This Gaming PC has a Dirty Secret - Build Redux
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
1,943 words · ~9 min read
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- Opening up with our sponsor disclosure. This video is brought to you by Digital Storm.
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But Linus you might say, "Ah, that's not a Digital Storm box."
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And I would reply, Yes, this (grunts)
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is a brand new PC gaming brand called Redux.
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Their pitch is simple, they build you a custom gaming rig
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with off the shelf premium quality parts. Like for example, this prime Z490P motherboard from ASUS
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and only mark up the system, $75.
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That's right, 75 bucks gets you the build,
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two years of warranty. And do you get any tech support?
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(grunts) Hasty, overhead raining.
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(objects cluttering) Oh shoot.
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I'm fine, oh wait our team of in-house gamers will get you back up
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and running if you run into any issues. So, I guess that includes tech support as well.
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Ouch, that really hurt. I just pulled the full boat and my hands under it.
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I'll be very interested to see what kind of build quality we can expect from a $75 build machine.
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You know, what's interesting is this is very similar to the model that we had for NCIX PCs way back in the day
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it was $25 to just put the hardware together,
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no validation, no operating system install,
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$50 to install the OS and configure drivers and all of that.
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And then I think we actually upped it to like 75 and a hundred later on down the line.
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So $75 for a completely assembled system.
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We also only offered a one-year warranty at that price. With two-year warranty looks very attractive
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especially if the sponsor of this video Digital Storm has anything to do with it.
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To start with, this is a pretty, attractive looking chassis seems to be a variation of the TD500 mesh
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from cooler master with a little bit of custom branding on it. So you can see they've got a custom badge on the front.
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I can tell you for $75 per build, you actually cannot afford to do a whole lot of custom branding
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but they still manage to spend a couple
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of bucks on one of these expanding, foam packing pieces to hold your graphics card in place.
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And ooh look at that.
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They've actually customized the AIO cooler as well as, Oh, did they do the fans too?
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Where's my packing material at? you know what, I'm kinda surprised at this.
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I was all ready to say Oh, well, you know, maybe they should have spent a bit more
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on the packing, but this might just be a case where the courier drop kicked it
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because you can see one of the back thumb screws got kind of bashed in
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but Redux is actually using a nice high quality foam here.
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So, double boxing might've solved it
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or just having thumb screws that stick out a bit less. You can see there's kinda like a spacer
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on this that makes it so they stick out quite a lot. That would probably be the solution to that.
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Either way it's not the kind of thing that affects the aesthetics of the build once it's in place.
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It's just something that is a bummer when you get a new system.
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And one of the firm's crews is kinda bopped into the back. Okay, you can definitely see some of the pedigree here.
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Like that is some pretty nice cable management.
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included with this case is an RGB... Wait no, not included with this case.
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How very interesting DS PCB.
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I wonder what DS is short for, hold on a minute.
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No, this seems to be customed, if I had to guess I'd say it's either for Digital Storm or DesignSpark
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which is a PCB making company. So, could be either way.
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I'm actually, just gonna pull it off. Look if they didn't want it torn down
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they wouldn't send it to me. No markings on the back, all right.
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It doesn't tell us anything useful. Then let's go ahead and put this stuff back in.
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Yes, Brandon, that is an RTX 3080.
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These are rarely seen out in the wild certainly a coveted addition to any gaming PC
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that is at least for the time being.
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At the time of shooting this video AMD had announced,
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but not yet actually released their rDNA to Radian RX 6000 graphics cards.
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So we'll have to see how that goes over the next little bit.
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But there's a couple of note worthy things about this bill. Aside from the cable management
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being well, frankly, excellent.
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The attention to detail is just outstanding.
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So we've got a positive air pressure configuration
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with three intake fans at the front one exhaust fan at the back.
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And then we're gonna have passive exhaust at the top of the case. That's all pretty normal
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other than just being done correctly. But look at this has Digital Storm
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been watching Gamers Nexus look at the orientation
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of this all in one cooler, got them tubes at the bottom.
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So just in case there's any air bubbles that are stuck in the loop from filling at the factory,
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they're gonna settle here in this tank
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at the top of the reservoir instead of getting stuck in your pump
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causing it to be louder and potentially have a shorter lifespan.
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Also note worthy is the appropriate amount of slack on cables like these front panel connectors
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and this CEDA cable here. One of the, just sort of classic blandas
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that we made back in my NCIX days was having technicians that would go,
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"Okay, I've got everything plugged in. Now I'm gonna put my zip ties on, right?
