Get It Together, NZXT: BLD PC Undercover Review as a Real Customer

it sounds like your cpu may have shaken loose in shipping they told us what the hell is that what do i do with that as a customer especially if i don't know anything about it just yank hard is what nzxt told one of its customers who expressed regret when faced with a damaged panel on his case the customer replied with yeah that's why now i have a broken piece of plastic leg we caught that tweet from ndxc back in april and we were frustrated and disappointed with how ndxd took a real customer inquiry expressing regret and treated it like a joke meme just like the rest of nzxt's wannabe corporate twitter account where they try their hardest to be just like wendy's and dbrand to really high bars to reach so when we saw all that we emailed nzxt's ceo we expressed our concerns about customer service and after we got confirmation that nzxt would in fact be focusing on the customer experience we backed off for a little bit and then we bought this the nzxt build and now we're here to see if nzxt has actually improved its customer support experience for its pre-built systems we'll also be looking at the pre-built in depth to see the overall quality as it compares to things like the cyber power ion power and walmart disasters that we've purchased previously before that this video is brought to you by our charity auction for this very computer we didn't want to buy review and return it now that we can afford not to but we also don't want the computer so we're listing it as a charity auction with 100 of proceeds benefiting cat angels a no kill cat rescue shelter that we've visited locally vetted and helped in the past cat angels saves cares for and helps people adopt cats and we like raising money for their costs we're definitely losing money on this video so we'd at least like to make sure someone gets up the pc's retail value was about fifteen hundred dollars so if you want to grab the very system we tested and have its side panel autographed by the team visit the link in the description below to support a good cause while doing it pre-built systems are actually really important to the ecosystem of pc gaming it's what people get into it into the hobby and hopefully some of them transition into diy interest later but ultimately not everyone has to build their own computer and the elitism surrounding diy pcs is very off-putting in that way where if you didn't build it yourself then you're some kind of peon in comparison to the people who did build it themselves but ultimately it's an important section of the environment that we're in as pc gamers and it also means that the pre-built system manufacturers have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders to not screw over new customers because if they do then they end up going back to consoles or something like that so uh there's a lot on the line for pre-built manufacturers we've put a lot of them to the test now we're zero for four on pre-built systems that get out of the box properly configured in some instances walmart for example we had two systems arrive incorrectly configured one of them had a boot device not detected error because it was not configured correctly in bios and the other one was something similar you can go watch the videos we had a cyber power pc that had a cable coming out of the primary sata drive and the secondary drive was not even initialized we had an eye by power pc where xmp wasn't on and it had numerous other small issues so we're over four this is going to be our fifth attempt at getting a pre-built pc that when you turn it on is actually configured properly that's all we're really going for the bar is low now but in addition to that we're testing covertly the customer service of nzxt and its bld or build team so some backstory for you ndxt and iowa power are actually in the same building in california they're right next to each other in or near city of industry this is public information you can find it easily ndxt also interestingly got into the pre-built space even though i bypower is owned by the father of the ceo of nzxt but even though they're sort of competitors in some ways they've both taken their own paths and have diverged in what they're doing ndxt bld is relatively new it's been incredibly successful for ndxt and the company has been mostly focused on things like customer service and getting a better build quality or assembly quality overall for their systems than you might see with larger operations like cyberpower which has blown up in recent years especially so for this content we bought this one with our own money this is the nzxt bld streaming system they didn't know we were buying it we bought it under a different name from anyone they might recognize we shipped it to a different address than one they might recognize and we use a different email address than one they might recognize our purchases were made under covert operative pat snow stint snow from snowflake the ceo of our operation obviously and stint because that's what it is and pat because patrick technically is the one who bought it uh previously covert operative beef sturk was outed publicly at ces after being seen in hypebeast uniform so we couldn't use that name any longer so this is the the approach we took for ndxd's build support testing we had different experiences with the call center and with emails that we're going to be going through today and the short of it is that ndxc's customer service much like its twitter service that we witnessed for one of our viewers is uh largely let's go with ill-equipped it's probably the nicest way we can put it here before we get into all of that though we do need to go through the system hardware the build quality and assembly and look at things from that angle we've learned from past prebuilts that it's important to give the system a full once over before even turning it on just to make sure that all the cables drives and cards are connected properly the cyber power pc we worked on didn't even have the sata cable fully connected to the primary drive so this type of thing is important