There were too many bad prebuilt mistakes to list in one video, so please add your own experiences below! Check out our playlist of pre-built reviews here: ruclips.net/p/PLsuVSmND84QuM2HKzG7ipbIbE_R5EnCLM We also collaborated with Digital Foundry to test the Playstation 5: ruclips.net/video/VgWuGA8cExo/видео.html
About 20yrs ago a friend needed help with his Dell computer, would not boot so I looked at it and confirmed it was the motherboard so as a young enthusiast I said ya sure looks like we can swap the MB Oh man open mouth insert foot. The case did allow for a standard MB but I also had to buy a power supply, memory and still had to Jerry rig a reset switch in the damn thing this is when you needed a reset...That was the first and last time I did that.
My mother got took in by a COMPAQ brand in 1997... Bloatware beyond belief...a slower than dead chipset...and a case so sharp that I believed the French Revolution was going to make a comeback... Lucky for me...with my Linux skills even back then knew that everything inside needed an upgrade... It took three days to get the case dulled enough to avoid cutting myself on it (again) and another three to get the upgraded parts... Then the 26 CD install of SuSE Linux caused another headache because I forgot which would work best on the new build (later finding out that I could have gone with 16 home use install CDs)... Remember that she paid $1950 for this NEW... It took six months of gar(b)age sales (from trying to piece out Compaq's garbage) to break even with the new components I substituted... She did go back to Windows eventually...but when this new rebuild sold for $2100 at auction...we finally decided that I build whatever I wanted and she would like it... It eventually got spread that I could improve the performance of any computer and a small business of a repair shop was born... I just never did MacWindows...strictly Linux builds...
I recently bought a Cyberpower Prebuilt and I got exactly what I wanted: an rtx 3080 evga ftw3 plus an i7-11700kf with an aio it performs really great! Only when I take the side panel off cuz my card is cooking my pc to a 90⁰c. Side panel off is now 52⁰c max on the cpu and 75⁰c max on the gpu... so yeah
@@rlosangeleskings Ya know you brought up an interesting point I paid I think $1700 for a stupid 286 computer like 30 yrs ago now look what you get for a $2,000 dollar computer WOW!
You mean "billion" dollar companies, they are literally a joke sometimes. I've had friends ask me to look at a pre-built because certain components weren't working. Sometimes it can be because plugs were just loose or plugged in the wrong spot.
A prebuilt classic that's always happened to me and my family: Specifically order a configuration with two sticks of RAM, open the PC up at some point and see both sticks in the first two or last two RAM slots.
I bought a 2nd hand pc that’s put together from off-the-shelf parts and it still had the ram in the first 2 slots. I mean fixing it didn’t change my performance that much because it’s an old-ass pc, but still, it’s better to run dual channel
The most scandalous part about the disappointment PC this year is definitely going to be that you can't pick and choose the components. Can't even match the shitty mobo form factor of alienware crap with the shitty PSU from HP. Truly a time to be alive!
@@zachconant7031 actually is not THAT bad, there are worse options (Norton, Panda...) But antivirus software is no longer viable unless you literally put your pc at risk intentionally. Windows defender is the best antivirus nowadays, it generates less false positives than any other. Antivirus software just clogs the ram nowadays
I really want to commend Steve and the GN crew for adapting their content to the current GPU craze. I know many tech channels have been struggling given that type of content is effectively off limits for much of their audience right now, but I'm really enjoying the focus other components that don't usually get enough testing or attention. Keep up the good work guys.
They were always diverse and specialised (in their testing) when it comes to PC tech. That's great. LTT is another diverse channel but keeping in style and subject of tech.
I agree. GPU reviews have become a huge turn off and meme now to tech savvy folks (Especially when LTT goes all love-fest on anything GPU regardless of its price.)
Honestly, I might just buy a prebuilt I don't even need just to scavenge a 6800XT, ordered one back in December and it still hasn't shipped. According to TSMC, we'll likely hit RDNA 3 before the shortage ends.
@@MunyuShizumi Depends on the prebuilt machine, if you've seen those proprietary cards from big brands they're absolutely terrible and seems like designed to die. Though you might have some luck with buying a Chinese generic replacement shroud to slap on those cards
@@DangNguyen-xx3zi Thankfully, you can see what you're getting more often than not due to transparent side panels being quite popular these days, and from what I can tell, the local shops are installing whatever they can get their hands on at any given moment. (I don't live in the US, we don't have many megabrand prebuilts here.)
The last time I purchased a dell laptop, I had to do a clean install of windows to get rid of the bloatware. Not only did that dramatically improve the system performance but it also added 3 hours to the battery life of the laptop. That is a 20% improvement in battery life just from running a clean install of windows.
Insane. I just got an HP pre-built with windows 11 (no option for anything else). I was planning on just wiping it and running Linux Mint anyways, but I played around with Windows 11 just to see if it was as bad as everyone says. Not only was the OS itself bad, but the amount of bloatware pre-installed was infuriating & shocking. If I were an average user, I'd have no idea that all of that extra crap was throttling my performance so drastically and spying on me.
@@-HughJass- I just built a PC with Linux compatibility in mind. Been running Linux for 7+ years now. It's superior at just about anything, especially nowadays. Team RED CPU and GPU + an Intel network chip. It kinda bugged me that I was putting Intel in my otherwise 100% AMD build but Realtek is absolute junk and barely supports Linux which is sad because Realtek has a monopoly (like 80% share) in the LAN/WiFi market chipset.
@@crylune What a shitty argument. So because youre being spied on against your will in one way, you should be okay with being spied on in every way. Also, my comment said bloatware. It didnt say anything about privacy concerns (which are real), so learn to read before you tell others to "get a grip".
I'll never forget working on a prebuilt where one of the unused molex connectors had pins extending beyond the housing, not a lot, but just enough to arc when resting against bare metal within the case. I'm not against naming the company but honestly I don't remember. I'll never forget how much that has impacted me and I always make sure to keep any unused power connectors safely wrapped and ensure they're situated to keep them reliably away from the case.
shhh dont give them ideas before oems use this to say pc's are not safe to repair yourself please buy pay the $200 extra for an extra 8gbram modules when picking your pc
Here's one, and it covers most of the models you reviewed: inherently illogical configurations are possible when putting it together on their web site. The 'almost but not quite as good as a crappy Intel stock cooler' on a Ryzen 7 8 core CPU is an example of something that you shouldn't even be able to order.
