The FASTEST gaming PC money can buy
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
3,541 words · ~17 min read
0:00
Okay, so the goals for today's video are simple.
0:04
Goal number one, build the gaming PC for the 1%,
0:09
the fastest off-the-shelf gaming rig that money can buy.
0:14
Goal number two, don't completely F it up like last time.
0:21
That's the intro.
0:32
So let's start with what's gonna be the same
0:33
as our last attempt that you guys will never see
0:37
because it was awful.
0:38
First, a handful of you were probably thinking to yourselves
0:41
while Ivan and I criticized every system integrator
0:44
on the planet, well, could you guys even do it better?
0:46
So we are actually going to be trying
0:49
to build a system better.
0:50
So we're gonna be doing it together today.
0:51
And we are sticking with the Core i9-9900K
0:56
eight-core processor.
0:57
We are sticking with dual GTX 2080 Ti ROG Strix cards
1:01
from ASUS, these are the overclocked versions.
1:03
And we are sticking with 32 gigs of our DDR4
1:08
3200 memory.
1:10
We know that's not quite the fastest memory, but okay.
1:13
That's the one thing that's not fasted.
1:15
Give us a break.
1:16
So this is the DarkBase Pro 900.
1:19
We have upgraded our power supply
1:21
to a 1000 watt DarkPro 11.
1:24
And perhaps most importantly,
1:27
because this was our biggest problem,
1:29
we have changed our motherboard.
1:32
Instead of trying to get away with three slots of spacing
1:37
between our 28-bit CPU, we have changed our motherboard.
1:38
Instead of trying to get away with three slots of spacing between our 28-bit CPU,
1:38
we have changed our motherboard.
1:40
By the way, pro tip for you guys,
1:42
those things run fricking hot.
1:46
We have gone with a motherboard
1:47
that will allow us to have quad spacing.
1:50
And this was actually what necessitated the case change,
1:54
because this is one massive Z390 board.
1:58
It's actually larger than standard ATX,
2:00
but not quite EATX.
2:02
It's kind of in that in-between land.
2:05
What the hell is going on here?
2:07
Is this like an old-school ATX?
2:08
Is this an OC dial?
2:10
Yeah, it lets you turn up your gaming to 11.
2:12
It's madness.
2:14
How much is this thing?
2:15
Look at it.
2:16
It has two regular USB 3s,
2:18
two of the new Type-C ones,
2:20
U.2, three M.2s.
2:23
That's not all of them.
2:25
There is an expansion card for, I believe, two more inside.
2:28
I mean, I think that's their flagship.
2:29
I mean, it says Godlike right on it.
2:32
It has a quarter-inch headphone jack.
2:34
It even has an infinity mirror up on this.
2:37
That's what it is.
2:38
Oh, my God.
2:39
Okay, anyway.
2:40
Let's build a rig, shall we?
2:42
Jeez.
2:43
So as usual, we're gonna start with our CPU.
2:46
So we've got a Core i9-9900K.
2:48
Is it the best value for gaming?
2:50
No.
2:52
Is it the fastest for gaming?
2:54
Yes.
2:55
There is a small asterisk.
2:56
We did run into some weird issues with minimum FPS
2:59
with hyper-threading enabled.
3:00
Seems to be like a Windows scheduler thing.
3:02
Now RAM.
3:03
These are pretty memory slots.
3:04
I actually haven't used an MSI board
3:06
for a build in quite some time.
3:07
I think we have orange RAM.
3:09
This is being covered by the heatsink
3:10
pretty much entirely.
3:11
You can even see it.
3:12
However, we do have the orange kit.
3:14
Oh, really?
3:15
Yeah, check over here.
3:15
I'll check upstairs, okay?
3:16
Okay.
3:17
We could just put in like some Trident Z Royal for lulz.
3:20
Oh, yeah.
3:21
This is 4,000.
3:23
I found it.
3:24
It's okay.
3:25
We're gonna go Trident Z Royal anyway.
3:27
This is so far over the top.
3:30
Oh, man.
3:31
Look at this.
3:32
Oh, I mean, come on.
3:36
There's a certain point.
3:38
Where once you go tackier,
3:42
it gets pretty, you know?
3:45
Having so much fun right now.
3:47
I've never had this much fun installing RAM.
3:50
Look at this.
3:51
CPU cooler next then?
3:54
All right.
3:54
All right, let's do it.
3:55
I think I lost the English manual,
3:58
but I got the German and the Russian.
4:01
Which one do you want to go by?
