- Don't try this at home.
Well, I don't think that's...
That doesn't look correct. (laughs)
So bad.
So today we have a challenge.
Our wonderful sponsor Micro Center have given us
the brand new AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT early,
which means that we have less than 24 hours
to build a cool gaming PC,
test it,
and post this video.
Should be easy, right?
I want to look cool.
- [Ken] That is a lot of 212s.
(Austin laughs)
Dude, they're actually 35 bucks.
That's actually a really good deal.
Did you do measurements?
- Oh, absolutely not.
Not even a little bit.
- [Ken] How ambitious do you wanna get?
- I mean with this video, it needs to go live tomorrow.
Oh, wait, no!
Oh, I just realized.
What if we get a power supply with RGB? (laughs)
Wait, does this have RGB?
Wait, this doesn't have RGB, does it?
- [Ken] No. - Oh.
- [Ken] You just assumed.
- I did, I saw R-
Look, I see ROG, I immediately assume RGB.
I mean the Kratos actually, looks to be pretty cool, right?
It better look this cool, okay.
Well, they've got the white and the black Vengeance Pro.
So, we are going with a white motherboard.
So we could rock that white Vengeance Pro.
Our goal today is simple. (plastic rustling)
We need to build an entire gaming PC around this.
The Red Devil PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT.
Now, this thing aims to be a competitor
to something like an RTX 3070,
which means they-
While, yes, in theory,
we should build a very simple straightforward system.
Instead, we're doing this.
Inside this box is a system that came out 20 years ago.
You got to lift with your back.
Don't lift with your knees,
lift with your back.
One, two, three.
(foam rustling)
So, this...
is a computer that I actually used to own.
In fact, I did a video on this system, back in like 2010.
We're going to be taking it apart
and reusing this chassis.
So that, we have a sleeper
(foam rustling) on the outside.
Complete with our Windows XP and Pentium 4.
But on the inside,
we're going to have an absolute overkill gaming PC for 2021.
Now, this system was purchased off of eBay for parts.
So even though, it's in pretty good shape,
it is missing I think, a hard drive
and some other components.
So, don't worry.
We're not ruining an ancient piece of art. (laughs)
Oh, look at this.
We've got the original specs of the system.
Pentium 4 processor, half a gigabyte of RAM
and 80-gig hard drive.
Whoa!
Oh, wow!
That's so clean.
Oh no, we can't screw this up.
This is actually really nice.
Look how like clean everything is.
This was supposed to be not working,
but I can see it's just missing a hard drive.
Now, one of the cool things about this chassis was
if you actually press this bottom bit,
it was a little spindle for like your CDs.
For the aesthetic, I really want this
to look as sort of authentic on the outside as possible.
I don't want anyone to realize
that we have a modern gaming PC.
The biggest problem is going to be,
where are we going to put cables?
If you look around front, we've got our DVD,
our CD and everything.
I don't want to have to remove those,
but we're not going to have space for cables,
if we keep the full drives in.
- [Ken] You could probably take these drives out
and just keep the front plates.
- I'm really regretting the lack
of time we have to work on this.
Okay, we just gotta start taking it apart.
(upbeat music)
All right.
So, we've gotten pretty much everything else,
short of the optical drives
and we've got a good amount of space in here.
So my first test, before we even move on,
can I fit our mATX board inside?
Look at that.
Perfect.
It's funny how so many things have evolved
and changed and yet so many things are the exact same.
Okay, that is very good news.
When was the time you saw a graphics card
that didn't even need a heat sink?
Wonder, do you think I could Ethereum mine on this?
One of the main problems is going to be cable management.
You cannot run cables in the back, right?
I mean, this is it.
We can't hide anything.
Like, all of our cables are going
to come from the power supply.
They're gonna need to go somewhere and be routed down.
We're going to have to take out those optical drives, right?
'Cause the idea here really is,
from the outside, total sleeper.
From the inside, as soon as you pop
that side panel off, it's RGB town.
Basically, what we really want.
We just want this front piece to go on the
front of the chassis, (plastic clinks)
but then, we can keep
all the rest of the space for our cable management.
- Yeah, the main (machine whirring) problem is that,
this is all still plastic in the front.
So, I don't want to tear anything out.
- [Austin] Meanwhile, I've got myself,
the Ryzen 5 5600X installed,
which is really nice to see 5th gen Ryzen
starting to actually be regularly in stock.
