I just bought the world's bougiest GPU, an ASUS ROG Astral Dahab or Gold Edition,
an $8,000 RTX 5090 with six and a half grams of 24 carat gold on it.
But where could I possibly get a gaming PC? A throne, if you will, that's worthy of this,
Sultan of GPUs. How about the awesome Taipei tech mall that happens to be just a few blocks
from where I did the deal to get my hands on this bad boy?
You may remember Guanghua Digital Plaza from the last time that I visited and walked out with
this incredible machine. Well this time I'm back and the stakes are even higher because
I'm not planning to give this PC away to the first LTT fan I see, this time it's personal.
So sponsored by ASUS who wanted in on the action, I'm going to be searching for the builder that I
can trust to do it justice in terms of performance and aesthetics and because I'm spending my own
money I'm also looking for a decent deal. Step one is to look for my candidate builders.
I'm going to be asking them to send me a price and perhaps more importantly I'm going to be asking
them to send me a portfolio because these are small shops and they don't have the room to show
off all their capabilities right on the show floor. Like look at this place, they got a pile of GPUs
in the back of them that's as tall as Taipei 101. Of course I don't need a GPU, I already have that,
I need everything else. Do you do custom PC builds? I have the coolest GPU on earth this one
and I'm looking to do a build that is worthy of it. I don't want to waste money because I already
waste enough money. It has gold on it right? And this ain't going to be no just like get three
quotes pick the middle, they got to convince me. Okay these guys build some cool stuff.
Can I pick up a system by Friday? Friday? Oh it's okay, it's okay. Isn't that wild dude?
Top of the line gaming system? Oh you want it fast? Oh Friday, easy. That's in like four days.
Can you send me a quote? We're going to ask maybe three shops and then we're going to pick the one
that is going to do the build. Oh these guys have my attention. That is a cool build, curved
hardline water cooling. I mean Andy I'm sure you know what card this is but it seems cool.
Okay there you go. English? Yes. Yes I got the coolest GPU. Oh you got this. Yeah I need the
rest of the system. I want it to be a good spec but not wasteful. Now I asked three builders for
quotes here in the mall. I will only choose one. Basically I need a good quotation for the parts
and then most importantly I want a really cool concept for the case and the style and the cooling
to match the GPU. I want your concept, your art. Okay I will discuss with my engineer and see how
to do it. Of course it would feel wrong if we didn't give the OG a crack at building our throne.
Hey man! Hi! How you doing? This time I'm not filming in secret. Okay. I have a new assignment
for you should you choose to accept it. I got my hands on a very special GPU and I'm asking three
shops. I want a quote. I want them to send me examples of what they think are their best builds
they've done that they think would be worthy as a throne for this GPU to sit on. I need it by Friday.
Again? I'll try my best. But he's got to beat out the other two competitors. Okay. Okay. All right
good to see you man. Me too. Somehow I feel like he's gonna have a shot at it.
Now it's time to do my two favorite things. Eat Chef 78 spicy fried chicken
and reviewing PC builder quotes. So just as a refresher we've got the quote from the OG. We
know he has what it takes but he's pretty busy. How bad does he want another commissioned builder
right now? Builder number two up on the sixth floor clearly has the skills and the artistry.
But is there pricing any good? And finally on the bottom floor lots of showcase PCs but
do they have a concept for me? Dude this is so hard to pick. We're anywhere from three to $4,000
but all the specs are very different and none of them are wrong. My OG buddies got the 16 core
processor tried in Z5 Royal memory not to mention a four terabyte SSD and a surprise in the water
cooling. That's enticing. But then builder two on the sixth floor. Okay we only get the eight core
processor but realistically that's probably all we need and I'm apparently getting a $1,300 custom
cooling loop with a custom gold paint job and like some kind of like diorama on the bottom floor. I
think really leaned into the bang for the buck. Like that's a pretty good value other than maybe
the motherboard and the cooler are a little bit out of line with the rest of it. And then the other
not as affordable closer to $4,000. How do I pick? No matter who I go with I'm gonna feel so bad.
Shop two sent an updated mock-up of the diorama it has like camels and stuff.
But the case from the OG it puts the GPU like right front and center and it has a better spec.
I want to know what $1,800 of custom cooling and theme design and modification gets me
here in the tech mall. Let's go with builder two. Come on Andy. Time for the pickup. Let's go.
Well they're not ready yet. Apparently expo issues due to having four sticks of memory.
I've never seen that before. If only there was some video they could have watched
where they could have seen this coming. Front panel will be in the top. It will fall if you
put like a normal way to carry. Okay okay okay thank you. He just explained to me that if I tip the
box on the way to the hotel it will destroy the system. It will fall apart. Okay. How the hell
am I gonna get it home? Oh get it home. Get a home home. Yeah. I thought you meant like to the hotel.
