(thudding) (rattling) (indistinct) - Okay. It's in. (laughing) - In our recent secret shopper series, Agent Sarah determined which PC builder delivered the best balance of cost, price and customer service. But one thing we didn't explore was what if she had just
researched the parts herself and put it together,
creating her own gaming rig? Could she have saved money? Could she have gotten more performance? Would she have had a good time? Today, we are going to answer
all of those questions. We have sent Agent Sarah out to sea with only three lifelines to
get her through the process of independently researching and building her dream gaming rig. Let's see if she still
thinks DIY is a good deal at the end of that ordeal. And let's see if you guys think our sponsor GlassWire is a good deal. Glass wire allows you to
instantly see your current and past network activity, detect malware and block badly behaving apps
on your PC or Android device. Use offer code Linus is
to get 25% off GlassWire at the link down below. (soft music) (upbeat music) - I know the CPU is quite important, I know the GPU is quite important, and if the motherboard is like the number one piece that I need, then I think that that
would also be important, so, maybe those are my top three that I should spend the most money on. I know Ryzen is a good CPU brand, so I think that's where I'm going to go, but they might be more
expensive than Intel. (sucking air through teeth) I don't know. (laughing) I don't know. - That goes to show you the
kind of mix of information Sarah got from the PC builders. - [Sarah] This one looks
cool, it has Wi-Fi and RGB. - Yeah, that's a really easy way to spend way too much on a motherboard. She's not way off, like
CPU, GPU, motherboard, that's not a terrible list of, you know, your top three most important
components of a computer. It's just that with the motherboard, because it doesn't affect performance, it basically comes down to, does it have the features you want? Like, is it the right form
factor to fit in your case? Or does it have the IO that you need? - I don't know, let's just write down the number one motherboard for now. - Honestly, if I was buying
something I'm not familiar with, like a paintball marker, for example, I might just Google, what's
the best marker for woods ball? And who cares I guess if
they know anything about me, or my play style, or my skill
level, cause I don't know. - Apparently on Amazon it's 255.99 but let's see how much it is on PC Picker. Oh, okay, yeah, it's 255.99,
I guess I'll add that. Google, what's next? - CPU. Like I know we want
something that's high speed. does to CPU even control speed? It's central processing unit, maybe it just controls some other stuff. (laughing) - I mean... Yeah, if I was a gamer
and everyone told me, "Hey need a great graphics card, that's the most important
thing for gaming" I might not even realize
what a big deal that is. - Maybe the Ryzen 5 5,600X. It's, oh. It's already-- (laughing) It's already going to be
more than half, I think, of my budget, oh, maybe not, 341.49 - She's going to blow this
budget real fast at this rate. - It's supposed to work with
my motherboard I think, so, (sucking air through teeth) I don't know. - The fact that PCPartPicker
exists does make this process a lot easier if you know to use it because it'll actually
flag you if you pick a CPU that's accidentally not compatible. It'll even tell you if the
bios of the motherboard might not be compatible out of the box and might require a
flash, I mean, usually. - What's the difference? What does 5,600 versus 3,600 versus 3,700? What does that mean? - That's a really fair question. It really was easier when
we could shop at gigahertz. - I don't want to go Intel,
but Intel is cheaper. - There's no shame in going
Intel, you got to take advantage of that supply and demand boys and girls. - 5 3,600X? Okay, I'll add the 3,600 X then. - She is way over
spending on a motherboard and underspending on CPU right now. - I'll look back into it later, I think we should just
get everything first. - I actually support the idea of just getting everything
thrown into a cart and then playing around
with that after the fact, because that way at least
you can post to r/buildapc, or to the Linus Tech Tips forum, and people can at least
kind of help you tweak it as opposed to just going, "I don't feel like doing any work." And just dumping the work on someone else. - Corsair Vengeance? I really like the white ones,
are they more expensive? - And we're shopping for RAM by color. I have a friend who shops
for badminton rackets by whatever has the prettiest paint job, and I'm just like... - Best... SSD... For gaming. Top SSDs in 2021. ADATA, I've literally never
heard of that company before. Oh no, the Samsung one is
quite expensive as well. I trust Samsung, like, I've
heard the company name before, and I feel like when
you can trust a company you are more likely to
go with their products. - You know, it's funny
that she would say that because Samsung has a
long and proud history of kind of coming in with
a very mediocre product like their earlier optical
drives, for example, terrible. And then just through sheer brute force making it better or
competitive with everyone else and then pushing everyone
else out of the space. So eventually, yes, I
trust a Samsung product, I trust a mature one. - Samsung 970 Pro, but it's $250. - Wow, that is a really expensive SSD. - What are we at now? 874, and we still need the
graphics card, and the case, and the power supply. - She is in for a real rude awakening when she to fit a graphics
card in her budget. You know, you work around
here and you just like, see these cards being used in projects, and you're like, "Oh, it
can't be that expensive." Yeah, 3080, pretty pricey. - 1660 Super, six gigabyte, that's $749. - That's why gamers are so mad right now, because a 1660 is costing what a freaking 3080 is supposed to. - But shipping is free.