to check externally the only visible blemish was that the i o shield hadn't been fully pressed in place this doesn't affect functionality and we usually leave the i o shield out of our builds altogether but it could have been better and is a note of attention to detail moving inside of the case ndxc packed the internals with the usual expanding foam pillow some of the print from the plastic pillow scuffed off on the back plate of the gpu but rubbing alcohol should be sufficient to wipe this off once we get around to it internal components were held securely by the foam and nothing shook loose aided by the fact that the system storage is a single m.2 drive so there's no drive sleds or sata cables to shake loose to begin with here's where we start finding problems though unfortunately neither the eps 12 volt cable nor the 24 pin atx power cable were plugged in correctly each four pin half of the eight pin cpu power connector was technically plugged in but only one was fully inserted and actually latched leaving the second one coming out of the socket so we had a four pin in there but not the full eight meanwhile the plus 4 connector on the 24 pin cable wasn't hooked under the other 20 pins so it couldn't be inserted or secured fully this is a technician error that doesn't happen in shipping it happens when you build it both power connections were functional and allowed the system to boot and fortunately for nzxt you don't need both halves of the 8-pin to boot the board depending on which board you're working with that said there was nothing but friction to prevent them from being pulled out so this was done haphazardly we'll get back to other physical hardware details in a moment but we need to first address the memory ndxe has brandished all over its web page for this product that it uses 3200 megahertz ram this is technically true even with xmp off the team vulcan z memory is in fact called t force vulcan z 16 gigabytes 3200 megahertz so in the strictest sense of semantics it is 3 200 megahertz in name ndxe even printed this on all the included papers that came with the system that say it's 3 200 megahertz the single most egregious mistake that we found the system given the advertising was that xmp was not enabled just like with the ibuypower system that we reviewed last year the system is advertised with 3200 megahertz memory but it was running at 2400 megahertz ddr by default with the infinity fabric and memory controller clocks synced to the same speed by default we end up at 1200 megahertz for those this is the bigger issue since it's an amd system and it's maintaining a one to one to one mode infinity fabric tanks in addition to the memory we did performance testing both with and without xmp enabled for this particular system but we'll cover that result later in this piece enabling xmp sets the memory to its proper 3200 megahertz speed and syncs the infinity fabric and memory controller clocks up to 1600. the bios version our system shipped with was the most recent public release from november of 2019 which is a point back in nzxt's favor if they bothered to update it themselves maybe nzxt set xmp at some point and then forgot to do it again after updating the bios regardless of how it happened the end result was that every single bio setting was set to msi's default value so nzxt fails this test just like ibuypower did the cpu fan is next that was connected to a designated cpu fan header with default pwm fan curves applied with a 100 fan speed threshold at a cpu temperature of 70 degrees celsius this is appropriate for the cpu this is however the only fan header which had a fan curve applied by default the rear fan was plugged into the sysfan1 header and the front fan was plugged into the pumpfan1 header each of these have different default behaviors and since nzxt left it all to defaults that's what they ended up running the pump header defaults to pwm mode and therefore runs the three pin case fan at full speed about 1 300 rpm while the system fan header defaults to dc control mode and runs its fan at about 950 rpm if we believed that were intentional it would be fine the problem is that it strongly suggests nobody knew or cared that the case fans would behave differently based on where they were plugged in and nobody tried to click one button in bios to check out the cooling settings or even do any tuning to the noise levels the target audience for these pcs is never going to dig into bios settings pre-built manufacturers should be tuning them meticulously before shipping them out because ultimately this is a templated pc built they're building the same damn system over and over every day it's on the site you can buy this exact configuration for a templated build testing should be rigorous and then automation and pixie servers should be used to clone settings from one to the next it doesn't even require manual effort once done the first time speaking of fans it seems like nzxt has given up on its unusual default fan layout for the h500 they knew we'd question the negative pressure system back when they sent us the h500 for review but they stood behind it and testing revealed that it did indeed perform better than you might expect with a more standard layout for the fans setting the case up with two exhaust fans allowed the gpu to draw air in through the empty pcie slots cooling it directly and actually very effectively for the setup whereas a normal front to back airflow pattern in our case testing of the h500 and the h510 showed that front to back would struggle to cope with the restrictive front panel design that was for the review though there are visible marks where someone at the assembly location manually unscrewed the top exhaust fan and moved it to the front of the case so this isn't even being done at a factory level when the case is being made instead it's being done at ndxt's warehouse probably the one in california where they're building the systems cable management was fine above the power supply shroud it was very tidy with plenty of zip ties and nzxt's cable management channels taken advantage of there wasn't any great effort