“Since they’re burdening a new NVMe SSD to the point of simulating Seagate’s best efforts” Holy shit, Steve. I knew you were savage, but this is another level. That’s absolutely fucking hysterical
Tbh watching your pre builds helped me pick things to put in my custom build. I wanted a fractal case but microcenter was out of the one I wanted but I found one I really liked. I just wanted to let y'all know how much y'all helped me pick out my parts and how grateful I am.
I'll never forget it. As a kid my parents bought a computer with Windows 95 on it and then the next computer they bought came with ME......not 2000.....No it had M freaking E on it. And it constantly had errors
@@aaronthomas6155 history would beg to differ with you bud. Your experience does not equal the experience of every other person out there. That's like saying "well this game runs fine on my system so there's no way you have problems running it on yours"
I've got an iBuyPower prebuilt (went against my PC DIY Elitist religion but I was in a pinch) and I was actually very surprised. Posted right out of the box, all cables were well managed and connected properly to the mobo, XMP was enabled in BIOS and after some Core Isolation navigation I was able to use XTU to overclock the i5-13600KF to 5.4GHz with no stability nor thermal issues. I swapped out the RAM with my 32GB TridentZ from my previous build, added a few SATA SSDs and it's an absolute beast. Only gripes I had with the build were the lower end 600W non-modular PSU, the front panel of the case (Hako Slate MR) suffocated airflow which was an easy fix, just take the front panel off.. and it took two weeks longer to deliver than what was promised. I should note though that their customer service reps were excellent and professional. Overall it was a very pleasant experience. Been running strong for the better part of a year with no problems... Except for Windows 11, it has a few neat features but this is a garbage bloaty OS, stick with Windows 10.
I'm getting the feeling Intel's upcoming Alder Lake was designed to help improve the performance of bloatware-laden prebuilts. Offload all of the background bloatware and let the performance cores do their thing while the "efficiency" cores are drowning in the background.
I think I might know why single-channel RAM is so weirdly common. My guess is, a lot of system integrators specialize in higher-end machines, where they put in at least 32GB dual-channel, so they keep a huge supply of 16GB sticks in stock. Then they decide to try offering a cheaper model, and they want to use what they've got on hand, so that "budget" prebuilt gets a single 16GB stick.
A friend of mine received a prebuild with an I/O shield pushed into the BIOS reset button witch on that motherboard was located on the I/O. It was only off by 2mm so it took me forever and a complete rebuild to figure out what it was. I bet it would be a headscratcher for he company that built it in the first place to figure it out. None the less, they have fair prices and uses standard components. A prebuild costs about $50 more than ordering each part, but as many people need, the luxury of just shipping the whole pc back if anything goes wrong without having to pinpoint what caused it.
I paid my local tech store 80 bucks to order all the parts and assemble them for me. I could have assembled it myself but ordering every part individually just sounds like big potential for risk. Bottom line, 80 buckaroos is nothing in comparison to the markup OEMs add to their pre-builts. I browsed another store and noticed some PCs with similar specs, they were 400 more expensive lmao.
This sorta thing is why I love these prebuilt reviews. They're almost invariably a train wreck in some way and it's amusing to watch you tear them a new asshole.
Just want to add with the RAM stuff, 32 gigs does have quite a strong performance uplift if you're planning to play games heavily modded, as mods generally won't communicate with eachother to save on memory.
Also, if you're a regular beta tester - 'in development' software is usually very poorly optimized as it's constantly being changed and updated, so it ends up requiring more memory to function than the finished product.
So true. KSP with a decent set of QoL mods (no GFX mods even) eats 10GB on start (and don't get me started on Unity-based games and the 1.5GB+/hr RAM leaks). Add a browser window for anything and 16GB RAM is gone pretty much right away.
Also - want to run some VMs? 16 gig is just too little - 32 is the minimum. Found out the hard way when my online computer course required from us to run 5 VMs at the same time - one server and 4 clients
Another thing I observed is how Intel built in graphics likes to work. Currently have 32gb usable in my laptop out of 64gb because half of the system memory is being reserved for the graphics side of the Intel APU.
Watching this makes me happy that I built my 1st computer instead of just buying one. Sure, it was expensive... but it works, doesn't thermal throttle and I know EXACTLY what spec it is. No nasty surprises 👍
I am loving how you are just letting these prebuilts have it. My first gaming PC I ever bought was an Alienware Aurora in 2009 with an i7920 and gtx 260 graphics card. Never again. Learned my lesson and built a custom rig that at this point could benefit with a GPU upgrade before my next full build is a requirement. Waiting on DDR5 to mature in desktop applications before I commit to my building a new rig.
Regarding bloatware, I get flashbacks to Lenovo's astonishing first use experience. Where the preinstalled bloatware and "welcome" guides literally wouldn't fit the screen, so you had to know some odd tricks to move windows outside the boundary to get the system started at all. It's no joke that a manual reinstallation is easier.
Not sure if companies still do this, but one of my favourite things to find when I used to work at a computer refurbishing shop were PCs from companies that would charge you to upgrade to front USB. 100% of the time, the front USB was already there, just covered by either a sticker, or a bit of plastic. A lot of the time, this front USB was actually hooked up properly to the motherboard, so they were literally charging people $50 to pop a small panel off the front of their PC.
Thanks Steve! Some people may be interested in buying prebuilts strictly for their parts, so this is a good way to compare actual cost per component (that you will actually utilize in your final build). For example - RAM. If you are getting the pre-built figure the RAM is probably not high performing, so just get the cheapest RAM package and then purchase better RAM.
That’d essentially have be a Windows reinstall guide though, if I’m honest - a lot of this stuff roots itself so deep that even if you kill it with fire it will still haunt the machine. So it’s best to just reinstall the OS before you install anything on it and go into sunk cost fallacy mode (been there done that).