- Yeah. - What? (laughing) - [Man] Yeah. - I have no idea how I'm going to do this. Maybe the SSD? It's $250, maybe I could find
a better SSD for that price. This one is $119. - I don't know if I would
have gone with SATA? You can get some really good value on about drives these days, but I do agree with saving
some money on the storage. - Maybe I could downgrade
the motherboard here. What does it? Does the motherboard
just connect the pieces? It's like the puzzle piece
that holds everything together? $84. Or one 113. If it doesn't have Wi-Fi then I have to get a Wi-Fi connector. - Sarah, you can get a
Wi-Fi dongle for like $7. This looks way more sensible given the other constraints on the build, like the GPU shortage. - $169, but at 750 Watts. - Power supplies are few and
far between right now too, especially any that are high
capacity enough for mining. - We are under budget right now, but my case has to be less than $50. - I mean, you can get
cases for under 50 bucks, I might have balanced the
budget a little differently. - There's small cases for small pieces, and big cases for big pieces, and I don't know the size of my pieces-- - Pieces.
- My components. Do I get like a really
big case just in case? Or do I just YOLO and pick a
case and hope everything fits? I feel like at LMG, we just YOLO. - We don't YOLO. What does that even mean? - That one's ugly, that
one's ugly, actually, that one's not bad. - Cool case is just not a priority when you're this far over budget. - Part Picker doesn't have it, or do they just order from other people? I don't understand. - She thinks PCPartPicker
is an actual store. - Does PCPartPicker not have cases? - Does PCPartPicker not have cases? They don't have anything. - What are we at here? Okay, I only need to go down $85 and 92 cents. - With the motherboard change and dropping to an 870 EVO SSD, This is looking reasonably well balanced with the only thing that's out of whack being of course the graphics card, but, what is Sarah supposed to do? - I'm on the LTT forum, I'm going to post the parts that I've picked for my new PC. Hopefully somebody can suggest
how we can get my budget down to $1,500. No $1,500 PC should have a
1660 Super and A520 board. - Okay, I agree, but
like it's not helpful, What is she supposed to do about it? - Madison, oh, (mumbling), my
best super friends over here. (laughing) - Is this seriously Madison? Doesn't she have work to do? Flush your money down the
toilet and flex on the haters. - This person replied
with quite a long post. They said, I understand the urge, but unless you look out
at getting a card at MSRP, this is frankly a bad idea. - Now that is a pretty helpful response, unfortunately, we got to make a video, so. You would think, working in this office, you just pick up the thing
about computers here or there, But the wing of the office she works in actually has very little
computer conversation that takes place in it. - I'd strongly recommend
getting a B50 board instead of an A520,
the chip set is better, and you can get them for the same price. Okay, Is it B550F? - This video is proof that
manufacturers could do a way, way better job of improving clarity for the average consumer. - I think it's more expensive, but this one for sure has Wi-Fi, and it doesn't have those
ugly orange accents. - Why are you so obsessed
with Wi-Fi, Sarah? - Okay, I guess I'm
downgrading my case again. - Just buy a dongle. Now, the funny thing is she was so determined not to go Intel, but if she'd gone Intel, she could have used onboard graphics while she waited for a decent
deal on a graphics card. I wish that AMD had their
best APUs available here, like isn't that ridiculous? All the motherboards still
have like video outputs. - So where do I start off
from where we left off? I essentially need to figure