4:02
All right, well, it looks like
4:03
you're doing the heatsink then.
4:06
Okay, German it is, fine.
4:07
What?
4:08
No.
4:09
You don't read German, do you?
4:09
No, you don't.
4:10
I know you don't.
4:11
Take the Russian one.
4:12
Take the Russian one.
4:13
They can see the cooler, man.
4:15
That brookie middick have done cooler.
4:17
So here goes our first M.2 device.
4:20
It's a 960 Pro.
4:23
I know.
4:24
We actually have a 970 Pro over there,
4:26
but like this already has an OS on it
4:29
and it really doesn't make that much of a difference.
4:31
Gaming.
4:33
Our second M.2 device
4:35
is going to be a 32 gig Optane memory module
4:40
to accelerate our 12 terabyte hard drive.
4:42
That way we can have a great big library of games.
4:48
Well, one can say if your M.2 gets shorted,
4:51
then you are screwed.
4:53
What?
4:54
No, no, no one is saying that.
4:55
It was your idea to have me in the video, so.
4:57
Now I know how all the ROG Rig Reboot kids felt.
5:02
Just these jokes and these references.
5:04
I can't take it anymore.
5:07
So our power supply here is 80 plus platinum certified,
5:10
comes with a mostly modular interface.
5:12
So the one cable they have pre-attached
5:14
is the 24 pin ATX connector.
5:16
You'll probably need one of those.
5:17
And it uses one of be quiet!'s very quiet fans.
5:22
Which one do they use on this one actually?
5:24
I believe it's Silent Wings 3.
5:25
This is a Silent Wings 3?
5:27
Oh, that's pretty nice.
5:29
We are German.
5:30
It is exactly 135 millimeters.
5:33
We don't care that everyone else calls it 140.
5:35
So we need for this motherboard, two eight pin connectors.
5:39
For our video cards,
5:40
we need two dual eight pin PCI Express connectors.
5:43
And then for our hard drive,
5:45
need a couple of SATA connectors for that.
5:47
So I'll grab one of these.
5:49
In case you're stuck, there's a manufacturer's opinion,
5:51
AKA the manual over here.
5:53
Oh, no, I was about to actually acknowledge that.
5:55
Man, full marks for like being built like a tank,
6:00
but the armor is preventing me
6:01
from inserting the power supply.
6:04
I am going to figure this out without the manual.
6:08
Yes!
6:10
All right, so power supply goes in here.
6:12
We got our nice filtered air intake for it.
6:14
Bippity boppity, done.
6:18
Check out the thumb screws this power supply comes with.
6:22
And I shipped five just in case one is bad, I guess.
6:24
That RAM is really tight.
6:27
So I'm running the dual eight pins
6:29
that we're gonna need for the top
6:32
of our motherboard right now.
6:34
So I can run them straight up the back here.
6:39
That's not bad.
6:41
So I'm just pre-measuring the distance between the card.
6:44
Whoa!
6:45
What?
6:47
Wow, that is really tight.
6:49
But what's nice is check this out.
6:52
So I'm gonna bring the other one over real quick here.
6:54
Unlike our last kick at the can,
6:58
we can put our second card right there,
7:01
giving both of them ample room to breathe.
7:05
I really would not wanna be a PCIe 1X card
7:08
installed in between these.
7:09
We're just finishing up a little bit of cable management here.
7:12
So we've got both of our fans
7:13
running off of the CPU fan one connector here.
7:15
We're just kind of trying to tuck this
7:17
into the back of the case.
7:18
And you can see that it's really tight.
7:19
I've already tried jamming it in.
7:21
So if I couldn't fit, you obviously wouldn't either.
7:24
Aw, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.
7:26
I think I can be happy with that.
7:28
The fan can still spin.
7:29
No, it can still spin.
7:33
All right, so the motherboard's going in.
7:35
Someone needs to hold the case.
7:36
How about you put it in and hold it
7:37
so it doesn't tip over?
7:39
It's just really heavy.
7:40
Get it?
7:41
Linus Tech tips.
7:43
Hey, this is my life, okay?
7:45
Don't judge.
7:46
Man, this is looking good though.
7:49
Here's the thing.
7:50
You should actually install the upper card first
7:52
because see how tight the clearance is?
7:54
The right one, I think, is not fully in.
7:56
There's a gap.
7:57
Oh, they're right.
7:57
They disconnected.
7:58
Damn it.
7:59
All right, it's in now.
8:00
Is it?
8:01
Oh.
