The PERFECT Minecraft Gaming PC

The Perfect Minecraft Gaming PC: A Guide with Saxs Persson and Couriway

As a Minecraft fan, building the perfect gaming PC can be a daunting task. However, with the help of two experts in the field, we can break down the key components to create an ultimate gaming experience.

I recently sat down with Saxs Persson, the chief creative officer of Minecraft, to discuss what it takes to build the perfect Minecraft gaming PC. Saxs has been working on Minecraft for seven years and is well-versed in understanding the game's performance limits.

Memory bandwidth is a crucial component when it comes to Minecraft gaming, as it affects how smoothly you can play. Imagine one chunk of Minecraft being 16x16x16 cubes - that's approximately 4096 cubes that need to be tessellated. As a speedrunner, you want your PC to handle these chunks quickly so you can see where you're going without breaking the game.

To get some insight into what it takes to speedrun Minecraft at a competitive level, I also chatted with Couriway, who has multiple world records under his belt. When asked about his gaming setup, Couriway shared that he uses a GTX 1080 and a two-terabyte external hard drive to store his runs.

The big advantage of having a better PC is the ability to reset harder. With a faster computer, you can access areas more quickly, which gives you an edge in speedrunning. Couriway also emphasized the importance of world loading - being able to load new worlds quickly is crucial for maintaining high performance.

If you were building a set-up from scratch, Saxs recommends considering the following upgrades:

* A high-end graphics card like the GTX 3070 or 3080

* 32 gigs of RAM

* A Ryzen 9 5900X processor with overclockable speeds

However, if budget is a concern, Saxs also suggests opting for a Core i5-11400 processor, which still provides excellent performance without breaking the bank.

For our ultimate Minecraft build, we'll be using a Lian Li 011 Dynamic case in Creeper green, which not only looks great but also comes in a unique color. This is especially important because of the limited availability of gaming PCs that match your desired specifications.

In conclusion, building the perfect Minecraft gaming PC requires careful consideration of key components and upgrades. By following Saxs' recommendations and incorporating Couriway's expertise, you can create an ultimate gaming experience that meets your needs and stays within budget.

