How To Build a $3000-$5000 High-End Gaming PC - Step-by-Step Guide

welcome everyone to yet another how to build  a PC tutorial this time we're going high end   I've already done an intro budget build  if you guys are interested and you're   just getting started check out that video it  is already live on my channel today's video   is sponsored by Micro Center because whether  you're building a budget system or a high-end   rig you got to get parts somewhere and Micro  Center is one of the best places to buy them   especially if you can go in in person to do some  shopping that's what we're going to do today I already have the parts picked out for  today's build but if you're shopping at   Micro Center you can use their custom PC  Builder on the website to pick out your   parts it will ensure compatibility and  then you can pick them up in store but   every time I come here I'm like where  do I begin they have so many different   sections it's like a tech Wonderland so  let's just wander around a little bit Micro Center has laptops and lots of finished  consumer goods as well I find it to be really   nice as opposed to shopping online to be  able to come into the store and actually   physically pick up the thing that you might  be considering buying what a pretty flower 3D printers they got 3D printers too bring your  kids they've even got a toy section of course   you will eventually make your way over to the  components section which is basically this entire   side of the store the build your own PC area  everything from power supplies to CPU coolers   to motherboards CPUs themselves of course and hey  shout out to DAR Bauer they even have stuff for   high-end liquid cooling as well as exotic cooling  like thermal Grizzly liquid metal okay guys we're   over here by the CPUs and let me let me just  tell you if you're shopping for computer parts   uh I don't think any store has better prices on  CPU specifically the Micro Center in fact I used   to work for a different retailer Who Sold CPUs  and I would often come down here to the Micro   Center in Tustin to buy from them simply because  their prices were so good yes that includes AMD   ryzen CPUs as well as Intel and look they've  even got the newest ones the 7950x 3D as well   as the elusive 7900 X 3D I could honestly make a  whole video just on shopping at Micro Center but   I'm starting to get the components together  here we've got the 13900k CPU I'll show you   guys the rest of the stuff when we get back  to the office but we do need to get a case another benefit to shopping in person cases can  be very big can be very small sometimes it's hard   to tell with pictures online here we can look at  each one get a better idea of how they actually   look in person they even have some systems built  here but the case we're using today is going to   be this one right here from Leon Lee what's up  all right I think I got all my gears so let's   head back and build this system big thank you to  the folks here at Micro Center for having me stop   by just need to check out now with their  friendly and knowledgeable support staff everyone over here high-end gaming PC often adds variables and  complexity to the build process that the   budget Builder doesn't even have to consider if  you're spending two to three grand on a PC you're   probably not just upgrading your core components  like the highest end CPU or graphics card that   you can get your hands on but you're also probably  going to be working with an aftermarket CPU Cooler   for example maybe an all-in-one liquid cooler  that requires a pump block installation as well   as a radiator you might be working with multiple  storage devices multiple m.2 ssds that you want   to make sure you install to the Right Slots on  the motherboard you might have a high-end case   that has a few more features that you want to  take advantage of and perhaps most importantly   or least importantly depending on who you are  you probably have RGB LED lighting and getting   that plugged in properly can be a bit of a bear so  once again today is part three tutorial is going   to assume that you've familiarize yourself with  the stuff I talked about in part one learning all   the parts Part Two doing a basic budget build and  of course that you've selected all your components   and you have your tools and your workspace  set up in an ideal way fortunately that prep   work is pretty much the same as it was in the  budget build we have some screwdrivers down here   as well as a knife to open stuff up with so let's  take a look at the parts that we picked up over at   Micro Center this video is more about the build  process than choosing Parts but I didn't want to   cover the parts that we are working with and we're  going to start with the core components that most   affect the performance of the system and that's  going to be the CPU and the graphics card for a   high-end build that's focused on PC gaming you're  probably going to want one of the best CPUs for   PC gaming that's currently available and over  on the Intel side the 13900k 13900 KS and even   slightly stepped down ships like the 13700k are  your best most viable options for getting the most   performance that you can out of your graphics  card if you plan to do more with your system   than just gaming then going with a higher core and  thread count CPU like the 13900k is totally a good   thing to do but you may not necessarily need all  those cores and threads which is why ships like   the 13700k on the Intel side or amd's 3D V cache  enabled CPUs are also totally good choices so from   AMD chips on the high end like the 7950x3d and  the 7 900x3d are good choices then you have the   7800x 3D like this one if you don't need quite so  many cores and threads but I covered installation   for both of these types of CPU sockets in the  part 2 video and I'll be covering installation   of coolers for both of these sockets today and  that is one of the earliest considerations to   make for a high-end build is that these CPUs often  do not come with coolers because they're assuming   oh you're spending two or three grand on a system  you're probably going to add a better cooler than   the stock ones that they provide so our system  is going to use a Corsair iqh150i Elite capellix   360 millimeter AIO all in one liquid cooler but  there are also lots of totally viable air-cooled   options like this one here from thermal right  but do note that you might need to check out your   Cooler's actual installation manual or check out  an additional video if you have something that's   a little bit more specialized that I'm not using  today next up is our graphics card and for the   high-end builder for whom money is No Object just  going with the fastest card available is a pretty   easy and good way to go granted cards like our  Rog strix gaming version of the RTX 4090 can   cost up towards like two thousand dollars just  for the card itself so if you are on a budget   or just considering other options AMD tends to  offer a little bit better in terms of price to   Performance and their current Flagship is the  Radeon RX 7900 XTX it's not going to give you   quite as much performance as an RTX 4090 but it  does cost more like one thousand dollars versus   two thousand Beyond those two most important  components I'm just going to go over the rest   of