So above land in a rocket ship the night
night made of mega. Ladies and gentlemen, leave the world and bring
your friends. Step inside and close the door.
Shut it out. Plug it in. Press
your walls.
Today's build guide is one that you've asked for, pleaded for, demanded.
Lionus, you said, "If you don't do some
valueoriented content about stuff I can actually afford, I'm going to
unsubscribe." Well, I heard you. I heard you. This
video isn't about getting a zillion frames per second in Crisis 6 while
running on three 8K TVs and surround.
This video isn't about liquid cooling your CPU, your graphics card, and that
cheeky smirk off your buddy's face all at once. It's about getting good value
and upgradability out of your new gaming PC without spending a whole lot of
money. Welcome to the ultimate value gaming PC build guide, Intel Edition. To
start with, a safe static-free workstation is a must. I use a mod mat
and an anti-static ankle strap. Now, the only tool we really need for assembly is
a multi-bit screwdriver, but a magnetic parts tray, a pair of side cutters, and
a pair of needle-nose pliers is nice to have. Before you begin, I always
recommend verifying that the system posts or powers on and outputs to the
display. You can use your motherboard box as a free non-conductive test bench.
And since this is a basic motherboard without an onboard power button, a handy
trick I'd like to show you is that you can use your screwdriver to short these
pins if you don't have your power button connected yet and you want to try the
board. Our CPU choice was all about
compromises. The Pantium G3258
gives up multiple processing cores. It
gives up hyperthreading and it gives up turbo boost. It also gives up the
massive cash that the higherend Haswell and Haswelli processors in its family
enjoy. But darn it, this chip has spunk.
And with a little overclocking, it'll hold up surprisingly well in all but the
most demanding AAA titles, even when fighting well above its weight class, as
we demonstrated in this little video a couple of weeks ago. You can easily swap
it out for a Core i3 or a Core i5 if you want a little bit more horsepower though
without changing anything else in this build guide. Hold your CPU by the edges
and identify the corner with the gold triangle. Align that with the corner of
the socket that has a triangle as well. Lift up the retention ARM. Lift up the
socket cover. Place the CPU into the socket with no force. Lower the cover
and fasten the retention ARM. Again, fancy coolers are the kind of thing that
rich kids with their H2Os and LN2s might
get to enjoy. But if your dad is a bluecollar, honest working man kind of
guy, well, you might just find that stock cooling does a good enough job for
a mild overclock and doesn't cost you a penny. Unless you grab a can of stove
paint for six bucks to make it look badass, that is. Besides, you can always
game on it now and splurge, you know, 30 bucks on a cooler next time you've got
some walking around money. Check the bottom of your heat sink to ensure the
pre-applied thermal compound is intact. Then unwrap the four pin fan connector
from the clips around the outside of the fan. Orient the cooler so that your fan
wire will have the closest path to the CPU fan header on your motherboard. Then
put it down on top of your CPU with the plastic push pins at each corner
sticking through the holes in the motherboard. Push down on opposite
corners until you hear a click. Plug the fan connector into the board. Then
double check the nubbins at the back of the board to make sure that they look
like this. Buying RAM is easy for a
value gaming build. Don't get fussed about which kit we're using. Just go to
your favorite store or shopping website. Find the least expensive dual channel
DDR3 kit in the capacity of your choice from a reputable brand like Kingston,
Corsair, Gskill, or Adata and buy it.
XMPP support is a bonus, but the speed
of the RAM doesn't matter too much. Pull back the tabs on the two gray RAM slots.
Then position each dim so the notch in the bottom lines up with the notch in
the socket and press firmly on both ends
until the tabs at the ends snap back into place on their own. Sometimes I
choose a component for these build guides because it's a super expensive
piece of hardware that I just want to touch. Sometimes I do it because the
features and performance call to me and it's a perfect match for the rest of my
build. And sometimes I'm just morbidly
curious. So, today we'll be building in the Spec01 because I just wanted to know
if this $50 gaming case can deliver an
experience that still lives up to the Corsair name. Pull the side panels off
and stash the thumb screws somewhere safe along with the rest of the included
hardware. The case's only included 120
mm cooling fan is already installed in the front, which is a good place for it
since that intake is filtered to keep the PC's guts both clean and cool. If we
had beefier hardware, a rear or top exhaust fan, though, would be a good
addition. Now, the motherboard choice is
always tough, and in a value build, it's even tougher. The board doesn't impact
performance, so I could literally buy the cheapest thing that will accept my
CPU and graphics card and RAM and call it a day. But it does affect features.
So, we went with a Z97C from ASUS because it has official support for
overclocking, although lower-end boards, even business grade ones, are known to
do it, and it's got a good balance of features, quality, and expandability to
price. Press firmly on the four corners of the IO shield until they snap into
place. Then plug the eightpin power supply connector in now to avoid a cable
management nightmare later on. Place the board down on the integrated standoffs
and install the screws that look like this into the five positions around the
perimeter of the board. The middle one can be left blank. This is just a post
to hold the board in place while you secure it. While you have easy access to
the board, plug in the front power and reset switches, as well as the power and
drive activity LEDs. Follow up with the block style connectors for USB 2, front
audio, and USB 3. Then finally, plug
your front fan into the header on the motherboard here so we can use software
to control it later. To practical folks, there's only really a couple things to
consider when shopping for a budget power supply. Price and quality. Me, I
can be a bit of a sucker for looks. So, when I saw that the 430 W CXM is on with
a $20 rebate for only 40 bucks, I went for it. It's black, semi-odular, and 80
plus bronze, making it a solid deal compared to the CIC gray unit that I
normally use for budget builds. For another 15 bucks, to 600 W version,
though, would be good if you want a bit more growing room. Uh, but other than a
quad core or a slightly better graphics card, this system isn't really being
built to be super upgradable. So, the 430 W is a great choice. Slide the power
supply in grill side up for better cooling and attach it to the case using
four of these screws. You already ran the 8 pin connector when we cheated a
bit in the last step. So, plug in the 24 pin connector being cognizant of the
space you'll need behind the motherboard tray for cable management when you try
to close the rear panel. Plug in a modular SATA cable and run that over to
the front bay. Then plug in a PCI Express connector and run that to this
cable management hole right here. An SSD is still a no-brainer to me. Even on a
value build, a hard drive doesn't cost much more than a night out at the movies
with a friend who won't stop shoving popcorn and nachos into his or her face.
