Our last guide you'll ever need covers how to build a computer from parts. But
what it can't cover [music] is what parts you should choose. Within a few
months, any recommendation that I make will be hopelessly out of date. And I
could build an entire content farm to
upload a new build video every single day for the rest of my life. And I
wouldn't even scratch the surface of the possible configurations. So, how do you
go from I want to join the rest of the enlightened gamers on the obviously
superior platform to I now have a cart full of parts that actually work
together? Ask the internet perhaps. But where? To find out, we went to not one,
not two, but three websites in search of
answers. the PC part picker forum, the r/build athec subreddit where we were
[music] promptly redirected to r/build apc forme, and of course our very own
Linus techtips.com forum. No matter who wins, I just want to say a quick thanks
to the tech community members who helped my Smurf account, Bethesda boy,
configure his very real computer based on very fake requirements. And give a
quick thank you to our sponsor, MSI. They've decked their halls with epic
savings on PC gaming goodies, and this list of deals is refreshed regularly, so
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Each one of our interactions started with a simple post explaining our
objective. We wanted the best tower we could get for $1,000 with the goal of
playing Starfield and maybe streaming a bit. We told them we were aiming for
1080p, that we were in the United States, and that taxes and shipping
wouldn't be factored into our budget. Starting with response time, the PC part
picker forum was helpful and quick to respond, as was the LTT forum. But
Reddit, well, all right. As I mentioned before, we started in r/build a PC, but
as it turns out, you can't do that there anymore. They have a strict no build
spoon feeding requests rule and our post was quickly taken down. Okay, [music]
so instead, we went to r/build a PC for
me, which unfortunately has less than
125th the member count. So, we posted
and waited and ultimately nobody
replied. To be clear, there's definitely activity over there, but our post was
flagged as spam and taken down. And when we reached out to the mods, we got no
response. So, after being ghosted, we defaulted to the $1,000 speed build from
their summer 2023 best buy guide for team Reddit. Then, I guess credit goes
to user xxstfan xxx1 since [music] they
posted the guide. One quick note, by the way, this list uses parametric
selection, so it can actually change slightly depending on sales or other
discounts. We noticed this after we completed our build and went back to
screenshot our parts list and realized that it had actually changed, so your
mileage [music] may vary. When we clicked it, though, we got a Ryzen 5
5600X using the stock cooler on an
ASRock B550M Phantom 4 motherboard. We
got a 16 gig kit of reasonably fast DDR4
and an RTX 4070. Now, you might notice
for our test builds today that we didn't necessarily worry too much about having
the exact same parts, but we did make an effort to ensure that our results would
be comparable. So, we're using the ATX version of the same MATX motherboard
here, a dual fan GPU with similar advertised clock speeds, and the same
spec of memory, albeit from a different [music] brand. This should be pretty
representative. The whole thing is powered by a 650 BQ bronze power supply
from EVGA and housed in a Fantex Eclipse
G300A, the single fan variant. No
frrills. Our haul came to a total of $1,020.81
without rebates or promos. And honestly, this is really solid and it was a great
case to build [music] in. The included fan cable was more than long enough to
reach whichever header we wanted. Velcro straps made tying down cables a breeze,
and the little channel to the side of the board made getting everything tucked away nice and easy without needing to
sit on the back of it to close the panel. That is a That is a clean looking
build. Here's what we're going to do. Preset high. Then we're going to turn
dynamic resolution off and set [snorts] the render resolution scale to 100%. I
left FSR on and that is a pretty darn
smooth, not to mention better looking gaming experience. Imagine that running
at native resolution being a good idea. I mean, 1% lows in the 50 FPS range.
This is in a crowded environment with lots of character models all over me. I
can't fault the results. And you got to remember that this is while I'm screen
recording as well. And besides, if the noise bothers me, I can just put this
under the desk, throw my headphones, and it [music] goes away, just like
Starfield. Let's try out CS2. We're just setting up CS2 right now, trying to make
sure that we're running the same on all the systems. And they've got this really
cool preview of how the game will look when you adjust all of these settings. I
love that my 1% lows are above 100
freaking FPS and my averages are like 250. That's why I'm able to mow down
these bots, boys. I mean, there's no doubt that having better gear doesn't
hurt for Halo. We're seeing average FPS in the 150 to 160 range and 1% lows
above 100. This is a great gaming experience. Next up, PC Part Picker. I
was surprised to learn just how active that forum is over there. Not only did
we get responses quickly after posting, but almost everyone was welcoming and
helpful, even going as far as to provide rationale for their choices and weigh in
on the pros and cons of pirating Windows. Ultimately, we settled on this
build from JDH_N64.