We also have our 16 gigs of Corsair Vengeance RGB,
which looks so sick in the white.
Underneath here, we have our two terabyte,
970 Samsung EVO drive.
Okay, so progress has been made.
First of all, the front of the chassis looks the same.
However, as you come around back,
you'll see that the drives are now completely missing.
So, Ken did a great job of gluing
that stuff back in place
and tearing apart this old CD and DVD drive.
On my side, I've gotten the board all set.
So now that do we have our X570 board,
but we also have our memory.
We have our SSD
and I installed our 212 with a pair
of the Corsair LL120s.
A little bit overkill
but we have to keep in mind.
These two are the... not only the CPU fans
but also the main case fans in the system.
We do have that little 80 mil fan,
which I do think will fit in the back of the chassis.
But like, yeah, there's not going to be a lot
of how should we put it,
air flow! (cheerful music)
You know what Red Devil cards are known for?
Their performance.
You know what they're not known for?
Being small.
Should've thought about this before. (laughs loudly)
Not even close.
I think that we can take these drive cages out.
I actually think that might be okay.
Oh, look at that.
Am I tripping?
Or are there no stand-offs on this.
I don't think these are grounded though.
Does it seem like a bad idea to not use stand-offs?
Remember when I got all excited
(plastic rustling) about finding RGB
on the power supply.
You know what I forgot to look for?
It's modular.
It looks really cool from this side, right?
Don't mind the fact that we now have to find a way
of cable managing all of this (laughs) in the side.
Wow, that's not even close.
Don't try this at home.
Always use all the screws
(machine whirring) on your power supply.
Sometimes, when we're recording a video,
I get this little like sneaking suspicion.
There's like some goofy music playing right now.
And it's the beginning of the fail montage.
So, come around to the back of our system.
You'll see that there's a little bit
of a gap here on the bottom of the supply.
That's known as extra cooling.
This was all part of my plan.
(laughs) So bad. (inhales)
My main worry is, first of all, will it look decent?
'Cause why did we go through all this hassle
if it looks like garbage?
And second of all,
are we going to overheat the system?
There's not a lot of airflow in this case, right?
Even with a couple of extra fans on the CPU cooler.
I mean, there's just not a lot of air flow here.
We're gonna need all the help,
we can get on this system.
'Cause you know something else I'm realizing.
There is no intake anywhere.
How do I get enough air flow for my entire system
through this narrow little series of slots?
I went from being all confident but like,
"Oh this is not so bad to like,
there's no cooling in the system."
I think we gotta go for it though.
Okay, so as I've been installing the motherboard,
a new problem has arisen.
So, if you take a look at our 212,
which should fit in the vast majority of cases
and ya come down to ground level.
I think these little caps are barely going
to keep us from putting the side panel on it.
(gasps) It works, wait, does it fit?
(PC parts clanking)
How does that fit?
Like it doesn't actually fit super well, but-
Oh!
Whew!
Man, this is gonna be, for an old chassis,
absolutely packed with hardware. (laughs)
That is so obnoxiously full of PC hardware.
- [Ken] It actually looks really nice though.
- It's almost like we planned it
and I didn't buy this chassis off of eBay.
And then, we YOLO'd it today
with zero backup plan whatsoever.
We clearly thought this one through.
Now, comes the fun part.
Of trying to make it not look like, Wall-E vomited inside.
- So, I'm trying to wire the power button that came
with the case originally to the board.
And I am not doing exactly the greatest job.
I would probably even argue
that this is somewhat of a fire hazard maybe.
(Austin laughs) I don't- probably not.
It should be okay.
All right, so, Austin has plugged in the power supply and...
(metal softly clanking)
- [Austin] Sad boys.
Yeah, you know, it would be helpful
if I actually flipped this power on.
- [Ken] Okay, hold, on, wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
(Austin laughing) No, no, no, no, no.
(switch clicking)
- [Austin] Well, I don't think that's-
That doesn't look correct.
I think your cables might be touching there. (chuckles)
The thing is, we've got like two hours left
to get this thing with Windows installed
and to game and benchmark.
- [Ken] I know, but I'm stubborn
and I want to get this okay.
- [Austin] That's fine, I am too.
Oh, hi!
I didn't see you there.
I was just browsing our fine sponsor Micro Center's website
when they just happened
to have a great promo going on right now.
Where you can get a free, not only 32 gig micro SD card
but also flash drive.
Look how simple it is.
Put your email address in.
Show up in store.
