WEBVTT 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:04.920 This is the $69 gaming PC, and it's great. 00:00:04.920 --> 00:00:09.160 Except for one small problem. It keeps turning all of my favorite new AAA games 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:12.400 into what I call slideshow simulator. 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:17.520 Which got me wondering, what would happen if we added just a little bit more budget? 00:00:17.520 --> 00:00:22.160 Could we play any game on the market with legitimately good performance? 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:29.080 To find out, I personally signed a big, beautiful budget increase of $200, 00:00:29.080 --> 00:00:33.160 allowing us to upgrade our hot dog to a hot damn. 00:00:33.160 --> 00:00:39.560 I'm talking games like Doom the Dark Ages, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Cyberpunk at 1080p 60 FPS. 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:44.840 And I picked up another set of parts to show that if we start our $269 built-in scratch, 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:48.800 we can do even better. Wow, this is actually much higher end than I expected. 00:00:48.800 --> 00:00:52.000 Is this a 2080 Super? 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:57.400 I know. Can you believe that? That's almost as unbelievable as this 360 pop shove 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:00.200 Willie Grind, segue to our sponsor. 00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:09.800 All things considered, our latest $69 gaming PC 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:20.400 is a fantastic little machine. But it was built with compromise at its core. 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:23.080 Like these dangerously rough cutouts. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:27.480 Wow. These two precarious power supplies, 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:33.720 not to mention the low power CPU that was meant more for crunching spreadsheets than games. 00:01:33.720 --> 00:01:37.880 That's a good place for us to start by asking what is the best CPU 00:01:37.880 --> 00:01:42.040 that we can put into this motherboard without swapping any of our other components? 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:45.720 And the answer is the Core i7 3770K. 00:01:45.720 --> 00:01:49.960 But when we found this Core i5 3570 non-K 00:01:49.960 --> 00:01:53.840 for just five Canadian dollars, that was a deal we couldn't refuse. 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.520 Even if it does mean we'll lose a few FPS versus its big brother. 00:01:57.520 --> 00:02:02.160 Now, if you're looking at that deal thinking, oh, is this another David build 00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:06.120 where he just flexes his deal hunting skills on us mere mortals? 00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:10.320 The answer is no. For budgeting purposes, I made him use prices 00:02:10.320 --> 00:02:14.840 that were actually readily available across a combination of Marketplace and eBay. 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:19.840 So this CPU counts against him for $15. 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:23.840 But even so, we have lots of budget left for other upgrades, 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:29.040 like this four by four gig kit of memory from Corsair for about $10. 00:02:29.040 --> 00:02:34.320 We're not only doubling our capacity here, but it's faster than our old mini greenies too, 00:02:34.320 --> 00:02:38.240 at least in theory. I do have some doubts about this HP motherboard 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:41.240 actually supporting the stuff at full speed. 00:02:41.240 --> 00:02:45.840 Next, we're gonna improve our storage situation with an upgrade to a Hitachi one terabyte hard drive 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:50.080 for $10. What are all the great things I can say about this drive? 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:53.720 Well, it has one terabyte of storage, which is enough that we won't need 00:02:53.720 --> 00:02:58.320 to constantly redownload our games, and it saves us the $30 to $40 00:02:58.320 --> 00:03:03.400 that we would spend on a larger SSD. With all of those positives out of the way, 00:03:03.400 --> 00:03:09.680 let me make this clear. For anything but a game drive, I don't really recommend random old used hard drives, 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:14.080 but for an application like this where reliability doesn't matter, it's totally valid. 00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:20.120 Now, for obvious reasons, we played around with the idea of replacing the case 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:26.880 from our original $69 PC, but we realized that that would have cascading consequences. 