put into tidying up the cables below the power splash route but all of them were tucked out of the way and kept outside of the hard drive cage which we think was a considerate touch given that there are no pre-installed drives in the cage so credit's given here because they could have just as easily stuffed them into the cage to get them out of the way next is to look for bloatware for some reason cam was pre-installed on the system we were expecting this to be fair but there's really no reason at all to have it on this computer this isn't an i-series intelligent case if you can call nzxt's butchering of things like fan speeds intelligent and there's no built-in lighting outside of the cpu cooler there isn't any ndxt fan controller there's no ndxc crack in our other cooler there's no ndxt power supply in short none of the things that might compel someone to actually install cam are present but cam is present the version pre-installed on the system was 4.4.1 it was able to start up and function in guest mode without a connection to the internet and it didn't set itself to launch with windows until we had opened it once so in the very least it was minimally annoying and we can't take away as many points as we might otherwise since they're not popping it up instantly upon boot a couple of other things to go through here for the assembly and overall setup some of these are good points for nzxt2 other than cam nothing funky was going on on the softer side of things so ignoring cam it didn't have any obnoxious bloatware on it which is what we're really looking for with these more boutique system integrators anyone who isn't dell or hp as an example where you start getting into just everybody installs norton and every other bloated piece of trash you can possibly find on the internet corsair probably installs iq so they're in there with nzxt for cam but overall it wasn't too bad the pre-installed nvidia gpu driver was the then current version uh 445.75 current for the time we bought it and the selected power plan was also correct it was rise and bounced which was a point where we thought we might get them but it's pretty good attention to detail that they actually got that one correct despite the other attention to detail issues the ssd was not partitioned pointlessly which was an annoying feature that we saw on the walmart pc build so that's a good thing internal components were all installed correctly the ram was in the right slots the gpu wasn't a top slot there was no hot glue involved anywhere unlike the walmart system so the pcie devices were arranged appropriately the wireless card was situated the furthest away from the gpu possible which is also a good small thing that was done well power connectors being loose was a major strike against nzxt's build quality here the fact that the system was still set up enough to boot does negate some of that it's not as bad as what walmart was doing or at least it's system integrator it was doing that it outsourced to overall looks like someone actually turned this thing on at nzxt before they shipped it which is more than we can say for some pre-built part of nzxt's stick with all this is that they publish some form of benchmarks and guarantees for frame rate with the system which is a really risky and strange thing to do but nzxt makes specific claims about gaming performance for things like cs go and league of legends for example so this particular system is supposed to achieve 160fps at 1080p uh 110fps at 1440p in fortnite chapter 2. it's supposed to achieve 228 fps at 1080p to 18 fps at 1440p and league of legends 275 1080 and 247 fps at 1440 and cs go and so forth either way we need to get into the thing that matters more first which is the nzxt's lack of wherewithal to actually support a customer in a competent or technically competent fashion so we created a fake issue to stress test customer service this is a benchmark we took the same approach we do for technical benchmarks with computers it wasn't an overly difficult one but it was a challenge before creating this benchmark we consulted with our own customer service team for the gn store so store.camerasnexus.net if you want to support us there with things like modmats and mousemaps but our customer service guy has been doing customer service for about 15 years now for e-commerce and has a lot of experience with it he has extremely high standards for hiring people to the extent that it's actually really difficult to find people who meet his standards so we consulted with him on testing methodology to blind test nzxt build based on something he's run into that he uses for tests for hiring people to do the job and we just kind of restructured it around a prebuilt because our cables were loose upon arrival we already had something we could work with so we decided to just exaggerate that and unplug them completely from the eps 12 volt header that would be the test is if they actually feasibly got disconnected in shipping that could happen given what we saw when we received it how would ndxc respond to this would they be able to isolate the issue our testing methodology wants to identify the following customer service traits we'll put up a card on the screen for you so number one is can tactical support lead us to getting our pc bootable number two can customer service identify and answer multiple questions in an email without missing one or skipping over some details number three can customer service properly intro outro and thank the customer while offering appropriate apologies for inconvenience cost and number four can customer service reply in a timely fashion for point number two any of you in the corporate world are likely used to the joy of sending an email with say three questions in it and getting one answer back so that's what we're doing there we didn't want to make it too easy so we artificially used somewhat poor grammar and we didn't bullet or number the questions which would make it way too easy for them so we instead typed them in line this is something our own store support deals with pretty regularly that's fine that's how people write