these left to right we have a higher end  power supply 1 350 watts in this thermaltake   tough Power gf380 Plus gold rated and if you are  building with nvidia's 40 series and you have a   card that has a pcie Gen 5 or 12 VH power 16 pin  connector and getting a GPU that has that natively   is a good way to go although the card should come  with an adapter that you can use if your power   supply doesn't provide it next we have storage  in the part 2 video we covered connecting SATA   drives like 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch SATA drives  but a high-end PC can get away with m.2 drives   and you can actually get a lot of storage in m.2  drives if you have a motherboard that has multiple   m.2 slots so we have three two terabyte drives  here for six terabytes total which is plenty of   storage the WD drive is the fastest because it's a  pcie Gen 4 drive and for some supplemental storage   we have these crucial P3 drives which are still  two terabytes they are pcie gen 3 so they are not   quite as fast as the Gen 4 drive you can see they  top out at about 3 500 megabytes per second reads   and writes versus 7300 for the WD black sn850x so  we'll be talking a little bit about SSD heatsinks   as well as the proper installation to the proper  slots on the motherboard when we install them to   our motherboard and our motherboard is the Rog  strix z790-e gaming Wi-Fi because part of my plan   with this build is to synchronize the RGB elements  as much as possible to simplify the RGB setup   process so having a motherboard and a graphics  card that are from the same brand and part of   the same series should help us with that we also  have a lot of memory 64 gigs total of Corsair   ddr5 Dominator Platinum RGB I should note that you  should ignore a lot of the price tags that are on   these it came from Micro Center a lot of these are  the original retail prices but have been heavily   discounted since but again since this is an R GB  element from the build I chose Corsair because   Corsair and Asus have worked pretty closely  together to make sure that their RGB components   play nicely together so we'll see how it turns out  once everything is built but I'm hoping to have   some level of RGB Harmony in this build rounding  things out we have our case the landli land cool   3 a popular case because it's large it can fit  high-end components this is the white version   of it which looks pretty cool and functionally it  has lots of mesh for airflow to provide lots of   cooling for the components that are inside and it  has plenty of room for cable management and it's   just a well-designed case that's fairly easy to  build in even if you're installing lots and lots   of stuff one final component that you might  have if you're building a high-end system is   supplemental fans whether you're getting fans to  fill out these slots for fans that are in the case   itself or whether you're doing a fan replacement  to make sure that all your fans look the same and   have the same color scheme fans these days are  not only defined by their size which is typically   120 millimeter square or 140 millimeter square  but also by the RGB elements that are included   how those RGB elements connect up and I'm going to  be talking about several different ways that that   is done today so there's a probably not very quick  but hopefully detailed introduction to this build   I'm going to start taking the parts out of their  boxes and we'll move on to step one so right now   we're working on motherboard setup motherboard  preparation and I've already gone ahead and   installed our 13900k again CPU installation is  covered in the part 2 build video if you want   the details on that nothing changes with this  socket the triangle is still in the corner of   the CPU it still lines up in the same way and  still is secured in the same way but just like   you might with your case it's a good idea to take  a look at your motherboard and determine what is   where specifically you might want to note things  like where the main power connectors are the 24   pin is along this side there's two eight pin  power connectors up here at the top you also   might consider the location of fan headers around  the board and that's one thing I like about Asus   motherboards is they tend to throw a lot of  fan headers at the board there's a few here   along the bottom a couple here next to the CPU  socket a couple more along the top Edge and do   not the labeling on some of those there is a  header specifically labeled for the AIO pump   so we're going to plug in the lead that comes  off the pump there so it can register the RPMs   that the pump is running at you might take a look  at some extra features that your board has like   this one has a surface mounted start button that  you can be used to power the board on if you do   an outside the box build like we did in the  part 2 video this board also has a debug LED   readout up here so if we encounter any issues  when we initially start to boot up the system   we can use that led to help pinpoint those then  beyond that we have a pretty traditional layout   here with four dim slots for memory next to the  CPU socket PCI Express expansion slots are down   here and then we also have m.2 slots for adding  storage in between those and most of these are   covered up with heat sinks we also have some SATA  connectors here for adding SATA drives and then   all the way across the bottom of the board we  have stuff like our HD audio front panel header   pinouts USB 2.0 connectors there's a couple USB  3.0 as well one here and one pointed to the side   over here you might keep in mind where RGB LED  headers are this board actually has four of them   there are two down here which are the three pin  5 volt header those are the newer ones that can   handle addressable RGB LEDs and there's one more  here at the top next to a four pin 12 volt header   which is for the slightly older non-addressable  RGB LED style and then right here in the bottom   middle you have your PCI Express expansion slots  the top slot here is going to be for your graphics   card and then you have several m.2 slots a lot  of these have heat sinks on top of them as well   and that is where you can add more storage so the  storage is what we're going to install next and   we need to answer a few questions to figure out  where we're going to plug in our drives we have   one pcie 4.0 drive and two pcie 3.0 drives and  here is where you're going to want to double check   your motherboard's manual rtfm as they sometimes  say and you'll see that this motherboard actually   has not two not three not four but five m.2  slots and they're all labeled m.21 m.24 m.25   m.23 m.22 and we're going to use this information  to determine a few different things first of all   what PCI Express version each slot is compatible  with and if you read down here you can see that   the top slot the m.2 underscore score one slot is  the only one that has pcie 5.0 support but all the   other ones are pcie 4.0 compatible it is totally  fine and acceptable to plug a pcie 3.0 drive into   a pcie 4.0 or even a pcie 5.0 slot but you would  not for instance want to plug a pcie 4.0 SSD into   a slot that was limited to pcie 3.0 bandwidth  so since we only have 3.0 and 4.0 drives you   might look at this list and think oh well we can  