It's an in-store free coupon.
I mean (laughs) it's hard to beat a deal like free.
Sorry, I was just distracted by their very fine
and wonderful offer from our kind sponsors at Micro Center.
I get distracted easily, it's fine.
Behind me, you will see a 100% stock
and unmodified Compaq Presario from the year 2001.
See, it's got Nvidia graphics.
That's a lie.
It's got a Intel Pentium 4 processor
and Windows XP, also lies.
But if you come around to this side,
you'll see that there's a little bit
of a secret lurking inside.
Not only do you have a little bit
of a red glow on the bottom,
but especially, if you come around to the back,
it looks straight evil.
Like that does not look good.
It looks like it's on fire.
Which I can assure you, it is not on fire yet.
Now, have Ken and I have been building it
for seven straight hours today?
Yes, yes, we have.
Did we require a BIOS update at the last second,
even though, I've used a 5th gen Ryzen processor
in this board before?
Why, yes. Yes, we did.
Did we have to take (kettle whistling) the whole thing apart
and spend an hour troubleshooting?
Uh-huh!
Guess what?
It all works.
What we did, was we made it as clean as possible,
(machine whirring)
while still delivering that sweet 2001 aesthetic.
So behold my friends.
(PC parts click)
Our handiwork.
Now, yes, yes, yes.
Everyone's screaming.
"Oh, look at the cables!"
"Oh, it's disgusting."
But keep in mind,
that a mere handful of hours ago,
this was a mostly functional Windows XP system
and we have swapped out pretty much every single component.
Now, this is the very first time
that we've actually been able to try this card,
as it comes out in less than 12 hours from now.
So, while yes,
you can go watch your JayzTwoCents
or your Linus Tech Tips for all the hardcore benchmarking
that's probably already been live.
The main thing we're going to do today,
is to see how well it works inside
an incredibly thermally limited chassis.
But if you come close, what you'll be able to tell,
is that even though, there's next to no air flow inside
of this chassis.
It's actually not that loud.
So yes, the graphics card isn't really doing anything yet.
So, (laughs) as soon as we actually started stressing it.
But like, I'm actually pretty happy with this.
And importantly, the power button works.
With the original old boy.
It was good, but there are certainly some telltale signs
that it wasn't quite legit.
But not only was this an iconic PC,
I mean, they sold so many of these.
But on top of that,
we've got all the original stickers in such good shape.
But on the inside, I mean, this is a legitimate gaming PC.
So first off, we have a quick 3DMark Time Spy benchmark.
While you should certainly not build a system
in a chassis like this with very, very little cooling,
these parts are actually really energy efficient.
You look at that Ryzen 5 5600X,
that is a fairly low wattage CPU
with still a lot of performance.
Which is part of the reason why
we're actually able to run this.
And I've got nothing as an intake,
besides this little grill on the bottom,
and my power supply
which I can crank up to max fan.
And that is my exhaust.
So-
And
the result is ten thousand, nine hundred and eighteen.
We're certainly down a little bit on the 370,
but considering that we're using a Ryzen 5
and not like a higher-end processor.
We're certainly losing some of that on the CPU score.
All right, let's see how it actually performs
in a real game of Black Ops.
So we do have the ability to run this game
with Ray Tracing enabled.
Now, just like all of the other AMD cards
of this generation of the 6000 series.
The ray tracing performance isn't amazing.
The nice thing about this card,
it does have the full 12 gigs of VRAM.
Yeah, so with Ray Tracing enabled.
This game looks great
but we're diving down to about 60 FPS
and that's at 1080P.
I mean, not to say that 60 FPS is bad, but I guarantee
if we turn off Ray Tracing, we will hop up quite a bit.
I got to say, though, you know,
this is actually a good benchmark for the card.
'Cause look at that,
we're seeing it over 9 gigabytes of VRAM used.
I am really happy with how this build came out
but of course, if you enjoyed,
make sure to subscribe to the channel
and ring-a-ling that ding-a-ling bell.
Check out our fine sponsor, Micro Center,
at the link in the description.
And if you've built a gaming PC recently,
you can submit your build on the Micro Center
Build Showcase with #MicroCenterMadness,
to be entered to win one of two Micro Center prize packs.
The submissions will run through March 26th
and the following week a bracketed community vote
will begin, narrowing it down to the grand prize winner.
Until the next time,
I get an idea to build
(PC part clicking) a Compaq Presario from 2001.
We'll see you then.