in the real world we wanted to test that separately our benchmark also included some irrelevant information along the way to see if it would trip anyone up just to kind of it's kind of like a word problem you would do in math class and elementary school we're just stuffing extra details in there to see if they can remember by the end of the email what it is they have to go back and address seems silly and like it would be trivial but it wasn't so that's what we're going to start with and so staying snowpat set forth on his first adventure after beef sterk was previously compromised in a covert mission we wrote this email you can pause if you want to read the whole thing but the gist of it is that we started with some unnecessary information we expressed disappointment that the pc isn't booting or turning on then we asked for help we noted a small hole in the box and said it's not a big deal but that there's a black scuff on the case panel this isn't actually true it was just part of the test we didn't ask for a resolution of this but we were more checking to see if nzxt would acknowledge it it was also a clue for nzxt if there's damage to the box a hole in it and a black scuff on the case then maybe the issue of no booting is a result of getting banned around we also told ndxt that we're not very technical so this sets the stage for how much hand-holding we'll need as a customer our tone was overall neutral to friendly albeit a bit annoying with the poor grammar that we intentionally used and excessive questions we didn't approach this in an angry fashion the test is seeking the following one proper introduction or greeting from ndxt two a thanks for the purchase and an apology for the inconvenience since the customer expressed grief at being unable to play games on his one day off three acknowledgement of the damaged box and the scuff mark perhaps with a request for a photo of the issue to be addressed appropriately four we asked how to get the computer to boot and provided basic info no display out but lights and fans are on this is the main issue buried in the middle of the email and five we asked what the bag is for that came with the system that has cables antennas things like that and we also asked what the sata cables were without identifying them by name nzxt reply was this email we are obscuring the employee's name so they don't get harassed by our viewers but the company replied in about 20 hours which is actually a really great response time and they get high points for that especially now given the current world situation so let's go through those points one by one after that first set of responses from ntc support number one nzxt did greet us with hello they did have an auto sign-off signature good enough that passes that test so they also said thanks so this all counts they've done well here number two ndxc did apologize for the lack of display on the system they uh passed point number two for that reason number three ntxt absolutely completely failed this test it tripped over itself here there was zero acknowledgement of any shipping damage at all absolutely not no reference at all to the statements made there wasn't a question mark after those statements but they should have been addressed and that was part of the test here there was no request for further information on the black scuff mark or the cosmetic damage that we mentioned we wouldn't expect a return for this and when we asked our cs agent at gn what they would do the first suggestion to the customer would probably be hey try cleaning it off with a rag see if it comes off if it's just like a rubber scuff if it does cool no problem and if not then send us photos and we'll figure out what to do next maybe we'll replace the whole panel for you that's what we were hoping to see here at least the start to that ndxt gets a big fat f for this test for not even noticing the problem and ignoring it completely which just reflects on nzxt's attention to detail or lack thereof nzxt point number four suggested that the monitor might not be plugged into the correct spot despite all the clues of shipping damage that's fine that's not a bad start but they don't know what computer we have yet number five nzxt did address the antenna and sort of address the sata cables by noting it's all extra if you wanted to add things down the line not a great response since it doesn't educate the customer but it's good enough and will be lenient here point number six is one it's an extra one this is a final point and it's very important in nzxt dammit i hope you're taking notes ndxc didn't ask us for our order number or any way to identify ourselves this is important so we're not using an email that we use to place the order they have no way of tracking where this order came from they don't even know if we have a system at this point ndxt has no way to even verify if we have a d gpu they don't know if we have an igp they don't know if we have a cpu that can have an igp and we don't by the way that's not actually possible with this one nzxt should have saved the time and reduced correspondence by at least one email in the future technically two with the response by asking for the order id at the end of this first email it's fantastic to help a customer without needing that information to just stonewall and ask that first that would have sucked and it just looks like they're buying time but they could offer that help and then ask for it at the end and they get an f for failing this basic step needed to progress our reply really tried to lead ndxt to the water a trend that will repeat itself we thanked them then we asked to clarify if the video slot was quote up near the black scuff that i mentioned previously that was just to see if they'd acknowledge it after the issue being forced upon them twice we then switched our tone from neutral to more of a concerned customer's tone remember that pat sting isn't particularly adept technically so he expresses concern that the top video slot is broken since nzxt is asking us to use the middle one instead obviously we know that a dgpu means the igp slot won't output