Building a PC: A Hands-On Experience

As I begin this project, I'm excited to see how it all comes together. The first step is cable management, and I've decided to take a different approach than usual. Instead of using the traditional method, I'll be clipping off some Molex connectors that aren't being used for anything. This will not only clean up the cable management but also make things a bit more tidy.

As I work on the PC, I realize that it's going to be a great opportunity to test my building skills. The system is coming along nicely, and I'm confident that I can get everything working smoothly. However, I do have one concern – the power supply. It's not exactly riveted in place, which means I could easily swap it out for a better one if needed.

To test the PC, I'll plug in the GPU and see how it performs. The system is humming along nicely, and the fans are spinning as they should be. This is a great indication that everything is working properly, at least so far. Next, I'll boot up the system and install Windows 8.1 Pro.

The installation process is going smoothly, and there are no red flags to indicate any issues with the build. The PC is looking good, and I'm confident that it will be able to handle most AAA titles at high settings. The power supply, although not perfect, should be sufficient for now. If I need more power in the future, swapping out the power supply won't be a problem.

As I continue with the build, I realize that cable management is crucial for keeping things tidy and organized. This system has plenty of room behind the motherboard tray, which is a nice touch. Most cases at this price point don't offer such features, so I'm feeling quite pleased with how everything is coming together.

Finally, it's time to put the side panel on the PC. If it goes on easily, that's a good indication that the cable management is working as planned. And, of course, if everything boots up properly, that's even better. With the power cord plugged in and the system running, I can finally see the fruits of my labor.

Now, let's take a closer look at the PC's performance. The CPU fan is spinning nicely, and the GPU fans are working as they should be. The video card is also working properly, which is music to my ears. This is a great indication that everything has been built successfully – at least for now.

To put this system through its paces, I'll connect it to a monitor and see how it performs. And, of course, I'll install the operating system to complete the build. With Windows 8.1 Pro installed, I can finally give this system a thorough test. The installation process is going smoothly, and there are no red flags to indicate any issues.

As I look back on this build, I'm pleased with how it's turned out. It's not perfect, but it's a solid system that should be able to handle most tasks. With the power supply being easily swappable, I feel confident that this PC will last for a long time. And, of course, the cable management has been a nice touch – it makes everything look neat and tidy.

Stay Positive: A New Shirt

As I finish up this build, I want to take a moment to talk about my new shirt – "Stay Positive." It's a great reminder that life is all about looking on the bright side. And, of course, staying positive is essential for anyone who wants to succeed in the PC building community.

The shirt features blue arrows, which are a nice touch. They add a bit of flair to the design and make it stand out from the crowd. But, most importantly, they represent the idea of moving forward and looking towards the future – always staying positive, even when things get tough.

And, as I mentioned earlier, "Boob sag and belly sweat are not included." This is a joke, but also a serious point about staying positive. When we're feeling down or struggling with our bodies, it's easy to lose sight of what's important. But, by focusing on the positives and taking care of ourselves, we can stay motivated and achieve our goals.

The shirt is available for purchase in my awesome sauce merch store. If you like it, be sure to check it out – I'm not sure if I'll be restocking it, so don't miss your chance to get one. And, as always, be sure to like this video, subscribe to my channel, and join the conversation in the comments below.

The Challenge

As I finish up this build, I want to talk about the challenge ahead. The PC building community is full of talented individuals who are always pushing themselves to create something new and exciting. And, as a competitor, I'm eager to see how I stack up against the competition.

Throughout the article, I'll share my thoughts on the build process and what I've learned along the way. From cable management to power supplies, I'll cover it all – and maybe even offer some tips and tricks for readers who want to try building their own PC.

