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00:00Alright, there we go.
00:17Hey guys, I'm Tomatek Chap and while this may not be the most super-duper, over-the-top
00:22flashiest PC you've ever seen, for that I might have to recruit my friend Marcus from
00:26PCCentric to come over and help me build one with custom water loops and all that good
00:30stuff.
00:31But for me, in terms of the actual hardware and the components I've gone for in this build,
00:36it's absolutely my dream gaming and editing PC.
00:40Plus as you can see, we've got all the GoFaster RGB lights you could throw a stick at.
00:45Okay yes, this is all a bit showy-offy, which I don't normally like, and it is a really
00:49frustrating time to be a PC gamer right now.
00:52But this is less about, oh look how good my PC is, maybe there's a little bit of that,
00:57but it's more about my thinking behind the components and this build, why I've gone for
01:02what I've gone with, and the lessons I've learned from building it.
01:05And a huge thank you to Corsair, AMD, Nvidia, and Sebrint for providing samples for this
01:11build and I'll put links to everything I've used in the description below.
01:14First things first, the case, and I went with the Corsair 4000D Airflow in black.
01:20It does also come in white, which maybe I should have gone for to make it stand out
01:24a little bit more, but then I'd feel the need to go with white for all the other components
01:27and then things would just get a bit tricky and more expensive.
01:30Anyway, 4000D Airflow, and I love just how compact this thing is, but there's still plenty
01:35of room for even the biggest graphics cards you can buy.
01:38And crucially, it has mesh top and front panels, which of course helps with the airflow, which
01:43we'll need given what's going to go in here.
01:46Now quick side note, because you may have seen my PC upgrade video from last year, about
01:508 months or so ago, and if you did, then you'll know that that PC was not exactly sluggish.
01:55In fact, it had an AMD Threadripper 3970X, which is a 32-core, 64-thread chip and costs
02:03about two grand.
02:04Absolutely overkill, and actually, it wasn't really the best choice for how I use my PC
02:10for gaming and 4K Premiere Pro editing.
02:13If you're maybe a Pixar animator or editing 8K workflows or doing CAD renderings, then
02:18maybe you'll take advantage of those cores.
02:20For my use cases, it just didn't really make sense.
02:23So actually, I've gone down from a 32-core chip to a 16-core chip with the Ryzen 9 5950X.
02:31But crucially, we have the newer Zen 3 architecture and also much higher clock speeds.
02:36And actually, this is noticeably faster in my day-to-day use.
02:39However, if you're just going to build a purely gaming PC, I would probably save a
02:44couple of hundred quid and go with Intel's latest flagship, the 11900K, because while
02:49frustratingly it does only have 8 cores, 16 threads, we do get the higher clock speed
02:54and also it's a bit cheaper as well.
02:55So if you're purely gaming, that would probably be a better bet, but a value bet.
03:02But since this is both my gaming and workstation PC, AMD's flagship chip makes more sense.
03:07So right now, I don't think there's a better all-round productivity and gaming CPU than
03:13the 5950X.
03:14It also means I'm not going to throttle the RTX 3090 Fans Edition card that I'm using in here.
03:20Now I'll be totally upfront because no one really should buy this card.
03:24The 3090 just doesn't make sense for most consumers, given the price.
03:30Realistically, the new 3080 Ti, which I recently reviewed, is for all intents and purposes
03:34the new gaming flagship, but even that doesn't represent good value over the 3080.
03:39It's about 10% faster, but 40 to 60% more expensive.
03:42So if I was going to go out and buy a graphics card now, assuming I actually could and it
03:47wasn't for a ridiculous price as well, I would personally probably go with the RTX 3080.
03:52That's like the best value flagship card in my opinion right now.
03:56But at the same time, the 3090 is unquestionably the fastest gaming and also consumer productivity
04:02card you can buy.
04:03And of course, we're getting double the VRAM, 24 gigs versus the 12 gigs on the 3080 Ti.
04:09And also there's bigger heatsink as well.
04:10This is the Founders Edition card, but I would suggest going with a third party like the
04:14ASUS TUF series, especially on higher end and more power hungry cards as the more robust
04:20aftermarket cooling and also the extra overclocking headroom is nice to have.
04:25So Ryzen 9 5950X paired with the RTX 3090, and then I've also got 64 gigs of Corsair's
04:32dominated platinum RGB RAM.
04:34It's 3600 megahertz.
04:35And while you could go crazy with 128 gigs, 64 is still more than enough for me.
04:41Even with a 4K video rendering and a game running, I never go above like 30 or 35 gigs.
04:48And this all sits on the ASUS ROG Crosshair 8 Dark Hero ATX motherboard.
04:53This seemed to have the best reviews for an X570 board without going crazy on something
04:57like the MSI Godlike.
04:59But importantly, we get two M.2 slots and they're both PCIe 4, onboard Wi-Fi 6, USB-C.
05:04And in my experience, I've always found ASUS boards nice to use and they're solid for overclocking.
05:10I have maybe gone a little bit crazy with the storage though.
05:14We've got 10 terabytes in here split between two drives.
05:18The main boot drive is one of Corsair's crazy fast MP600s, 2 terabytes, PCIe 4.
05:25This thing is a beast.
05:26I mean, it even has its own built in heatsink.
05:28And we're looking at some pretty ridiculous speeds, which is roughly twice as fast as
05:32my second drive, which is an 8 terabyte PCIe 3 Sabrent Rocket M.2.
