Welcome to Micro Center's Brand New Charlotte Location: Building a Portable Gaming Setup

We're at Micro Center's brand new Charlotte, North Carolina location, where I have a simple challenge - building an entirely portable gaming setup in the back of this truck. The first step is to get started with the power because that's going to be a key requirement. I want to make sure that this setup is fully off the grid and in the back of the truck. You might ask, why are we in the truck? Because it was the last rental car at the airport, so we're making it work.

To sum up my plans today, I'm going to be building a fully off-the-grid gaming PC setup with a monitor and everything I need. It's going to run on a power generator, a little battery power station, and I'm going to have exactly as long as it lasts to win a game of Valorant. If I win, hooray! I've successfully become an elite gamer thanks to our wonderful sponsors at Micro Center. If I lose, I'm giving the entire setup away to someone in the store.

Let me start out by actually choosing my power station. I mean this Geneverse, which is $2,300, has 2200 watts of power, but I don't think I've got that kind of budget today. So let me look at some of the smaller ones. I actually might do the 300. What I like about this one is that it comes with a solar panel, it comes with a 40 watt solar panel. I think I might do that. Also, this is relatively affordable, right? No, it doesn't say. How much is it? I don't know.

So you're gonna have 300 watts of peak power to push from this, but I'm gonna wanna pull a lot less, like I think I need to be probably in the 100 watt range to get a couple hours of use out of this. The solar panel will make a big difference and thankfully it's sunny today. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and lock in starting with this Jackery 300 Plus and I'm gonna build the setup from here.

The Next Task: Building My Gaming PC

There are a couple of criteria here. Now this is gonna be a unique challenge because I've done a lot of PC builds at Micro Center and I've had lots of weird challenges, but I've never done one with this constraint. So, let's get started! The first thing I need to do is choose a motherboard. A B650-I motherboard is small enough to fit in the case and it won't break the bank. Next up, I've got myself a Ryzen 7 8700G.

We've also got ourselves a one terabyte SSD, as well as 32 gigs of RAM. I've got myself a Hyte Revolt 3 case, which is going to give me a lot of space. I'm gonna have a mouse, keyboard, motherboard, and power supply and monitor. The only thing I'm really missing right now would be a display. So, let's see what we can find.

Specs of the Monitor

The spec of this monitor is 250 nits of brightness, which is decent. I'll say. Importantly it's an 1080p 75 hertz monitor, it's 24 inches. So I'm hopeful that this is not gonna pull an enormous amount of power. This is like a really unique challenge because I'm not just building a PC and having good time. Like I have to be strategic with all these decisions.

