Unprofessional Fridays: 10/21/2016

ddr can be hypnotic

What I took away from this video: don't go for watercooling.

Oh yeah, building a PC is just as easy as scracthing your neck... says every PC fanatic.

I just can't be bothered with this shit. I'm perfectly happy with being a console gamer.

Mind blown dance dance classroom edition for educational use!

If you have a vent where the PSU goes, you should orient it so that it's sucking cold air from the room and then directly out of the case. The PSU fan is meant to cool the PSU, not to help get warm air out of the case. Moving warm air from inside your case through your PSU isn't going to cool the PSU components very well, keeping the fan at a high speed. Let your case fans do their job, and let the PSU fan do what it's supposed to do.

Carpets and blankets do create a problem for air vents. (Using a laptop in bed sitting directly on a blanket or pillow is bad). Obviously, if this is the situation you need to make sure that the vent isn't obstructed. A lot of cases will have a way to install feet to ensure this. Half an inch of clearance should be enough, it doesn't have to be much.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

I'm glad I ordered my Alienware last month when they had a 15% off deal... I'm scared shitless of turning it on and off, let alone opening it up and messing with it / having built it from scratch.

This stream is a perfect example why console gaming still exists. Building PCs is not really as easy as people like to think it is, both for the layman and even people with some experience. For the last few PCs I've gotten, I've just bought a prebuilt PC, and did perfectly fine, even if I paid a little more than I would have otherwise.

As a person that built PC's from scratch in the 90's let me tell you all that this is a cakewalk compared to how it used to be, which is primarily why a lot of PC people will scream up and down the halls how easy building computers is these days. It's extremely easy compared to the nightmare days of the 90's and early 2000's, but it's definitely a challenge for someone that has never done it before. Add to that the nervous feeling of plugging things in and out of sockets that cost you thousands of dollars and you might be breaking and it's more like assembling an atomic bomb than a walk in the park.

For anyone that knows nothing about PC building, don't listen to anyone telling you it's like SO easy man - do yourself a favor and buy a prebuilt computer with all the right specs. You'll save yourself a lot of time and stress for a few bucks more.

Wonderful thumbnail.

This is a goddamn fever dream of a UPF. I love it.

Jeff is the kind of guy that buys everything over the top, the monster cooling and extreme amounts of RAM, but buys a reference cooler for his GPU.

I mean, any aftermarket will run cooler, and guarantees 5-10 frames higher on average across the board due to factory overclocks and much better cooling.

moooooore

tiiiiiiiime

No offense, but this was one of the most boring streams ever done by GB, and I LIKE computer stuff. Also, way to completely ignore the RX 480's existence when speaking of the 1060/980.

Hearing the crew talk about PCs is always cringeworthy but I appreciate Dan's intent on learning. Maybe a more knowledgeable person in there could have sped things up and kept things in check.

dan should build a pc for extra life.

good build. i've got the same case. :D

Best. UPF. Ever.

Building your own used to offer significant monetary savings, but I feel like that's becoming less and less the case these days. I love the control of building my own (and I love the actual act of putting a computer together, and knowing exactly what's in it), but now I find myself doing it solely for the enjoyment rather than to save some cash.

I will, however, continue to argue that in the long run, PC gaming is waaaaay cheaper than console gaming (unless you aggressively trade in all your games, but who wants to do that?).

Ha, the donations would have to go towards replacing stuff that he breaks in the process.

Lol, this is too true. About 4 years ago, when I built my first PC, I totally bought the line about it being "soooo easy it's just like Lego for adults, man." Then I actually built it and realized there's so many little things you just have to know. Even getting some of this info requires knowledge of what exactly to Google and dig through forum posts to find. Luckily, I did my research on what parts to buy and my PC has been going strong, evolving and getting better and better since then. But this has really been one long learning experience for me; not just a quick one and done build.

Like for instance, after thinking I'd finally topped out what I could do with this build, I (kind of embarrassingly) just in the last couple months finally learned all there is to know about case fans, the actual difference between 3 pin and 4 pin, PWM vs. voltage control, which damn fan headers on my mobo actually have PWM speed control (turns out it's only 2 of the 4 headers), etc. Just another of these little details that you kind of have to stumble upon. But now I have Noctua PWM all around and it's finally cool AND quiet.

But it's been a great learning experience and knowing what I know now, I'd never trade it for the convenience of a prebuilt.

I built my first and only pc on my own almost 2 years ago. I have a H100i and am very pleased with it. I had no problems putting it in. I was hoping to see things go really smoothly for the guys, but I really wished the crew took some time to look at videos or check manuals/online a bit more before just doing things and guessing what to do along the way. It's what allowed me to have a very smooth pc build. This was definitely a good example of why consoles and even pre-made pc's are worthwhile. It just takes proper prep to do this. Hope things end up well soon for Jeff.

I'm confused, it says UPF, but this is clearly an Endurance Run.

Hey @danryckert, I don't know how I wound up here on a Sunday night, but I was hoping you guys could revisit Mr. Bones on UPF before you head East.

Because I'm guessing some of these guys need to learn more about the blues.

@drac96 said:

Same, but then it also mde me feels bad that he was mostly relegated to sitting next to them and watching even before things got away from them. By the end sure, I get they're distracted, but heck they barely even involved him in passing things.

You can never overspend on a psu!

Jeff was treating Dan like a dad teaching his son something, but couldn't quite trust him to actually help, which if you ask me, was the right call. Of course they're not going to let him touch PC components after literally rubbing his feet on a vinyl mat for an hour.