out how to assemble it. I've heard a lot that building a computer is like adult Lego. - If all the pieces were made
by different manufacturers and there were eight
different sets of instructions that don't really match
up, so yeah, sort of. We'll see how this goes. - Here we go. I don't know what parts
I need to be gentle with and what parts I can be rough with, so I'm just going to be
gentle with everything. - The A520 board is fine
if you need to save a buck, but one thing you're really
missing out on is of course, PCI express Gen 4 which
might end up important for gaming in the future, but for now she's not really
giving up any performance. - I think it's safe for me
to grab it from the bottom. - Yeah, you should put
your hand all over it. - Motherboard. (laughing) Okay, so with this, I know
the CPU is the next step, just from watching our
videos every once in a while, so I will grab that. - She found the CPU, that's better than some of the
ROG Rig Reboot contestants. - This is the AMD Ryzen 5 3,600XT. I don't know what any of that means, other than this is the processing unit. - Like what it means is, we didn't have a 3,600X in the warehouse, so we grabbed an XT. - And I also know from
illustrating the stealth CPU shirt that these little guys have triangles, and I know the triangles line
up with the triangle on here, but I don't see one. Maybe that? - They really could make
the triangles bigger, hey? - There's probably no
good way of doing this other than just trying to
line it up best as possible. - What do you mean no
good way of doing it? No, no, there is a good way. - Oh, I did it.
- Okay. - And then this must go down. That seems pretty secure,
wait, let's check. - What?
- It's all in there. (laughing) - [Man] Not bad. - Yes. I think next is the RAM, but I'm not sure what order
they go in, in the slots. It does look like there's
two slots here that are open. - Oh, that's so cheating because we built on this board before. - Press. Oh my gosh, I don't want to break it. I am so scared by this every time. Press. (clicking) Oh. Oh, I got one click, but not two. (clicking) Two, okay. - Wow, why does she
check things like this? You don't have to like heave on the RAM and try and shake the CPU
out of the socket, it's in. - I really hope I'm doing
this in the right order. I'm kind of just going off of-- - Wait, what is she doing now? What, what? - What I remember from
watching our previous videos. - Even if it wasn't in right
that wouldn't tell you. Oh, that's nice, we
found one that still has the pre-applied thumb hold compound on it, that'll save her some trouble. - Oh my gosh. Should I put it face down maybe? - Yeah. - Okay, here, wait, let me put it here. It doesn't look like there's
any thermal paste in here. - She's looking right at it. - There's no instructions. Is there supposed to be instructions? Is this? This can't be the thermal paste? - Hey, there we go. (Sarah gasping) - I touched it. - I think--
- Why? - I'm going to look this up. (laughing) I'm just going to assume that this already has thermal paste, or is already thermal paste. - Should I touch it?
- She keeps touching it. - Am I not supposed to touch it? - Stop touching it. It feels like it doesn't belong there. - Stop touch-- - No.
- Or maybe it does. - This little, little doingy here-- - A doingy?
- Will clip both of them in. - I got this. - I don't think she got this. - I believe it would have
to go somewhere on here, so maybe I want it to be facing that way. (laughing) - It's just I can't even... I can't even breathe, I'm just
like, I'm so tense right now. Oh man, I want to help so bad. (sobbing) Cause like it's not hard, but it's tricky. You know what I mean the distinction? Once you've done it it's like
"swamp, swamp, here we go." She hasn't done it before, so it's not "swamp, swamp, here we go", it's this. - It's stuck. - Oh.