plug those ssds in wherever we want and in this   case that's true you could plug any of our drives  into any of these four slots and they would work   pretty much to their full capabilities but do note  that these top two listed slots connect directly   up to your Intel processor whereas the lower 3  connect via the z790 chipset if you're plugging   into slots that are routed through the chipset  they're going to be routed through the chipset   that's going to add a very very small amount of  latency very very slightly affecting the speed of   the drive which isn't that huge of a deal but  the chipset also connects to the CPU through   a more limited number of PCI Express Lanes so I  wouldn't for example want to populate all three   of these lower slots with the fastest speed pcie  4.0 drives because they would probably be hitting   a bottleneck going through the chipset likewise  because we have this top slot here that's pcie   5.0 compatible and we don't have a pcie 5.0 drive  but maybe we're going to upgrade to that in the   future so you might want to leave that slot open  for a future upgrade So based on this information   here's how I'm going to install our m.2 drives our  pcie 4.0 Drive which is our fastest drive that's   also where our operating system is going to get  installed so I'm going to install this drive to   the m.2 underscore 2 slot that's going to give it  full pcie 4.0 bandwidth by 4 by the way that will   give it a direct connection to the CPU for the  least amount of latency possible and it's going   to leave that top pcie 5.0 slot open potentially  for a future SSD upgrade the two pcie 3.0 crucial   drives that I have here will be installed to two  of these lower slots here that connect through the   chipset and again any one of these three slots  would work for any of these two drives and they   get pretty much their their full performance but  once again I'm noting that the m.2 underscore 5   slot here also supports m.2 drives that use  the older SATA protocol and maybe who knows   maybe in the future we'll drop in an additional  storage device that is a SATA m.2 drive so for   that reason I'll go with the m.2 underscore 3 and  m.2 underscore 4 slots for my two crucial drives   but wait that's not quite all for determining our  storage configuration you should also double check   if there are any conflicts between your storage  Drive slots your m.2 slots which use PCI Express   Lanes and your traditional PCI Express expansion  slots like the ones that your graphics card slot   into because sometimes populating one will limit  the connectivity of the other and it's going to   be up to the motherboard manufacturer how the  board is laid out and how those resources are   distributed so that is one of the differences  one of the nuances between motherboards is how   this layout is done in this case though we can see  that our expansion slots are three expansion slots   include our top bcie 5.0 by 16 slot and then two  pcie 4.0 by 16 slots and the only conflict that's   listed is right here when the m.2 underscore  1 slot is occupied with an SSD device the top   pcie by 16 G5 slot will run it by 8 speed only  so what that means is that this upper pcie 5.0   m.2 slot which also has the beefier heat sink  on it because pcie 5.0 ssds can get hot enough   to actually need a heatsink but this slot shares  bandwidth with the top slot for your graphics card   when it's in use which is actually another good  reason to not install our pcie 4.0 drive to the   slot again it leaves it open for expandability  in the future but it's also going to mean we   have full connectivity for our graphics card and  for what it's worth though even a graphics card   is not going to need all the bandwidth that's  available via a full by 16 pcie 5.0 slot but   since we wouldn't be using that bandwidth here  anyway we're going to go ahead with the layout   that I mentioned alright and with the heatsinks  removed we can see four of our m.2 slots again   I didn't remove this top one for the top slot the  lower left slot right here is actually the second   of the two slots that connects directly to the CPU  so that is where our WD pcie 4.0 Drive is going to   go and again I covered m.2 SSD installation and  a little bit more depth in the second video but   here we have this Asus board that has a really  convenient feature which is this little guy which   you just spin around to hold it in place you can  also add one of the tiny screws that comes in the   accessories right there but here it's not really  necessary the heat sink that sits above that is   actually a double heat sink that goes all the  way across but since we're not installing a   drive right there we don't need to worry about  that one but don't forget to remove the little   protective plastic cover over the thermal pad  and that thermal pad is going to help the heat   that the drive generates dissipate through this  little heat sink and we just tighten down the two   screws on either side and our little m.2 SSD  is installed now if I go back a few years in   my PC building tutorials I would only install the  drive that the operating system was going to get   installed to first then I go about the rest  of the build and getting my actual operating   system installed before I connect up additional  storage drives however since the drives are now   installing onto the motherboard and since the  motherboard is somewhat limited on space and   since the graphics card installs right here  and did you see that graphics card it's pretty   beefy it's a chunky boy that is a four slot  card so it's going to block pretty much this   entire space when it's installed so with that in  mind we're going to go ahead and install all our   drives here just so we don't have to uninstall  our graphics card at some point to drop them in   and again just one of those things that uh you  know the high-end Builders can hold over the   budget Builders it's just nice little features  like that really easy to connect m.2 latch and all right our heat sinks have been remounted  and can you tell that there's six terabytes of   storage now on this motherboard that wasn't there  before not really but it's there to finish out the   motherboard prep we're going to install memory  and we're going to install part one of our CPU   Cooler now if you watched the part 2 video in  this series you know that I did an outside of   the box build and if you're intending to do that  with your high-end build you might face a little   bit of a dilemma of course if you have a stock  Intel air cooler like this one you might need   to apply some thermal paste to it but you could  pop that on to do a quick outside the box test   or if you're just working with the hardware that  I showed you guys today you might have it all in   one liquid cooler so it might not be as feasible  to do an outside the box test so that is a step   that you can Skip and that's what we're going  to do today just know that you'll be bypassing   that little bit of a piece of mind that comes from  testing some of the core components of your system   before you actually get it all installed in the  case now since we're assuming that you're using an   aftermarket cooler for today's build pretty much  all aftermarket coolers and we're going to come   with some form of back plate and for our Corsair  model