8:02
Yeah, yeah, it's in now.
8:03
Because I couldn't tell.
8:04
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:05
Okay, want to grab one of the cards?
8:07
Look at this thing.
8:07
It's like thicker than my accent.
8:11
Yay.
8:12
All right, so that's in like fricking barely.
8:17
This whole system is nuts.
8:20
So we're almost done
8:21
with most of the standard wiring,
8:22
just connecting a USB 3 header here.
8:27
But there's some interesting stuff
8:29
about the case at the back.
8:33
So we've got, we can have performance or silent
8:37
configured along these four or these four ports.
8:40
We're gonna go straight to performance
8:41
based on our experience last time.
8:43
Then we've also got the ability to plug in RGB
8:49
for our included LED strips right here.
8:53
You can connect the fan controller to PWM
8:56
and then you can use the included fan controller.
8:58
So if you move it all the way over to the left,
8:59
it just lets the motherboard control it.
9:01
And then if you move it over,
9:02
then you've got completely infinite control.
9:05
So no steps, completely stepless control from either,
9:08
what is it, 400 to 1100 or something?
9:11
Yes, and then the performance mode is like 600 to 1400.
9:15
Sweet.
9:16
All right, so let's do it.
9:17
I'm gonna plug the RGB connector in.
9:19
Single most important connector in this entire build.
9:22
And we're getting close here.
9:23
Aren't we?
9:24
So one thing that's still left for us to install
9:26
aside from our second graphics card is our hard drive.
9:29
Now we can actually install hard drive cages
9:33
in all of these guys up here
9:35
and they're all included with the case.
9:37
But frankly, these two that sit under the shroud
9:41
are enough for, I would think most people anyway.
9:45
I mean, who installs like seven hard drives
9:48
in their systems anymore?
9:49
And I'd just rather have the cooling from these fans
9:53
than a bunch of hard drives here,
9:55
especially with these graphics cards.
9:57
Never a dull moment if you're into PCs being built.
10:03
Okay, what the hell?
10:05
What?
10:05
Just, I can't get this back together.
10:10
Oh, okay.
10:11
Well, that went back together.
10:16
Are you doing cable management right now?
10:18
Aye.
10:18
Okay.
10:19
All right.
10:20
We are getting really frigging close here.
10:23
This is exciting.
10:26
If this is where I start singing,
10:27
come a little bit closer, baby.
10:30
All right.
10:32
Here we go.
10:33
So this is it.
10:34
This is the PC building money shot, really.
10:39
When you insert the second graphics card.
10:43
Did you take off the protector?
10:45
Yeah, I did.
10:47
You think I'm new?
10:49
You know, in Japan,
10:50
they have this expression
10:51
that even dogs run into telephone posts.
10:53
Where is the RTX bridge?
10:54
Because you should not fasten it all the way
10:56
because remember,
10:57
we might have to move the cards around a little bit.
10:59
You're right.
10:59
And remember in the old studio
11:00
when you had like power wiring to the servers
11:03
running under a faucet?
11:04
And it wasn't even disconnected?
11:07
Yes.
11:08
Look, I'm not proud of it.
11:10
See, this one looks a little bit like a starfighter, yeah?
11:14
Like a three slot one would be fighting,
11:16
a dog fighting a quad slot one.
11:18
Which one would win?
11:19
NVIDIA, because it's just competing with itself.
11:23
Okay, that's not bad.
11:28
There.
11:32
Okay, no, seriously.
11:33
Give me a hand operator.
11:34
Okay.
11:36
Like, I'm gonna have a heart attack.
11:38
Like, see, you gotta respect
11:39
the hardware.
11:40
Like, and he's like,
11:41
trims it in there.
11:42
I mean.
11:43
It's on, it's on.
11:46
Dang.
11:47
Oh, it's beautiful.
11:48
Look at this thing.
11:50
I mean, if you're gonna be the fastest system,
11:52
you might as well do it in style, right?
11:55
Oh wow, I can't reach the peel.
11:57
Yeah, the tab for the peel came off,
11:59
but not the peel.
12:01
Oh man, zero out of 10, worst peel.
12:06
Oh, come on.
12:08
Look, he's bitching me out about this.
12:11
Yes, because like, you know,
12:12
you need to adhere to proper building practices.
12:15
Thank you.
12:18
There, mother.
12:20
It's like I'm the town barber, right?
12:21
I'll make it pretty.
12:23
Say no more, fam.
12:24
Who else do you know who carries a 24 pinner
12:26
in his freaking pocket at all times?