- Okay, we... Oh, okay. - You got to watch out for
that ladies and gentlemen, if your thermal paste is
suctioned onto your CPU and you just pull your CPU cooler off, you can pull your CPU out of the socket and then it can fall and bend pins. - Now we got to figure
out how to clip it in. - No.
- Without breaking. - You got to click the
other flip on first. - I'm going to break it, I'm so scared I'm going to break it. - I'm so scared you're
going to break it too. - I've got tiny fingers. Should I use something
to like pry it down? I feel like you're not
supposed to be to do that. - What you need to use
is a lifeline right now. - Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, If you put the clippy thingy down... - You know this isn't
the hardest part, right? (laughing) - If I push it. Oh, I did it, Oh my God, I did it. Wow, there was no point. - I'm like a good luck charm. (laughing) All right, well that's
one of your three hints, that's really not what
I would have used it on. (laughing) - I have my case and I'm
going to lay it down flat. (screaming softly) (laughing) Hopefully that doesn't do anything bad. Wait-- - She keeps (indistinct) - I'm being so aggressive. - Please, no. It's probably fine. - I think this is fine. Okay wait, let's do my test
and see if this is in properly. (rattling) (indistinct) Okay. (laughing) It's in. (laughing) Do I need to take this out? - Is she about to start
disassembling the drive? - How, how? - Oh, she thinks she bought an M.2. - Is this not going to work? Did I buy the wrong SSD? You don't force it in now. I don't want to break it. - Oh, no. - I just want to know what I need to do. One into your SSD and the
other into your motherboard. - Why is she not watching Linus Tech Tips? Come on, we have a video on how to install an
AMD cooler, for example. - I kind of hate this,
doesn't this look tacky? - But it's not supposed
to be there like that. - This spot right here looks like it fits a power supply unit. - Wait, did she just
decide we're going to put the power supply in the five
and a quarter inch space? What is even happening? - I'm wrong, it doesn't
go here, it goes here. Because this needs to be facing outwards, and this doesn't allow that, which means it go this way. - Ah, yes. - Assuming that we want to blow this part, I would want it facing out. - Oh no, now she's overthinking it. - But then that would
make this upside down. I'm going with my gut and saying the fan needs to be facing
towards and not downwards because most of the air
flow is going this way. - Either way is honestly fine. - Yeah, this is right. Is it bad to plug in
things into the wrong-- - Yes.
- Places? - Yes it is. (sighing) - Am I going to destroy
this computer by accident? - Maybe. - I think--
- Oh shoot, no. - This matches that one. So... I'm going to try. - The scariest part of this, is that you can actually get it in there. I proved that when I did
my blindfolded build. They should have just done a
10 pin PCI Express connector just to not have this happen. - After examining, it's wrong, but this one, this one maybe. - Nice.
- Let's try it. - So this one says power LED plus, and this one says power LED minus, and I can see here that this is plus PLED and minus PLED. So I'm going to assume from that that the plus one goes here, and the minus one goes here. - GG, Sarah. Damn. Hah. - Ooh, oh, stop wobbling wiggling things. - Hey, it didn't really
click, but it's in. - Why don't you check and see if it's in by shaking the computer
and seeing if it falls out? But no, don't - Oh, this cable, probably.
I shouldn't move that. Yeah, I shouldn't be with that. - Oh. - The fact that it was
that easy to pull out maybe doesn't mean it was in properly. - Oh, stop.
- Oh gosh. - Okay, that was a good
snap, not a bad snap. - You can never really tell. (sighing) - [Man] (indistinct) - It's in. It's in, I have successfully
installed the GPU. I guess we don't know that until-- - Success is not the right word. - But let's just guess. So, I have kind of realized
this cable is in the way, and I could remove-- The graphics card--
- No. - To kind of, slide it down the back here. - No please don't. - But I'm trying to decide if
it's worth the hassle for me, cause the last time I
tried to remove a GPU, it really didn't turn out for literally anybody involved in that. (botch screaming softly) - Stop. - But I really want to. (laughing) - [Man] Please don't panic. - Should I like push it up? - Stop.