it comes with this one right here which is   a universal back plate which is in an x pattern  like this note that these can slide a little bit   back and forth because they are compatible with  various different socket types and you're actually   going to flip this upside down and mount it right  here so that these thread points fit through these   holes so that the cooler can be mounted securely  from the opposite side now before I move on I   want to point out that there are lots of different  aftermarket CPU coolers out there they might Mount   using different methods so you should absolutely  double check the manual that comes with your   aftermarket cooler to make sure you're installing  it properly but a lot of them follow some of these   same principles conveniently this one comes with  a little bit of adhesive on the back and that's   just going to help to hold it in place when  it's actually mounted here to the back of the   CPU socket but with small adjustments to these  mounting points on the outside you should get   them to line up and then that will hold in place  with the adhesive if you have adhesive so flip   them back over here to the front of the board you  should be able to see those mounting points poking   through and this is unique to Asus boards but they  actually have two sets of mounting points here the   inner ones the ones that are closer to the socket  are for LGA 1200 style CPU Cooler mounts that is   the previous generation so if you have an older  cooler that's not officially compatible with LGA   1700 you can use those but since we have an  LGA 1700 compatible cooler and an LGA 1700   compatible board we'll use the outer ones for the  proper socket fortunately our standoff mounts are   in a nice little labeled baggie so we can tell  which ones they are and for these standoffs the   threading is basically the exact same on both  sides so it doesn't really matter which way   we Orient them but we're just going to thread  these in and that will help to hold that back   plate in place this one right here in the corner  always tends to be the trickiest to actually get   your fingers on but once those are all tightened  down that will hold the back plate in place we   can move on with the motherboard installation and  then when we come to it I'll show you guys how to   add the thermal paste and install the actual CPU  pump and block oh yes and we should also install   our memory and again memory is covered in the part  two video in terms of installation but just make   sure you're lining up that notch on the bottom  this is also one of the motherboards that only   has catches on one side it's got sort of a auto  catch on the other side which I also mentioned   in the part two video but firm pressure straight  down to seat them with a nice little snap and then   I'm only going to install two of these memory  sticks at first and that's just to simplify the   initial boot up that can occasionally be issues  running with all four dim slots populated so this   is just going to make sure that we minimize any  potential initial boot up problems that we have   and then because we're using an all-in-one liquid  cooler that's going to give us still plenty of   access to these slots we can drop the two other  sticks in after the system has booted up and we   make sure everything's working there's a pretty  decent chance that you're using a different case   than I'm using today but whatever the case may be  you should take the case out of the box and give   it a thorough once over just to familiarize  yourself with the layouts how things connect   and of course you want to start removing panels  where they are removable on the top side panels   here and for this one I'm going to handle and it  swings out like this and then you can lift it off   like that I'm noting a few things right off the  bat with this case since it is higher end and   it's made for potentially higher end builds  like you got removable panels down here that   have mounting points for water cooling open loop  reservoirs and pumps lots of mounting points for   fans or reservoirs or fans and reservoirs both at  the front and at the top of the case this panel   here that can shift one way or another so if you  have an eatx motherboard you can still make use   of the grommeted pass-throughs and even stuff like  these little fold down panels that give you easy   access to the basements of the case for setting up  additional drives or doing Cable Management with   your power supply you might also want to peruse  your case's accessories this one has a nice little   box right there to keep things contained and  organized and also the manual is useful to keep   on hand if you need to double check anything or  especially if the case has a unique feature that   you've never seen before figure out actually  how that works I removed the tempered glass   panel from the rear side of the case here to show  you this as well these are just some aesthetic   panel coverings to cover up your Cable Management  areas and there's lots of velcro straps and stuff   in there to keep things tied down and tidy so if  you watched that part 2 video you should be pretty   familiar with this case's layout motherboard  in the upper part power supply sits down at the   bottom airflow moves from the front of the case  and perhaps the bottom of the case to the back   and the top but before we move too much further  with installing stuff this is once again a great   time to take a step back reality check and sort  of get your build plotted out in your mind we're   going to be installing the motherboard right here  for example we're going to be dropping our power   supply down into the basement of the case but  are there any extras any things especially beyond   that budget build part 2 video that we're going  to need to connect up and therefore we're going   to need to consider having all of the connection  points available for those devices a good example   is this little breakout unit that comes with our  all-in-one liquid cooler from Corsair this is a   control box which can control not just the fans  and RGB elements of the AIO itself but there are   a bunch more connection points on either side of  this on one side you have typical fan headers so   you can plug in pretty much any case fan to those  and on the other side you have a proprietary plug   for connecting up Corsair based RGB devices such  as the three fans that ship with this all in one   liquid cooler each fan has its own header that you  will need to connect to this device to power the   actual motor in the fan and spin the blades but  if you want it to light up and look pretty then   you'll also need to plug in this little header to  this device and that will control the RGB LEDs but   just like a lot of these fans will have two leads  coming off of them one for power for the motor   and one basically for data to provide control for  the RGB LEDs in the devices many of these control   boxes will also have two leads coming off of them  one is a power connector that needs to connect   directly up to your power supply to power this  unit and the second is a data connection and in   this case it is a USB 2.0 header so we're going  to need to route that over and plug it into one   of the free USB 2.0 headers on our motherboard  and that will make sure that after