The future is bright, and I'm excited to see where this journey takes me. With "Stay Positive" as my guide, I know that I'll be able to overcome any obstacle and achieve greatness. And, of course, I hope you'll join me on this journey – let's build some amazing PCs together!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys welcome back to the channel today I building yet another gaming PC uh not just for fun this time around or for my dad I've been doing a lot of dad builds lately this one is actually because Nvidia the folks at Nvidia have called me out to participate in one of their challenges uh to be specific the GTX 950 budget PC challenge where essentially I go ahead and try to build a system for under $600 that's my maximum budget that I have to play with uh and it has to feature a GTX 950 because that's kind of what this whole contest is promoting ah connecting the dots then I have to send the computer into Nvidia they go ahead and test it and they run a few different games and benchmarks I think they're doing 3D Mark fire strike uh as well as Grand Theft Auto 5 and there's a bunch of other ones um but essentially they go ahead and and put a load on it and see how it performs against the competition and then based on that uh which is the main criteria is performance how well your system performs and also based on uh your frugality if you can go even below $600 uh you get some extra points there and then lastly uh there there are a few points that get added due to Aesthetics now granted if you're dealing with a budget build at this price point you're not going to be able to make it look super tricked out and fancy uh you know with like LEDs and custom sleeve cables and all that but I think they're what they're kind of really going for is like cable management and that sort of thing does it look like you just plug things in and called it a day or did did you actually take your time and Route things nicely and and make it nice and neat So based on those three pieces of of criteria uh I'm going to totally win this challenge it's just no contest now I'm totally joking everyone has a fair chance of winning so why don't we go ahead and take a look at the parts really quick of course starting with the GTX 950 there it is uh this one in particular is the EVGA super super clock this is one that uh I have actually benchmarked you can go watch my video on it if you haven't already Nvidia actually sent this card over to me and they said that I could use it uh for the purpose of this challenge even though this is a $170 card uh I'm only counting it as $160 in my $600 budget and that that was approved by Nvidia so you can't yell at me for that it's not cheating it is super superclocked so it's factory overclocked now manual overclocking is allowed in the competition so I am going to be pushing this a bit further uh granted it's already overclocked pretty extremely but there is a bit more uh margin there that I could go ahead and uh and uh push it to so I'm going to be doing that as well as uh the CPU of choice is the core i5 4690k now many of you guys who follow me on Instagram might have seen a picture that I had recently posted all these components uh set up on this table right here and you might have noticed that this was actually a 4690k and this motherboard in fact was a z97 version of of this h81 uh chipset board so why did I change why did I go from an unlocked overclockable uh CPU to a non-k skew one well the fact of the matter is is once I had added up the entire uh price range or the entire cost of all these components the final cost was $599 93 or something ridiculous ridiculously like like like I had a nickel left uh before tapping out on the budget so what I decided was to uh kind of push back a little bit and kind of cut the cost down I actually got this to just over 550 bucks by going with a nonk skew with the processor and an h81 uh non non- inel chipset right there so I think I think that's going to give me some extra points honestly the overclocking uh wouldn't have done very well anyway because I had I had barely had any more room for a CPU Cooler which means my temps would have been awful I mean this was the CPU Cooler I was going to be try to trying to overclock with and I was just looking at this thing going yeah I could probably get like a you know a moderate overclock on here but is it really worth like pretty much maxing out my budget and how many points am I going to get docked for that you know most of these tests are gaming and a lot of them you know a couple of them are CPU intensive we all know that GTA 5 is a very CPU intensive game but based on all things considered I figured this would be a better value and probably get me a higher score in the end if I went with a nonk skew uh and a cheaper motherboard to really shave the cost down so that's what I'm going to do and uh that was a bit of a digression there but hopefully it sheds a little bit of of light on uh on my product rationale so moving on to the memory we've got this 8 gig kit from Team it's their Elite plus series uh it doesn't actually look too bad for the 35 or 36 bucks that I paid for it uh so you do get two 4 gig sticks right there and it is600 speed so uh not too shabby for for under 40 bucks there for storage honestly all we need is something to boot on uh it doesn't need to be super fast really we're we're not testing boot times in this competition so I'm just going with a 320 gig WD caviar Blue Drive which is actually Fairly reliable for the 20 bucks that it costed uh that it cost on New Egg uh so I'm pretty happy about that and then last but certainly not least actually this might be least as well last