Yeah best way is to find your windows key in the OS, create a bootable usb with windows OS on it, and do a fresh install before you even use it. Sped up my dell laptop a lot
I broke down and bought a prebuilt from an SI a couple months ago and aside from the price everything has been good. It was well packaged, BIOS was updated earlier the same month I bought it and already had XMP set up for 3600mhz RAM in it. Clean Windows install with no pre-added software. The only thing I had to address was the case came with 4 non-PWM fans and I have a 360mm clc with 3 PWM fans. The SI slapped 3 case fans onto the clc in a push/pull (360mm rad with 6 fans on it, 3 PWM and 3 non-PWM) intake and had 1 case fan as exhaust. I just set the fan curves on the clc to run at 1,200 rpm, the same the case fans are running at, until it hits really high temps and ramps up. Under my current uses in gaming the temps on my 5900x and rtx 3080, with slightly tweaked fan curves as well, never run past the 60c-70c range with fans running at idle 1,200 rpms which isn't all that loud.
Yeah isnt it! I just posted a similiar comment, damn Steve this stuff should b boring and dry as hell. But for some reason I got to 4:25 just fine then bawled out into hysterical fits of laughing. Lol. That's the best bit 4:25 - 32:00 so good.
normally i just put GN videos on to listen to while i cook or something because yea they're long and dull but informative. this one though i think is where steve's at his best.
Worth noting for the power supplies that the "Gigabyte 550W Bronze" unit that NZXT uses is a P550B, which is group regulated (i.e. unacceptable in any machine that has a graphics card.) This was also the case with the ABS prebuilt reviewed on this channel, with the thermaltake smart, though that one was a bit worse due to missing protections. The thing with power supplies is that it's rare for them to blow up immediately, though there are some that can (like the P-GM, which cyberpower pulled from their offerings within the last couple of months.) It's more common that they just don't last as long and/or reduce component lifespan by feeding the system inconsistent voltages. Still,it's unlikely to fail within a year or two, which is conveniently long enough for it to outlast the warranty period. Point being: replace your garbage power supplies before the warranty expires.
After watching your videos, I feel like I got gifted by god himself the perfect prebuilt PC from ABS on sale last year. The whole thing cost less than the card it came with in 2021. It works perfectly , wiring is great, and 16 G’s of RAM was installed correctly on the board. All I had to correct is add more cooling to the case/ build, all in all I got a way better deal than anyone now (2021) can do with a custom PC, and I still have more room for upgrades.
It'd be cool if you guys would partner with someone to do a history of PC parts. It might help contextualize some of these design decisions by Dell and HP.
To address the non standard parts it would have to be very Dell and HP centric. The non standard parts they use today have no real history outside the company. Looking back at the PC history the progression of standards has been driven both by individual companies and by standards comities. The XT standard was basically created in 1983 when a lot of companies chose to copy IBM XT motherboards. That is what you can call a de facto standard. IBM didn't intend to create a standard but the industry chose to copy their machines closely enough that the components could be interchanged. This was followed in 1984 by the AT standard, which just happens to about the same size as the later SSI-EEB standard, but other than the size there are few similarities. A year later the Baby AT standard came about. It was what IBM used for their PC XT 286. It was much more compact than the original AT standard and was quickly adopted as the standard formfactor for most PC class machines for the following ten years. In 1995 Intel introduced the ATX standard. This time it was Intel instead of IBM that championed the new standard and this time it was intentional that it would be a wide spread standard. It was so successful that we are still using ATX and sub versions of it even today. Intel has kept updating the standard over time and the latest motherboard specification at the moment is 2.2. The ATX standard also included a new standard for power supplies and this part of the standard was last updated in 2020 to the 2.53 version. For being more than 25 years it has stood the test of time pretty well. Inte however did try to introduce a new and according to them better standard, BTX in 2005. This was a pretty radical redesign and failed spectacularly in the market. My personal guess is that the redesign was so thorough that it was totally incompatible with everything ATX. Basically they swapped everything around and tightened up the standard where it came to positioning of components such as the CPU socket in order to allow the heatsinks to he bolted to the motherboard tray instead of the motherboard. While Intel continuously have held the ATX spec some of the derivates has been created by the SSI or Server System Infrastructure forum. These are SSI CEB or Compact Electronics Bay, which is basically the same as the standard ATX motherboard formfactor at 12" by 10.5". SSI EEB or Enterprise Electronics Bay is basically what was often called E-ATX and the motherboards are up to 12" by 13". Finally there's SSI MEB or Midrange Electronics Bay which measures 16.2" by 13", which at least to me is a bit confusing as it's the largest of the three... Intel was not alone in the standards game. Mini ITX is derived from ATX but the standard was set by VIA who continued to release several smaller standards such as Nano and Pico ITX. While manufacturers following common standards is great for the customers and smaller companies, the big players have often chosen to create their own. Sometimes it was in order to provide something that the standards didn't support, but often it was used to cut cost and to a degree to lock in the customers into their ecosystem. Today you often see this in the server sector where custom motherboards allows for higher density servers. To get the most out of every rack unit it's necessary to forgo the standard formfactors, but it does mean that the machines are less likely to be upgradable years down the line when they have become obsolete. The nonstandard parts used in office and apparently some "gaming" machines are of the cost saving kind. Things like the proprietary power solutions were often created before there were a standard such as the ATX12VO. Once they have started to used something like this and sold a couple of hundred thousand machines it often makes more economic sense to keep using the same standard for new machines rather than switch to standard compliant components and increase the number of parts to keep track of. PSU manufacturers like LiteON and Delta will happily sell them PSU's with any particular set of connectors the OEM's ask for. You don't even need particularly large orders to get this service. A company I used to work for ordered PSU's with ATX-GES cabling. This was AFAIK only used for one motherboard, the Tyan S2462 Thunder K7, which was a SSI-EEB size dual AMD Athlon MP motherboard. Though this has ATX in the name the pin-out is quite different. We also bought lots of PSU's with WTX cables which is another standard with connectors that looks a lot like ATX but again differs in the pin-out. These to were used by some server class motherboards and can be said to be the precursor of EPS, which was essentially the ATX connector with four added pins for better power delivery and instead of a 4-pin 12V connector that was doubled to 8 pins. Eventually the EPS standard was absorbed into ATX with the ATX12V 2.0 standard. But for a few years it was an exotic standard and we had to have the PSU's made to order. Now we were a small company that ordered less than a hundred PSU's at a time, and yet the fee for having these made was pretty low. Now if you are a company that buy in lots of 10,000 or more then LiteON will probably not even mention a cost for special cabling.