So, in my mind, it can be added later, but an SSD makes the whole system
snappier and more responsive. We went with an Intel 530 series 120 gig drive,
but frankly, a 300 or 700 series drive
would also be fine. Grab whatever series and capacity gets you the most gigabytes
for your dollar and go with that. Pull one of the hard drive sleds out of the
side of the case and use four of these screws to secure the SSD to it. Please
note that if you're installing a hard drive at this stage, you'll want to use
these screws instead. Slide the cage
back in. Plug in the SATA power connector that you left hanging before.
Then plug the right angle end of a SATA data cable into the drive and the
straight end into your motherboard. Choosing the best graphics card for a
value gaming rig can be done one of two ways. Method number one, find a recent
video card roundup. Find the lowest price you can for each of the cards in
it. Then divide the frame rates the reviewer gets in the games you want to
play by the price and buy whichever one
delivers the best FPS per dollar. Method number two, buy everything else cheaping
out wherever possible and then spend whatever is left of your budget on the
best graphics card you can find. We ended up with a Radeon R seven260X
because there was a good deal at Amazon when we went pricing this out. So, your
mileage may vary on that, but the general rule is that the low 100s to
high $200 range is generally where
you're going to find the FPS per dollar sweet spot. Installing expansion cards
is the one area where Corsair let me down a little bit with this case because
it's otherwise very good for the price with folded edges to keep my fingers
safe being an awesome inclusion. Take out the two screws that hold in this
random piece of metal at the back. Then take out the two screws holding in these
two PCI covers that correspond with our PCIe16x slot. Align the card carefully
with the slot. Push it in firmly. Put the two screws back in. Put the random
piece of metal back on. And then plug in that PCI Express power connector that
was cable managed earlier. Cable management is a bit of a bear on this
case, or at least it appears at first glance to be. There isn't a ton of room
behind the motherboard tray and there aren't a lot of places to tie down
wires, so we're just going to kind of do our best with it. The good news, though,
is that the rear side panel bulges out.
So, installing it over top of our slightly rat's nesty wire arrangement
here is actually no big deal. If you're not looking to spend much on
peripherals, I still recommend something halfway decent for the mouse because it
doesn't cost that much and makes a big difference. Grab an M45 optical gaming
mouse or a no frills optical mouse from someone like Zi, for example. The
keyboard is one that's not as big a deal to me. And a basic PS2 keyboard will do
as well as most gaming membrane keyboards until you start spending
several pretty pennies on them for features like macro keys and
backlighting, at which point I would almost suggest just foregoing it for now
and saving up a few more pretty pennies for a mechanical keyboard later on down
the line. for the monitor. Anything with gaming specific features will cost a lot
more than a commodity 23 in 1080p display. So unless you really need HDMI
pass through, virtually no input lag like on BenQ's RL series, just go with a
TN for faster pixels or IPS for better
colors, commodity monitor. Pick one that looks nice to you and call it a day.
Press delete or F2 to get into the UEFI BIOS for the motherboard. Hit F7 to get
into advanced mode and turn your CPU multiplier up to something in the 42 to
44 range. You shouldn't need to touch any other settings, but while you're in
here, you might as well check and make sure your RAM is running at its rated
speed. Enable XMPP if that option is
available. To install your Windows operating system, create a bootable USB
drive and then reboot while mashing F8 immediately to get into the boot device
selection menu where you'll pick your USB drive. Once the setup process has
begun, it's basically a matter of clicking next until you land on the
Windows desktop. Once you're booted, drivers can be found on the manufacturer
websites for ASUS, Intel, etc. And this is a good time to hit up nite.com to
pick up your favorite free applications in a nice easy to use junkwearfree
package. The last stage here is to find out just how well our little budget
gaming rig performed. So, we took it for a spin in the most popular games, many
of which are very inexpensive or even free to play, being streamed on Twitch
TV, and discovered that if your objective is to have a capable,
inexpensive gaming box to play League with your friends, then a machine like
this is going to be right up your alley. If you want to get the most out of
Crisis 3, uh, quad core Core i5 or i7
CPU and a GPU upgrade might be in order, but this will at least get you started
as a member of the PC gaming community. Now, sit back and enjoy some glam of our
finished system, which I really wish I had painted the heat sinks on the
motherboard gold on. Uh, well, I thank everyone involved in making this video
possible. Intel, our sponsor, Brandon, Luke, Taran, and Edzel, the members of
my team who helped make it. The musicians who provide their music to us
free of charge and don't pursue copyright strikes against us, even though I forget to credit them half the
time. And of course, you, the viewer, for sitting through this video and maybe
even giving us a like or a dislike, depending on how you felt about it.
Thanks for watching. Don't forget to subscribe, and I'll see you guys again next time.