and least uh is the case and power supply because damn this is like as budget as it gets this is a logis where's the Box where's the box it's a logicist that I'm just going to call it a that it's a that it's that case right there uh and you'll notice it also comes included with a 480 W power supply oh God that's horrifying contemporary midtower case yeah my ass it's more like more like temporary mid tower case I paid 40 bucks it was like $39 for for this I know it's it's it's scary so um here's here's my other rationale for this it's a super dirt wow you hear that I think I'm going to I could puncture a hole through it with my finger so the reason why I went with this setup is because I literally only need this system to function for the few hours that Nvidia will be testing it for if it explodes because of the power supply 5 seconds after Nvidia sends it back to me I'm still in the clear and I'm I still qualify that's also why I'm going with this this is literally the cheapest combo I could find like I said 40 bucks for both components so you can really see where I where where where I cut Corners here think about it this was what is it $240 $230 around and then 160 or 170 all right now all of this combined is probably like 150 bucks or 160 bucks so a fraction of what just these two components loone cost so just a little bit of insight there when you're dealing with this kind of it's a very Niche and uh kind of rare instance where you're building a system like this only to win a challenge is the only time you should follow anything I'm saying uh but there you guys have it those are all the parts and I've been rambling on way too long now uh so I should probably just go ahead and shut up and build this thing let's do it all right so first we pop this guy off lift up the arm put your arms up got the Golden Arrow Jimmy oh it's beautiful all right this is this is what I do when I'm I'm filming time lapses and you watch all those time lapses I'm just talking to myself saying stupid stuff memory time so uh I forgot to mention this is a Micro ATX board again the case pretty much determined what form factor board I'd be using cuz I I knew that I could save a killing on case of power supply combo and it just happened to be microatx so that's the uh the motherboard size I went with now we're going to go ahead and install this super high-end cooler this is not going to look pretty but it'll work now let's install the motherboard so I've got my standoffs already standing off and uh we're just going to go ahead and pop this IO Shield in here all right motherboard installation complete so while we're here we go ahead and just install the uh hard drive here I'm actually surprised that these hard drive trays are not utter shite I mean they're actually decent granted they are plastic uh but they are toolless and go ahead and just uh got these little notches it's one of the notch ones you got notches on both sides that's interesting did they snap off all right these things are utter shite all right so there we go go ahead and pop that in and then we'll take care of these front panel connectors here so actually what I'm going to do here I'm going to Route all this through this little opening here and starting off with our USB 3.0 route all of them through the bottom all right so we got USB HD audio where you at bro oh it's up here don't tell me I'm not going to be able to reach there no I mean I guess I could get away with it video card will go right over there but it does look pretty tight I mean I can try it I can try it right now it might work does work looks terrible down here but who cares let's go ahead and Bolt the sucker down granted I would suggest installing your front panel connectors first uh as far as like power and reset and your hard drive LED all the little ones cuz those are kind of nasty and difficult to install once you've got your video card in there but I'm a pro so do as I say not as I do ah let's go ahead and rout these guys all you together whole family hard drive LED put the hard drive LED in there just like that just like that and then you got your power LED get the plus minus you know it don't matter hop that and there right there go ahead and pop the other one in there what else you got over here you got to you know that reset switch like the back of your hand rebooting systems all day all right we're all good front panel connectors done done deal I'm going go ahead and uh plug in my S Drive one them over here all righty let's go ahead and move on to the Dreadful power supply cables here starting with our big guy boom right at the top curve it around slam it down yeah just like that just like that put it in my SATA part baby I won't be surprised if some of you unscribe after watching this video hell I might unsubscribe why the hell I subscribe from me what's what's wrong KY why don't you make good videos anymore Cy apparently my Alter Ego in building a computer is an illiterate redneck so there is a little bit of a cut out here for power supply or for the uh motherboard now bear in mind this power supply only has a four pin EPS uh CPU connector motherboard on the other hand is an eight pin now you can still plug in a four pin plug from a power supply into an eight pin connector on your mother board the only thing is is that you won't really have much overclocking potential but that's okay because we're not overclocking here we don't even have an an unlock skew on our CPU so that is just fine for now now if I can just get this damn plug in then oh redneck c will be put right at ease yeah oh yeah so a quick side note here you guys may have realized that since this power supply only has a 4 