12:27
All right, so this is it.
12:32
We are basically there.
12:35
Back of the system is cable managed enough,
12:38
and the front looks absolutely fantastic.
12:41
So I'm gonna clear the desk.
12:43
Ivan's gonna grab our one percenter gaming peripherals,
12:47
and we are pretty much ready to go.
12:51
Okay.
12:52
The keyboard isn't quite one percenter,
12:54
but I think this G703, sure, we'll call that.
12:58
It's pretty.
12:59
All right, just making sure it looks good
13:01
for the moment of truth.
13:02
Do you wanna hit the power button at the back?
13:04
It's on.
13:09
Look at that memory.
13:13
Oh God.
13:14
This is like full swagger.
13:17
And we got a post on first attempt.
13:20
One can say that you've got mail.
13:23
Get post.
13:25
Nope.
13:26
Are there ninjas fighting on that screen,
13:28
on the motherboard?
13:29
And that is the favorite part of this build.
13:32
Look, the dragon defeats the ninjas while freaking dabbing.
13:37
All right, so I kept the same drivers.
13:38
What do we wanna start with?
13:39
We gotta close up the side panel,
13:40
because if we're gonna believe
13:41
that this thing doesn't thermal throttle,
13:43
we have to actually push it.
13:46
Can you please stop calling this machine an it?
13:48
Okay, it's a she.
13:51
It's a she?
13:52
All right, stress test.
13:54
This is 4K 144.
13:56
Oh my God.
13:57
Yeah.
13:58
So we're back at default,
13:59
and there's just a couple things we need to do.
14:00
We need to change the SATA mode to RAID slash Optane mode,
14:04
and we are going to enable our XMP profile
14:08
to see what happens.
14:10
Hopefully that'll work.
14:12
I thought friends don't let friends enable XMP profile.
14:14
Generally they don't, but come on.
14:16
We put 4,000 megahertz RAM in here.
14:18
Let's see if it can do it.
14:22
And it crashed.
14:25
Is this where I get the told you so about XMP?
14:28
I remember having the craziest conversation
14:29
with someone from ASUS when I was like,
14:31
yeah, I hate XMP.
14:32
And they're like,
14:35
I was like, what do you mean why?
14:38
Cause it doesn't work.
14:39
Most of the time, overwhelming majority of the time.
14:42
It's also possible that was just a random glitch
14:45
because this didn't have any hiccups so far.
14:48
You know, there was no such thing as random, right?
14:50
Even random number generator is not quite random.
14:52
Here you go.
14:54
In Soviet Russia, right?
14:55
It's just like you take over by.
14:57
Okay, all right.
14:58
Just cut.
14:59
Maybe he'll stop.
15:00
This is kind of incredible, man.
15:01
Like I think I've seen one or two dips below 60 FPS.
15:06
Never seen this benchmark run this smoothly.
15:08
So we're gonna get the score any moment now.
15:11
And the goal is that this is the PC for the 1%.
15:17
It's over 10K.
15:19
Over 10K.
15:20
Well over 10K.
15:22
Ooh.
15:29
Oh, Occupy is alive.
15:34
92%.
15:36
There's probably a little more we can do here.
15:39
Let's go increase our power limit to 125.
15:42
I think this core is good for about plus 100 or so.
15:45
What's it?
15:46
We had a profile.
15:47
Oh, before profile?
15:48
Oh yeah, there's our profile.
15:49
Let's try again.
15:50
Let's try again.
15:52
2%.
15:54
You know that one graphics card in there
15:55
is worth more than my entire PC setup?
15:57
Did you know that one graphics card in there
15:59
is worth more than my entire PC setup?
16:02
This is looking higher and no crash yet.
16:04
And we just broke 11,000.
16:08
Time to compare online.
16:12
Show me that 1%, baby.
16:15
98%.!
16:15
Come on!
16:17
Okay, what if you boosted the CPU clocks a little bit?
16:20
Fine, yeah.
16:21
It does make a difference in the simulation test.
16:22
All right, all right, all right, all right.
16:24
Let's do it.
16:25
Okay, so we're going to 4.8 gigahertz.
16:29
We're gonna try and keep our memory at 3,600.
16:33
And that's a lot of things to change in one go.
16:39
All settings were reset to default values.
16:42
Goodbye, extreme memory profile.
16:45
Hello.
16:46
Maybe gonna boot.
16:48
We are now running at 4.8 gigahertz locked.
16:52
Across all cores.