Did we park the truck close enough to the store where I can borrow the store's wifi? Or are we tethering? Oh no (nervously laughs). So, next step, let me build this whole setup bring it outside and see if we can actually win a game of Valorant for the first time in my life, in the back of a Ram 1500 in the Charlotte, North Carolina Micro Center parking lot.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Welcome to our wonderful sponsor,Micro Center's brand newCharlotte, North Carolina locationwhere I have a simple challenge,I'm going to be building anentirely portable gaming setupin the back of this truck.(glass shattering)Okay let's try this one more time,shall we?(laughing)(clears throat)So now that we're in the store,let's actually get this build started.Now I'm gonna actuallystart with the powerbecause that's going tobe a key requirement.I wanna make sure that thissetup is fully off the gridand in the back of the truck.You might ask, why are we in the truck?Because it was the lastrental car at the airport,so we're making it work.To sum up my plans today,I'm going to be building a fullyoff the grid gaming PC set upwith monitor and everything I need.It is going to be runningon a power generator,a little battery power station.And I'm going to haveexactly as long as it laststo win a game of Valorant.If I win, hooray,I have successfully become an elite gamerthanks to our wonderfulsponsors at Micro Center.If I lose, I'm givingthe entire setup awayto someone in the store.So let me start out by actuallychoosing my power station.So I mean this Geneverse, which is $2,300,has 2200 watts of power,but I don't think I've gotthat kind of budget today.So let me look at someof the smaller ones.I actually might do the 300.What I like about this oneis that actually if you look up here,it comes with a solar panel,it comes with a 40 watt solar panel.I think I might do that.Also, this is relativelyaffordable, right?No, it doesn't say.How much is it? I don't know.So you're gonna have300 watts of peak powerto push from this.But I'm gonna wanna pull a lot less,like I think I need to beprobably in the 100 watt rangeto get a couple hours of use out of this.The solar panel will make a big differenceand thankfully it's sunny today.Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and lock instarting with this Jackery 300 Plusand I'm gonna build the setup from here.The next task is going tobe building my gaming PC.So there are a couple of criteria here.Now this is gonna be a unique challengebecause I've done a lot ofPC builds at Micro Centerand I've had lots of weird challenges,but I've never done one thatwas really reliant on gettinga very high level of power efficiencybecause I'm running onan external battery.My first thought is Iwant to build somethingas low power as possible.So there are a lot of options here.So of course this is thebrand new Charlotte store,which is fully stockedwith all of the AMD CPUs,Intel CPUs, GPUs, everythingyou could ever hope for.But just because I have choicesdoesn't mean that they'renecessarily going to beright for this application.So we have a couple of options.If I'm going to go integratedgraphics, I want to go AMD,that's gonna give me the most performance.Now the last time I built a PC,I actually used an 8600Gand that was actually like pretty decent.But here the thing is Idon't care about price,I just care about performance.So I could do, there'san 8500G, 8600G, 8700G.So this is gonna be an eight core processor.It's gonna have pretty decentbuilt-in RDNA graphics.Here's a question though,how well will an 8700G run Valorant?I think pretty well, right?Especially if I don't getlike a super high refresh rateand high resolution monitor,like 1080p, 75, 100 hertz,like I think I can win with that.And this is only gonna be pulling like,I don't know, maybe 75 watts totalfor the system if I'm running this guy.I feel like I'm gonna go with this.So my main challenge hereis not only winning a game of Valorant,which if you're unfamiliarwith my past experience,you'll know that it's gonnabe kind of hard for me to win.So I wanna give myselfas much time as possibleand I'm gonna really sort of focus onthe power efficiency to do that.So then I have liketwo hours to try to wininstead of 45 minutes,'cause I'm not gonna win in 45 minutes.All right, so my next choiceis going to be with a case.So this is the Hyte Revolt 3.This is gonna be an ITX case,so it's gonna be fairly small,but importantly it's got a handle.I've got a lot of challengeshere with this build,but the cool thing is,is that Micro Center,as always has an enormous selectionof all the PC parts I could ever hope for.Next up, I've got myselfa B650-I motherboard.So this is going to be small enoughto actually fit in the caseand it won't break the bank.So a status update, Ryzen 7 8700G.We've got ourselves a one terabyte SSD,as well as 32 gigs of ram.I've got myself a Hyte Revolt 3 case,which is going to give me a lot of space.I'm gonna have a mouse,keyboard, motherboard.I think the only thing I'mreally missing right nowwould be a power supply and a monitor.So why don't we see what we can find?So the spec of this monitoris 250 nits of brightness,which is decent I'll say.But importantly it's a1080p 75 hertz monitor,it's 24 inches. So I'm hopefulthis is not gonna pull anenormous amount of power.This is like a really unique challenge,because I'm not just buildinga PC and having good time.Like I have to really bestrategic with a lot of these decisions.Did we park the truckclose enough to the storewhere I can borrow the store's Wifi?Or are we tethering?Oh no.(nervously laughs)So next step,let me build this whole setup,bring it outsideand see if we can actuallywin a game of Valorantfor the first time in my life,in the back of a Ram 1500in the Charlotte, North CarolinaMicro Center parking lot.What else are you doing onyour Wednesday afternoon, huh?Probably not that, I don'tthink anyone's doing that.So it is exactly 10o'clock in the morning.So let's see how fast I can get this builtand put together.And while I do this,we actually already havegotten the Jackery outand thankfully we do havea full charge on that,so I'm gonna have asmuch time as possible.So that is our case.- Might I suggest actually-- Yeah.- Taking a secondto look at that instruction manual.Because I have a feelingthat you might be able totake it apart in a way thatmakes it super easy to build.- "Remove side panels."Yeah, that's super simple.Say, "Remove side panels".Oh, all the side panels come off.Oh, okay. You know, I feelway better about that.Good call Ken.Look at how compact this little guy is.Everything we need right here.So this looks really straightforward.I think if I just slot itin something like this,line it upand then that's gonnapretty much be our PC build.It's very simple and straightforward,but I think that's an important thingwhen you've got veryfew watts to work with.So I'm gonna screw this in,plug it in and we'll kind of be good.