It was right on the money for our budget at $1,5.93.
Verzero's built was also interesting. They were adamant that we would be
better off with a 13100F and posted their own list. But because that one
came in significantly under budget after we removed the peripherals we said we
didn't need and the copy of Windows, sorry, Microsoft, we stuck with JDH's
submission. So, we ended up with a Ryzen 5 5600 with an entry-level aftermarket
air cooler on a Gigabyte B550 board. As for our memory and GPU, we're rocking 16
gigs of DDR4, this time at higher clocks, but looser timings, and a Radeon
RX6800 with a whopping 16 gigs of VRAM.
They included only half as much NVMe storage, a little questionable given the
size of games these days, but that money was spent wisely on a 750 W gold-rated
power supply and a handsome Lean Lee Lancool 215 ATX midtower. Ain't she a
beauty? Not to mention super easy to build in. Not only was cable management
simple thanks to the space and tie-down support, but it comes with a fan hub and
a couple of gigantic front fans that could give this build a leg up in
performance if we end up being cooling constrained. This time around, we're on
team red, so our OBS encoding settings aren't quite the same. They look a touch
blurriier, but our gaming experience should be identical. Let's go ahead and
get Starfield. Not going to lie, before Frame View even loaded, I could feel the
difference in the 1% lows, which is funny because it doesn't seem like it
should be that different. Our averages down from 90, 100 down to
like 65, 70, but a difference in averages is not the
kind of thing that you'll feel in the same way that you feel a difference in
1% lows. You could stream still. I could. You could.
It also seems to be recovering a little bit. Our CPU is at 40. Yeah, 40°. Credit
to AMD and Bethesda for their collaboration here, I guess, because
this GPU has absolutely no right to be this competitive with the 4070.
So, let's go to Counterstrike and see how it works. Civilians, this seems every bit as
smooth and responsive and experience as what we saw before. You know what? When
we looked up the 6800 performance characteristics, we were looking at
launch reviews because I couldn't remember off the top of my head and you
got that whole AMD fine wineness, right?
Is the 6800 a 4070 equivalent? These are damn near the same numbers.
They're almost the same. We're averaging more like 200 to 220 or 230 and then our
1%s are anywhere from like 85 to like 110
120. I mean, the 1% lows is what matters more. Yeah, I know. I think they were more
consistent with the previous system, but not not by much.
Something I noticed though is that while our 1% lows are the same, even when
these drops occur, our averages drop a
little bit lower during particularly intense periods. Here, it's pretty clear
that as is tradition, we're more CPU limited than GPU limited. Yeah, CS2 is a
darn good experience on this system. Pretty good. Halo, this is it. Moment of
truth. Can we beat lows of 120, averages of
160, 170? It's pretty comparable. It's not the
same, though. FPS is really kind of staying around that 110 range.
Yep. Slowly creeping up to like 115, 120 sometimes, but that's about it.
I think it's time for us to talk trade-offs here because this is not as
obvious a choice as it might seem. On the one hand, the 407D system is
probably the better allrounder. It's got better support for ray tracing. It's got
DLSS, but what it lacks compared to our AMDbased system is all the other stuff
we were able to get with the money we saved on our GPU. Better case, better
power supply, better motherboard, and a better cooler that not only
is dead flipping quiet, our CPU is at 40°. Last but not least, I hope, let's
take a look at the rig that I've got a bit of a personal stake in the entry
from our very own LTT forum. It slices,
it dices, it hopefully plays games a little bit better than these other two
systems. Um, user Y_ME,
well, because you volunteered. Uh, starts us off strong with a Ryzen 7
5700X cooled by a Thermal Rate Assassin X120
on an ASUS ROG Stricks B550E.
They managed to squeeze a whopping 32 gigs of 3600 CL18 memory in at the same
speeds as the Reddit build with the same 1 TB of NVMe storage, but using a much
higher quality drive from Samsung. And they've got a similar class 750 W 80
plus gold power supply, which it's probably a bit overkill for our graphics
card cuz it's a lowly RX7600.