video and we also know that this cpu doesn't have an igp but our customer doesn't know that ndxc replied asking for the order number finally remember that this is an amd system without an igp nzxt hasn't even verified if we have onboard video yet even still rather than explaining what they do they replied in sort of an annoyed tone quote also the vertical slot at the top is not broken it is just disabled that is completely intended because you purchased the gpu the gpu is what is halfway down the back and horizontal again that's all kind of correct but they don't actually know what our computer is yet it could be an h1 for all they know in which case that wouldn't even really be true it could also not have a gpu that's an option you can custom build the system with that one or maybe it doesn't have on-board video and that's not present in the vertical position so we then started to take the angry customer tone just as a test quote but why would you put two slots on there we asked why would you install an extra one if it's not even possible to use i don't appreciate paying for something i can't even use we said we then provided a tracking number rather than an order id just to test if they would look it up that way and to their credit they did nzxt's next reply was this one the relevant information is that they asked us to identify a troubleshooting led finally and sent us an image of the motherboard with those leds boxed in a square we're finally getting somewhere many days later we told nzxt that the cpu led was in fact turning on remember our issue that we fabricated here is that the eps 12 volt cable isn't plugged in and we're trying to see if they can figure that out without us telling them we actually did this and we booted it just to make sure we could report back the behavior accurately we noted that nzxt hasn't answered several of the other concerns in our email here and that was another hint back to the scuffed panel comment earlier and then we moved on finally ndxc replies with what is probably one of the worst troubleshooting and customer service emails we've ever seen quote it sounds like your cpu may have may have shaken loose in shipping if you feel comfortable reseeding it you are more than welcome to that's how they spelled it but if not then we will need to get this back can you confirm your address so ignoring the bad grammar from that one if ndxc actually has cpus shake loose at any regularity in their shipping process there's an entirely different layer of incompetence that needs to be addressed we could probably throw this computer out of the fourth floor window and in all likelihood although everything else would be beat to hell probably the cpu cooler would still be mounted to the socket yes it's pga but it's still these these new amd coolers those clips are nasty so it's probably going to stay in there nzxt also provided absolutely zero guidance of what reseeding even means here much less how to do it but instead puts the customer in a dangerous situation where they're saying hey if you want to try it go for it no problem but they don't provide any links any documentation or even a definition for our technically illiterate customer as to what this means so now the customer might look up how to reseat a cpu and then end up with a bunch of smashed pins whose fault is it at that point uh so this is all just basically nzxt's approach to fix it was well just send it bro or follow me watch this so at this point nzxt got an f for identifying the problem rather than starting with obvious things like check the power cables reset the ram which anyone can do with basic instructions clear cmos or even verifying that the monitor is in the right mode although they did have the cpu led to go off of nzxt instead jumps to lowell the cpu shook loose so the company next offered us express shipping both ways to get this fixed which is an insane waste of money for ndxt when it could be solved by providing a simple bulleted list of basic troubleshooting steps ndxt i've just found the way to save your company a lot of money every year on rmas so we were also shocked that nzxt never asked for photos to help troubleshoot because a single photo would have been the key to the problem a technician should hopefully be able to say hey those cables aren't plugged in that's the problem no express shipping both ways imagine that we eventually called nzxt as well and the short of the call was that the new technician who seemed very nice behind you and they get points for that uh ended up agreeing with the first technician saying that the cpu may have shaken loose didn't take the time to read the previous ticket which is disappointing and then we re-socketed the cpu on the call with his assistants and told him that it still didn't boot he then suggested express shipping so finally exhausted on how bad this process was and how poor the support was versus how i would want to see it run i asked them if maybe there are other things we could try first before shipping it across the country twice after some pushing they suggested maybe we should check the cables so they still never asked for a photo of the system but at least that would eventually get to the solution of the problem man was that hard to get there so as the oldest saying goes you can lead a horse to water and then you can drown it and let its lungs fill up with water so it was painful to lead ndxt to the solution but they eventually got there we just had to actually drown them in the water to get them to drink it we're going to do some really quick performance testing now we have a whole bunch of performance data that we're not going to publish just because the video is so long from the customer service side of things like a lot of focus on thermals but instead we're just going to focus on proving the point of nzxt should have just toggled xmp on it's so easy and we'll show you some performance uplift so for testing methodology you can defer to our cpu test suite and read about the methodological choices in that documentation if you want to see why we're doing what we are and let's just get started and get