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I'm gonna do a great job of cable managing the system." And they cinch the zip ties tight.
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And what they would actually do is they would put so much tension on the plug
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that what would happen in shipping is you wouldn't believe the amount of flex
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that even something as rigid looking this will undergo. During shipping the system would flex
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it would actually pull them out and the customer would get it and go,
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"Did you guys not ship me a hard drive or what?" 'Cause the system wouldn't boot or wouldn't turn on
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because the power plug had been pulled out So you can see that Redux has actually gone
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and put an appropriate amount of slack on all of the cables here
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to make sure that they don't accidentally just pop out during shipping.
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In terms of accessories ah there we go. I found them, Oh, this is interesting.
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It's like a, an acrylic GeForce RTX Sag reduction doodad.
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Oh cool, we should put that on. I've got some extra screws, motherboard manual
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power cord for the power supply, as well as any additional modular cables we might want.
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Oh, there's a little nubbin in here that's kinda getting in the way.
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Okay, these are not for cutting acrylic.
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Watch the whole thing cracked now, there's even a pretty successful caitilin looks pretty clean
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This one here,
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I think I got it, it's fired up.
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Oh, they're RGB fans, nice, was it pretty looking?
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Here is cooler master fans, this little things
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like you can see even this back fan it runs like under the VRM heat sink.
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So you can't really see it running down to the K-fan header back here, a brown back plate
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on this PNY accelerator is a bit of a shame PNY if you're watching brown, like.
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Now let's try to figure out the point of this RGB controller.
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I have to assume that 'cause I know Digital Storm uses
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these just like a RGB remotes for their systems still, just
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so that you don't have to have any ugly bloody software.
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I have to imagine that this just accidentally ended up
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I think, cause it's part of this tendon package.
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I'm sure they'll have that sorted out before they're shipping Redux systems off the website.
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There's nothing to really see Brandon. There's no bloat whatsoever.
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The closest thing to bloat would be the Microsoft Solitaire Collection
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which is included with Windows. I don't even have any like
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a candy crush, king.com nonsense in here.
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So we've got GeForce experience, Microsoft edge.
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Wow not bad.
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And then homepage is obviously a website that's not launched yet so
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by the time you guys go to build redox.com it will actually be something
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Oh, I guess now it's a good a time as any to talk specs on this thing.
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It's a Core i7-10700K with an RTX 3080
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So I am expecting to be able to max out the 360 Hertz refresh rated to this display.
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It's got 16 gigs of 3200 Megahertz memory. It's kind of a custom build from them.
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'Cause it's got an upgraded graphics card compared to their high-end spec.
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So it's got a 500GBm.2 from a data as well as two terabytes of mechanical storage.
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So that'll cover all of your gaming needs. And then it's got a 600 watt power supply
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which might seem like an odd choice for an RTX 3080.
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But, if you bear in mind that this is supposed to have an RTX 3070 in it, then it's probably fine.
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Now what I wanna know, is if this is even gonna work. because we've seen 750, even 850 watt units just buckle
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under the momentary current spikes from these RTX 3000 series cards.
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So guess we'll find out sooner though.
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I am really big into the tinted glass with RGB look.
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Oh, that poor power supply. I was trying to figure out why it was running so loud.
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'Cause most RTX 3000 cards, they're pretty reasonable. And it's got like a dual one 20 milli IO on it.
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It's that poor 600 watt power supply, okay.
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I wouldn't expect to have that issue on a final system though. What are we looking at here?
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350-400fps and 75 bucks to build a machine like that.
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Not too shabby. Now for some random, honestly I would look at it
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and I'd go, ah, they gotta be cutting corners somewhere. But knowing who, (clears throat) well is,
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behind the scenes 75 bucks right?
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when now obviously when they say "No mark up" they mean compared to a retail price
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at another store where presumably they're making at least some margin
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but that's still very competitive with building it on your own.
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Obviously, especially when system integrators are... As far as I can tell the only ones
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that can actually get access to these bloody video cards right now.
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So if you're looking for a gaming rig no matter what game it is, once their website's up
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they're gonna have a feature where you can basically just plug in what games you play and what kind of performance you want.
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And it'll suggest a rig for you. Makes the whole experience much, much simpler
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than configuring everything on your own. Again for 75 bucks like, okay,
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where's that blow up thing? Dang it, I missed it. Oh yes, subscribe to ShortCircuit.
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Sorry I got distracted playing video games.