Overpowered Gaming PC Build - Step by Step

hey what's up guys hope you're all doing well and today we're building a pc but it's not going to be like my other pc build videos which are more focused on cinematics or maybe building something crazy and then just showing you the end result today we're really going to slow things down and i'm going to take you through the entire process step by step we're also going to be building something a bit more practical and i know that there are a ton of videos online of how to build a pc but we're not just going to be building a generic gaming mid tower we're going to be building something that you're more likely to see on this channel something compact very powerful but also something that's pretty optimized in terms of thermals and noise levels so let's take a look alright so let's get started so being an itx build everything revolves around the case so the case that we're going with here is the form t1 and that's really important because when it comes to putting our cpu cooler in putting our graphics card in you really have to plan around the size and volume of the case and the amount of clearance that you have so for example we have 70 mils of cpu cooler clearance and then for the graphics card we have about 314 mils of length to play with and then two or three slots depending on you know which orientation you want to go with but as for the t1 this is pretty much the best 10 liter case that you can buy right now it is actually out of stock at the moment but they are bringing out another model at the end of next month but yeah really really premium case as you can see it's fully cnc'd but yeah being only 10 liters in volume for those of you who aren't familiar with this case you're going to be very very surprised with the amount of hardware that you can actually fit in here i mean this thing is smaller than a shoebox but by the end of this video we'll be housing a super powerful gaming pc so just taking off the panels here and just prepping for our build just getting it opened up and then we'll move over to our other components so bottom panel goes off side panels open up like this that gives us a really nice empty kind of frame to work with we'll worry about these panels later here we're going with the z590i unifi from msi really nice clean tidy unique board we do actually have thunderbolt 4 ports here as well which is pretty cool so if your build somehow requires thunderbolt uh yeah definitely check this one out and of course being a z590 motherboard does support overclocking which is where our cpu comes in so here we're going to be using the i5 11600k now good alternative to this of course would be the ryzen 5600x depending on the pricing in your region and if you want something a little bit cheaper you could go for the i5 11 400. one of the reasons that we're going with the i5 11600k here is that our case only has a pcie gen 3 riser cable which uh when you're connecting a pcie gen 4 slot to a gen 4 gpu which spoiler we're going to be using the rtx 3080 when you have gen 4 gen 4 and then a gen 3 riser you end up running into some big problems where sometimes you don't get a display out and it's just really really frustrating so going with the cpu which has integrated graphics is always a good idea when you're kind of running into these compatibility issues that way we can use these display ports on the back of the motherboard and then set the correct pcie gen link speed so that we don't run into any display out issues so first order of business is installing the cpu so we're just going to release that latch there carefully install your cpu because you don't want to damage any of those motherboard pins good little trick to make sure it's seated is just to give it a little bit of a wobble and as you can hear it's nice and seated we're gonna hook the latch under that bolt there and then gently press down and there we go this will come off automatically and the cpu is now installed nice and easy the next thing that we need to do is install our storage so what we're going with here is a crucial p5 one terabyte m.2 nvme drive mostly you will be sticking with m.2 nvme storage for modern day builds i mean if you have hard drives and ssds laying around they can be useful as well but if you're starting a build fresh i do recommend sticking with m.2 and vme drives they are so so simple they're completely quiet and most itx motherboards out there believe it or not do actually have two m.2 slots available so we're just going to be sticking with a one terabyte drive here and that should be enough to get us started an installation here is pretty simple and it's pretty much the same for almost all itx boards out there there are a couple of screws here which will release uh m.2 heatsink cover make sure you peel off the protective film there will be a thermal pad underneath there we're going to carefully install this and i am a little bit shaky because i have had maybe a bit too much caffeine today we're gonna press this down make sure it's fully seated i'll line up that screw there and then simply screw it down make sure it's nice and firm and there we go that's our storage installed no cables nice and simple next up we have the memory modules so nothing crazy here but hey we're going for some flashy modules why not to have those available uh 16 gigabytes of 3600 megahertz here which you know 3600 megahertz does seem to be the sweet spot for gaming these days uh c16 nothing crazy and these specific modules are triton z royal from g-skill so yeah do look quite nice mirror finish i do have rgb on the top which is kind of cool and these are short enough that they do fit under our low profile cooler as well and installation is pretty simple you just want to make sure that the two tabs are unlocked from the memory dimms themselves i've actually clipped them off from a previous build that i used this motherboard for and then slotting the memory dims in then an even amount of pressure across the dimms and you should hear a nice click that's pretty straightforward next up though we have the cpu cooler now you do have plenty of options here you can even liquid call the