I am liking the colorful glitch transitions. I watch your videos while doing something else usually and the glitch transition helps grab my eye to signify some change in the video versus the dissolve which can be pretty subtle in peripheral vision.
I almost bought a Skytech, ibuypower and I even looked at a G5. Ended up getting a decent pre-built by people who cared at least, wasn’t top notch but I could upgrade the parts I didn’t like. After a new build recently and watching your vids I’m so glad I didn’t buy these so called good brands. You’d think oh at least I get a decent video card but I’m not sure there’s anything good at all.
I have 32gb, and two sticks failed so I had to send them in for RMA, and the computer felt so slow until they shipped me new ones... I usually have around 50-60 tabs open
I was about to comment this on older videos but I thought I may be exceptional so I didn't express it. We are in this together my brothers, united, the 32GB 'too many tabs' gang stands proud.
3:23 - "There is an upside though. Proprietary Parts will benefit us in our not to distant dystopian future when humanity desperately harvests metal from landfills left behind by our ancestors. Dell and HP, for example, are actually helping the planet. They're guaranteeing that somebody is throwing away an OEM computer with every passing second. So these companies ensure that their shit is perpetually at the top of the landfill, thereby making it easier for our successors to find steel out of which they can forge their spears."
Fucking GOLD at how to describe Dell and HP "gaming" computers. Totally savage AF, but completely justified.
they are not wrong in that aspect. because the cpu runs at XXX speeds, and with how throttling works, that statement is legitmate unless theres a error in installing. but hey im not a leading company in the prebuilt space.
@@mikeymaiku canadian youtuber dawid does tech stuff called them up for a dell xps prebuilt with a 3070 mind u, that he asked for dual channel ram and got single channel, he also got that cpu cooler for an i7-10700, and got sent on a rolercoaster with the departments.
"Killer" Ethernet networking on a $4799 MSI gaming laptop a few years ago. Yeah it was killer alright: it randomly killed my speeds down to 5 Mbps. A $20 USB 3.0 Ethernet dongle performed better and more reliably. Killer should just shut down as a company; they are the Ethernet equivalent of a pizza shop that hands you a pizza out of the oven with all the cheese slid over to one side, olives instead of bacon, and the crust is undercooked, doughy, and has rat turds in it.
Just here for the lols Large companies like HP, Lenovo, IBM & Dell have been creating single use e-waste for over 15 years that I’ve been in IT and communications.
Acer/eMacines is the longest lasting ewaste manufacturer today, while Packard Bell still takes the cake for the absolute worst even after being defunct (of original iteration as modern ones are made by.............Acer)
🤣🤣 Steve love your sarcasm with this, priceless. THIS is why when people ask me about getting a new computer (non laptop) that I ask what they want it to do and then source the parts and if they ask about big name prebuilds I just ask if they want a headache and an "I told you so" comment.
"These companies insure that their shit is perpetually at the top of the landfill." I am absolutely dying of laughter right now and only 3:47 into the video. Oh this is gonna be good.
Proprietary parts is another one.... They've done it for a reason. I don't agree with it - but it is not a mistake and not even necessarily bad for the audience who are buying these things. If you buy a pre build for the shitty graphics card inside it that's on you. This channel is in danger of getting a bit "uppity" and cute. They're beginning to justify the "elite" branding I've seen on motherboards in the past.
I bought a Cyberpower PC back in 2019 and it suffered from thermal throttling as well. The case fans were all exhaust, no intake fans and there was a cheap CPU cooler. No issues with assembly or component selection though.
My old i5 was perfectly cooled with a 120mm AIO, it was at 25-30° on Idle and never went above 60°. Don't know if it was due to the cooler being good or the CPU being very cool.
that was freaking me out, I thought it was my 3080, I had to check it on my laptop AND cell phone to be sure :P I've had a graphics card fail on me before and it looked just like that.
My first computer was a prebuilt. It was built by the shop that sold it rather than by a big company, and the best way i can describe it is "good learning material". As in it had 256mb of RAM which wasn't enough for win98 gaming, said RAM was not set at its rated frequency (so yeah, BIOS manual was super handy), the requested HDD fan was installed but not connected to anything, the CPU fan was 60mm at 6000RPM and the non-descript PSU died after 4 years. Was also fun upgrading the thing. Installing the drivers for Creative SB Live 5.1 required waiting for about an hour of system being completely unresponsive, Sapphire Radeon 9600XT had overheating VRAM needing some custom radiators glued to it and on Radeons X800 with PCIe-AGP bridge said tiny bridge wanted to overheat.
Amazing work! It is insane those prebuilts and how they manage to put that out for the consumer. I wonder if it is the same with the "boutique" PC stores. It would be great if you could compare those next that it seems that they are the next one to be judged.
My first PC came from iBuyPower and it served me well since 2016. Thought about getting another pre-built this year when it came time to replace the old rig, but now looking at what I was able to do on my own... Just the cable management level of care versus a 'professional' was worth all the trouble. My original PC looked like a rats nest.
Think you could do an interview with someone at HP/Dell about the decisions they make on prebuilts? I'm not too hopeful that they'd accept, but I guess it's worth a try? The level incompetence and/or straight up evil in those boxes I think would be worth having to justify themselves.
Absolutely thee BEST comedy channel on the interwebs, bar none!...and thee best computer info too. He should do stand up at the electronic conventions!
Steve this content gives me life. You and your team deserve all of the success in the world as hard as you work to fight the good fight and hold companies accountable for their horsefuckery. MY experience with a shit SI build: Cyberpower's ITX system. They sent us the wrong case, they got thermal paste literally on almost everything, they managed the cables so badly that the right side panel has a permanent bulge in it, and they managed to somehow actually gouge the GPU shroud, power supply, and riser cable connector... ALL of which passed QC, by the way. Also the fan config was garbage-tier, 120 mm AIO with mismatched push/pull fans in front and no exhaust fans. Changes the config and positioned fans in the right spots, now the rig runs cool and quiet.