the system is   built and the operating system is installed and  you install the Corsair Control software it can   reach out to this device to to recognize it and  then control anything that's connected to it so   this is actually part of the reason I decided to  do a separate tutorial video for higher end builds   that integrate a lot of RGB LEDs is because you  can see this is just with the three fans that come   with this AIO you're adding so many additional  cables that you need to wire up properly and   this is also why a lot of companies like Leanne  Lee and thermaltake have been coming out with   RGB fans that actually connect up together so you  can connect three fans and then only have one lead   coming off of them to connect up your power and  your RGB control but I'm going to quickly attempt   to classify four types of RGB or non-rgb fan by  how they connect first we have this fan at the   back of the case which is not RGB all it is is a  fan so we have a glorious single 4-pin connector   to plug into our motherboard or a fan controller  to power it the second type is fans that add RGB   but do it using the standard RGB connector and  as I already mentioned there are two of those   one is a four pin connector that's 12 volt that  can only do one color and one is a 3 three pin   connector that's a 5 volt connector and those can  do addressable RGB LEDs so if you have multiple   colored RGB LEDs in the same unit the three  fans at the front of this case are like that   as is this be quiet fan it has one lead coming  off that's a four pin for your power and one   lead coming off that's that three pin adjustable  RGB connector and thankfully the addressable RGB   ones are Daisy chainable the third type are the  ones like the Corsair fans here they also have a   dedicated connector for power and I find that to  be convenient because if I just need a fan I can   plug it in and it'll work but the RGB connection  for this one is proprietary so you would need to   connect this to an intermediary box before you  connected it up to your motherboard lastly there   are fans out there that have a single lead coming  off of them that connect up the power and RGB but   those are all proprietary connections that need  to connect up to an intermediary Hub like this   and also often need to be controlled by dedicated  software so you will find that a lot of the daisy   chainable fans actually Connect using that method  I'm going to install the power supply next you   don't have to install the power supply next you  can actually do these in a slightly different   order but it seems like a reasonable choice to  me before I install the power supply I'm going   to set it up by connecting only the cables I need  since this is a fully modular power supply that   lets you do that because I've looked over all of  my Hardware I know that the connectors I need are   the main 24 pin motherboard power connector two  supplemental 8-pin CPU power connectors those will   also plug into the motherboard just a single SATA  power connector for connecting up SATA devices and   I'm actually not installing any SATA drives in  this system right now but I do need a SATA power   connector for this Corsair control box and lastly  for our graphics card very convenient all we need   is this single 12vh power connector because this  is rated for 600 watts do note that not all 12vh   power cables are rated for 600 watts they can be  300 watts or 450 Watts so if your graphics card   requires 600 watts and you get a power supply  that only says 450 then you'll probably want to   use the adapter that comes with your graphics card  rather than the 12vh power cable but regardless   of what you do you want to make sure that that  cable is plugged in and seated all the way foreign 's been installed and I've routed the cables  up to pretty much where they're going to line   up with the motherboard and various things that  they're going to plug into but I've discovered a   slight change to what I said earlier about how  these front fans are wired up and this might   look like a big mess but I think I can explain  it to you fairly simply these fans all have that   same power connector for power to the motor and  they actually come with a three fan splitter but   they are all connected up with so you can just  take this one plug plug it into your motherboard   and all of those fans should operate for the RGB  LEDs however they also have proprietary plugs very   similar to the Corsair ones but those are actually  pre-connected and wired up all the way to a RGB   controller that's one of the features of this case  that means you can use the buttons up here on the   front of the case to control the RGB lights in  those three front fans that does mean that we have   a single SATA power connector for that controller  up there to provide it with power and that's okay   because we already have a SATA power cable coming  from our power supply to plug that into speaking   of the motherboard though that is what we are  going to drop in next motherboard installation   here is going nice and easy fortunately all the  standoffs were pre-installed in the locations   where I needed them all nine of them and again  video number two has all those little details   on installing a motherboard making sure your  standoffs are lined up properly making sure   you have these screws that properly thread into  your standoffs and double checking that your   motherboard either has a fixed I O Shield or that  you install the i o Shield that comes with your   motherboard before you install the motherboard  the next part of this video is going to talk about   installing the CPU Cooler the radiator and the  fence the radiator but I'm going to start with a   quick Back to Basics how to install a fan tutorial  because I didn't really cover that in the first   video and a lot of people will get extra fans  to install to their system so first off for your   entire system it's best to have positive pressure  which means a little bit more fans pulling air in   than blowing air out that will help keep dust out  of your case and that will also concentrate where   dust is coming into your case hopefully where you  have dust filters aligned with those intake fans   the most typical fan sizes are our 140 millimeters  like this one here and 120 millimeters like this   one here that's a square measurement so it's  140 or 120 on both sides for this one the area   where the fan connects where there is a cross at  the back to hold the motor up is going to be the   exhaust side almost 100 of the time you could also  potentially look at the sweep of the fan blades   but a lot of fans will actually have an indicator  although it's very very small on this Corsair one   but you can see one Arrow indicating the direction  of the airflow and then another arrow to the side   that's indicating the direction that the fans  actually spin so once you've determined where   in your case your fans are going to be mounted  you will need to mount the actual fans for that   you're going to use fan screws and fan screws are  fairly distinct from the M3 or the unc632 screws   that are used elsewhere in the system they have  very rough threading and this is actually meant   to sort of bite or dig into the plastic just a  little bit so if I were installing this fan as an   exhaust I would want