00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:29.960 For one thing, our motherboard might not fit in the new chassis, 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:35.000 and for another, we would need a new power supply that is actually enough for the entire system 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:39.080 because we'd have nowhere to mount our second power supply. 00:03:39.080 --> 00:03:42.240 So instead, we opted to go all in 00:03:42.280 --> 00:03:45.280 and invest our remaining budget in our GPU. 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:50.240 With about $166 left, our options are somewhat limited, 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:54.120 but if we sell the old RX 570 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:58.560 for the price we originally paid, which shouldn't be a challenge, we got a great deal, 00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:02.580 all of a sudden, we have over $200 to play with. 00:04:02.580 --> 00:04:08.480 With that kind of dash in our pocket, it was tempting then to go for the legendary GTX 1080 Ti, 00:04:08.480 --> 00:04:12.200 which can be had for less than $150 these days. 00:04:12.200 --> 00:04:16.000 But we're starting to see games that require feature support 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:19.720 that that card simply doesn't have, which pushes us to newer cards 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:26.720 that have hardware ray tracing support, like an AMD 6700 or a GeForce 2070 Super. 00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:30.820 Now it is worth noting, if you get really lucky, you might be able to get something better. 00:04:30.820 --> 00:04:36.600 We found a handful of 2080s, we've even 2080 supers for just around $200 US, 00:04:36.600 --> 00:04:40.520 and looking at the sold listings on eBay, that's not an unrealistic target 00:04:40.520 --> 00:04:44.400 if you're willing to play the game in order to play games. 00:04:44.400 --> 00:04:49.760 But that was a little bit outside of the easy to obtain range that I had for David, 00:04:49.760 --> 00:04:53.040 so we're gonna go with the 2070 Super for our build. 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:58.920 Sorry, David, this is a little tricky, so while we're getting everything aligned, 00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:03.040 let's talk about the importance of casting a wide net for parts that fit your budget, 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:06.120 and then pulling the trigger when you see the right deal. 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:10.000 You've gotta have some idea what you're aiming for, set up your keyword notifications, 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:13.840 then pounce. And if you're not sure where to start 00:05:13.840 --> 00:05:17.240 on what kind of hardware is gonna work for you, we really like the Toms hardware, 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:22.140 CPU and GPU hierarchy charts. Oh, and another really good resource 00:05:22.140 --> 00:05:26.040 is those super helpful head-to-head benchmark videos that you can find on YouTube. 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:29.560 Shout out to the creators of those. All right. 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.680 Yay. Let's fire it up. 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:39.520 Is what I would say, if it wasn't for the big question we need to answer, 00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:44.880 would we have just been better off building a $269 gaming PC in the first place 00:05:44.880 --> 00:05:49.320 rather than building a $69 gaming PC and upgrading it? 00:05:49.320 --> 00:05:54.240 Short answer, maybe. Our higher initial budget makes it easier 00:05:54.240 --> 00:05:59.920 for us to target someone's old custom PC rather than being stuck with a dusty workstation. 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:03.680 Ideally then, we can find something with a newer CPU. 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:09.360 In general, it's worth noting that you're still better off trying to buy things in a bundle versus individual parts. 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:15.240 You'll save on delivery time and cost. And ideally, you'll be able to test the bundle together 00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:19.680 before you actually hand over the cash, like you've seen us do during Scrapyard Wars. 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:25.100 For stability testing, we like using stress tests like OCCT and Furmark. 00:06:25.100 --> 00:06:29.240 And for monitoring temperatures, hardware info is a great choice. 00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:32.360 With that said, when I'm buying budget parts in particular, 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:35.440 I'm usually okay with the seller just sending me a video 00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:38.840 of them running a stress test as long as they have a decent rating. 