Buying a Gaming PC at Best Buy – How Bad is it?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,472 words · ~7 min read
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so we all know what the PC Master a subreddit would have to say about
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getting set up with a new gaming rig build it yourself man do it up custom or
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failing that at least buy from a reputable system builder online what
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pretty much no one would recommend is to go to the Local Best Buy ask for a
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gaming PC and buy whatever it is that they bring you but that's what we did
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let's see how that worked out for us shall we
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the ASRock G10 gaming router features gaming Boost technology M2M technology
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Nas functionality and their h2r 2in1 DNA
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travel router dongle head over to the link in the video description to find
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out what the heck I was just talking about so let's start with the shopping
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experience I actually sent my wife in myste in an effort to see just how
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frustrating it would be for a more normal person to find a gaming PC at the
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local Big Box store so at the first store the initial salesperson explained
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that the difference between the $900 gaming PC and the $1,500 one was
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Aesthetics and that gaming computers just cost more the actual difference was
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that the gaming one had a video card fortunately my wife realized that and
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found someone else to talk to the second rep was much better but didn't have
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anything in stock to sell though in her defense the store is moving in like 4
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days so fine on to store number two or are we in spite of having one of the
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Reps from the first store call ahead to reserve a unit of the PC my wife was
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trying to buy the second store sold it
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while she was on Route and called her when she'd already been driving for 10
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minutes to come and get it time to head
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somewhere else then third times a charm right after waiting around to talk to a
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stocking girl and then getting bounced to The Geek Squad line and then back
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again she was finally offered the ASUS M32 CD desktop PC for 900 Canadian
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or about 625 us with the current exchange rate so let's have a look at
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how she made out then shall we the M32 CD in the recommended gaming
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configuration features an Intel Core i5 6400 Skylake quad core 8 gigs of ddr4
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RAM running in single Channel actually preferred in this case to allow for
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cheaper upgrades a 1 tab hard drive a system specific h110 motherboard with a
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single full-size PCI e6x expansion slot
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a mini PCI e slot with an AC wireless card two dim slots and USB 3.1 10 gbit
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on the back and finally an R9 372 gig
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video card notably one that features an ASUS direct cuu style cooler and a very
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robust security bar to keep it in place during shipping the case is nothing
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special with a rearm mounted 90mm fan a spot for another one in the front though
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I can't tell where that one would get fresh air from and a perforated side
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panel for air flow and the power supply actually is a huge stepup from what I
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expected a 500 watt continuous unit from Delta with a 120 mm fan and extra plugs
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for everything from additional drives the motherboard can support up to four
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to even a more powerful graphics card as long as you account for keeping it cool
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actually overall this package is a lot better than I expected but still I mean
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I figured come on this can't be so hard I'll head over to good old nc.com and
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beat the stuffing out of it with off-the-shelf components and it's gone
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no and it turns out that was not as easy
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as I thought even with NC's Rock Bottom
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$50 PC assembly fee and even ignoring
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the obvious subsidies that Microsoft gives to PC makers for including their
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operating system assuming that I wanted
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you know a somewhat equivalent AC Wireless solution a DVD writer Etc I
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still ended up getting pretty much the same thing for my money without Windows
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so when you factor Windows into it it was a full
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$125 more expensive to have it built
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there I mean sure I get some more PCI Express slots but then I'm actually
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giving up a proper PCI ebased Wi-Fi solution for a USB one and settling for
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a lesser power supply the one bundled with the CM Elite 350 okay then time for
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a new tactic because we're pcmr right we can build the computer ourselves saving
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$50 right there and we don't necessarily need need the cheap mouse that came with
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this thing so I gave myself some more flexibility on the second config opting
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for an AMD fx6300 processor 8 gigs of
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DDR3 an MSI 970a Motherboard no included
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Mouse DVD driver or Wi-Fi then I spent what I gained on a better graphics card
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an R9 380 which the college educated
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among you may have already realized isn't an outright better computer just a
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different one one that might be better for gaming in some games but certainly
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isn't better for all tasks or even all
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games which I guess leads us to the conclusion one that I did not see coming
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I mean honestly I was sure that after publishing this video we'd never be
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working with Best Buy on a top five laptops for students thing like we did
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back in the fall again I was certain they were going to get wrecked as the
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kids say but that's not how it went down today at all
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many of the traditional problems that have existed since the last time I
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bought a desktop computer at Future Shop like 15 years ago the inability to find
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someone to help you the high pressure sales pitch for extended warranty once
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you finally do find someone to help you the Limited stock and selection the hit
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or miss knowledge of the instore staff are all alive and well but the computer
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we ended up with is actually a really
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great value gaming box our equivalent
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build offered better PCIe expansion but but its power supply was not as good and
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it didn't have USB 3 10 gbit not to mention the huge price disparity and our
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DIY build where I built it myself and gave up some features still only saved
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me 15 bucks sure it can deliver better
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gaming performance in GPU bound scenarios but without crippling CPU
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performance even further by stepping down to an APU or something like that
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the difference was not nearly what I had expected so there you have it Color Me
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surprised whether we have Best Buy to thank for acknowledging the demand for decent
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gaming PCs that contain decent graphics cards or ASUS and the other system
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Builders to thank for dumping these boxes on Best Buy's shelf buying a
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gaming rig at Best Buy is not as bad an option as you might think and a Savvy
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used Hardware Shopper could probably manage to flip that included graphics
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card plop in something better and end up with an astonishingly good rig for
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around $1,000 though while you're at it I o recommend throwing in an SSD
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speaking of throwing something in if you were thinking to yourself gee I could
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sure use a USB gaming headset with a nice highquality mic good sound and RGB
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lighting maybe check out the Logitech g633 Artemis Spectrum it features 7.1
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Dolby Surround Sound 40mm proog G audio
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drivers and it's compatible with the PC as well as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox
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One as I mentioned before it features adjustable RGB lighting and custom tags
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with a cardioid boom mic and it's available now on Amazon all you got to
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do is pick them up at the link in the video description so thanks for watching
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guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get
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subscribed hit that like button or even consider supporting us directly by using
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our affiliate code to shop at Amazon by buying a cool shirt like this one or
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with a direct monthly contribution now that you're done doing all that stuff
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you're probably wondering what to watch next so click up that little button in
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the top right corner to check out the seven Gamers 1 CPU video where I build
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well technically there were two CPUs but I basically build one rig that runs
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seven gaming instances at once