through some quick numbers we'll start with f1 2019 and this game is always the highest frame rate of our test suite so it'll run objectively well regardless but it's still useful in the comparative sense nzxt's testing team is probably still inexperienced enough that it'll look at 186 fps average and ask why we're being nitpicky except that the performance delta between these two results is actually a pretty massive eight and a half percent eight and a half percent is about the same you'll see out of a change from one cpu to the next in the price class or from one gpu to an option price maybe fifty dollars higher except this doesn't cost anything ndxc has kneecapped itself artificially by neglecting this option frame time consistency also improves here as reflected in low values in this test in hitman 2 we saw a performance improvement of six and a half percent just by enabling xmp it matters to skip settings like these and when you're paying at least something of a premium to have it built for you it really is important that the company ticks all the boxes that includes looking over its work before shipping it out especially if it's going to advertise one speed all over the product documentation everywhere and then ship with another shadow of the tomb raider shows a 7.2 percent improvement by doing nzxt's job for it literally four button presses for this one in a more cpu bound scenario gta 5 shows a difference of 8.8 percent average fps just for that one toggle why this made it through qc is again beyond us but a few companies have failed this test so far if they're advertising those xmp speeds it really needs to run at those xmp speeds this is actually something that several customers have complained about in ndxt's reviews on its web page including one who pointed out that uh although they got the measure of units wrong at gigahertz pointed out that it should be 3 200 and it shipped at a lower speed so we're going to stop there the charts have proven the point well enough there's overall ndxt had some upsides and we went through those already but cable management was good overall part selection is more or less matched it's not like they have horribly mismatched part selection like you see sometimes where there'll be a 1200 watt power supply with something that drops 400 watts so they've done better there than other companies have but really dropped the ball hard with customer service and with setting up bios correctly which are probably the two main things that an si needs to do properly because they're the two things that the average person who doesn't really want to build a computer is going to need they're going to need someone to go through and do those intermediate level things or just offer good support so we're unimpressed with the technical troubleshooting abilities of nzc support staff thus far the company should probably have a pre-written document at this point that it sends out to every support request that about like a no boot scenario that just says here's some basic stuff any customer can do and try this out before you know we progress an example might be check the which video device is being used check if the power switch on the backs flipped reset the ram whatever they think a customer can reasonably do there should at least be a beginner level troubleshooting guide what's terribly inefficient is sending out one-off guesses and extremely short emails that aren't all that helpful that are just well maybe the cpu shook loose you can try and reseed it if you want to what the hell is that what do i do with that as a customer especially if i don't know anything about it also again if cpu shaking loose there's a serious problem somewhere else so customer service is uh also wasting a lot of nzx money with this approach and the management should probably look at this and evaluate what upfront work they can do at something of a cost now like guides for example in order to reduce the later cost of express shipping both ways so they were sending us youtube videos to random youtubers who actually not even really youtubers more just like random people who've uploaded things not necessarily professionals uh who are showing how to socket or install cooler for example which is just like cool that's fine and the video link does a fine job at explaining it but ndxt is support and we didn't include this in the rest of the video but the support was here's how you receive the cpu which we suggested you try here's a link to a random youtube video and then they said oh but do it in reverse because this guy's showing how to install it but you need to actually remove it and then put it back in so it's like if you're doing that come on ndxd how hard is it to just make your own video guides you've got a studio where you're taking photos somewhere just get someone who's reasonably competent your case designers are pretty good and have them host some video about it uh so and or i don't know paul and kyle are like down the street go pay them to do it so anyway that's all stuff that could be really improved on the cs side uh we are going to give nzxt overall credit for a clean build for at least socketing the parts correctly uh didn't take all the boxes but i don't know failing to respond to like the visual scuff mark again which we we fabricated as a test but failing to even acknowledge it is is pretty bad so uh the build works and it boots which is more than we can say sometimes but it's not really configured properly so um also ndxc didn't even use its own parts for everything like they didn't use their power supply and they make power supplies they didn't use their coolers and they make coolers so maybe their cost is too high where it's cheaper to just buy someone else's part but still not really the image you want to portray so that's it for this one thanks for watching as always you can support us directly by going to store.cameratexas.net to pick up things like mod maps or pc building or wireframe maps mats or you can go to patreon.com gamersnexus for behind the scenes and extra videos like patronsgn subscribe for more we'll see you all next time the