@pillclinton: I still build a PC every couple of years because I want to stay up to date but man I dunno anymore. I've gotten older, I have less free time and less patience for fiddling with things and generally devoting an entire weekend afternoon to putting all that stuff in and getting it up and running. Also since I do it so sporadically I have to get up to speed on the newest tech and thats an entire process all on it's own. I agree that having the knowledge of building PC's is great, but at this point I think I would probably just opt out and pick parts off from a list, have them assembled and ready to go when they show up at my door. As long as I'm actually picking every last component I want to have in there thats all I need - I no longer get any sort of rush from zip tying my cables just the right way or any of that. It is partly why I leaned so heavily on consoles for the past several years because whenever I get PC issues with a new release I honestly just can't be bothered to dig through dozens of forums looking for the one magical fix.

@humanity: Yeah, I hear ya. I'm still relatively new to the PC world so it hasn't quite lost its novelty for me. I could definitely see getting tired of all the research required just to get a competent computer under my desk, and opting for a prebuilt instead. Some of the prebuilt companies seem really awesome too, letting you get super specific with parts. And the whole thing of running into some weird little issue on new games and having to spend the better part of an hour not playing the damn game, but digging through forums for a fix, is my personal least favorite part of the entire thing.

LMFAO

"I'd just punch the wolf." - @danryckert

Oooookay.

I've been building PCs for myself and others for about 12 years and never once have I had to do watercooling and not once have I wanted to do watercooling.

With a sealed system out of the box, screwing on the water block is literally the same process as screwing on a heat sink. After that, it's just screwing the radiator with fans to the case. I want to give Jeff and Jason as much benefit of the doubt as possible here, but I don't know WHAT the hell went wrong with this 2-hour holdup on the cooler. Even their complaint about the hoses sticking out past the boundaries of the case is a non-issue if they realized that the water block can be oriented any way, so you can reign in the hoses a bit just by twisting a quarter-turn.

This feature was really really good up until the point where it was down to just Jeff and Jason. Then it became a lot of dead air and it was hard to tell what even the problem was and what they were trying to do.

is this frog fractions 2?

I love how they had the most expensive component (700$ video card) just hanging out right on the edge of the table. Never change, guys!

So what is the ideal way to experience DDR in the home these days? I've always been somewhat interested, but I've really never even encountered it.

I just got a 1060 3gb and was also disappointed when the box it came in didn't have a sick ass CGI lady on it.

It did come with a sick ass CGi knight poster tho. Going to give it to my son.

I can't wait until the next UPF where the guys go to Ikea and then put together a nice desk for this PC.

@tgjessie: PS4s all come with 8GB of DDR5 and XBox Ones come with DDR3. Any modern PC video card comes with DDR5 so you can experience DDR is many ways in your home. I would not stomp on these systems too hard, though -- the DDR could crack.

The first half of this video got me excited for a pic build I plan on doing next year. The second half was a reminder how bad that stuff can be when your not properly prepared.

From personal experience, I find having proper backup of your hard drives (not just OS partition but also drivers, BIOS, Steam backups, etc.) saves you around half the time to get a new PC built and set up. Helped me a couple of times when Windows Update bricked my PC.

This was awesome. I love me some fresh pc parts and Dan-cing.

This really makes me want a 1080/ti but my 980 sli is still too good (even for 4K). I'll probably just wait to do a total rebuild at around the 1180/ti, when the new VR headsets come out and my 4790k needs replacing.

Weighing in on stock cooling- I updated in mid 2015 and the stock cooler on my CPU is super quiet, it was an i7-4790k. The intel CPU before that from several years back sounded like a lawn mower.

@drew327: Why are you using a stock cooler on a K processor? You know you paid extra for that, right?

I know sites like Cyberpower are frowned upon by the PC users, but I just bought a similar computer to Jeff's here for cheaper.

I got the 6800k over 6700k.

Same PSU but 1050w.

Perhaps a better MB in the X99P.

I went with the MSI 1080 Gaming X.

Asetek 550lc watercooler.

Inwin 303 sexy case.

Windows 10 Home

32 GB Ram DDR4 3000

4TB HDD

Only real difference is my small 256GB SSD. Wish I spent more money on this.

Also comes with "free": Mechanical keyboard, gaming mouse, mouse pad, Hyper X headphones, Gears of War 4, 100$ store credit to Windows, shipping and warranty.

1,941$ (now i just need a monitor... Acer Predator XB271HU?)

@gyozilla: Some come pre installed like on AIO water coolers. The hyper 212 evo i just used for my i7 build this week comes without paste on it, so i had to use my own.

The kit came with it, but i used artic silver 5

Shit, I want to build a new computer now...

@danryckert Can't believe you're doing cross-overs correctly while it seems that you've never played the game before >.>

(Running the video muted in the background on a uni class so don't yet know what you've said before playing.)

Man. I thought that the Stranger Things theme song went on every time the Konami sound played.

@sammo21: straight up. I've been doing it since 99. never wanted or needed to liquid cool. i just make sure my airflow is good. i can see the benefit maybe if you wanted to take your part to the limit for whatever reason. but if the most taxing thing you do is gaming then its probably too much. you can get big enough fans and case configurations these days to run relatively quiet.

@leroy_sekaquaptewa: Yup! Very little reason to do, especially with the configuration Jeff has. I've found that liquid cooling is much like having neon lights on the inside of your PC case...you're just trying to impress someone.

@sammo21: @leroy_sekaquaptewa: I don't know, I think you guys are making sealed water coolers out to be way more of a big deal than they actually are. It's not that crazy. They're affordable and easy to install.

It may not be strictly necessary, but some people just like knowing that they're doing something that makes more sense (transporting the heat directly out of the case instead of blowing hot air onto nearby components before being eventually sucked out, hopefully without any dead zones).

Now, a non-sealed water cooler that also has your video in the loop... THAT'S a project, and something to babysit constantly. Completely different story.

I'm glad he didn't buy a soundcard.