As a special offer from our sponsors at Micro Center, we'll be sharing some exclusive deals in the description box below. Be sure to check out the link for a free pair of Bluetooth headphones when you visit Micro Center, and enter the secret code to claim your reward!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- This is the perfect Minecraft gaming PC.And this is the one thatyou should actually build.So to find out what it takes to buildthe perfect Minecraft gaming PC,I sat down with someone whohappens to know a thing or twoabout the game.Saxs Persson,who is the chief creativeofficer of Minecraft.- I, I've been with Minecraftfor seven years now.Like we look at the speedruns all the timeto see where's the game hitching,like where's the,where people hitting sort of the limitsof what they can do in the gameand what do we need to do better?- Can you give me alittle bit of a backgroundon kind of like,what some of the most importanttechnical components areon the PC side to really giveyou the max performance?(laughs)- My cat would like to sayanything under 60 framesa second is a crime.(laughs)Memory bandwidth is super importantbecause if you think aboutlike one chunk of Minecraftis 16 by 16 by 16 cubes,so that's, what's that 4096 cubesthat are tessellated, then imagine like,how many, how many chunksyou're really seeing?Like, because you'relooking below ground too.If you're a speedrunner,and you're, you're by natureonly being in areas you'venever been in beforewe haven't tessellated,you want that to go as fast as possibleso you can see where you're going,But you don't want toenter like a nether portaland look out and then wait 10 secondstill the like sort of theview data distance fills in,you would never, you would,you would never break it yeah,a world record that way.- To get someinsight on what it takesto speedrun Minecraftat a competitive level,I also chatted with Couriway,someone who has multiple world records.Obviously you're playing on PC.Do you use keyboard, mouse?Do you use controller?Kinda like, can you walkme through a little bitabout the gear that you use right now.- I don't have anything liketoo crazy computer-wise.Like I have a GTX 1080,I have some pretty standard stuff.I have like a two terabyteexternal hard drivewhere I just like shove my runs in.But it definitely helpsto have a better PC.You definitely have an advantage.The other big advantage is world loading.Being able to reset harderwith a better computeris definitely probably thebiggest hardware differencefor the game right now.- If you were like buildinga set up from, from scratch,are there any specificupgrades that you would go for?- I would say like aGTX, like 30 whatever,like 3070, 3080 or 3090.32 gigs of RAM.And then I've been looking at,I think it was a Ryzen like 5700 processoror something like that.Most runners stream andrecord at the same time.So having somethingthat can handle that is,is really really crucial.- So to truly build the ultimateMinecraft gaming setups,we're here at our finesponsor, Micro Centerto get all the components we need.So for our realistic Minecraft build,we are going to be going withsomething a little unusual,a Core I5-11400.This actually my opinionis enough performanceto really run Minecraft at high settings.But importantly, it alsowon't break the bank.Now for our fullyultimate ridiculous setup,we're gonna go for a Ryzen 9 5900X,12 core super high clockspeeds, overclock-able.Between these two,these will really be thebasis of our Minecraft setups.One of the things that's really importantfor Minecraft is the RAM.So what we're gonna be usinghere is not only G.Skillbut we're gonna be usingfor our lower end system,16 gigs of RipJaws,but especially when itcomes to that high-end,we really want to be able to allocateas much memory as possibleso we're gonna go fora full 32 gigabytes ofG Skill Trident Z Neo.Not only will this lookgreat, but importantly,it should allow us toallocate a ton of RAMspecifically just for Minecraft.- You are not going tobelieve what I just found.- Oh, you found one.- Found one.- Yes. Okay.- Just the right color too.- Of course, in Creeper green.So this is the Lian Li 011 Dynamic.Not only is just one of myfavorite cases out here,but importantly, itcomes in Creeper green.Do you know what your nexttrip to Micro Center could use?A free pair of Bluetooth headphones.All you need to do is check outthe link in the description,throw in your email addressand you will be emailed an in-store couponto pick up a pair of headphones,just like this for free.So what are you waiting for?And my voice just cracked.'Cause I'm so excited about the deal.You can also check out thelink in the descriptionfor the Micro Center community quest.New prizes each week are allleading up to a grand prizeof a $750 Micro Center gift card.The secret code for youwho are still watchingis "MINECRAFTPC"to enter to win the grand prize and more.- Feel like Ialways love getting these,- Ohhhhh.- we should totally get a Kraken-- Z73?- Z73 I believe will work.We should double check it real quick.But any one of these thathave the screen on the CPU.