00:06:38.840 --> 00:06:42.920 But I'll leave that up to your judgment. We picked up a few different bundles, 00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:47.040 each with their own strengths and weaknesses. But the one we liked best was built around 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:52.360 one of our favorite target CPUs for builds like this, the Intel Core i5-8400. 00:06:52.360 --> 00:06:56.020 This chip could trade blows with the previous generation's flagship 00:06:56.020 --> 00:06:59.080 thanks to its six cores that boost to up to four gigahertz. 00:06:59.080 --> 00:07:03.080 And because it was so popular, there are tons of people trying to get rid of them, 00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:08.320 meaning that deals on these chips are plentiful. This H310 motherboard that it came with 00:07:08.320 --> 00:07:12.520 offers us a decent upgrade path. And the whole platform is new enough 00:07:12.520 --> 00:07:16.240 that it shouldn't have any significant obstacles to running Windows 11. 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:20.400 Included with our bundle for a hundred US dollars, we got 16 gigs of team group RAM 00:07:20.400 --> 00:07:27.840 at 2666 mega transfers per second, a decent mid-sized case, and an optical drive. 00:07:27.840 --> 00:07:31.440 But none of that is enough to test out these parts to make sure we didn't get scammed. 00:07:31.440 --> 00:07:36.440 So we also picked up this C-Sonic X650W power supply 00:07:36.960 --> 00:07:42.320 for around $30. Now buying a used power supply is a roll of the dice 00:07:42.320 --> 00:07:45.400 on the best of days, especially a modular one. 00:07:45.400 --> 00:07:49.760 Make sure you get all the cables, they are not interchangeable. 00:07:49.760 --> 00:07:53.560 So if you must buy a used power supply, you might want to look to eBay. 00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:57.080 Between a visible seller rating, not to mention more robust fire protection, 00:07:57.080 --> 00:08:00.560 the online auction house might be our preferred source for used power supplies. 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:01.960 Let's get this one installed. 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:09.400 Next up, we need some decent storage. We actually got offered a free 128 gig SSD 00:08:09.400 --> 00:08:14.920 when we picked up our core system. Just goes to show you, it's always worth being a good polite buyer 00:08:14.920 --> 00:08:21.160 because occasionally you might get some freebie stone in. But that's just gravy because our motherboard is new enough 00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:26.160 that we can aim for an NVMe SSD instead, like this 500 gig Kingston NV2 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:30.840 that we got for just under $20. Now to be clear, if you're in a hurry, 00:08:30.840 --> 00:08:36.800 you might have to settle for a SATA drive for this budget. But deals like this one are definitely out there. 00:08:36.800 --> 00:08:42.440 And I gotta say, this computer is a lot more modern than I expected so far. 00:08:42.440 --> 00:08:46.120 Let's stress test it. OCCT is a great tool for stress testing computers 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:50.720 and they've even got these helpful little tooltips throughout the UI that will help you configure it 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.280 to stress the correct components for what you're trying to validate. 00:08:54.280 --> 00:08:57.600 Shout out to their team, by the way, they're working on a new LTT themed skin. 00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:01.080 So stay tuned for that. It's coming whenever it comes. 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:04.720 Look at her go. It's also not a bad idea to run Crystal Disk Info 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:09.240 to check out the power on hours and see if there are any smart errors on your SSD. 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:13.560 Assuming nothing's defective, we should be able to run stress tests like this indefinitely. 00:09:13.560 --> 00:09:18.880 It's not like we're overclocking or anything. On that subject, choosing parts that can overclock 00:09:18.880 --> 00:09:22.720 is not a bad choice for stretching out the life of budget parts. 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:26.480 But the flip side is that if it doesn't support overclocking, 00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:31.520 it means it's never been overclocked. So you know that it hasn't been pushed to its limits. 00:09:31.520 --> 00:09:34.800 Hey, we passed. Now that we trust our core system then, 00:09:34.800 --> 00:09:39.280 it's time to plan our next move. We could move up in the RAM world, 00:09:39.280 --> 00:09:43.920 but it's gonna be hard to find a noticeable bump in performance for a low price. 