One custom machine that stuck in my memory was from Packard Bell. It was a tower with a backplane, which isn't all that unusual, but what is unusual is what they did with the main board. It was stuck in the bottom of the case, and wider than the tower itself, so the case had a sort of foot shaped around it. Inside that cramped foot was where all the connectors were, which was quite the dexterity challenge to access, and of course it was an incredible dust and lint trap. One could hardly imagine a design more prone to fail while still enclosed.
"Rip and tear, until it is done!" - King Novik. But damn! Steve shredded these things worse than Doom guy ever could :D EDIT : Cheers mjc, turns out it wasn't The Seraphim at all.
Not on a pre-built, but I was building a computer for my brother, was buying parts from Best Buy. I kid you not, I went through 4 motherboards and 4 CPU's until I got both that worked. The motherboards were x570's and the cpu's were all 5600x's. It was insane! After the second of each, I went to Gee squad because I was pulling my hair out. They (geek squad) got to experience what I was going through for the next to motherboards and CPU's. It was insane!
Hard agree on the ram. I upgraded to 32gb because I play a Kerbal Space program with a ton of mods, and that'll use 16-18 gigs on its own. That's the one application that actually makes my system use more than 16gb
so ONE application made your computer use 50% of your RAM by itself but somehow this means 32GB is overkill? Hello? Read your own comment and think again?
@@prydzen any other thing I do, including streaming, doesnt use close to 16 gigs of system memory. So yeah, for most people it's overkill, and a waste of money that could go towards a power supply that wouldn't explode or a cooler that has more than 8 cents of aluminum.
And again, I can't stress enough how many mods I run. It takes me about 6 minutes to load the game off of a WD SN850 (running at Gen 4, with a 5950x). It's a niche use case.
"Easier to do a clean install" Not in the case of my Dell laptop... Every time I clean install Windows... Even having Linux on there previously, The "Wave Maxx Pro Audio" application gets installed on first boot. And to remove it, I need to fully remove the audio drivers themselves. The next time the system updates, it just comes back.
I’m no expert, I’m a newbie to the PC building scene, and I build PCs better than billion dollar companies 😂 thanks Steve. Entertaining content yet again.
For the first time in 20+ years of building my own computers, I bought a pre-built. Not because I didn't want to put in the effort of building something, but rather because I couldn't buy a GPU. I wound up with an Nzxt H1-based system (which will hopefully not catch fire) because I genuinely like SFF PCs. After a reinstall of Windows, things are going mostly well. Still have an annoying sleep issue I haven't quite figured out yet...
@@genericasian Can't see the Sleep option, or does Sleep not work at all? I have a chinese motherboard and it doesn't support Sleep function, it turns off display and USB but not the CPU or fans, which in practice is the same as turning off the monitor. Don't get me wrong, these Huananzhi boards are awesome, but BIOS is designed in a way that prevents OCs and Sleep.
@@MastersPipe sleep works, as in I can manually put the computer to sleep. However, it doesn't seem to want to automatically put the monitor or computer to sleep. It actually worked for about 24 hours, but then it stopped working after a reboot. No changes to hardware or attached devices. Very strange...
You said it brother, I am watching your videos for entertainment as you have some funny way of presenting faults and flaws and that is a skill besides you being very knowleadgable and a great hardware person. Thumbs way up for you >
Carey Holzman once reviewed a cheap HP and it had a proprietary mobo, a proprietary case, zero expansion capabilities, used a laptop charger as a power source and the HDD wasn't plugged into the SATA cable.
To be fair, never buy a pre-built gaming PC... from any manufacturer or integrator. They are almost universally a bad value, either due to lower quality components, inflated price or both... and that's not even mentioning build quality. Even the few that GN didn't outright hate, they could only recommend because BYOPC is insanely difficult due to supply shortages. That said, Dell or HP for general home / standard business work? Those are typically solid choices. Remember they lease their business line PCs by the shit load... For all the complaints about "proprietary parts" in this video, I guarantee five years from now it will be far easier to source a 2nd hand replacement Dell Optiplex motherboard then it will to source a given Asus or Gigabyte board.
I absolutely love this channel especially the rants from the crew I absolutely love! Its why I've bought so much stuff since I started watching in march, I'm going back for a mod mat and tool kit next!
I dare say it's easier to source parts and assemble yourself than to get a decent product from a pre-built. Either their ordering systems are terrible and confusing, they're scamming you with unwanted soft or misleading hardware descriptions, or jacking up prices because "the economy". There are so many good build tutorials. I STRONGLY encourage anyone looking for a new computer to take the plunge and build it yourself. You'll save money, maintain sanity, and get a sense of accomplishment for a job well done all while ending up with a reliable and serviceable machine.
Steve, as a manufacturing engineer, I have a hard time understanding your frustration with the font panel IO being on the main board. That’s VASTLY superior from a signal integrity, assembly, and quality perspective. The only down side is it means your cant have a standard form factor board, but that’s pretty uncommon in prebuilts, and the number of people that pull boards out of prebuilts is likely extremely low. I would wager, removing unneeded components like back plates saves considerable resources overall, even when taking into account the difficulty in reuse. Things like cables and connectors have costs higher than a slightly longer PCB, and I would estimate a considerable relative drop in resources and carbon by avoiding them. So for the likely well below 1% of machines that would end up being repaired, or having parts harvested, I still think the net impact is vastly positive overall. But a few good points otherwise, the proprietary PSU thing really grinds my gears.
I procured several Dell SFF machines for my old work directly from dell. ALL of them starting randomly bluescreen crashing (Dell equivalent diagnostic screen) with an error code, something about missing HDD (despite only having ssd's). Their error code diagnostic search was basically useless and always lead to contacting them. Our sales rep wanted to do a return but we couldn't suffer the down time, they were new staff PC's. My enthusiast gut was telling me to reseat the M.2 ssd's and after a meeting and getting approval from management I did so. None of the PC's ever crashed again.
There were too many bad prebuilt mistakes to list in one video, so please add your own experiences below!
Check out our playlist of pre-built reviews here: ruclips.net/p/PLsuVSmND84QuM2HKzG7ipbIbE_R5EnCLM
We also collaborated with Digital Foundry to test the Playstation 5: ruclips.net/video/VgWuGA8cExo/видео.html
About 20yrs ago a friend needed help with his Dell computer, would not boot so I looked at it and confirmed it was the motherboard so as a young enthusiast I said ya sure looks like we can swap the MB Oh man open mouth insert foot. The case did allow for a standard MB but I also had to buy a power supply, memory and still had to Jerry rig a reset switch in the damn thing this is when you needed a reset...That was the first and last time I did that.