- We'll put some TnT on this.Oh, it will be. YES.Today's a good day.Today's a good day.And so it is time to begin buildingour perfect Minecraft gaming PC set up.Now there's a lot ofcomponents we have here.But the one I really wantto pay attention to is this,this is the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 TI.Now not only will this allow usto run Minecraft with full ray-tracingand a roughly 3 billionchunk distance render.Okay maybe not 3 billion, but a lot.So this is a Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master.We've used this in the past and honestlythis is one of my favoritemotherboards right now.Don't let the B550 branding fool you.While yes it's not technically X570,this still has almost allof those same features.And importantly it's a littlebit more of a modern chip set,which means that we willstill be able to easily drivea Ryzen 9 5900X,as well as our,32 gigs of Trident Z Neo memory.Now on the other side,we have our reasonableMinecraft gaming PC.I feel like this is the onethat you are probablymore likely to build.So not only do we have our Core i5-11400,but importantly,we also have all thethings that we really need.So we have a 1650 Super,it's not a super powerful graphics card,but it does have enoughpower and importantly,it does have NVENC, on-board,which is going to makestreaming much easier.Speaking of streaming, we also have,in addition to our 500 Gig Crucial SSD,we also have a one terabyte external.Now all of this is going to benot only using the Gigabyte H510M,but we're also going to be putting itinside an NZXT H510 case.Hit markers.You know, 2015 memes.I think there's reallynothing else for it.Let's get to building and see exactlyhow our perfect and reasonableMinecraft gaming PCscould come together.So this, as you might expect,it's coming along nicely.So thankfully everything actually isfairly well color-matched.And by that, I mean, it'sall black on black, on black.So we've got black sleevesfor our power supply,the newer style Intel stockcooler, which is also black.The black board.Even our SSD is black.So now it's time to see whatcolor our 1650 Super is.I'm gonna guess it's black.Oh look it's black.With Minecraft. thisseems like a solid card.Four gigs of VRAM should be fine.While it might not be the latest,most cutting edge RTX card,if you can find one of these at retailat your friendly local Micro Center,you're still getting agood amount of performance.That's clean although,certainly not a aestheticallyimpressive system.It's really just black on black.We don't have any LEDs.We didn't get any like LEDfans or strips or anything.And that's almost entirelybecause this systemis not really about the aesthetic.This system is aboutgiving you a good gamingand streaming sort of setup for Minecraft.That system is about the overkill.How is that system looking?- It's going great.- Why don't we walk overhere and take a look.So you've got the push-pull setup.So you've got these stockNZXT fans on the backand you've got the LLs up front.- Yep.- Dude, this looks really nice.I love the finish thatLian Li put on this.The green,and on top of that, the red sleeves,it's a nice little pop of color,especially cause you'vegot a little bit of redhere on the board as well.I'm really happy with how boththese systems are coming out.I think we're in storefor some of the bestMinecraft action you've ever seen.Ken when was the lasttime you played Minecraft?- A month ago?- That's pretty impressive actually.I haven't played in a little while.- Okay.- A little while.A long long time.So this is what our reasonableMinecraft set up looks like.Now it might not be thecoolest looking setup,but importantly, it gets the job done.I'm actually really happywith how it's come out.So of course we haveourselves, the dual displays.So both of them arerunning at 1080p 75 Hertz.One of the big differences betweenthe last time you've seen itAnd that it's actually up and runningis the fact that we've nowincorporated a camera involved.Not a webcam, oh no.This is an EpoCam,AKA, it's an app for iPhone that via USBlets it turn into a webcam.Now, if you would likeyou can certainly useany kind of webcam ifyou've already got one.But for me, consideringI already have an iPhone,it's easy enough to getactually pretty decent quality.So in fact, if I actuallywant to hop in here,you can see that whileit's certainly not perfect,especially with like fast motionit doesn't look super super crisp,but it's actually avery, very usable setup.I can easily just hop over into the gameand I can get everything like that.So we do have a Kraken X headset which um,you can now hear what it sounds like.It's not amazing,but considering thisis like a $50 headset,it's pretty solid.We also do have the Naga mouse,which specifically hasa ton of macro keys.Now just one note,you're looking at 1080pfootage through OBS.If you're streaming,you're probably going to wantto stream at 720p instead.But I just want to show whatthe system can actually do.Now one of the importantthings I want to showis how fast it is toactually create a new world.Especially if you're speedrunning,you may go through this tonsand tons of times every day.So we'll call this test 2. Create.Now it's certainly not a "fast thing"if you don't have plentyof CPU, plenty of GPU.And one of the things I have done isI've allocated eightgigs of RAM to Minecraft,which is probably morethan we really need.As you can see, we've createda new world pretty quickly.If I pop up F3 here,you'll see that while I've got a,I believe the 22 chunk distancerender distance right now,it's actually running pretty smooth.So right now it's like 115, 120 FPS.I've seen a dip as low as about 60-65.But considering we're streaming at 60p,it doesn't really bother me too much.So clearly this is just a brand new worldand I will certainlynot try to speedrun itand try to figure outand how to get to the,what is it, the, the nether?I should probably know this.I've actually neverbeaten Minecraft before.I've never even made it to the Nether.(laughs)I've never even made it to the Nether.(laughs)So it's one thing to play the gameand see the settingsand have OBS running,but it's a very different thing for meto speedrun Minecraft myself.So I have never tried tospeedrun Minecraft in my life.So I'm gonna cheat bystarting out with a set seed.Ready? And let's begin.All right so we're immediately here.Where am I going? Where am I going?- You gotta kill the Ender Dragon.- I need to, yes,I don't see an Ender Dragon.There's nothing around me anywhere.Wait, I think I see a village.I think I see a village.A bed. I want a bed.Yep.Need that for the Ender Dragon.I Like your hat bro.Wait can I do anything with you?- Dude stop wasting time.- Okay wellwhere am I supposed to go?- Around.- All right. I'm ready,to do something.