$1,000 Gaming PC BUILD GUIDE!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
2,110 words · ~10 min read
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what build guides are back my friends it
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has been over a year and in that time you've managed to
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build up a th000 bucks that's burning a hole in your pocket maybe you've been
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grinding for Gil at the local McDonald's working late at the office or perhaps
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you've been up to some slightly shadier stuff like trading skins in CSG go but
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enough of your life story you're wondering about the best way to turn
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that cash that's my keys not my wallet
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cash into a gaming computer and we've
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got you covered
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okay so it has been a while but I'm pretty sure I remember all the stuff we need
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screwdriver perfect
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pliers pliers a pair of side Cutters a
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magnetic Parts tray if you want to stay organized and of course the anti-static
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strap that I am always definitely
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actually wearing on my ankle when we shoot these guides
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for our CPU we've gone with the core
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i57500 this quad core hits a sweet spot
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in Intel's lineup it boosts up to 3.8
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GHz making it great not just for gaming
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but also for productivity and even like content creation and stepping up to the
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I5 7600 means paying 20% more for only a 9
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1 12% clock speed increase something we wanted to avoid for a value op optimized
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build like this one first things first
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make a safe workspace out of the motherboard box then line up the Golden
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Triangle on the corner of the CPU with the imprinted triangle on the CPU socket
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cover then undo the retention ARM by
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pulling it away from the socket then lifting carefully place the CPU onto the
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LGA 1151 socket with no Force give it a
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little wiggle to ensure a snug fit and finally replace the retention ARM
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the socket cover will pop off on its own put that somewhere safe cuz you might
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need it again in the future our cooling Choice was pretty straightforward be
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quiet sponsored this guide but seriously
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we chose the dark Rock 3 in particular because it's overbuilt for our CPU
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keeping our finished system nearly silent and it's going to look through
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the window of the purebase 600 case that we found bundled with it for a fantastic
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price to install we first apply a rice
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siiz blob of thermal compound in the middle of the CPU then we flip the
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motherboard over and Orient the back plate so that these screws sticking
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through are aligned with these
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cutouts next place these weird shaped
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screws through the holes on the back plate flip the motherboard back over and
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slide these little c-shaped plastic Clips onto the bottom of each post next
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you'll need to screw on this piece holding it in place on the front while
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you screw it in from the back and then you'll need to secure the hold down
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brackets to the base of the heat sink using the included M3
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screws at this stage you might need to
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reapply any thermal compound that you accidentally wiped off while you were
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flipping the motherboard around and you'll want to remove the sticker from
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the base of the heat sink leaving this on would be a big problem finally I'll
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line the heat sink with the screws such that the fan will be blowing towards the
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back of the case and carefully lower the
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heat sink onto the motherboard kind of like so this last part is a little bit
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tricky but you need to thread this nut
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onto this little stud and then tighten up the screws from the back the cherry
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on top is cable managing the CPU fan connector and plugging it into the four
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pin CPU fan header on the
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motherboard buying memory for a budget build like this one is pretty
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straightforward just choose whatever dual Channel ddr4 RAM is on sale at the
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time you're building it from a reputable brand like Corsair if you have a
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windowed case like we do then choose whatever sexy RAM is on sale at the time
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this 16 gig of vengeance lpx ddr4 2400
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should be more than enough for the next couple of years and it features a
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lowprofile heat spreader design for optimal compatibility for installation
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pull back the tabs on the end of the RAM slots then when you realize you've got a
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bit of a clearance issue refocus your attention on the heat sink just remove
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the wires on the fan move it up a little bit and put them right back into place
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then line up the notch in the RAM with the little knobby in the slot then put
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the RAM gently in place and give it a little push on both ends until the tab
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pops back into position rinse and repeat for the number of dims you have making
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sure that matching pairs go into the same color slots the rationale for the
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case besides of course be quiet! sponsoring this video is that for $100
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it's a darn good deal featuring two pure
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Wings fans built-in fans be control and
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grommets for easy Cable Management oh and most importantly there is the super
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sexy tempered glass window I mean it's
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2017 baby and tempered glass always puts
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a smile on my face we chose the ASUS
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B150 plus motherboard mostly because of
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its low cost it's not a high-end product
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and lacks what we would consider to be some Fair basic features such as
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overclocking support a heat sink for the power delivery and even an HDMI or
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DisplayPort output but it's got USB
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type-c and solid upgradeability with
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support for AMD Crossfire NVMe m.2 ssds
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up to seven total expansion cards as
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long as a few of them are PCI and our CPU isn't overclockable anyway so the
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first step as much as I love seeing my reflection
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in the glass is to remove the side panel
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and put it somewhere safe where it won't get knocked over and break make sure you