No that's fine. Oh god. I might have to give it away after all. Time to find out if there's
any conceivable way that I can transport this. Oh and I guess this is as good a time as any
to mention that ASUS is celebrating 30 years of GPUs. 30 years of bangers I might add. They've
done some of the coolest overclocking models over the years. Hybrid liquid and air water cooling.
Fully water blocked ones. They were one of the earliest to do the massive PCBs and coolers that
have become so popular now. For better or for worse. Coming live to you from the Taiwan show.
Now he wants it. It's funny. You're gross. And I guess we'll see you again next week.
Same bad time. Same bad channel. Bye. And when show is finally over which means
it's time. Luke you're coming into this a little cold but I thought you'd enjoy this.
We will be unboxing a 12,000 US dollar computer from the tech mall from last year. And to give
you some idea of what we're coming up against that is a fill bottle. For some reason that's in
my accessory package. Okay. We've got a box for a water cooling reservoir. That makes sense. Yep.
Power supply box with extra cables. 1200 casual watts. Dancy. Plating them.
Extra hardware. Always love to see system integrators include that. One tube.
Water cooling and me. By Luke Lefrenier. An extra sleeve extension and some extra cable
combs. Hold on. You can't do that. That's right. Okay. We were given specific instructions that
the correct way to open this is to slice open the bottom and then lift the box off the top.
Oh it's water cooled. Also it's apparently extremely fragile. Oh. Oh speaking of which.
Wait what? There's some extra figures. These appear to be hand painted. At least the ones that are
painted. How are you gonna get this home? I think it's PC giveaway to electric boogaloo.
But first we need to see how they did. Yeah. That means I don't really want to slice open
the bottom of the case. Oh. Because I need to carry it around and give it to someone. I don't
got no packing tape. Okay. So are we gonna try to lift out of the top then? I'm not actually
familiar with the case manufacturer Dark Flash. Never heard of them. If I didn't have a diorama
in my computer this foam could probably help it survive the trip. Oh god. Okay. Well I can see
why they want us to. Here. How about this? I've got the box. I'm worried the. I get this.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Oh it looks so good already.
I could barely even see in there. That looks awesome. This was their initial pitch and I was
going to go with the OG and then while I was deciding they sent an updated pitch and I was like
yo. Do that one. We got to see what they cook. Wow. Dude. I wonder what on here is custom
and what was just already default on the case. I can tell you this GPU mount probably wasn't part
of the case. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't look like it. But you can get at two to three of the display
port ports which ought to be enough for anyone. Oh my. Oh you're already looking. You can kind of
see it through back here. Oh dude. One of them must be like a model train enthusiast or something
or like a tabletop gamer. Is this case available in gold? I don't think so. I think they did this.
It's pretty good though. You guys ready? Big moment. Big reveal. Oh my god.
What? They've got an oil ring. Oh it actually looks like. It's the color of oil. Yeah. That's
actually kind of sick. That is awesome. Oh the cable combs look awesome. Oh the RAM looks fantastic.
They blew it away. They really did. This is fantastic. They completely understood the assignment.
The tubing runs are great. Immaculate. Look at this tube. Yeah. You know I was thinking there
really aren't that many components that actually theme match this graphics card. But other than
painting the case I think this is off the shelf stuff and they just nailed it. The Trident Royals,
the cable combs, the like oil looking water cooling fluid. The sand. The sand was an incredible touch.
Now there was one drama as they were creating the case. They were having trouble getting it stable.
I don't know if it's like a cultural thing because this is now two systems in a row from
the tech mall. They like filling all four memory slots and on AMD that's not a great idea for
performance and compatibility. Let's see what they managed with custom timings. Time for this
computer to become as turned on as I am. Hey. Oh. You can't plug that in. Let's take you to mine.
Wait. Oh I mean it'll work. Yeah you could use the power of the GPU through the onboard port.
Just makes me want to cry. It looks so wrong. And it loses a little bit of performance. Yeah.
Do you have a keyboard? What? Didn't we have one secured? No. I said I have a mouse and a mouse pad.
I mean controller time. Are we firing this thing up? Sure. You want to do the honors? Yeah.
Yeah. Woohoo buddy. Would you leave it on full RGB like this? Yeah I'm tacky like that.
Okay. No bloat that I can see. Well I mean other than the usable. These antenna quick
connects are cool. I haven't actually seen these yet. And the IO on this motherboard is flipping
wild. Oh wow it's nice. It's not cheap but it has onboard two and a half gig, onboard five gig
networking. It has two 40 gig USB-C ports along with the two 10 gig USB-C ports. A bunch more USB
like this is an out of this world motherboard which is good because it's like six or seven
hundred dollars. I don't love that they seem to have all the fans just at max speed. I guess from
a performance standpoint. Oh they don't. I thought they just had everything as a flip and exhaust
but nope these are reverse blade fans. They're intakes. All right that's really nice to see.