Yeah, was a good ride while it lasted, but it turns out that what goes up must
come down. And I think the sacrifices we
made to our GPU in order to have all those other creature comforts are going
to cost us big time in our gaming tests. One really nice inclusion though was the
Fractal Pop Air, which is very pleasant to build in, has great airflow, and
comes in a variety of colors. That being said, this was the only combination of
parts where we needed to run and grab an extra piece, a fan extension, in order
to complete our build since the cable for one of the front fans was a tad
short to reach the headers on the motherboard. Before we get into the
performance of this build, by the way, one thing I found very interesting about
all of these was the obvious importance of case selection to our community
members. As someone who is willing to fight through a bad case design in order
to achieve a given look or form factor that suits my purposes, I usually don't
give much thought to case. But these choices from Fractal, Fantex, and Lean
Lee were all pleasant to work in with enough air flow for modern power hungry
components and ample room for cable management. A good case, if well cared
for, can last many years and be a very
worthwhile investment for your delicate little fingies. But if you're a
massochist who likes building in tight cases, hey, at least you can make your
life a little bit easier with the stubby screwdriver from ltstore.com. This
computer, look, it runs the game, but we
paid the exact same amount for it that we did for the others, and we're getting
some benefits. You know, we've got the fancier motherboard. We have more RAM.
We have the more premium SSD that I would actually trust more, but our 1%
lows are lower.
Yeah, your average is still around the same 5560 that we were seeing.
Yeah, but that's lower than both the other systems. Yeah, I know.
It's very noticeable. When I'm panning around, I can feel it cuz it's only 10
FPS difference in the 1% lows. But another way of saying that is about a
30% difference in the most stuttery,
laggiest feeling parts. It's very playable.
Yeah, very playable. But we paid exactly the same for this
system as we did for the other ones. And I'm just not sure if some of the
advantages like having more RAM and
admittedly a higher quality SSD are worth it.
Time for CS:GO. 250 on the average. That's higher than
the 6800. I think what we're learning then is that
CS2, just like its predecessor, is very
CPU bottleneck. Yeah, especially at 1080p. Yep. I was not expecting any wins with
how underpowered the 7600 is compared to our other GPUs.
Yeah. And how underpowered poor Bot Wesley is here.
Boom. Got him. You know what? It's worse, but it's still pretty good.
This is not bad at all. We're hitting like high 80s, mid90s for the 1%
100ish averages, 110 even. It's absolutely very playable. It's very
clear at this point that none of these systems are bad. After our results were
so close, we felt it necessary to verify our unscientific findings before
throwing anyone under the bus. So, we sent all three of our competitors out to
the Labs team to duke it out. Now, since we can't meaningfully benchmark
Starfield yet, we threw a small mix of other games at our systems and tested
pure raster performance as well as streaming on either the CPU or GPU since
Envank wasn't always an option. And the
results are in. Wow, what an upset. The
5700X from LT Forum comes in clutch.
Really? Oh, when running Dota 2, it was
the only system to crack the 200 FPS
barrier and remains on top whether you're using GPU or CPU encoding.
However, it is clear that this is a heavily CPU bottlenecked game since our
x264 encoding dragged everyone down anywhere from 23 to 32%. [music]
Yikes. And in our second result, oh no,
this is what I was afraid of. For Red Dead Redemption 2, Reddit won by a nose
against PC Part Picker and by a country mile against LTT Forum. And we get more
of the same story once we start streaming with LT Forum falling further
behind, though notably staying above that 60fps 1% lows threshold. Last but
not least, Cyberpunk 2077, the great equalizer, but not really because LTT
Forum is firmly in last place again. The only real notable thing here is that PC
Parer pulls ahead in the 1% lows across all three tests and even squeezes past
our Reddit build when using x264. It's obvious now then that Dota aside, LTT
Forum didn't quite make the grade here. Unless esports is your focus, it's
almost always better to overspend on your GPU rather than your CPU. There is
some merit to building with a higherend CPU first and swapping a better GPU in
later, especially if we're on the cusp of a new generation being released or
something like that. But that wasn't the challenge today. We wanted performance
now, not at some time in the future. So,
we've got to give the win. I'd say it's a split decision between Reddit and
[music] PC Part Picker. If you guys enjoyed this video, be sure to check out
our latest secret shopper series. Not everyone wants to build their own
computer. Some people like a pre-built. Part one is already out and the rest of
them are on their