My mother got took in by a COMPAQ brand in 1997... Bloatware beyond belief...a slower than dead chipset...and a case so sharp that I believed the French Revolution was going to make a comeback...
Lucky for me...with my Linux skills even back then knew that everything inside needed an upgrade...
It took three days to get the case dulled enough to avoid cutting myself on it (again) and another three to get the upgraded parts... Then the 26 CD install of SuSE Linux caused another headache because I forgot which would work best on the new build (later finding out that I could have gone with 16 home use install CDs)... Remember that she paid $1950 for this NEW... It took six months of gar(b)age sales (from trying to piece out Compaq's garbage) to break even with the new components I substituted... She did go back to Windows eventually...but when this new rebuild sold for $2100 at auction...we finally decided that I build whatever I wanted and she would like it... It eventually got spread that I could improve the performance of any computer and a small business of a repair shop was born... I just never did MacWindows...strictly Linux builds...
I recently bought a Cyberpower Prebuilt and I got exactly what I wanted: an rtx 3080 evga ftw3 plus an i7-11700kf with an aio it performs really great! Only when I take the side panel off cuz my card is cooking my pc to a 90⁰c. Side panel off is now 52⁰c max on the cpu and 75⁰c max on the gpu... so yeah
@@rlosangeleskings Ya know you brought up an interesting point I paid I think $1700 for a stupid 286 computer like 30 yrs ago now look what you get for a $2,000 dollar computer WOW!
I would rather see the best high-end prebuilds with decent value.
Thanks to you, I sometimes look at my build and say to myself, "at least I did a better job than multi-million dollar companies"
Even a blindfold caveman can do a better job than NZXT
For real. I felt horrible about my level of skill, especially cable management, then I started watching this series.
You mean "billion" dollar companies, they are literally a joke sometimes. I've had friends ask me to look at a pre-built because certain components weren't working. Sometimes it can be because plugs were just loose or plugged in the wrong spot.
Me and u both lol and mine was 5 years ago
Yeah I kinda had to do my own last year after seeing how bad these companies are... I just didn't feel like I could rely on any of them. Sad
"These companies ensure that their shit is perpetually at the top of the landfill." best sentence of 2021
The follow-up made it even better. xD
Obviously you never heard of cyberpower pc 👀
I want to live 100 years or more so I can see how that is sent to space
@@kekaikobatake4598 you're right, those ended up in the middle, they were bought, thrown out, then never bought again.
A prebuilt classic that's always happened to me and my family: Specifically order a configuration with two sticks of RAM, open the PC up at some point and see both sticks in the first two or last two RAM slots.
at least they didn't do you like Dell would and just "upgrade" you to a single stick of the amount you ordered even though you selected 2xYGB
😂😂
I bought a 2nd hand pc that’s put together from off-the-shelf parts and it still had the ram in the first 2 slots. I mean fixing it didn’t change my performance that much because it’s an old-ass pc, but still, it’s better to run dual channel
OR one stick of ram with twice the capacity
I loved it when Steve flipped the motherboard over, throwing the case to the floor, and he didn't even skip a beat.
the competition for the disappointment pc is really strong this year
Hope they use a $2,000 3080 lol, or maybe the 6600XT because it has the worst MSRP since Turing.
The most scandalous part about the disappointment PC this year is definitely going to be that you can't pick and choose the components. Can't even match the shitty mobo form factor of alienware crap with the shitty PSU from HP. Truly a time to be alive!
@@BrianCroweAcolyte You can get a 3080 for $1400 now
@@drunkhusband6257 I'd still rather "get" kicked in the balls at that pricing lol
@@BrianCroweAcolyte I bet you'd rather get kicked in the balls than get a legitimate job to afford it also
“Mcafee is speeding up your app” is the best joke a software makes, I love their sense of humor!
I'd like this comment but it has 69 likes already and I'm immature
Well it was a reliable antivirus back in 1998... But nowadays, antivirus are more of a nuisance than a help
Wait so is McCafé that bad? I’m new to pc gaming (bought a gaming laptop) and thought it’s good to have virus protection.
@@zachconant7031 actually is not THAT bad, there are worse options (Norton, Panda...) But antivirus software is no longer viable unless you literally put your pc at risk intentionally. Windows defender is the best antivirus nowadays, it generates less false positives than any other. Antivirus software just clogs the ram nowadays
@@solouno2280 yeah that’s good to know, I remember years ago my parents spent quite a bit of money on Norton and we still faced a ton of issues.
I really want to commend Steve and the GN crew for adapting their content to the current GPU craze. I know many tech channels have been struggling given that type of content is effectively off limits for much of their audience right now, but I'm really enjoying the focus other components that don't usually get enough testing or attention.
Keep up the good work guys.
They were always diverse and specialised (in their testing) when it comes to PC tech. That's great. LTT is another diverse channel but keeping in style and subject of tech.
I agree. GPU reviews have become a huge turn off and meme now to tech savvy folks (Especially when LTT goes all love-fest on anything GPU regardless of its price.)
Honestly, I might just buy a prebuilt I don't even need just to scavenge a 6800XT, ordered one back in December and it still hasn't shipped. According to TSMC, we'll likely hit RDNA 3 before the shortage ends.
@@MunyuShizumi Depends on the prebuilt machine, if you've seen those proprietary cards from big brands they're absolutely terrible and seems like designed to die. Though you might have some luck with buying a Chinese generic replacement shroud to slap on those cards
@@DangNguyen-xx3zi Thankfully, you can see what you're getting more often than not due to transparent side panels being quite popular these days, and from what I can tell, the local shops are installing whatever they can get their hands on at any given moment. (I don't live in the US, we don't have many megabrand prebuilts here.)
The last time I purchased a dell laptop, I had to do a clean install of windows to get rid of the bloatware. Not only did that dramatically improve the system performance but it also added 3 hours to the battery life of the laptop. That is a 20% improvement in battery life just from running a clean install of windows.