Channel: Gamers Nexus

Views: 1,523,229

Keywords: gamersnexus, gamers nexus, computer hardware, nzxt bld review, nzxt bld worth it, nzxt bld vs cyberpower, nzxt bld vs ibuypower, nzxt bld benchmark, nzxt bld streamer review, nzxt bld customer service

Id: iY-SEPGvqxY

Length: 34min 36sec (2076 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/nd4spd1919]

Is anyone surprised? I have no problems with people who want to buy prebuilt, but part of the value should be in having long term support. This could easily leave a less technically competent person without a $1k desktop for a week.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/JuanElMinero]

That's the type of thorough investigative journalism we need a lot more of in the hardware sector, especially in the video-based section, which can be a great benefit for a topic like this.

[u/cooReey]

Don't worry even if they set fan curves right CAM would f them up

I love my Kraken x62 but I cannot stand shitty software that it comes with

[u/Kougar]

Considering I once had a 980X slag an EPS12V connector that was fully inserted during a regular gaming session, having half of that connector mostly unplugged here is completely, utterly unacceptable.

Doesn't matter what the CPU is or how likely the customer is to try to overclock it, it creates the potential for disaster that will eventually end up biting someone. And I'd be surprised if the company would even warranty the machine after the fact.

[u/bubblesort33]

Have they found any pre-builds yet that have XMP enabled? Is the reason really just cost saving and laziness why, or could it be for other reasons? I think it was Linus's recent video that said that XMP is actually voiding warranty on their platform. Could it be for some kind of strange legal reason? Edit : on intel platform I mean.

[u/Sylanthra]

I am not sure I agree with the assessment of a target customer for this sort of system. Someone who is clueless about PCs will buy a Dell or an HP. They would not go to a boutique custom PC builder like NZXT. By the time you know about boutique builders, you are fairly comfortable with what's inside the PC and are using them for the convenience of not having to put things together yourself rather than because you have no clue about anything and need hand holding. This category of people would know how to troubleshoot basic issues themselves.

I am not saying the NZXT customer support is good, rather that it's not really needed. It will be more expensive to train people to be good customer support reps than it would be to pay for shipping occasionally.

The fact that XMP profile wasn't enabled is IMO much worse. Even if you know what's what, there is a very good chance you won't know about XMP or think to check and you are just going to end having a system underperform.

[u/MlNDB0MB]

This is sorta off topic, but I am impressed with how little sag there is on that graphics card with that huge heatsink. So at least MSI did a good job.

[u/[deleted]]

If I was a pc building company I'd never OC the RAM with or without XMP, that voids the cpu warranty and potentially can cause instability even if you stress test. RAM issues sometimes show up completely unexpected. So the safest thing to do is to leave it at JEDEC speeds and maybe provide a booklet for the user how to do it themselves if they are after bleeding edge performance and a warning message that you are doing it at your own risk.