cpu if you really wanted to but we're sticking with air cooling here to maximize the performance of the gpu we don't really want to add radiator space to our case and perhaps add some more interruption to the airflow so air cooling here keeping it nice and simple the specific cooler that we're going with here is the noctua nhl12 it comes in at 66 millimeters in height so we have about four mils of clearance between the side panel and this cooler pretty much clears everything on our motherboard absolutely fine except for the m.2 heatsink cover so we will actually need to remove this i'll show you how to do that in just a second but it does clear the io shield and it does clear our memory modules on the right so the only thing we really need to deal with is this m.2 cover so let's do that now so pretty typical itx build here you think everything's gonna go to plan and then something just ends up being a little roadblock along the way so we're just gonna reinstall this m.2 your motherboard will come with a very small screw in a tiny kind of plastic bag just be really careful not to lose it and we're just gonna secure our m.2 drive with that now don't be too stressed out about not being able to use this m.2 heatsink because our cpu cooler has a fan that sits pretty much directly over the ssd anyways so the m.2 drive overheating it's not really going to be an issue and then to get the cooler installed you will have mounting hardware which came with your cooler so this is pretty straightforward you have this bracket here this goes on the back of the motherboard like shown make sure you line up these two holes here with these two holes here just like that tip it over make sure it stays on then you have these black spacers which go over the mounting bracket quite easily then we have these brackets which then go on top of those spacers and we're going to put these on the left and right side since we're mounting our cooler vertically and then finally to secure the mounting bracket we just use these tiny little screws here you'll just use your thumbs to tighten them and then you can use a screwdriver just to make sure they're nice and tight they're nice and firm no need to over tighten them and that should be good enough all right so the cpu cooler is ready for mounting we've got our mounting bracket installed m.2 heatsink removed and everything is ready to go but now for probably the most controversial and probably most difficult part of the entire build and that's installing the thermal paste i'm just kidding this is actually really easy i don't know why people complicate it so much so you'll get a tube of thermal paste included in the box much smaller than this but will be pretty much the same thing then you can just do medium application just like that is plenty so installing the cpu cooler now this is pretty straightforward just goes over like this line it up with the screws and then we will actually need a larger screwdriver here because the one from ifixit is not long enough to go through these little holes [Music] and there we go cpu cooler is installed you can actually leave the fan on while you're installing it i find it just a little bit easier that way instead of trying to guide the fan under there once the puller is completely installed but yeah next thing that we need to do is grab this little fan header and plug it into our cpu fan head on the motherboard which is that one just right there then if you want you can just tuck the cables under the heat pipes there just to kind of tidy it up a little bit makes it just look a little bit cleaner so believe it or not that's actually most of the build kind of done just prepping this motherboard now we grab our case uh no need to install an i o shield because this one is already pre-installed which is nice does help us out a little bit and then yeah just simply placing the motherboard that we've prepared here make sure that the riser cable is not in the way and it should drop in just nice and easy over these standoffs then we have our four motherboard screws which look like this they're kind of like a little pan head with a little bubble on the top and then yeah pretty straightforward just securing the motherboard to the case again no need to over tighten anything just a nice firm lock onto the case that's fine i will mention a couple of these screws a little bit hard and awkward to access but this one over here for example just kind of requires you to angle the driver just a little bit on an offset but you can still get a nice kind of firm lock on it without having to really damage anything or strip anything next thing that we need to do is plug in our power switch which is a pretty simple two pin connection uh usually you'll find this connection on the right side of the motherboard but some motherboards will have it awkwardly over the pcie slot over here which i really do not like but hey at least our power switch cable is long enough so it's not really an issue so pretty straightforward we don't have to plug in a bunch of cables for this case that's not like we have front i o or anything like that which is something that i actually like about this case it's pretty clean and then again just as we did with our cpu cable we can tuck this access cable slack just underneath the heat pipes under the cooler just make it look a little bit cleaner and then as for the specific pins that you're plugging the cable into it's these two pins here on this pin array it's basically the same two power switch pins on every single motherboard front panel connection next thing that we're gonna do is just lock in that pcie riser connection uh you might have to bend it if it's the first time working with this case but mine's already kind of pre-bent and ready to go again just unlocking that tab slotting it in and you should hear a nice satisfying click the next thing that we're doing here is installing the fan so this is something that i don't really like to leave until the end of the build uh because once we put the power supply in the graphics card in it's just a little bit harder in terms of cable management and working around the rest of the build so pretty