this part of the fan facing  the back of the case and then I would line it up   with the mounting points here I'm showing you  guys this one because many cases will actually   have slotted mounting points and that just gives  you a little bit more flexibility so you can slide   the fan a little bit further up or a little  bit further down so particularly in this case   if you mounted a top radiator sliding this down  to a lower position might give you a little bit   more clearance but I'm actually just going to be  reinstalling this 140 millimeter fan here so I'm   just going to line it up with the four mounting  points and then I will screw it in like so foreign installation and then from there you just  want to make sure that at least your Fan's   main power connector is plugged in either to the  motherboard or to a Fan Hub of course if you're   installing fans to a radiator you will not use  those same mounting screws that use to install   a fan to the case and you'll also want to double  check how you're actually going to position your   radiator first as well so hopefully you've been  careful in your component selection or you've   used maybe one of my suggestive guides that I do  every month to Pick Your Parts to make sure that   you do have support for a 360 millimeter Radiator  in your case and do note that there are different   ways to mount a radiator the top mount method  here is probably the most traditional and the   safest the basic consideration that you're going  to want to have is that you have a pump and a   block in this combo unit here for most all-in-one  liquid coolers and you don't want this to be at   the highest point in this little all-in-one  Loop for some cases that allow you to mount   a radiator at the front of the case the current  wisdom is to put the tubes at the bottom if you   have enough tube length to still reach up to your  motherboard socket but flipping the radiator over   this way so that the tubes are coming out at the  top is also acceptable again as long as the place   where this sits in your case is below the top of  this radiator by mounting the radiator to the top   of the case we don't really have to worry about  that as much but you do have to consider should   the tubes be on this side make sure the tubes be  on the other side personally I like the tubes to   be on this side again as long as you have enough  tubing lengths to reach your block units over here   to where your CPU is and of course I'm just  very Loosely holding this in the case right   now to get an idea of how we're going to position  things but if that is going to be our orientation   then we have three fans to mount to this radiator  we're going to mount them to this side so we can   see those fans and get a good look at them since  they are RGB and we want the air to be moving up   to provide exhaust up and out of the case so we're  going to mount our fans to the radiator with that   bracket facing that way and then ideally we we're  also going to look at where these little cables   are poking out and we're going to rotate the fan  so that those are coming out at the back so we can   more easily tuck them back behind the motherboard  tray and manage those cables too so the back edge   here is going to be facing the back of the case so  that's where I'm having the cables come out lining   these three up like this and then you'll probably  want to reference the manual that came with your   all-in-one liquid cooler just to make sure that  you're using the proper screws for this part and   they do have a small diagram here showing you  where the washers go and everything essentially   there should be some longer screws that are meant  to go through fans and then into the radiator and   then some shorter screws that are meant to go  with washers to mount to the case and secure the   radiator to the case just take note that different  radiators different all-in-one coolers might use   screws of different lengths so I do not recommend  using screws that didn't come with your AIO unless   you double check that they're exactly the same  length because there is a small possibility if   you use the wrong screws you can actually punch  through and damage one of the radiator's fluid   channels and that basically kills your radiator  and I'm sure you guys don't need General screwing   advice space but it's best to not screw them in  all the way leave them a little bit loose just so   you can make sure everything's settled and then  you can tighten them up by hand at this point we   could sort of position the radiator in up here to  mount it to the top of the case and kind of hold   that place where we awkwardly mount it but this  is a high-end build with a higher end case and I'm   going to take advantage of one of the features  of this higher end case which is a removable   radiator rack here at the top in terms of actual  useful features in a case radiator racks like this   rank pretty high up for me definitely one of the  reasons why investing in a higher end case can   often be very satisfying especially for someone  who's already built in a less expensive case but   this allows me to drop the radiator in from above  and while I do that I'm also taking all these   little cables from our fans RGB and fan power  and passing them through our pass-throughs so   they can be at the back and the cable management  area is to be plugged in in a minute there we go okay and now our radiator and fans are installed  and all we need to do now is attach this pump   block combo to the CPU next we get to install  our CPU pump and block which is going to sit   right about there but you might notice there's  some plastic and there's some pre-installed   thermal paste if you have pre-installed thermal  paste that's totally fine to use as is for the   purposes of this video and the tutorial I'm going  to show you guys how to clean thermal paste and   how to apply thermal paste raw so to speak so  here goes what do you need you're going to need   a paper towel probably is a good thing to use  I also sometimes use coffee filters that's also   a good Solution that's going to be used to wipe  up the thermal paste but we need to break it up   first I'm going to be using this stuff which is  made by arcticlean which is a two-stage thermal   material remover and thermal surface purifier  you do not need to be all fancy like this you   can use a mix of about 80 or 90 percent isopropyl  rubbing alcohol and water and that will clean it   just fine also if you're at all nervous maybe  don't do this over your motherboard and inside   your case you can totally do it outside your case  but I'll hopefully be okay just adding a few drops   there to break up thermal paste that's already  on it and rub rub rubbing to clean some of it off might as well do a part two just to  make sure all that thermal paste is   off of there you can see there's still  some coming off onto the paper towel   and just for good measure we'll  use our thermal surface purifier why do I use coffee filters uh they work just as  well as paper towels but they don't tend to leave   like little little filaments little little bits  of stuff quite as badly as paper towels but either   option works just fine all right so now we have  no thermal paste but we need to re-add thermal   paste some people can get really picky about their  thermal