- [Man] No, don't do that. (laughing) - I think if I just push this. - Okay, she found the clip. - Okay, it made a click, now pull. - Oh, that's, yes. - Wow, I did that so smoothly. - Yeah, wow, so smoothly. - Why wasn't that easy the first time? - So smoothly. - Okay, wait, we're going to go back now and do this like once more. And this is lined up. - Please just push it in straight. - Now push. - Oh. - There we go. - Stop.
- It's in. - I'm going to see what I
can do about this real quick. - Yeah, there's our SSD,
still just hang in there. - I have no clue what to do with this. - Manual. - Duct tape.
- Duct tape? - I'm grabbing duct tape,
duct tape fixes everything. - Yeah, there we go.
- Could you at least, - You just double-sided the tape. - I don't want that to be visible. - So I can't see it. - I realized I have
this little plate thing that's supposed to go-- - Oh, crap, I was so busy.
- Here. - I'm going to try to get it in now. - Cringing out my face. - And see if that works. - That I didn't even, no,
you can't put it in now. - Oh, no, I was supposed
to put it in beforehand. - It's too late.
- It's not going work at all. - Who cares about that stupid
silver back plate anyways? I press the power button and it turned on. There's a light, which is good. - We got lights, we got fan spin. - My CPU cooler looks like Shrek. - Looks like Shrek? (laughing) - Wait, dat, dat, dat, dat, dat, dat, dat. - But that doesn't help me here. (Sarah grunting) (laughing) No, it says no DP detected. - See, this is what I
was talking about, okay? AMD doesn't have proper top tier APU's, here in North America. All the motherboards have video outputs. This is the kind of
confusion you end up with. - I have received a hint. (laughing) I don't think this goes
into the motherboard, it goes into the graphics card. Oh no, that says DP. - Butt's like clenching
just watching her like jam things into things. Like... (screaming softly) There's a lock on the
cable, does she know? - This is the hardest part,
it's figuring out what's wrong. - All she's got to do is just
give it a quick power cycle, display port does not hot plug as well as some other interfaces. - So I have a computer. - If it doesn't compute, is it a computer? (laughing) - I mean, according to my last logic, it is not a computer right now
because it's not computing. - Mm-hm. - At all. So you see, when I turn it on here. - Yes. - We've got RGB everywhere. - Mm-hm, good, that's the first step. - Wait.
- But then... (gasping and screaming) - Am I magic or what? I didn't even have to touch it. I don't even got magic fingers today, this is just magic presence. All right, see you later. (laughing) - [Linus] You're welcome. - Thanks. - And select proper root
device, how do I do that? - Whether you're installing
with UEFI Windows or whether you need to enable
CSN in the bios or whatever, it's really frustrating for
even semi experienced builders. Her Google-Fu is quite strong. - Download tool now. Okay, it's been at 97%
for like two minutes. But does that mean I did something wrong or does that just mean the computer is? Well, I guess that still
means I did something wrong. Reboot. The computer restarters. You told me it would be fine. - [Man] This is an awesome video. - I feel as though I belong here. (laughing) (sobbing) - I'm coming, all right. Yes. - I think I did something wrong. (laughing nervously) So, this is actually not
my fault, I blame new guy. - [Man] Thanks, dude. (Sarah laughing) - Right now what we're doing
is we are reinstalling Windows. - Okay.
- So I'm choosing boot device, - Which is your Corsair
Voyager thumb drive, where the hell is your Corsair, Oh, there it is. And we're just going to
take a fresh go at that. - Okay.