straightforward here this is the next thing that we're going to do just make sure that you're using the correct brackets the t1 actually has different brackets for water cooling and air cooling so yeah pretty straightforward that's what they look like [Music] i'll also mention that the specific fan that we're using here is the knoxville nfa 12x25 which if you've been following the channel you'll know what these look like because i use them in pretty much every single build out there but opting for a pretty quiet fan is important here because in itx build there are only two case fans in total and so you know at full load you might want to run these close to 1200 1300 rpm and extract as much cooling out of this case as possible usually fans at that rpm range are kind of audible but these on the other hand are really really quiet all right so this fan is now installed i did actually just go back then really quickly and just flip it so that the fan connection is on this side that way we can feed it right into the connector that we've already connected to right there so that's the system fan header one uh instead of having the connector go out here and then across the fan this just makes it just a little bit cleaner i've already prepared the second fan as well it's just pretty simple exactly what we just did screwing the fan onto the bracket and then yeah getting it all prepared now for this one it's probably a good idea to actually plug it in before we lock in the bracket otherwise it's going to be a little bit difficult throughout the cables so pretty easy just locking that in like that and sliding the bracket over and that should be good enough to uh yeah secure and lock it in all right so build is looking really really good really happy with how this is going so far pretty tidy nice and clean of course these two fans are positioned as exhaust so these are going to take air in through the side panels which is going to help for our gpu thermals and our cpu thermals and they're going to exhaust all that air out the top so yeah really really efficient airflow path next order of business is our power supply now something really important here is the way that we've got our power supply bracket itself actually mounted to the case it's with these standoffs here which just give it a little bit more separation from the graphics card which is really important because the specific graphics card that we're using is the 3080 fe which does have a fan at the back here and we really don't want that power supply sitting up against that fan that's going to give us really horrible thermal performance but surprisingly it is actually viable if we just add these standoffs here these standoffs do come with the t1 of course and yeah that makes for a really efficient airflow path setup as for the specific power supply that we're using this is probably no surprise to a lot of you because this is a staple in pretty much every single itx build that i do either the sf750 platinum or sf600 platinum will be absolutely fine here but i would recommend the sf750 platinum does run a little bit quieter than the sf600 and you of course do have a little bit more power capabilities so here it is absolutely tiny in the context of say an atx power supply and again we'll run really really quiet uh even with this i do get a lot of questions people asking me if this is going to be fine with the 3080 maybe you should use like a thousand watts or something like that but that really is not the case i've shown in previous videos how even the sf600 platinum will be fine with a 3080 so that goes without saying that the sf750 will be absolutely fine as well and so just plugging the cables in here we surprisingly only need three cables for this entire build which is pretty surprising we only need a motherboard 24 pin our cpu eight pin and then the dual eight pin connector for our gpu everything else you can leave just completely unplugged and that does mean that we do get some pretty tidy cable management as well i'll also mention that zip tying the cables before you actually install them and plug them in uh does make just tidying up just a little bit easier the zip ties do come in the box that's not something you really need to worry about but hey just a couple of zip ties onto those cables does really help a lot and installation here is pretty straightforward we're going to have the fan facing on the outside of the build uh some people might recommend you know facing the fan here on the inside just to kind of help suck some of that air from the 3080 fe but i've actually found that to be a bit worse than facing the fan on the outside typically what i've found is that if you have a lot of that hot air from the graphics card going into the power supply it just makes the power supply run hotter it doesn't really help exhaust extra heat from the graphics card so i would just recommend facing the power supply like this so four screws pretty straightforward one two three four zip tying the power supply cable is typically recommended and then you can just wrap it around plug it in like that and before we go ahead and install our graphics card we're just going to manage some of these cables here before we run out of room so this is the graphics card cable we'll put that over there cpu cable we'll go plug in there but what i really want to deal with here is the motherboard 24 pin which is the chunkiest cable off the lot and in the t1 this can wrap behind the power supply or right next to it and then fold down like this and then plug in at the plug down the bottom here so yeah pretty straightforward should look something like that in the end uh next is we're gonna deal with this cpu cable now this one is actually a little bit tricky to plug in because we've already installed our cpu cooler and our fan so we kind of have to bend it a little bit and then just kind of wrap it in line it up and then press it in [Music] so that one is a little bit tricky at the very least if you're having problems with it you can just take off this fan and you should be able to install it quite fine there but now just kind of managing things a little bit better and then