- Well as of mesaying this right now,you've just lost the ability to bethe number one ranked speedrunner.- People are already done?I haven't gotten anywhere.Get over here.- He's gonna die before.He's just going to die.Oh no that's not.I don't like that.- How's he so strong?- You're not usinga sword that's why.- I don't have anything.- That's, that's unfortunate.- Okay, so your time was 8:35.That's third place.- Third place?- Except they beat thegame instead of dying.(laughs)- Okay. We're going tostart again in 3, 2, 1generating world.- If you win, in 10 minutes,I'll give you this whole entire thing.- I'm not going to win it.What? That would be likealmost world record pace.Okay. Hang on.So I found a village.Okay so I'm gonna loot itas fast as I can. Okay.- You really chosethat one and not the oak?- I don't care whatkind of wood it is Matt.I've got to win at all costs.Okay all right all right.So I have a shovel.I'm just gonna start digging.- You're literallymaking yourself a staircasethat you don't need to make.- Well, how am Isupposed to get out of here huh?(exclaims)- A cave.- I found stuff.I hear something laughing at me thoughthat's probably a bad thing, right?- Oh, you're in ohh.(yelling)No. There's a chest to chest.- WHERE?- Oh, that's a-(yelling)Hit him, hit him with the sword.Sword. Sword.Be careful of the, the, oh, there's a-(Austin yelling)- What the-- Oh no, he'sgot a witch nevermind.(Austin yelling)- NO.NO.NO.How could this happen?(grunts)- 6:16- So you died quicker.- You did better that time.- I got a lot farther that time.Did you see my movement?My movement was on point.Okay, so at this point,we've clearly seen myexpert speedrunning skills,but what we haven't seenis what the perfect Minecraftsystem is capable of.This is a little bit more like it.Welcome to the perfect Minecraft setup.So of course the system isinside of an 011 Dynamic,specifically in Creeper green.As you can see,the color scheme is verymuch leaning into that.One of my personal favoriteparts of this systemis the fact that we are using the NZXT,the Z73 cooler,which means it's not onlya 360 millimeter radiator,but importantly, it looksgreat with the screen.We have a total of 9LL120swhich let's just say thisback panel is gonna stay on.Cable management isimpeccable. Don't worry.But outside of the system itself,all the performance and all the aesthetic,we also have a good groupof peripherals as well.So not only do we have ourselvesheadset, keyboard, mouse,but also, we have ourselves a fairly large32 inch LG Ultra Gear display.This is running at 1440pat 165 frames per second.Have you noticed thisparticular version of Minecraftlooks a little differentbecause while the reasonable gaming PCis capable of playing at 1080p,decent chunk distance,you can stream and whatnot,this is not about tryingto get your world record,this is about turningup RTX to the maximumand see what Minecraft can really dowhen you throw a 3080 TI at itand a 12-core Ryzen processorand 32 gigs of RAMand a bunch of LL120s.So if you've never playedMinecraft with RTX on,it is a big difference.You can see a light likethis is accurately portrayedthe way it should in the game.I think I'm gonna restartand show it at daytime though.I think it looks better in daytime,especially with thereflections on the water.So not only does RTX sort of change,not really so much theoverall feel of the game,but really the look of it, right?So you've got very realisticray-tracing that's everywhere.Even something as small asthis little light right hereor all the way over to say,if I walk over to the water,you can see that there'sthis huge differenceto the sort of feel of the game.Like even from here,you can see there's accurate reflections.And in fact, right now,if I hop into video,right now we've got it set to16 chunks of render distance.And I mean, it is incredibly smoothon this 165 Hertz display.The smoothness of this gameplayis not something you're gonna be ableto see in the video, right?Like we're not uploadingthis video at 160 FPS.But look at how naturalthis one little torchis lighting the room butwatch, if i knock it out,ah that's cool.- So we just saw Austin playRTX Minecraft on Minecraft for Windows,but I personally likeplaying on the Java editionas do a lot of other people.In fact, probably most people.And while1.17 exists,we're gonna be playing ona prior version to that,1.16.5 because we havesome of my favorite shadersand texture packs there.Which while isn'ttechnically Minecraft RTX,it does have some ray-tracing on itspecifically on the Seusshaders that I'm using,which I think look absolutely brilliant.And I think we'll tax this 3080 TI.And here we are.So I'm loaded into thisnewly generated world,as you can see, I literally have nothing.I also have my own little skin here.I have a Kentama skin.- Of course you do.- Friend of mine made this.A lot of things set to fancy, maximum.On my shaders I have someanti-aliasing off apparently,we'll leave that off'cause we're currently at 50 framesand honestly, with Minecraft,I don't think you'llreally need anti-aliasing.Most importantly guys,like, look at this water.- Oh my God.- This water looks great doesn't it?- Wow.- See the fishthrough there and all that.Look at the sun.And as we move around,you can see that thelighting kind of shiftsdepending on where we are.The shadows look really nice too.Look at all of the lighting fall offthrough these trees here as well.Oh man, look, look at how the sunpeaks over the building over here.Oh my God. That's almost searing my eyes.That's actually really bright.- So big thank you to bothSaxs as well as Couriwayfor all their insight in helpingus build these gaming PCs.And if you're interestedin any of the componentsthat we have here,you'll find them at thelinks in the description.Thanks to our very kindsponsor, Micro Center.Now the real question is,what game should we build aperfect gaming PC for next?It's gotta be Valorant right?