Insane. I just got an HP pre-built with windows 11 (no option for anything else). I was planning on just wiping it and running Linux Mint anyways, but I played around with Windows 11 just to see if it was as bad as everyone says. Not only was the OS itself bad, but the amount of bloatware pre-installed was infuriating & shocking. If I were an average user, I'd have no idea that all of that extra crap was throttling my performance so drastically and spying on me.
@@-HughJass- I just built a PC with Linux compatibility in mind. Been running Linux for 7+ years now. It's superior at just about anything, especially nowadays.
Team RED CPU and GPU + an Intel network chip. It kinda bugged me that I was putting Intel in my otherwise 100% AMD build but Realtek is absolute junk and barely supports Linux which is sad because Realtek has a monopoly (like 80% share) in the LAN/WiFi market chipset.
@@spicynoodle7419 Sure it is bud
@@-HughJass- If you have a SIM card you’re being spied on anyways, get a grip
@@crylune What a shitty argument. So because youre being spied on against your will in one way, you should be okay with being spied on in every way. Also, my comment said bloatware. It didnt say anything about privacy concerns (which are real), so learn to read before you tell others to "get a grip".
The fans that do absolutely nothing has to be my favourite part of a pre-build
You need to check out the legendary 12-fan Abkoncore Ramesses 780 case
@@rtyzxc was that the one with something like 20 fans that created essentially dead pressure in the case?
@@shaneeslick yes! I knew I remembered this one.
It was the most chaotic response to undercooled complaints 🤣
@ZIV installing a turbo in an EV XD
Thys why I used windows lite mod
I'll never forget working on a prebuilt where one of the unused molex connectors had pins extending beyond the housing, not a lot, but just enough to arc when resting against bare metal within the case. I'm not against naming the company but honestly I don't remember. I'll never forget how much that has impacted me and I always make sure to keep any unused power connectors safely wrapped and ensure they're situated to keep them reliably away from the case.
shhh dont give them ideas before oems use this to say pc's are not safe to repair yourself please buy pay the $200 extra for an extra 8gbram modules when picking your pc
@@SMhMrMurhpysLaw LOL, you know that is in the post.
"Form factor defined as f*ck you and the cost to repair is a new computer" lmao I'm dying
Aka the FUX form factor
fr
So basically an Apple
@@SchwachsinnProduzent ooouch. But true.
Here's one, and it covers most of the models you reviewed: inherently illogical configurations are possible when putting it together on their web site. The 'almost but not quite as good as a crappy Intel stock cooler' on a Ryzen 7 8 core CPU is an example of something that you shouldn't even be able to order.
“Since they’re burdening a new NVMe SSD to the point of simulating Seagate’s best efforts”
Holy shit, Steve.
I knew you were savage, but this is another level. That’s absolutely fucking hysterical
It would have been funnier if Seagate wasn't also in the SSD biz now, lol
It's not as picturesque as Dawid does tech stuff but he's getting there. 😅
Wait what did I miss what did Seagate do?
Tbh watching your pre builds helped me pick things to put in my custom build. I wanted a fractal case but microcenter was out of the one I wanted but I found one I really liked. I just wanted to let y'all know how much y'all helped me pick out my parts and how grateful I am.
6:02 damn, I haven't heard a WinME mention in YEARS, totally forgot about that one
It's better that way...
I'll never forget it. As a kid my parents bought a computer with Windows 95 on it and then the next computer they bought came with ME......not 2000.....No it had M freaking E on it. And it constantly had errors
@@ram89572 Sounds like user error..... I had 3 systems running WinME that were rock solid.
@@aaronthomas6155 history would beg to differ with you bud. Your experience does not equal the experience of every other person out there. That's like saying "well this game runs fine on my system so there's no way you have problems running it on yours"
@@ram89572 I didn't say my experience equaled everyone else's. I said it sounds like user error.
I've got an iBuyPower prebuilt (went against my PC DIY Elitist religion but I was in a pinch) and I was actually very surprised. Posted right out of the box, all cables were well managed and connected properly to the mobo, XMP was enabled in BIOS and after some Core Isolation navigation I was able to use XTU to overclock the i5-13600KF to 5.4GHz with no stability nor thermal issues. I swapped out the RAM with my 32GB TridentZ from my previous build, added a few SATA SSDs and it's an absolute beast. Only gripes I had with the build were the lower end 600W non-modular PSU, the front panel of the case (Hako Slate MR) suffocated airflow which was an easy fix, just take the front panel off.. and it took two weeks longer to deliver than what was promised. I should note though that their customer service reps were excellent and professional. Overall it was a very pleasant experience. Been running strong for the better part of a year with no problems... Except for Windows 11, it has a few neat features but this is a garbage bloaty OS, stick with Windows 10.
I'm getting the feeling Intel's upcoming Alder Lake was designed to help improve the performance of bloatware-laden prebuilts. Offload all of the background bloatware and let the performance cores do their thing while the "efficiency" cores are drowning in the background.
And they get to market PCs as "16 cores!"
And with raptor lake, "24 cores!"
Most of this bloatware is built on Electron (because web devs are cheaper), so I wouldn't be too sure it will be happy running on an efficiency core.
Interesting thought. I bet their 'benchmarks' are going to include extreme amounts of bloat to exaggerate "performance increase."
I think I might know why single-channel RAM is so weirdly common. My guess is, a lot of system integrators specialize in higher-end machines, where they put in at least 32GB dual-channel, so they keep a huge supply of 16GB sticks in stock. Then they decide to try offering a cheaper model, and they want to use what they've got on hand, so that "budget" prebuilt gets a single 16GB stick.
A friend of mine received a prebuild with an I/O shield pushed into the BIOS reset button witch on that motherboard was located on the I/O. It was only off by 2mm so it took me forever and a complete rebuild to figure out what it was. I bet it would be a headscratcher for he company that built it in the first place to figure it out. None the less, they have fair prices and uses standard components. A prebuild costs about $50 more than ordering each part, but as many people need, the luxury of just shipping the whole pc back if anything goes wrong without having to pinpoint what caused it.
I paid my local tech store 80 bucks to order all the parts and assemble them for me. I could have assembled it myself but ordering every part individually just sounds like big potential for risk.