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keep all the screws in a part stray or some other location where they can't be
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knocked away we couldn't figure out how to make installing an IO Shield
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interesting so put it in from the back
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like so and add fire make sure it's
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snapped into place next next holding the
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motherboard by the CPU heat sink place
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it into the case and then tighten the six screws here here here and here or
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actually one benefit of this case is that you only have to put in five since
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the center of the board is held in by a little nubbin now it's time to plug in
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the front panel connectors HD audio plugs in here so does USB 3 and then
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next is the front panel connectors which go in a little like so the positive ends
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are on the left for our power supply we
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went with the B quiet pure power 10 600 watt its 80 plus silver efficiency and
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high output capacity mean that it will run cool and quiet with room for future
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expansion it's also semi modular and painted black to match the inside of our
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case which is critical of course in the tempered glass era inside the power
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supply box you'll find all the modular cables you'll need we grabbed one with
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three SATA connectors and another with PCI Express as well as some cable ties
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and five screws huh conveniently be
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quiet includes an extra in case you accidentally drop one place the power
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supply into the case with the fan on the bottom side so it isn't drawing in hot
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air from the GPU then screw in the four
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screws on the back and run your power supply cables through the cable
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management grommet moving around to the back we run them back through the
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grommets to the other side where they need to go and plug in the 8 Pin and 24
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pin power connectors for the motherboard
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PCIe power stays hanging there for now and so does our SATA power for graphics
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we chose the AMD rx480 in our case the
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XFX flavor sometimes this particular
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card is more expensive though so what we'd really recommend is choosing
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whatever brand is on sale at the moment like right now for instance at the time
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of recording this this Gigabyte card is on sale the rx480 is a great choice for
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1080p gaming as we'll demonstrate in our system benchmarks later on undo the two
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screws on the PCI covers here and here
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place in the video card making sure that the PCIe lock at the back engages then
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replace the two screws you removed before and plug in the 8 Pin PCI Express
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power connector it really is that simple
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it's 2017 and in our minds then an SSD
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boot Drive is every bit as essential as a tempered glass side panel
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these days so we went with a Kingston SSD now 240 gig that gives us enough
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room for the operating system and a handful of programs and games for
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overflow storage we also threw in a cheap WD blue 1 tbte though it should be
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noted you could easily increase the capacity simply by picking a bigger
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Drive first we need to plug our SATA cables into the motherboard and pass
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them through the cable management grommets around back remove the SSD
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mounting bracket insert these four
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screws and reinstall the SSD into the
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case for the hard drive the mounting bracket can be removed with these three
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thumb screws on the back here then you
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slide the hard drive in and secure it with the included spaced
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screws connect your SATA power cable to your hard drive then realize that it
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won't quite reach the SSD so move that
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bad boy over one slot then plug in the included fan controller and bask in the
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glory of your Victory there will be no Walk of Shame back to the power supply
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box for another modular cable today
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though that won't save you from removing
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and reinstalling the hard drive when you realize that it's ruining the black and
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orange aesthetic of your
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build now before reinstalling the side
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panel connect your keyboard mouse and
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monitor then boot up the system and press delete or F2 to get into the UEFI
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BIOS for your motherboard enable XMP to
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make make sure your RAM is running at its rated speed of 2400 MHz then ensure
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that your USB drive that you'll have had to prepare before to be a Windows
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install bootable Drive is recognized and
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restart the system once you're into the Windows setup it's basically just click
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next until Windows is installed and you land at the desktop the latest drivers
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can be found on the manufacturer websites for ASUS Intel and AMD and this
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is also a good time to hit up nite.com to pick up your favorite free
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applications in a nice easy to ous
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package now it's finally time for some finishing touches like cable management
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which actually isn't a lot of work in
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this case pun intended and then we're pretty much good to go the system is
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assembled and we can just who are we kidding it's time for
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some RGB pizz we used up the final three
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of our budget on this USB mood lighting
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passed it into the case through a PCI bracket and then for good measure lit
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the case on fire because like we said before it's 2017 and no computer is
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complete without pyrot Technics or
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something to that effect but in all seriousness assembled this thing looks
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pretty darn good compared to a couple of years ago nice to have like rubber
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grommets easy cable management and of course that all-important glass window
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have become much more affordable and performance while not mind-blowing
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compared to some of the over-the-top stuff we've done on this channel will
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allow for solid gameplay and AAA titles
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while staying quiet and cool so if
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you're looking for a moderately budget oriented build that'll handle 1080p
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gaming at 60 FPS in heavy AAA titles and
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over 120 in orts games this thing will
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be perfect