feeding this cable through so we can then plug in our graphics card easily and this brings us to graphics card installation so installing a gpu is pretty easy in the t1 you have this little screw here which secures the gpu i'm just going to remove that with a little securing bracket you also want to make sure that this little tab is completely unlocked to the side otherwise you won't actually be able to slide the pcie slot in and that means that we can finally install our rtx 3080. now i understand that not everyone has a 3080 or is going to be using this in this specific build but the t1 is really good for this because you have a ton of different graphics cards and different graphics card sizes that you can actually fit in here so one really good thing about the t1 is that you can actually fit three slot graphics cards in here so if you do want to put a 3080 in here but you don't have a two slot reference model that's absolutely fine because you can take this strut at the top here shift it over and then install it here instead so what that does it allows you to install a three slot graphics card but as a consequence you then get lower cpu cooler height but i don't really see that as a problem though i would much rather take that trade off if it means that you can install a larger graphics card but for this build we will be using the 3080 fe so this goes in quite easily just slots in like this and then you want to press it down should hear a nice little thud lock that clip in at the bottom and then finally to secure it all together you use the locking tab at the top here that we just removed all right 3080 is now installed and then finally uh the last thing that we need to do is just plug in this 12-pin connector which is a little bit ugly you can get after-market versions of this which you know i might actually recommend doing if you are building such a high-end tidy build in the end uh yeah it's not the nicest looking adapter but hey uh we're gonna have this all closed up anyway you're not really gonna see it there we go two eight pins into the 12 pin and then clicks in and then just finally we can manage these cables just a little bit better make sure that they're not touching the fan blades and stuff like that and yeah that should be pretty much good to go so yeah that is the build completely finished and end result does look super super tidy i mean take a look at this this looks sick really really pleased with this uh cable management as you saw was quite easy just make sure you've got a couple of zip ties just you know bunching up the cables of course you do want to put the panels on as well that will go on next that's pretty straightforward uh but let me show you a couple more tweaks that i really do recommend for these compact itx builds and can take it from you know a pretty good build to a great build so first things first let's get the build up and running and actually get a display out from the system because as i mentioned at the start of the build you will actually have a problem here with the pcie gen 3 riser cable so let's disconnect that riser cable from the motherboard and also disconnect the 12 pin power plug from the gpu then we need to boot the system using the integrated graphics on the cpu and you can do that by either plugging in the display port or hdmi port on the motherboard then go into the bios and select advanced and then change the pcie mode to gen 3. also while you're here just make sure that xmp is enabled for your memory kit and then press f10 to save and quit after you've installed windows just reboot your pc backup with the gpu plugged in and the riser cable as well just as you normally would so had we not chosen the cpu with integrated graphics now you can see that this build would actually be impossible to get started next up let's talk about those case fans by default they're set to ramp up and down depending on your cpu temp but that doesn't really work here since what we really need them for is to help with the gpu so as the gpu temp ramps up we also want those two top fans to ramp up as well there's a cool program that will allow you to do this and it's called argus monitor simply in the main board and fan control section you can set both the case fans to software control as opposed to bios control by default and then set the source temp to the gpu after that you can set the fan curve for these fans which can be completely up to you but in the end to give you an idea this is what i went with and lastly definitely consider setting an under vault for the gpu it'll be absolutely fine at stock nothing to worry about there but if you basically want quieter operation and lower temperatures with no cost to performance this is highly recommended so download msi afterburner then press ctrl f which brings up the voltage and frequency curve for the gpu then click on the data point that corresponds to 875 millivolts drag that above the rest of the curve and then press the little confirm button on the control panel then while holding the alt key you want to click and drag this curve down until it lines up with the 1865 megahertz on the left hand side and then again click confirm then to save this setting you want to click the windows startup button at the top press the save button in the middle and then finally click on the profile 1 which will create and save the profile and load it every time you boot your system so taking a look at performance here before and after the under vault in doom eternal at 4k after about 30 minutes both of course here are fine but i do think the under vault does optimize things quite a bit less power lower thermals and much lower noise levels but roughly at the same clock speed and overall performance in the end here's how the system sounded at full load which i think is quite impressive especially with the undervolt in place given the form factor and the insane performance so that pretty much wraps everything up super super clean build here which i think has some really good performance under the hood and hopefully you learned something along the way as always a huge thanks for watching and i will see you all in the next one