paste there tends to be only a few degrees   variance from the nicer thermal paste to the maybe  more more mid-range thermal paste I'm using some   Arctic mx4 here which is an old standby and there  are two methods that I find acceptable one is to   give yourself a DOT right there in the middle of  the CPU and we're aiming for maybe larger than   a grain of rice but maybe smaller than a pea or  maybe about a pea sized blob does that look pea   sized to you it's not necessarily an exact science  but with a blob there roughly in the center of the   CPU we could then go ahead and mount our cooler  on top of that and the pressure of mounting   the cooler would spread the thermal paste out  underneath it in a pretty satisfactory manner   I like to call that method The Blob and squidge  with shout outs to Tiny Tom Logan I'm going to   use a spreading method which I first learned from  Gordon UNG from Maximum PC way back in the day any   piece of plastic piece of plastic wrap something  like that just to protect your finger I'm also   kind of holding it back to keep it taut and  we're just gonna spread this around a little bit there we go now the thermal paste is spread  across the entire heat spreader on top of the   CPU honestly I probably used a little bit more  thermal paste than I normally would on this   application but it's still totally fine and from  there we're going to mount our CPU block our LGA   1700 bracket is already pre-installed on this  but double check that that's the case for you   as well and of course we have no thermal paste  and no plastic protective cover or anything like   that on this right now so we're going to lower  this down as evenly as we can on top of the four   mounting screws that thermal paste is almost  going to kind of hold it in place a little bit   if it feels a little goopy a little slippery right  now to me but I'm going to keep this unit secured   on top of the CPU with one hand well I get these  four screws just threaded on with my other hand   possibly with the eight of a screwdriver if needed  it's always that corner one that's the trickiest   okay all my screws are threaded on there  at this point I could probably let go if   I wanted to but I'm just going to go ahead and  start tightening these down once they start to   Snug up go opposite Corners don't just tighten  one corner down all the way at the same time   again if you watch my part two build video for  the budget build that's a little bit more for   beginners it's the same general concept  you don't want to tighten down one corner   you want to switch it up and go in a round  about fashion until all of them are secured very good that feels nice and stable at this  point you could even like peel the protective   plastic off if you're feeling very confident and  from our pump block combo we have a couple leads   coming off one is the proprietary plug that's  going to plug directly into that breakout box   then the other one is this little guy this is  a standard three pin fan header but it doesn't   actually provide Power it reports RPMs so that's  all this does and the best place to plug this in   if you have it on your motherboard is the fan  header that's labeled pump that way in your   UEFI or in your operating system you can monitor  your pump's RPM via that header but if you don't   have a dedicated pump header you can plug  this into any fan header on your board just   note which one you plug it into which one it's  labeled so you can also align that up in your   UEFI to see which of the reported fan RPMs is  actually your pump we are now at the phase of   the build where everything looks like so so very  close to being done everything's looking nice and   clean in here and you kind of think well let's  just drop in the graphics card and call it a day   but there is one previous step to that that we  need to handle and that is the cable management   and while everything might look just fine from  this side the view from the back back is still a   bit rough but let's cover what we need to plug in  so we already plugged in the two supplemental CPU   power plugs and the main 24 pin power plug from  the power supply and as I covered in the part 2   video I plugged in our 3.2 Gen 2 USB header and  our USB 3.0 header and that will make sure that   our USB 3.0 ports and this type-c port work up  there also down here at the bottom I plugged   in our HD audio jack for the front panel Mike  and headphone ports and again I often consider   this one to be optional especially if you have a  high-end headset plug it into the i o on the back   rather than the front but for completionists it's  nice to plug that one in too this is a fan plug   and I plug this one into the three fan daisy  chain that comes from the three front intake   fans so they're all getting power right here and  this is not a USB 2.0 header this is yet again a   block of connectors for our front panel power  reset button and all those things so just like   with our NZXT case in the part 2 video uh this  landly case also uses this standard and I'm very   happy with that because it just makes that way  way easier to plug in right there and I already   complemented the removable radiator rack here for  this case for installing the actual radiator and   the AIO but another nice thing is that you can  lift that up in order to access some of the sort   of difficult to reach plugs along the top of  the motherboard if you neglected to plug stuff   in there and it's slightly difficult to see but  I did plug in the single fan header there that   comes from our all-in-one liquid cooler so we can  monitor the pump RPMs via the water pump header on   the motherboard and then I'm going to also plug  in this addressable RGB LED header along the top   of the motherboard there there's several places  on the motherboard I could plug this in and do   note that it has a proprietary adapter here so if  you're using a Leon Lee controller you can just   plug it directly into that but since we don't have  a lee-only RGB controller in this system I'm just   going to plug this directly into the motherboard  and let that motherboard control those LEDs   so that one gets plugged in right there and then  we can reset this back on top very very carefully   of course the only other thing we need to pass  through to plug in here is our little Corsair   control box that has a USB 2.0 header so I've just  fed this through from the back once again and plug   it in right here there we go and now here at the  back of the case we're going to work on our cable   management we can remove these little protective  panels they are just aesthetic covers and that   will give us a little bit better access to  various tie down points and velcro straps   there are various philosophies and approaches in  terms of cable management some people just get   everything cinched down and wedged in there and  as long as everything works that's totally fine   cable management is mostly an aesthetic thing but  of course you can also get super particular with   it and figure out where things are routed and then  unplug and rewire things so that they sit in there   really nicely and and that's totally up to you  do do it how you want to do it but in order to   make sure that the system is fully functional  there are a couple more things we need to plug   in I have two power