What about this one? Okay so we got two intakes for exhausts which means things aren't going to be
that balanced but also three of those exhausts are through a radiator so. They're a decently thick
one. It shouldn't be too too far off and I guess to maybe their credit then the intakes are running
at full speed so maybe that was intentional. We haven't looked at the cable management at the back.
I got so distracted by the shiny I just completely stopped caring. Sure oh there we go okay I mean
it looks nice and clearly they painted even in areas that you wouldn't necessarily expect to see.
Do you have a screwdriver? Always. lttstore.com. Nice. Oh yeah inside of this is painted as well.
This looks really nice. Okay and it's fine but to be completely honest it was totally covered by
this whole thing so it doesn't really matter. While we're waiting for my games to finish
transferring why don't we have a look at what memory speed they ended up getting it running at.
6,000 megatransters per second but what did it cost us? Ah timings. So this is supposed to be a CL
28 kit. We're running at CL 36. Not the choice I personally would have made. If you must have
all four things populated and you want the best performance there are dummy modules that you can
put in. I just think they probably didn't want to do that because then they would have had to use
different memory. I don't believe G-Skill makes dummy modules for their royal and this was obviously
the correct memory for this build obviously. This is it Luke. It's time to go. The Sultan
of Gaming PCs and I'm on a controller. And plugged into the motherboard which still pains me. We're
at 4k ray traced ultra getting a casual you know 150 frames per second you know just like whatever
right like whatever right because we have a 50 90 that is gold.
It adds a little bit of performance. Dude the game looks great so it does. Can confirm if you spend
eight thousand dollars on a golden graphics card I can tell you two things about yourself. One
you're pretty bad with your money. That's really real real stupid buddy. And then number two is
your playing cyberpunk at 100 plus FPS. So you got both of those things going for you. It's time
I still kind of can't believe we're giving away a 12,000 dollar computer. Yeah we need to settle on
a plan. I had an idea that we put it in the box and then you like pretend you're struggling to move
it and the first person helps you just gets a 12,000 dollar computer. Why do all of your ideas
involve you being strong and me being weak. Oh my god it's so heavy. This is sponsored by ASUS
so it was pretty convenient for me that they happened to spec it with an ROG power supply
and like a top of the line ASUS motherboard to go with the GPU. Okay I'm just gonna take a little
break. Can you join the video? Yeah. Yeah probably. Do you know who he is? Yeah yeah hi nice to meet
you. Are you traveling here? No no no. Here you can carry it. Oh my god. You got it careful careful
You okay? Okay okay. Okay do you think you could carry that for one minute? Yeah. Do you think you
could carry it for five minutes? No. Did you see what's in here? Do you play games? Yeah. What games
do you play? We will play CS 2 low but my computer is FPS 2 low. FPS 2 low? Yeah. I don't think that's
gonna be a problem anymore. This is the gold edition RTX 5090. 5090. Oh my god this is cool. And then we
have a Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Your challenge is you have to get it home. Congratulations. Oh my god thank
you. Thank you. Do you know how much this costs? $5,000. The US you're doing? Yeah.
$360,000 NTD. $12,000 US.
The gold GPU is $8,000 US. It's actual gold. Not all of it. Some of it. But there's real gold on it.
So they did a special golden paint job to go with it and special golden fittings to match everything.
Well I'm just glad that we could be part of it. Enjoy your new computer man.
What game did you not get enough FPS in by the way? CS 2. Oh CS 2? Yeah. Oh so your computer is pretty
slow. Lower than FPS. That'll be no problem. Yeah you want to play CS 2? I think maybe more like
500-600 FPS. Okay bye. Bye. The shell shocked look on his face when I said $12,000 US but he had
no idea how to process that. I was rooting for him because if someone else snagged it well he was like
that'd be brutal. He would have regretted that forever. Do you want to get some soup dumplings?
Sure. Let's do it. When you decided to stop there I was like this is his one shot. Yeah. He has to come
now or else he's not going to do it. That on the street was busy. I think someone would have caught
us. Yeah. Well our soup dumpling place was closed but we have moji moji which is apparently mango
cheese tea. Yeah I don't think there's actual cheese. I don't think there's cheese in it. Yeah yeah.
But you know what's not cheesy as well? ASUS is actually auctioning for charity one of those 5090
Dehab editions. All you got to do is go check it out at the link in the video description and that
one has an extra bonus. It's signed by the one and only Mr. Jensen Huang. Oh my. Wearer of leather
jackets. Oh my. Signer of things. Yeah he signs. Many different types of things. He signs some stuff.
If you guys enjoyed this video maybe go check out the one from last year if you haven't seen it already.