- And it should be fine. - I have my good luck dinosaurs. - No, no, I'm the good luck. - We determined that these are lucky, but you're lucky, so
you're also a dinosaur. (laughing) LTTstore.com. (laughing) - I did it. (laughing) I built a computer. - Now all of that remains to be seen is if she feels like it was
worth the additional stress compared to having someone
else build it for her. - It was a struggle. - You have no idea how
much of a struggle it was. - I had way more fun trying
to build my own computer than I did making phone calls,
or trying to buy one online, which was easy, yes, but I really think that
this is just something that you need to do in your lifetime. Build a computer, it's fun, I
feel like I've learned a lot, next time I build a computer, I'll know what I'm doing, basically. Maybe now it's cheaper to buy a pre-build. If you can get a GPU at a regular price, or a price that you're not
worried about paying for, then I a hundred percent would recommend building your own computer. Truly, it was worth it. - What a great conclusion. Did she nail it or what? Yes, it's stressful, and
yes, it's way more difficult. It's a lot easier to just
buy a pre-built computer, but, it's rewarding,
you'll learn something. It can be fun in like a
stressful anxious kind of way, but now is probably not
the right time to do it unless you manage to
get your hands on a GPU to add on your MSRP. Nailed it, Sarah. Just like I always nail
our sponsor segues, FreshBooks is the easy to
use accounting software designed specifically for
you, the small business owner. FreshBooks has everything you
need to manage your books, including invoicing, expensing,
time-tracking and more. And it's designed to be easy to use with built-in automation,
so you spend less time invoicing, expensing
and tracking projects, and more time doing what matters most, which is growing your business. So whether you're a trades person, a creative agency or a YouTuber, you can choose a plan that
is just right for you. They have an award-winning Toronto based customer support team who's always happy to
help you if you need it and you can try it out
for free for 30 days, by going to freshbooks.com/linus. There's no credit card required. That's freshbooks.com/linus. If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe check out our last
it's round of secret shopper where Agent Sarah got
absolutely bamboozled by Dell, though in her defense, that
was entirely not her fault.
I absolute love the Sarah videos, sometimes we forget how experienced everyone is at LMG and she brings in a very real feeling of an average person, so something that seems obvious to say Linus or Anthony might not be to her and I've definitely met more people with Sarah level of knowledge than Linus or Anthony knowledge.
Basically what I'm saying is Sarah is great and is a great "everyperson"
One of my biggest takeaways from this video is just how powerful brand awareness and marketing is. Even though Sarah knows she doesn't know much about pc parts, she still feels like she can trust brands she recognizes like Samsung and Ryzen, possibly to her own detriment as another brand might be more affordable or available in her budget.
She practically got it to post on the first try, so good job all things considered.
I don't get why she was so concerned about wifi in the beginning- its not like she was ever going to keep the system, who cares considering the extra cost?
The parts confusion is totally fair and understandable for a noobie.
This video should be required viewing for anyone who is willing to suggest that literally everyone can build a PC because it's "like putting together legos". It's a vast underestimation of the knowledge that is required in order to make the proper decisions when shopping for parts (wifi on motherboard vs wifi USB dongle), know what parts you need and how much to spend, how they fit together, what each part is for, and then once you get them, how to actually put them together (like her confusion on thermal paste, she's lucky she even knew thermal paste was a thing). I think it's far too easy to take for granted that just because it's simple for you does not mean that it is simple for everyone.
Also, take note of the various parts of this video that were clearly edited out. Take for example when she was trying to socket the CPU. She's looking at the CPU socket not even knowing what orientation to put it in with the retention lever still pulled down, suddenly there was a cut and the lever is pulled up and she's putting the CPU in place. My guess is she got much more help than just the three life lines. And you know what? There is nothing wrong with that, she's brand new to this.
Also, note that she went into this with at least some level of computing knowledge. She had just gone through the secret shopper video series and had been given hours of free troubleshooting experience on removing and reseating the GPU and RAM sticks.
You know the world is fked up when a 1660 super costs like 700 dollars
What’s the keyboard that they use on the PC in the end?