(upbeat music)(upbeat music fading)Hey, it works.All righty, we've gotourselves the Ryzen 7 8700G32 gigabytes of DDR5.We're good to go.I'm going to take advantageof the ethernet here in thestore to download Valorantand all the kind of bits and bobs.I will quickly make sure thatmy RAM is set to full speedand then we're gonna be goodto bring this all outsideand begin the next phase,getting it to workand trying to be good at Valorant.(upbeat music)And so it is time my friendsto get this setup running.So it looks like a lot,it's because it is a lot.But I have confidence.This is my new setup.So what I'm gonna dois I'm going to load upthe monitor, the computerand basically I'm gonnabuild everything I need.So my main challenges here are going to befiguring out how touse my boxes as a desk.It is incredibly bright outside,so I'm gonna need to use my monitor boxto build some kinda likesunshade to hide in.And then make sure thateverything can be poweredwith the Jackery.If I plug everything in and itcan't run it for some reason,I'm gonna be in big trouble,but I think it'll be fine.(upbeat music ends)This is a questionable idea.It's really hot.(upbeat music)So one of the nice thingsabout the Jackery is it comeswith a 40 watt solar panel.So if I set this up onthe roof of the truck,it should actually giveme some decent power.Yeah, boy.Oh yes, we got a light on the system.We're pulling 35 watts.Okay, PC is PCing right now.Okay. Oh, yeah we're up, we're up.We are up right now.- For the record, Icannot see that screen at all.- No, I can't either. Sohere's my main problem,monitors are not meant to be used outside.So this is a, I would sayaverage brightness display.And if I'm staring at rightnow, it is massively dim.So that's where my box is gonna come in.So if I do one of these guys...Wait a minute, wait a minute,wait a minute, wait a minute.(laughs)This is what optimal gamingperformance looks like.So my first question isgonna be how long do I have?So the system right now...Oh dude. Yo.Wait it's only altogetherpulling 40 watts right nowand we're getting 31watts in from the sun.This is almost a fullsolar powered system.Right now, if I keep this up,I have 117 hours of gaming.Bro! This is a fully portable setup.Do I need 117 hours towin a match of Valorant?- Our flight leaves in three hours.- I have three hours ofbattery life on my Jackery.(upbeat music)So as you might be able to guess,there are somecomplications with my setup.One of which is we're tethering,which is probably notgonna be great for latency.The other of which isthe Q, A, Z keys on mykeyboard are all in the sun,AKA very, very hot.And other than that, I think we're fine.I can't imagine anything else going wrong.What could possibly go wrong?So we're getting 26 wattsin from the solar paneland we're pushing anywherebetween 40 and 70 watts output.Still nine hours.Yeah, we can absolutely workwith that, a hundred percent.I'm gonna just quicklyjust do a practice match,just to make sure everything's working.About to get in.We're also gonna see the performance here.I have no idea what kind ofperformance we're gonna getwith this system.But I think, I mean we're at 1080pand we have a 75 hertz display,so if we can get anywhere close to that,I think it should be fine.We're getting about 170 FPS in the game.It's really quite smooth.The monitor looks nice,obviously it's only 75 hertz,but it looks really good.And I'll be honest with you,I'm actually not running into anyreal issues with the setup at the moment.The issues are entirely around my skill.This is probably the point in the videowhere I should mentionthat I'm not good at Valorantand part of the reason Iwanna do this challengewas to make myself be better.And I'm not sure what part of thisis going to make me better,but I think it will.I have faith.What should I play, what'sthe easiest match in Valorantthat I can play that'll actuallygive me some big hope of winning?- Spike Rush.- Spike Rush. Let's do it.I do only have three red bars of signal,so that's maybe not encouraging.But well, we'll find out."Valorant has encountereda connection error.Please relaunch to reconnect."- That actually happenseven if they have a good connection.- Yeah. Oh, I need to re-log in.Okay. "This version ofVanguard needs Secure Boot."I was literally in the game.- Yeah. Well it's Vanguard.- So what we foundis that Valorant doesn'twant to play on my PC.Now you can see it'sfully functional, right?So I'm gonna walk around in the range.We're getting 270 FPS outsideand you know, we get like inthe high 100's on the inside.Fully functional, absolutely works.My issues are entirely down to Valorantrandomly needing Secure Boot like that.You know, it should tell somethingwhen I have built thisentire ridiculous janky setupand my biggest problem,it's not the internet,it's not the lack of solar energy,it's not my wonderful desk,oh no, it's Valorant.Now I've double checked,Secure Boot is on in the BIOS.And I will point outthat Ken and I have a flight in two hoursand I don't think we have timeto wait to download another game.So I'm gonna spin this positively.Our setup works, the solar panel,we've got our Jackery,we've got a fully custom PC,monitor, the whole thing.We have a complete gaming setupin the back of a truck.And I think that'ssomething to be celebrated.But a bet's a bet,I said that I was goingto build this setupand I was going to wina match of Valorant.Not only did I not wina match of Valorant,I couldn't even play afull match of Valorant,which means that this PCis not coming home with me.So instead,would you like a PC?- No way.(bell dings)- All yours, brother.- That is insane.Getting a PC is notwhat I intended to get.I just came here to get a mouse.But I think it's awesome.People like him,you know, going aroundjust doing their thingand actually making it to wherethey're actually givingback to the community,it's a totally awesome thing.And I really thinkyou should go check out his channel,subscribe to him, most definitely.I think it's really good tosee people doing wacky stuff,especially with acardboard and a solar paneland a game that did not work.- It mostly worked for the record.- It booted up. That'sthe most important thing.- And of course, huge thank youto our wonderful sponsors at Micro Centerfor enabling all of this madness.You can definitely come downto the Charlotte store and check it out.And stay tuned,there's some other Micro Center locationsthat may or may not be coming soon.And Micro Center have abunch of exclusive dealsto celebrate the brandnew Charlotte store.I'll have them linkedin the description,but one of the big ones isif you're a new customer,you can get yourself $25off of all processors.And well, let me helpyou load all this stuffso I never have to look at it ever again.- Gotcha. Seems awesome.Thanks man.- Awesome.All right, let's cut.You can just see it right in the middle.Unfortunately, a little bithigher than we can reach.So Jeff, who's themanager of Micro Center,is giving us a little assistto try to free the drone.- Free the drone!(laughing)