16:53
Across all cores.
16:57
Let's fire up the CPU-Z.
17:05
All right, here we go.
17:06
Results time.
17:07
Temps still very comfortable.
17:09
So it was like 11.2.
17:11
Oh, come on!
17:14
Well, I'm not expecting this to be any better
17:17
because why would you?
17:18
But whatever, there it is, 98%.
17:20
Okay, fine, we'll push your last 15 megahertz here
17:23
and see if that makes the difference.
17:26
If this doesn't do it,
17:27
we don't have a lot left in the tank.
17:29
What, 30 more points or something?
17:31
I doubt that's gonna be the difference here.
17:35
And it isn't.
17:37
Now let's try some actual games, shall we?
17:40
So what do you think?
17:41
Shadow of the Tomb Raider, graphics, ultra,
17:45
with motion blur off, 4K, 120 hertz, SMAA.
17:50
Let's see where we end up here.
17:53
Before that though, I'd like to share a computer joke.
17:55
A computer joke with you.
17:57
What happened to the PC enthusiast
18:00
whose side panel got all scratched up?
18:03
He lost his temper.
18:06
I don't get it.
18:07
For glass.
18:09
Damn, that's smooth.
18:09
We might just have to run the benchmark though,
18:11
but like, holy crap.
18:13
No, display, options, displaying graphics, hit arrow.
18:16
Go ahead and cut.
18:18
What the hell?
18:19
Luke.
18:20
Hello.
18:21
Whoa, okay, nevermind.
18:23
Yeah, you can roll on this.
18:24
What?
18:25
4K!
18:27
And this is fully maxed out with-
18:30
Except no motion blur because motion blur is garbage.
18:32
Yeah, motion blur is bad, yes.
18:33
I don't think I've ever seen a counter break two digits.
18:37
I'm here until now.
18:39
Holy ballsacks.
18:40
That is unreal.
18:42
No, this is a Tomb Raider.
18:46
What?
18:50
Do you see that?
18:51
We cracked 200, not for long,
18:54
but we cracked 200 FPS for a sec there.
18:57
I've never been so enraptured by this benchmark run.
19:01
Enraptured?
19:03
Yeah.
19:04
It's a word?
19:05
Yes, I made a joke.
19:06
Oh, well, no, that's not, no, no, that wasn't my,
19:08
okay, I wasn't making jokes.
19:09
I was just serious business.
19:11
This is unreal.
19:13
128 FPS at 4K.
19:19
I mean, this makes me feel a little better about, you know,
19:21
not being in the 1% 3D Mark.
19:25
And what's really cool about this
19:29
is that we actually did experience reasonable,
19:32
like not amazing,
19:33
but reasonable SLI scaling across a variety of titles.
19:38
So once you're cranking it up, 4K, Ultra,
19:42
you've got your NVLink bridge, dual RTX 2080 TIs.
19:46
Yeah, it's a gaming experience unlike any other.
19:49
It was still a lot of fun to build something that,
19:53
wow, slab engineering.
20:00
Oh, man.
20:02
In our defense though, we knew that wasn't gonna stay there.
20:04
We didn't even take the sticky table.
20:05
Well, no, no, because I only used half,
20:06
so we can reuse it. Yes, okay.
20:07
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
20:08
Let's just try that again.
20:12
Okay, so we didn't achieve our goal,
20:14
top 1% 3D Mark TimeSpy Extreme,
20:16
but it was still a lot of fun just being hands-on with,
20:20
just experiencing the best of the best of what exists today.
20:26
This is an absolutely phenomenal machine,
20:28
even if it's only in the top 2% of TimeSpy Extreme.
20:31
And something to bear in mind
20:33
is that the top 2% of TimeSpy Extreme is well within the top,
20:37
1% worldwide anyway.
20:38
So that's what I'm gonna tell myself
20:39
to make myself feel better.
20:41
So a big thank you to be quiet! for sponsoring this endeavor.
20:44
We learned a lot, like that you definitely need
20:47
the additional spacing between RTX 2080Ti's.
20:51
So that was fun.
20:52
And thanks to you guys for watching.
20:54
If you guys disliked this video, you can hit that button,
20:57
but you know I'm gonna know your jelly, right?
20:59
And if you liked it, hit like, get subscribed,
21:01
or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff
21:03
we featured at the link in the video description.
21:06
Also down there is our merch store.
21:07
Which has cool shirts like this one.
21:08
These are more affordable.
21:10
And our community forum, which you guys should totally join.