00:09:43.920 --> 00:09:47.480 So I think we're gonna skip that. We already have a pretty good case 00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:51.840 and a functioning cooler. I mean, I wouldn't blame you for upgrading that, 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:56.160 but personally, I wouldn't bother until I've sorted out everything else. 00:09:56.160 --> 00:10:00.840 This time around, because we were trying to build a system that would provide a more balanced experience, 00:10:00.840 --> 00:10:06.460 not to mention an easier upgrade path, we actually have a little less money to invest in our GPU, 00:10:06.460 --> 00:10:09.680 which means we're probably gonna end up with a 2060 00:10:09.680 --> 00:10:14.080 or a 2060 Super for around $160. 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:20.800 Oh, even at that price, it kind of breaks our budget, putting us around $300. 00:10:20.800 --> 00:10:28.680 But David pointed out that he was able to find these cards for more like $125 to $130 with a little bit of patience. 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:36.040 And if you're able to be really patient, we even saw a couple of 2070 class cards in this range. 00:10:36.040 --> 00:10:40.520 So happy hunting. Something, something transparent screwdriver, 00:10:40.520 --> 00:10:44.720 lttstore.com, let's go. Look at this thing. I've actually been waiting so long for this stage. 00:10:44.720 --> 00:10:49.740 Look at it go. It's like an LTT screwdriver, but clearer. 00:10:53.040 --> 00:10:58.040 Question now is which of our systems gives us a better overall gaming experience? 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:01.800 Right out of the gate. Yours is really loud. Yes. 00:11:01.800 --> 00:11:06.640 Kind of unpleasant. Also, the shader caching on his. 00:11:06.640 --> 00:11:09.720 Took at least half an hour. At least, that was brutal. 00:11:10.680 --> 00:11:14.200 Yeah, you're doing a little bit better. Your men's are higher than my average. 00:11:14.200 --> 00:11:18.400 It goes to show you the most powerful GPU 00:11:18.400 --> 00:11:24.860 is not always the correct answer. I wasn't expecting such a huge disparity. 00:11:24.860 --> 00:11:30.520 Then again, I mean, that's what? Third gen and this is an eighth gen. 00:11:30.520 --> 00:11:34.640 It's a huge, huge difference. That's a big difference in CPU performance. 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:40.000 Still, this is not an especially pretty game, but there's no denying it's demanding 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:45.960 and it's running way better on the from the ground up to $69 gaming PC. 00:11:45.960 --> 00:11:49.720 That being said, this computer is still mostly playable. 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:53.460 Like you're not having a great time and you're having frame drops to sub 10 once in a while, 00:11:53.460 --> 00:11:56.960 but you could get through this game probably. Yeah. 00:11:56.960 --> 00:12:01.120 So if our goal was to build a PC that can run any modern game, 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:04.360 Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't gonna stop us. Let's try the next one. 00:12:04.360 --> 00:12:07.360 I'm really feeling my hard drive right now. 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:10.560 You just finished a game, reloaded into a game 00:12:10.560 --> 00:12:14.760 and are playing before I even loaded my first one. Yeah, it's pretty brutal, dude. 00:12:14.760 --> 00:12:18.400 Disconnected, no. Oh, we're on the same game. 00:12:18.400 --> 00:12:21.480 No way. Yeah, but uh. Oh, nice. 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:25.320 Okay, let's go. Oh, that's you, hey. 00:12:25.320 --> 00:12:28.720 Dang it. I wouldn't have won. This is not great. 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:32.920 I'm above 60 on my 1% lows, but it feels quite choppy. 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:36.240 How is yours feeling? Mine feels great. Why wasn't that? 00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:37.440 I have no excuses. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.040 Oh boy. Oh, I screen peeked. I was waiting for you to pop around that corner. 00:12:45.040 --> 00:12:48.360 You piece of crap. But I didn't get you. Oh no. 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:51.480 How dare you? God, I'm not. Ah, mother lover. 00:12:51.480 --> 00:12:54.840 I gotta say, my minimums are 84, 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:57.960 but it doesn't feel quite that smooth actually. Really? 00:12:57.960 --> 00:13:01.920 Oh, I got him. Oh, you did get me. It's over. You're the better CS player. 00:13:01.920 --> 00:13:02.760 Here, try this. 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:09.280 Oh my God, that's so much better. Yeah, yours is definitely worse, 00:13:09.280 --> 00:13:12.320 but it's not as worse or as it should be. 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:17.040 I think if we fandangled the settings a bit, we would get a better experience on both of them. 00:13:17.040 --> 00:13:22.560 Yeah. I just wanted sort of to set a benchmark. You can absolutely play esports games on either of them. 00:13:22.560 --> 00:13:27.240 100%. But that's a way better experience because we have a way better CPU. 