05:3910 terabytes is an awful lot of storage, but somehow it's getting filled up pretty quickly.
05:43I think that's mainly because I shoot these videos in 10-bit 4K and also make proxies
05:48as well.
05:49So that adds up.
05:50Plus I've got a dozen or so games installed.
05:53So obviously PCIe 4 drives are a good deal faster, looking at almost twice the speeds
05:57on the MP600 versus the Sabrent Rocket, which is a big deal in terms of benchmarks.
06:02But in reality, you'd really struggle to tell the difference.
06:05I don't think PCIe 4 is really necessary yet.
06:08Realistically, I just stick with PCIe 3, unless maybe it doesn't cost that much more and you're
06:13just going to go with a boot drive PCIe 4 drive, in which case maybe to make it a bit
06:18more future proof, but it's not really necessary.
06:20Okay.
06:21For cooling, I've gone with the 360 mil Corsair H150i Elite liquid cooler for the CPU, and
06:28I've actually paired this with three Corsair QL120 RGB fans.
06:33All these get great reviews and they use the IQ software, so it's nice and easy to control
06:37the RGB lighting.
06:41And all that is powered by a 1000 watt Corsair RM1000X fully modular PSU.
06:53And so that is the build.
06:55And for the benchmarking enthusiasts amongst you, here's what I'm getting in a couple
06:59of tests.
07:00Although I'm sure I can squeeze out a bit more performance if I spend some time giving
07:03this a proper overclock, but even these vanilla numbers are pretty tasty.
07:08Corsair also sent over a few extras, including the Sabre RGB Pro mouse, the K70 RGB TKL mechanical
07:16gaming keyboard with Cherry MX switches, and they're both part of their Champion Gaming
07:20series.
07:21And to tie it all together, I've got the fancy Corsair MM7000 RGB extended cloth gaming mat,
07:28which I thought I would hate, but actually I quite like it.
07:31The lip of the mat doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would, and it gives me an
07:34extra USB port.
07:36Lots of cables though, as you can see, which doesn't look quite as smart as having fully
07:41wireless peripherals, but then again, these are designed for a proper competitive gaming.
07:47So as you can see, I've gone with a near enough full Corsair build here.
07:51The benefit to sticking with one brand when it comes to your peripherals and your fans
07:55and your RGB RAM is that you can then sync it all up using just one program, their IQ
08:01app, which is so much easier than having two or three from different brands.
08:05If you've mixed and matched your hardware, I'm not saying that's the best value approach
08:09or it's for everyone, but that is definitely an advantage to sticking just with one brand.
08:15But all this is a complete waste of time if you don't also then pair it with a pretty
08:19capable monitor that can fully take advantage of the performance that we get from it.
08:23So if you're a regular on the Tech Chap channel, you'll be pretty familiar with this big guy
08:28behind me.
08:29It's the LG 38WN95C.
08:32I've been using this as my main monitor for about four or five months now, and I absolutely
08:37love it.
08:3838 inches, 3840 by 1600, so that's a 21 by 10 aspect ratio, which means it's slightly
08:44taller than your regular ultrawide, so it feels a bit less narrow.
08:48Up to 144 hertz or 120 hertz with 10-bit color, which is what I use, G-Sync, HDR, dedicated
08:54color profile modes like sRGB and DCI-P3.
08:58It's genuinely the perfect match for this PC because it's great for gaming and also
09:02color accurate enough for editing.
09:04Plus it's bloody huge, which is handy for having two or three apps side by side or just
09:09a really immersive full screen gaming experience.
09:13I also use a pair of SteelSeries headphones mainly for gaming, although for editing as
09:18well, but of course they're not professionally accurate, but good enough for what I do, to
09:21be honest.
09:22And in terms of the desk itself, well, that's probably the one thing that needs a bit of
09:26an upgrade.
09:27It's the same Ikea Carlby worktop on top of a couple of Alex drawers that I've had since
09:32I started this YouTube channel like six years ago now.
09:35So that is definitely in need of an upgrade, as is this whole room actually, because I'm
09:41currently in my new house, but in this temporary office because at the moment I'm renovating
09:46my double garage.
09:47I'm very lucky to have that extra space and I'm putting some money into turning it into
09:52a new studio, which I cannot wait to show you.
09:54Right now it's a complete mess, but in the next few weeks I'll share some stuff on Instagram
09:59and also give you an updated setup tour.
10:02But in terms of the new PC build for 2021, this is absolutely perfect for me.
10:07You could go a bit more over the top with custom water looping and some fancy cabling.
10:12Maybe that's something I'll do in the future, but for now I'm really, really happy with
10:15this.
10:16I love the case, the 4000D, although I think I would go with the white one if I were to
10:20do this again.
10:21Obviously we do have Corsair's 5000 series, which is a little bit newer, but really the
10:25difference is the size.
10:26They're a bit bigger and I just didn't really want that for my setup for my desk.
10:31So I'm really happy with the size of this.
10:33But what about you?
10:34What would be your dream PC in terms of specs and would you go Intel or AMD?
10:39Let me know in the comments below, as well as give me some desk recommendations if you've
10:43got any.
10:44As I say, links to everything I've talked about today in the description below.
10:48And if you enjoyed the video and want to see more from me, then a cheeky little like
10:51and subscribe would be lovely.
10:53Thank you so much for watching guys and I'll catch you next time right here on The Tech
10:56Chap.