pin uh CPU connector it probably doesn't have an 8 pin pcie connector either and you would be correct in that assumption instead it's got two Molex plugs right here uh so we're going to have to use some adapters to get this video card powered I do have these uh two adapters here they are identical it's essentially Molex to six pin uh so we're going to go ahead and wire these up to our power supply cables and I've actually had these adapters lying around around uh just for several months maybe even years uh they're just kind of taken from other video cards that I've owned in the past or that I still own that I thought I'd never have a use for but here we are uh and then all right so we've got we've got our adapters wired in there so now we have two six pin connectors coming from the power supply essentially which is one step closer I suppose to uh getting connected to that video card so missing piece of the puzzle is this guy right here you basically got two female six pin pcie going to one eight pin uh mail so we're going to go ahead and plug these in like so definitely a kind of a a long- winded workaround to get this thing going but it is going to work I assure you and now voila power men crave it women want it now since these uh little Molex connectors here coming of these adapters aren't being used for anything I'm just going to go ahead and clip them off just because uh it'll clean up a little bit of the cable management to make things a bit more tidy so here we go if you uh if you get squeamish easily suggest looking away aha yes love circumcising cables apparently it feels better for the female connectors all right and we're at the final stretch folks let's go ahead and wrap this up here that looking on camera looking all right looking good doing right there yeah all right we've made it over to the other side of the case going to go ahead and plug this guy in cuz we do want at least that fan running for a little a little bit of air flow uh it is set to exhaust I if if I was using this system long term I'd probably flip it to intake cuz it is the only case fan I'd rather have positive air pressure than negative air pressure speaking of which this is a great time to mention my new stay positive shirt which you can see right here stay positive now for sale on the awesome sauce merch store look at that look see it's see blue arrows the intake more intake less exhaust positive air pressure yeah yeah it say stay positive uh boob sag and and uh and belly sweat are not included so you'll be rest assure that this is a sanitary shirt from the get-go go ahead and check him out guys I don't know if I'm going to be restocking him so eat that up eat it up all right and I think that's pretty much going to do it for cable management other than maybe one more guy right here this surprisingly has a decent amount of room behind the motherboard tray uh you don't get an inch or anything like that it's probably more like uh half an inch I'd say a lot of cases at this price point don't have any kind of cable routing options behind here it's just literally flat but I think we're pretty much wrapped up here guys so um let's go ahead and try put putting the side panel on that's always a good indication if you've uh done enough Cable Management properly if the side panel goes on with relative ease which it it does I just I'm stupid and I can't get it in the grooves properly get in there there we go not sure what that was about all right let's do what test boot plugging in plugging in power on power on power button power button go come on I hear it there we go CPU fan looks good and the GPU fans are spinning yes that is good that is good the video card is working the adapter situation here my little Frankenstein solution has been a success now uh I'm just going to go ahead and plug this into a monitor cuz that that still I still need to get a a video signal that might not happen I don't I don't know yet all right and here is the computer yes listen to it hum it's actually fairly quiet and uh here it is installing currently installing Windows 8.1 Pro which is a good indication that I've built this thing successfully at least for now there are no red flags uh like I said it probably give this power supply a few weeks before it explodes but in the meantime for the purpose of this contest I'm pretty happy with how it turned out honestly this isn't a bad system apart from the power supply which which you can swap out it's not it's not riveted so you can just it's got four standard phillips head screws there you can just Swap this power supply out put a decent one in there that's maybe 80 plus bronze or you know from a brand that you trust and honestly this is a fairly decent system that can do 1080 gaming at high settings for most AAA titles right now which is pretty damn good for a $550 system if I do say so myself so I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished today uh you guys let me know in the comments what you think if you guys think uh that I'm totally screwed in this challenge or do you think I stand a chance against the competition um and uh yeah also let me know what you thought of the build uh the actual format usually I do a time lapse as you guys are familiar with I've been doing a lot of those lately decided to switch it up a bit this time around so let me know which one you like better or if you would kind of like a mixture of the two cuz I definitely see the the pros and cons to each but that's going to do it for now guys go ahead and like this video If you enjoyed it feel free to subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and until next time I'll see you all in the next video w\n"