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:31.640 All right, what else we got? How you doing over there? It would be so nice for the menu to load. 00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:38.200 Oh yeah, this is what happens. Oh. 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:45.960 Oh, that's rough. So if our goal is to be able to play any AAA game, 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:49.160 we're basically stuck with the ground up build 00:13:49.160 --> 00:13:55.800 where we choose a more modern platform. And you could choose a more modern office PC, 00:13:55.800 --> 00:14:03.560 but from my experience, the more recent stuff is still kind of deployed slash still has an obvious value. 00:14:03.560 --> 00:14:09.120 So you're not able to get as good a deal on it as you are compared to the really obsolete office PCs. 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:13.480 This is the office PC I found that's similar to that one. It's got an 8,500 in it. 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:17.200 And it was about $110. Okay. 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:22.040 So pretty good value. And we could have like modified it, made it work. But it's also really similar in price 00:14:22.040 --> 00:14:27.460 to the custom one we got. So it doesn't set itself apart in terms of value. 00:14:27.460 --> 00:14:31.600 And we're stuck with this proprietary power supply and really limiting case. 00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:37.760 So when you're looking at new enough stuff, it probably does make more sense to go for a custom PC. 00:14:37.760 --> 00:14:41.920 100%. Yep. Okay, she's demanding. 00:14:41.920 --> 00:14:45.880 We might need a little bit of DLSS out there. Medium was also probably an error. 00:14:45.880 --> 00:14:49.240 Oh yeah, it's too low. Maybe some DLSS. Okay, yeah. 00:14:49.240 --> 00:14:54.920 Fast paced game like this, you are not going to want to play at dips down to 15 FPS. 00:14:54.920 --> 00:14:59.040 Let's try just low first or do you want to have DLSS on? Let's try low first. 00:14:59.040 --> 00:15:02.880 Because 1% lows are pretty damn low. Yeah, this is not great. 00:15:02.880 --> 00:15:08.920 It could deal with this. I could play the game though. Yeah, it looks like it doesn't feel as choppy as it, 00:15:08.920 --> 00:15:13.720 the frame times are saying. What is it about id and just being able to make games 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:17.800 that look incredible and run pretty damn incredible? 00:15:18.280 --> 00:15:23.760 Just for me, can you try DLSS? Oh, absolutely. I think with quality, that's all we're going to need. 00:15:23.760 --> 00:15:27.280 That is a playable experience. Very. 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:33.040 Looks a little softer obviously, but very playable, not just a little. 00:15:33.040 --> 00:15:37.880 And say what you want about DLSS and fake frames and all that. 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:43.600 I would rather play like this than like I was before at native. 100%. 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:47.440 It's pretty incredible what you can get for 269 bucks though, I got to say. 00:15:47.480 --> 00:15:51.920 Unbelievable. This is freaking awesome. 00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:55.120 Say what you will about the state of the new PC market. 00:15:55.120 --> 00:15:58.360 It is a great time to build a sub $500 PC 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.880 if you're willing to use used parts. There are solid deals out there, 00:16:01.880 --> 00:16:06.520 both on mostly built computers that have not that old platforms 00:16:06.520 --> 00:16:12.760 and on three generation old cards that as you can see, still hold up pretty darn well. 00:16:12.760 --> 00:16:18.120 As far as narrowing down your choices, personally, I would avoid pre-RTX NVIDIA 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:22.360 and pre-5000 series AMD if you're interested in running modern games 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:26.840 since we're expecting to see more and more titles that require an up-to-date feature set. 00:16:26.840 --> 00:16:31.080 Most Intel cards should be fine, but we've noticed that it's hard to find them 00:16:31.080 --> 00:16:35.080 at a good price and that could be a combination of the lack of widespread adoption 00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:39.360 and also the fact that Arc is riding a new wave of popularity. 00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:43.440 Maybe it's a bit of both. But you know what else is riding a new wave of popularity? 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:47.760 These segues to our sponsor. 00:16:48.760 --> 00:16:52.600 If you guys enjoyed this video and you like budget builds, you should definitely check out 00:16:52.600 --> 00:16:58.000 how we built the $69 gaming PC that we started with in this video. 00:16:58.000 --> 00:16:59.920 It was quite the hands-on project.