Is Corsair SCREWING their partners?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,649 words · ~8 min read
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during our secret shopper project we discovered that while some pre-built
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gaming systems offer a solid value in terms of their performance with Tier one
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providers like HP and Dell you can often
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run into proprietary parts limited upgrade ability and configurability and
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questionable software load outs that can affect the overall experience so the
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popularity of machines that are built from retail parts by smaller system
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integrators like iBUYPOWER or main gear is understandable boutique builders in
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particular don't always hit the best performance per dollar but what most of
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these shops offer is a high degree of customize ability and more transparency
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into the actual components you're buying now a lot of you watching our channel
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would look down on the idea of buying a pre-built computer but consider this
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what if a well-known and respected manufacturer came out offering the type
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of system that would be similar to what you would end up configuring for
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yourself and at a reasonable price offering a turnkey solution with a solid
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warranty well that is what Corsair tried to do with the Vengeance gaming PC 50
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180 let's see if it's worth your
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hard-earned money Thursday boots is a
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bootstrap startup that handcrafts boots using the highest quality materials and
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then sells them at an honest price what a business model right they offer free
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shipping and returns and you can check them out at Thursday boots comm /l tt
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we'll have that linked below
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so let us cover the four pillars of any gaming system price quality performance
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and support which together help us determine the value of this thing after
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spread shooting the components all together and checking non sale prices
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through both Amazon and Newegg it turned out that the prices of the parts came to
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just over $2,100 this means that Corsair
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is marking up this machine 12 to 13 percent or about $300 over regular
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Street pricing but it's not time to make
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a final judgment here just yet first let's dig a little deeper Corsairs
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markup also includes assembly and two years of warranty support on the
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completed system and check this out Corsair has multiple RMA centers for
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their machines so depending where you're located you might not end up having to
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ship the machine which is currently only available directly from Corsair all the
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way back to them if you run into an issue what's even better is they'll
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cover shipping both to and from the service depot and they'll even send you
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replacement packaging if you tossed out your original box that's pretty rad at
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least on paper when it comes to the next
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pillar quality well we'll start with that aforementioned packaging our array
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arrives protected with open celled foam and had this peered contraption to
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ensure that the graphics card wouldn't snap out of the slot you know it's kind
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of ghetto looking but hey if it works it
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isn't stupid so no complaints there cabling was neat on the front and
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tightly bundled on the back chamber and we didn't have really I mean any gripes
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with the machines construction quality overall we did wonder why they would use
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a 240 millimeter AIO to cool a non k
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processor in a B Series board but the
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answer here is most likely for the looks and a single 120 millimeter cooler would
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have made the system look kind of asymmetrical the only thing that really
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stood out here was Corsairs use of an 80 plus bronze
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750 watt power supply now to be clear
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it's a decent 2nd gen unit from their CX
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series and five year warranty so I guess the logic
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here was that more people would care to have 750 watts than would care if it had
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higher efficiency which is a trade that they could have easily made moving on to
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the performance in a massive surprise - absolutely no one in games our machine
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performed exactly as a core i7 eighty seven hundred plus an RT X twenty eighty
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should turbo boost on our CPU worked correctly our GPU reached anywhere from
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1935 to 1950 megahertz while gaming and
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we never heard more than a low hum from
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the direction of the tower no cooling issues and no weird fan ramping behavior
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or anything like that to report it's almost like Corsair has a lot of
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experience when it comes to PC cooling now as for storage our SSD uses a fine
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controller and it sits on an X two PCI
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Express laws so as expected that puts it somewhere in between a SATA SSD and an
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enthusiast class NVMe one and while Corsair applied no performance
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optimizations to the UEFI BIOS no factory profile saved even everything
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worked out of the box without an issue now when it comes to pre-purchase and
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post-purchase support well we didn't have a chance to actually test the
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latter due to this being a review unit which was not secret shoppers so we
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couldn't stage a tech support scenario or anything like that maybe in the
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future let us know in the comments if you'd like to see that and as for
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pre-purchase support well disappointingly it actually does not
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exist at all you see Corsair presently
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has just four machines available on their site all of them none configurable
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with the other three being Corsair ones with the closest configuration their
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commanding a much higher price while using the same class of graphics card
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maybe ok conspiracy theory moment here
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maybe Corsair doesn't want to have a sales rep because that person would just
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spend all day down selling customers to the Vengeance I don't know that's pure
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speculation anyway let's get back to the value conversation because it's the most
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complicated part of this video compared to configuring a system over on
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iBUYPOWER trying to include as many of the same components as possible corks
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airs pricing actually looks really solid for our vengeance PC but that doesn't
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necessarily mean I'm happy with it before I can explain why we need a
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little bit of history now in spite of their wide portfolio covering the vast
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majority of PC components from cooling
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to cases to RAM and storage Corsair
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surprised everyone when they introduced the Corsair 1 a fully integrated ready
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to ship system like Windows pre-installed in everything for gamers
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not because anyone thought they weren't capable I mean obviously there are
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plenty of people at Corsair who know how to assemble a gaming tower but rather
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for business reasons by branching out
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into completed systems Corsair stood to alienate the same partners system
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integrators like main gear and ibuypower who I mentioned before that they rely on
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for a significant chunk of their business by effectively competing with
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them directly and potentially unfairly since Corsair
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obviously has more profit margin on a
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Corsair power supply than a reseller of
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Corsair power supplies could now Corsair
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story at the time was the one is unique it's too difficult to assemble to offer
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this chassis as a standalone case so it doesn't really compete with anyone elses
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offerings but like this one
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this is the Vengeance PC a fully built
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gaming PC from Corsair using all
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off-the-shelf components so is it a great value
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well it is if you were gonna buy exactly
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these parts anyway but it's not if you
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were the kind of person who was more likely to spend their hard-earned money
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on raw performance so Corsair was in
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kind of a unique position here to use some of the extra profit margin that
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they gained by being the manufacturer of both the components and the finished
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system to deliver great performance and
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flashy aftermarket looks but by choosing
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a non overclockable CPU and a B 360
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motherboard at this price point I do feel like they fell a little short of
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that goal if that was their goal and you
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know I have to wonder if maybe this was on purpose to avoid disrupting the
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market whatever reason there was for it the
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good news is that we have no qualms about the quality of the system or
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Corsairs ongoing existence if you ever need support so as they continue to
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expand into this business I think vengeance gaming pcs are gonna get only
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more interesting to gamers as time go on that is the ones that don't feel like
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DIY either for themselves or for their friends because as it goes with
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pre-built you could get a faster computer if you built it yourself then
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again maybe of course they're doesn't care I'm sure they'd be happy to sell you their components - excuse me
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master Ops vast curved gaming monitor is
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35 inches of gaming bliss it's an ultra
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wide 34 40 by 1440 display with 2
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millisecond response times and it's got free sync it runs at a maximum 100 Hertz
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refresh rate and it's got a 2500 to 1 contrast ratio go check it out at the
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link in the video description for your own seamless visual experience whether
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you're gaming working watching a movie or just browsing
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so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to
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where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is
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our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum
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which you should definitely join