connectors here these are  standard SATA power plugs that's why we plugged   this SATA power head header into the power supply  these are those little L-shaped plugs so you can   really only plug them in one way I'm going to  connect up each of these this is also also the   same plug that you would use for a 2.5 inch or  3.5 inch supplemental SATA drive 2.5 inch drives   can mount here 3.5 inch drives have cages down  in the bottom and again you can check out that   part 2 video for a little bit more I'm plugging  in supplemental storage drives particularly SATA   drives I am doing the bare minimum of cable  management just to get things cinched down   so I can close the side panels and of course  connect up our last few connectors that need   to be connected the proprietary connector coming  from our all-in-one pump block unit plugs in right   here there's a little white marked to indicate  which side faces the right way so now I can take   all of these cables from our top AIO fans the RGB  ones and the power ones in the past I've taken   these RGB leads which are all labeled with two  RGB Hub on them and actually numbered them so I   can plug them in in the right order and you might  want to do do that depending on how many RGB fans   you're connecting up to a single Hub like this  since these are labeled with numbers fortunately   though the Corsair software does allow you to  sort of reconfigure and move around the fans in   the software so even if you don't plug these in  in the same order like one two three for fans one   two three in the case you should still be able to  reconfigure that with the software and lastly we   have our three fan power plugs and I'm just gonna  also plug these into spots one two and three on   this little control box and honestly it is stuff  like this that just doesn't look that great when   you're when you're setting it up and you've  got cables running everywhere and especially   if you're adding more RGB LED fans in this it can  get pretty complicated so once again I don't blame   anyone who decides you know what the RGB thing  it's just it's a lot of work for basically just   looking pretty and so I'm just going to skip it  and that's okay there are also different ways to   mount these control boxes to the case some of them  have magnets on the back and we'll just stick in   place this one does not but it comes with some  dual sided adhesive strips that you can attach   like this so that is what I'm gonna do just so I  can attach this right up here to this convenient   flat panel and now once again just sort of tucking  cables away wherever I can there there so this is   absolutely not ideal and cable management is  the type of thing that you can invest a lot of   time in and make it look really nice but before  you invest too much time I would suggest just   getting stuff set up basically so you can again  power the system on and make sure it's functional   unfortunately the GPU installation is pretty  much the same as in the part 2 video I removed   the two rear panel covers for the pcie slot covers  that is because the bracket on this one is a two   slot bracket even though the card is very thick  and takes up four slots some of the brackets on   these higher end gpus are actually three slot  brackets so keep an eye out for that also keep   an app for protective cover on your actual pcie  Edge connector and we're just going to line it   up with that PCI Express slot and give some firm  pressure to install it I have the case standing   up right now if you are at all uncomfortable with  this process you can totally lay the case on its   side again I was kind of talking but there was a  nice satisfying snap there as the catch engaged   to hold this card in place then we'll just  use these two thumb screws to secure it if   you're using a big chunky boy graphics card like  this you might use a GPU support to prevent that   unsightly GPU sag that can occur with heavier  graphics cards if you don't want to use that   support or if you just want to see if your GPU  is capable of supporting itself give it some   support on this side to try to keep it as level  as possible as you tighten down these thumb screws and that might be enough to hold the graphics card  up in a satisfactory way and lastly for graphics   card power we have our 12vh power connector again  note there's a catch on one side very similar to   the main motherboard power connectors let me  align that seat it make sure that these plugs   are seated all the way and this is catch engages  and now we have that nail biting Moment of Truth   yet again as I plug in the power supply back  here flip the power switch on well if you're at   all superstitious and you don't want to anger  the PC Building Gods with your overconfidence   then leave the side panels off for the first  boot if I can awkwardly reach the power button   we have power this system appears to be functional  and what will often happen when you're first   booting up a system for the first time especially  if you have RGB lights and other things like that   connected that haven't been configured is they  might turn on or they might not turn on based on   the default settings for the controllers that  are controlling the different RGB elements in   the system so our Corsair fans at the top lit  up for a second so at least we know the LEDs   are working but it's probably just defaulting to  the LEDs being off with the control box beyond   that though all of the other fans are spinning  up properly the motherboard is working great   so what you have here what appears to be a fully  functional high-end gaming PC but we're not quite   through yet this is part three of a four part  Series so I invite you guys to stay tuned for   the part 4 setup video where I talk about going  from the build to a fully working system getting   windows installed setting up stuff with the UEFI  making sure your memory is running at the right   speed Reality Checking that your temperatures  are within the right range that they should be   and of course getting some games installed  so you can actually game on your new gaming   computer but I would like to say a big thank you  to all of you guys for watching this series up   till now I would also like to say a huge thank  you to Microcenter for sponsoring this video and   you can find links to Microcenter down in the  video subscription as well as links to all the   parts that I used in this build today so stay  tuned to get subscribed if you're not already   for when that part 4 video goes live hit the  thumbs up button on this video If you enjoyed   it again check the description down below  for links to all the relevant things thank   you one more time for watching this one  and we'll see you guys in the next video foreign

Channel: Paul's Hardware

Views: 216,640

Keywords: computer, PC, PC gaming, personal computer, computer hardware, paulshardware

Id: 9DXovN4Bn5o

Length: 49min 44sec (2984 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 25 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/Bluepitbull]

I was hoping to install Gen 4 nvme's, the bottleneck would only occur if all of those drives were being fully utilize right? If I'm gaming on it's own drive, I believe my media storage nvme drive would be idle if it's not in use. Right? or some idle OS activity in the background