Channel: Optimum Tech

Views: 1,696,043

Keywords: gaming pc build, pc build guide, how to build a pc, formd t1, compact pc build, rtx 3080, itx pc, sff px, optimum tech, step by step pc build

Id: Za0kx7hBeHc

Length: 23min 22sec (1402 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/KY-GROWN]

Its not really his thing to do a full guide, but to simply show off what can be done, and also to show off how good he is at filming/editing lol. Dudes a beast at ultra sexy PC content

[u/Kregerm]

I've been impressed with his content for some time. Not flashy like LTT or super in-depth like Tech Jesus, but good quality content. I noticed a while ago he started getting samples for video cards and I thought that was great.

[u/free_chalupas]

Underrated perk of using m.2 storage that you can see in this video is just how much simpler installation is compared to using a standard SSD or HDD. Compare plugging the drive directly into the motherboard versus having to manage a separate set of data and power cables. Would be worth it even if the performance was the same imo

[u/Sasha_Privalov]

i thought itx build is just ordinary build with extra steps, like: measure, measure, think, buy, try to put it inside and fail by two milimeters, take dremmel, cry when cutting into new case/ram heatsinks/etc :)

[u/ProjectGO]

No need to be salty OP, Optimum Tech has always been a review channel. Ali makes absolutely gorgeous videos about monitors, keyboards, and sexy SFF builds (while absolutely annihilating FPS players on the side), and the approach has always been about showing you the product and what's good and bad about it in an objective way with immaculate video production.

Building such a small PC is inherently a very personalized process, and every case/config/cooling is going to provide unique challenges. If you want to follow his guide exactly, you had better be ready to spend out the ass to get critical components on the secondary market. If you don't think his other content is build guide-y enough, go find someone else's. (LTT has an SFF video with a very mediocre build guide component as well.) If you want your SFF adventure to be easy and low effort, just buy a NUC.

When I watch woodworking videos, I don't get mad that they didn't show me how to mix the resin, I can find a tutorial for that. I'm there to see them make something beautiful, and I know that if I take that route myself it will require more time and cost than going to Ikea, but the result will be uniquely mine.

[u/deckar01]

The pigtail connector scares me a little. It’s undervolted, but I’m fairly sure the manual wants you to run 2 dedicated cables. It uses the same wording as the 3090.

power supply with two PCIE Power Connectors required

https://www.nvidia.com/content/geforce-gtx/GEFORCE_RTX_3080_USER_GUIDE_v02.pdf

https://www.nvidia.com/content/geforce-gtx/GEFORCE_RTX_3090_USER_GUIDE_v01.pdf

[u/shinfo44]

Damn. I am a "normal-sized" PC guy who is subbed here in order to gawk at builds, but this video is actually making me consider switching to the SFF build and ditch all the RGB and shit...

[u/dubar84]

This was a very useful video for all planning on building small systems regardless of the sff case they are using. Mentioning the cables, the first boot, the sequence of assembly... So many useful info here that can potentially save first time builders from headaches and desperation.

[u/Equivalent-Cloud-365]

This is the ideal SFF I been aiming for, first I craved the NR200 then I can across the Ncase M1 then Ghost S1 now finally settling on either Ncase or FormD T1 as the ultimate SFF case, exciting times!!