- Even with all of the guides we've created over the years,
building a computer can still be pretty challenging
if you've never done it before.
Wrong CPU socket, confusing case,
and what do I do with all of these RAM slots?
Our goal with this Build then was to create a gaming PC
that is not only darn near impossible to screw up,
but that you can build yourself
in less time than it would take to drive to the store
and buy a console.
Micro Center stepped up and sponsored us
then to give you the fool-proof PC.
So grab a screwdriver,
preferably one from lttstore.com, and follow along.
(upbeat music)
After slipping an ESD bracelet over my ankle,
we will start as always with the motherboard.
And ASUS ROG Strix B660-I.
And I can already hear you saying,
Linus, small form factor is hard and (mutters).
You gotta trust me, okay?
An ITX motherboard
might not have as much room for expansion,
but it also has almost no room to screw up.
Which memory slots do I use?
Doy, the only ones.
Where do I get it?
Micro Center, obviously.
See, easy.
The box will serve as a handy build surface.
Just unlatch the retention arm and pull it open,
then orient your unboxed LGA 1700 CPU
using the golden triangle on the CPU
and on the socket cover,
or by lining up the notches on the top and bottom.
We went with Intel's Core i5-12600K
because it offers great gaming performance
and we like the value that those efficiency cores
bring to the table for multi-threaded workloads.
Once it's in, give it a little wiggle
to make sure it's seated correctly,
then push the lid down until the top latch
grabs hold of the lid, push the retention arm down
and you can really giver here and tuck it under its holder.
The socket cover should pop off on its own.
Set that aside
in case you ever want to RMA or sell your motherboard.
The next step is to install our SSD, a Samsung 980 PRO.
It is pricey, but Samsung regularly performs very well
in Puget reliability reports
and it's a really fast drive that can truly take advantage
of PCIe Gen 4.
Capacity as always, is a personal choice
but since we only have 2M.2 slots
we decided on a two terabyte model
so you won't need to upgrade right away.
Unless of course you're a data hoarder
in which case, make sure to get subscribed
so you don't miss our upcoming video
about who's the biggest data hoarder at LMG
and what solutions everybody uses.
Both slots on this board are Gen 4,
so there's no wrong answer.
But both have slightly different installation methods.
The rear slot goes in like this,
and needs this screw from the motherboard box to secure it.
I prefer to use this one for now
since this slot is gonna be harder to access
when it's time to upgrade.
When that time comes,
the front slot is under the motherboard armor.
Take out these three screws,
a number one Phillips will do the trick,
then lift it off and set it aside.
Peel off the film covering the thermal pad
and slide in the SSD until it clicks into place.
Push it down and check this out.
ASUS calls this M.2 Q-Latch
and it makes SSD installation
as simple as rotating this little plastic doodad.
Love it.
At this stage, you can just not bother
putting the armor back on
if you wanna save some time,
it's really unlikely to affect performance
but if you like the look, peel the film off the underside,
place it over the drive and screw it back down into place.
Now for the CPU heat sink,
the LGA 1700 socket is still pretty new.
So any cooler that's been sitting on the shelf for a year
might not include the right hardware.
But if you reach out to Noctua with proof of purchase
they will send you a free mounting kit.
This is a potential extra step in our fool-proof PC
but thankfully this kit makes it impossible
to screw up your mount.
We went with the NH-U12S
for its excellent performance,
compatibility and ease of use.
Also it's available at Micro Center.
But another solid option the community seems to really like
is the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.b.
Pick up your motherboard with one hand by the IO shield
and push the back blade into place through these holes.
It's symmetrical,
so the only thing that really matters
is that the holes correspond
to where the screws are sticking through the socket.
So easy, right?
Place the board back down on top of the box,
slide the plastic spacers over the bolts, like so,
then install the two mounting bars
over top of the spacers with the bars curving outward.
Finally, we'll use the thumb nuts
to screw down in our four corners
to keep everything in place.
When it comes to thermal compound, don't stress.
Noctua includes a non-conductive, non-capacitive paste
with all of their coolers.
So it won't hurt anything to put on some extra.
For these longer LGA 1700 CPUs,
we're gonna go with the thin line down the middle technique
and it can be about the width of an uncooked grain of rice.
Then remove the fan from the heat sink
by pulling out these two wires
and place the heat sink over the two mounting points
and tighten it down until the screws bottom out.
Honestly, that was the hardest part.
But if you still think that all of this is too difficult,
Micro Center has technicians who can put everything together
for you for a $150 build fee.
They'll even do hardline water cooling for an upcharge.
Let's move on to RAM.
DDR5 installs exactly the same as DDR4.
And we only have two DIMM slots
so you can't put them in the wrong one.
We've also chosen lower spec DDR5
to ensure that we don't run into any instability
or compatibility issues when enabling XNP.
We also considered the size of our modules.
You might choose to mostly follow our parts list
but maybe you change your cooler, for example.
These Corsair Vengeance 5200 mega transfer per second,
C38 modules will fit in just about anything.
Push down the tabs on the top end of the DIMM slots
then align the notch of your memory module
with the notch on the slot.
Slide the first module into the rails
then guide it to the bottom and press firmly
with two thumbs until you hear a click on each side.
Do it again for the second module
and then you are all set.
Now that our memory's installed,
we can attach our fan to our heat sink
with the side clips like so,
then plug the cable into the gray fan header at the top.
This is your CPU_FAN header
and the one directly next to it is the AIO_pump header.
We'll get to our case selection in a second,
but for now since we know that it comes with two case fans
we're gonna use a handy Y-Splitter
and plug it into the chassis fan header up here
near the CPU power connector.
If you don't wanna pay the extra few dollars, that's okay,
you can use the pump header for your second chassis fan,
it just might require a little bit of extra configuration
to get it to properly ramp up and down,
according to your system temperatures.
