on a per game basis. Metro Exodus, for example,
especially with their version that was done without raster and was entirely ray
trace. It looks incredible. depending on what FPS you're starting from. If we're
going from 100 and I'm going down to 80 to enable ray trace lighting, I'll
probably do that. >> Maybe I just have so much like pentup hatred because also like ray tracing
when they called it ray tracing they're like well it's not actually path tracing. Path tracing is a different thing. I was like it wasn't ray tracing
in the first place cuz ray tracing is path tracing. Okay, so when they just
they just lied the whole time. They lied the whole time. It's like how no it's not okay. Do you know what what how big
is the transistor in your CPU? >> It's not on a 5n process. That's all
I think most of us say that it is not worth [laughter] the FPS.
>> Not worth it. >> Except for Plof. He thinks it's worth it. >> Depending on the game.
>> Oh, this one's definitely a Linus one. It's definitely more of an opinion
piece. >> Oh, boy. >> Is ad block piracy?
>> Yeah. Okay. The problem with the premise in this discussion?
>> Well, I I asked a lot. >> No, I asked the question. I'm supposed
to go. You're right. You're right. Thank you. Talking screwdriver. ltstore.com.
I'm I'm just I'm hearing everyone getting ready to type on their keyboards at home right now. At its core, yes, ad
block is piracy. >> I agree.
>> Do I do it and I'm a pirate? Yes. >> Yo. Yeah. I'm not saying I don't, but
it's 100% piracy. >> I think it is. Yeah. >> You want to say something? I'll let you
go. >> The problem is, how do we define piracy? And like we could sit here and debate
the the minutia of what that means. And we could define it to have it be that
Adblock is piracy one way or we could define it that it's not. And I think that like
>> the question the real problem people had is that they thought Lionus was like
attacking the morality and I don't think that's what he was doing. And I think
that like piracy is totally fine. And like there's nothing wrong if you want
to pirate. I pirate a ton. Uh like we all do
>> for legal reasons. No one here does. >> So I disagree.
>> Uh mainly because it makes the discussion more interesting. [laughter]
>> I think the whole the whole thing ad block is piracy is a packaging issue. However, my my thought is that you're
not enriching the artists who are providing you with free art. You are
enriching the platform, right? The thing that you are stealing is not the this is
where people get mad about it because when you think about it, the thing that you're stealing is the data
>> because that's what costs money for the platform.
>> You're not stealing the art because it's already being streamed and available. >> Yeah. But that's like such a a narrow
argument because the platform is what provides the data in terms of like what
we measure our success on. I mean, if we saw recently with Lionus talked about
this on the WAN with how many people use Ad Blocker, we saw our views take a dip
because people are using it so much, right? When ad blocker actually made a
change recently that was affecting how views were counted on YouTube. And if
you were to extrapolate that into what our normal ratio is and try to
extrapolate revenue, not even just for us, but other creators that are out
there on the platform, it's not just stealing from YouTube cuz you big bad
YouTube company. you are actually harming creators. But I think in terms
of this argument, we're going to break it back down to its core. It is piracy
using ad blocker. I still think it is piracy. >> I think it's a not it's not piracy. It's
a packaging error. I think it harms creators. I think it harms the platform.
But I also think that they've dug their own hole. It's the same thing you're saying.
>> It's a service issue. >> We need David's vote. >> David convinced me to pay for YouTube
Premium. [laughter] >> He did. >> It's the one thing that's worth paying
for. >> Is ad block piracy? >> It's piracy, but it's totally fine to do
it. There is nothing wrong with doing it. >> I actually recommend it. >> I recommend it.
>> Safety on the internet. >> Yep. We are supporting you for doing it.
>> When is the best time to upgrade your computer? There's no best time when you
have the money or when you need to. >> Yeah. >> Uh if we want something that's more
practical like when in during the year. >> Oh, you should buy hard. uh back to
school sales, Cyber Monday, and then
usually assuming everything's in stock >> when the next gen launches, buying old
gen stuff drops pretty quickly. >> Huge. >> So, like mid-spring, late summer is
always kind of a good thing. >> I agree with all that. I think overall, it's safe to say that we all agreed on
some things, gave different answers for others, and I think that's why it's super important whenever you're looking
or have a question, you should do research. Find multiple videos by
different creators. Use Reddit to search for different reviews. And you should
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guys enjoyed this video, go check out the recent video where Lionus answered some questions online. He kind of went
undercover to answer some questions just like us. And make sure to check out
Flowplane where we discuss where we discuss. >> OKAY, WAIT. [laughter] GET READY. STOP.