All right, remember when I asked you to trust me
small form factors hard
but we're not building small form factor?
Our biggest trick today is the Jake Tivy special
putting an ITX board in an ATX case,
specifically the H510 Flow from NZXT.
Ah, so much room for activities.
Okay, we're gonna do this in sort of a weird order
but you'll thank me later.
Starting with our power supply.
Yes, I know fully modular power supplies
are a super cool upgrade for experienced builders.
But while it's hard to put cables in the wrong way,
it's not impossible and it does add extra steps.
So we went with an EVGA 700 GD.
It's rated for 80 plus gold efficiency
and outputs a bit more use than we need today
with some to spare for the reportedly power hungry
upcoming RTX 4000 series.
Let's grab the only three cables
we actually need for our build now.
The ATX 24 pin, CPU 8 pin and PCIe 8 pin.
We'll take the others that we don't need
like these SATA and Molex cables,
as well as these extra PCIe cables
bundle them together and forget about them for now.
Put your power supply close to your case like this,
then take the eight pin CPU cable
and feed it through the cutout at the top.
Give yourself as much slack as possible for now
we're gonna clean that up later.
While you're up here, feed the rear exhaust fan cable
out through that same cutout.
This next step can be done with your case standing
which will make the CPU power cable easier to manage,
but if you're more comfortable resting your motherboard
on the standoffs and then screwing it in with two hands
rather than one, that's perfectly okay.
Either way, we're gonna take our CPU cable in one hand
and the motherboard in the other and bring it close enough
that you can plug in the CPU connector
by pushing this cable in with the clip pointed out.
If you're not using the Y-Splitter for fans,
plug in your chassis fans now as well.
Then as you place the motherboard
on these four standoffs,
align the IO, no shield installation for us,
our board comes with one pre-installed
and gently push it into place.
Our ITX board fits perfectly on the pre-installed standoffs
and I promise you that using these screws
to secure the three corners here, here, and here
and then resting the last one
on the pre-installed center post will be fine.
But if you're truly worried,
feel free to swap out that post
with any of the other standoffs
using their handy standoff tool.
Now remember that Y-Splitter we plugged in earlier,
tuck the ends of that cable
out through the same cutout as your CPU power connector
and then plug in the front in rear case fans.
We can now wire up our case IO since we're in here
and this is why we chose NZXT.
The power switch, reset switch and power LED
are all properly grouped together for us
so we plug them all in at once.
I mean, I get it universal compatibility
with the broken out ones.
That's pretty cool.
But most modern boards are the same,
and man, is this ever a time saver?
USB-C goes here, USB-A goes here.
Both of them are keyed
so they only go in one way,
then we're gonna take our HD Audio
and stretch it across our board
so it can rest snuggly between our GPU and our CPU cooler.
Now it's time to push your power supply into the basement
through the side.
Get your ATX 24 pin and PCIe 8 pin out of the way
then you can tuck all those extra cables outta site.
So roomy!
Run the ATX 24 pin up the side
then out through any of the nearby cutouts and plug it in.
It's key to only go in one way.
Then the PCIe cable comes up through the basement
and we can leave it hanging there for now.
Next, grab the four screws included with your power supply
and secure it here, here, here, and here.
At this point, if we were using integrated graphics
we'd be ready to rock,
but the GPU shortage is finally settling down.
Micro Center has lots of stock.
Mostly in their stores to help produce online scalping.
So we chose an EVGA RTX 3060 XC.
It's a great match for our 12600K and being a 2-fan card
in a case, this size, it is a breeze to install.
Remove the two top slot covers from the case,
then put them with your case hardware
and keep those two screws.
Grab your GPU, remove the PCIe protector
as well as whichever display out covers you'll need,
and if you're a novice, I would suggest laying your case
down for an easier time here.
Line up the slot with the connector,
you might have to wiggle this around a bit
to get it just right and push it down until it's seated.
You can check if you're done
by trying to spot the case holes
through the rear bracket like this,
or by checking the PCIe lock to make sure that it's engaged.
And we are in business.
Now we just need to screw it back down
and plug in our last power connector a little like so.
And that's it.
Following this guide you could conceivably complete this PC
in 10 to 15 minutes,
and I'm so confident that it's gonna work.
I'm gonna put the panels on before I power it up.
You can check out all the products that we used by the way
in the links down below while we get windows installed
and then get some games fired up.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
This is a fantastic gaming experience.
Doom Eternal's not the most difficult game to run
but anything that can do Doom Eternal 1440P,
130 to 150 FPS is gonna be having a pretty darn good time
in just about any AAA game
that has at least some reason level of optimization.
And the craziest part of all of this,
is GPUs are finally coming down to prices
that you could conceivably, actually build this thing.
I love it, right?
We have struggled so much to make videos
for the last two years.
This is great.
So whether you wanna build it yourself
or just pick out something you know has good parts
rather than rolling the dice on a pre-built,
you can find everything you're looking for at Micro Center.
They've got a great selection of products,
knowledgeable associates to help you when you're shopping
and plenty of products available in store.
Not feeling social, you can place your order online
and get your products fast
with their 18 minute in-store pickup options.
They've got fantastic prices, 25 U.S. locations
with their own service and repair departments.
So you can avoid shipping RMA products overseas.
And if you're a new customer,
well, Micro Center wants to offer you
a free 128 gig USB flash drive
and a 128 gig microSD card.
Check out the link in the video description.
New customers only; No purchase necessary;
Limited time offer; Valid in-store only;
Limit one coupon per customer.
If you guys enjoyed this video,
make sure to check out the build stream that we did recently
for a solid budget build.
I was also sponsored by Micro Center, right?
- [Man] Yeah. - Yeah, I was.
(upbeat music)