Bottom line, 80 buckaroos is nothing in comparison to the markup OEMs add to their pre-builts. I browsed another store and noticed some PCs with similar specs, they were 400 more expensive lmao.
"they are who knows inches wide, by who cares inches long"
😂
you should make more content like this, Steve
This sorta thing is why I love these prebuilt reviews. They're almost invariably a train wreck in some way and it's amusing to watch you tear them a new asshole.
Just want to add with the RAM stuff, 32 gigs does have quite a strong performance uplift if you're planning to play games heavily modded, as mods generally won't communicate with eachother to save on memory.
Also, if you're a regular beta tester - 'in development' software is usually very poorly optimized as it's constantly being changed and updated, so it ends up requiring more memory to function than the finished product.
So true. KSP with a decent set of QoL mods (no GFX mods even) eats 10GB on start (and don't get me started on Unity-based games and the 1.5GB+/hr RAM leaks). Add a browser window for anything and 16GB RAM is gone pretty much right away.
Also - want to run some VMs? 16 gig is just too little - 32 is the minimum. Found out the hard way when my online computer course required from us to run 5 VMs at the same time - one server and 4 clients
@@battlecommando stop using chrome, firefox eats less ram. And watches you less
Another thing I observed is how Intel built in graphics likes to work. Currently have 32gb usable in my laptop out of 64gb because half of the system memory is being reserved for the graphics side of the Intel APU.
Watching this makes me happy that I built my 1st computer instead of just buying one. Sure, it was expensive... but it works, doesn't thermal throttle and I know EXACTLY what spec it is. No nasty surprises 👍
When I'm forced to fight Gore the conqueror in the Thunderdome my armor will be made of Dell cases.
I am loving how you are just letting these prebuilts have it. My first gaming PC I ever bought was an Alienware Aurora in 2009 with an i7920 and gtx 260 graphics card. Never again. Learned my lesson and built a custom rig that at this point could benefit with a GPU upgrade before my next full build is a requirement. Waiting on DDR5 to mature in desktop applications before I commit to my building a new rig.
I may have rewatched the entire playlist yesterday, but I’m always down for more Steve
These videos make me feel warm and fuzzy, I always build my pc's, And they're always better than a DELL no matter what.
Regarding bloatware, I get flashbacks to Lenovo's astonishing first use experience. Where the preinstalled bloatware and "welcome" guides literally wouldn't fit the screen, so you had to know some odd tricks to move windows outside the boundary to get the system started at all.
It's no joke that a manual reinstallation is easier.
i would never trust a factory install anyway.
First thing I do to a brand new laptop is to fresh install Windows to get rid of all the blotware.
Not sure if companies still do this, but one of my favourite things to find when I used to work at a computer refurbishing shop were PCs from companies that would charge you to upgrade to front USB.
100% of the time, the front USB was already there, just covered by either a sticker, or a bit of plastic.
A lot of the time, this front USB was actually hooked up properly to the motherboard, so they were literally charging people $50 to pop a small panel off the front of their PC.
Thanks Steve! Some people may be interested in buying prebuilts strictly for their parts, so this is a good way to compare actual cost per component (that you will actually utilize in your final build). For example - RAM. If you are getting the pre-built figure the RAM is probably not high performing, so just get the cheapest RAM package and then purchase better RAM.
Old: "Back to you, Steve!"
New: "Screw you, Steve!"
A tale of Steve.
You forgot the "Tks Steve" :D
"Look at how lonely these memory modules are, they have no friends." LOL @9:42
Maybe a "How to" on removing bloatware and how to clean up a pre-built to increase function then provide some before and afters?
That’d essentially have be a Windows reinstall guide though, if I’m honest - a lot of this stuff roots itself so deep that even if you kill it with fire it will still haunt the machine. So it’s best to just reinstall the OS before you install anything on it and go into sunk cost fallacy mode (been there done that).
Install Linux
Yeah best way is to find your windows key in the OS, create a bootable usb with windows OS on it, and do a fresh install before you even use it. Sped up my dell laptop a lot
just reinstall a non-branded version of Windows.
This is the least labor intense.
@@Tra-vis What about the proprietary BS? Can you just download their drivers?
I broke down and bought a prebuilt from an SI a couple months ago and aside from the price everything has been good. It was well packaged, BIOS was updated earlier the same month I bought it and already had XMP set up for 3600mhz RAM in it. Clean Windows install with no pre-added software. The only thing I had to address was the case came with 4 non-PWM fans and I have a 360mm clc with 3 PWM fans. The SI slapped 3 case fans onto the clc in a push/pull (360mm rad with 6 fans on it, 3 PWM and 3 non-PWM) intake and had 1 case fan as exhaust. I just set the fan curves on the clc to run at 1,200 rpm, the same the case fans are running at, until it hits really high temps and ramps up. Under my current uses in gaming the temps on my 5900x and rtx 3080, with slightly tweaked fan curves as well, never run past the 60c-70c range with fans running at idle 1,200 rpms which isn't all that loud.
Best of luck with your system and happy gaming!! 👍👍
please make more content like this, this shit is amazing LMFAO
Yeah isnt it! I just posted a similiar comment, damn Steve this stuff should b boring and dry as hell. But for some reason I got to 4:25 just fine then bawled out into hysterical fits of laughing.
Lol. That's the best bit 4:25 - 32:00 so good.
Hey it's the song guy with amazing pixel art backgrounds!! I love your stuff!
I consider Gamers Nexus the consumer reports of Pc gaming. We need this or the industry will not improve!
normally i just put GN videos on to listen to while i cook or something because yea they're long and dull but informative. this one though i think is where steve's at his best.
So you are here too...
Btw, yout music is what made me love electronic music, and i'll never thank you enough
Worth noting for the power supplies that the "Gigabyte 550W Bronze" unit that NZXT uses is a P550B, which is group regulated (i.e. unacceptable in any machine that has a graphics card.) This was also the case with the ABS prebuilt reviewed on this channel, with the thermaltake smart, though that one was a bit worse due to missing protections.
The thing with power supplies is that it's rare for them to blow up immediately, though there are some that can (like the P-GM, which cyberpower pulled from their offerings within the last couple of months.) It's more common that they just don't last as long and/or reduce component lifespan by feeding the system inconsistent voltages. Still,it's unlikely to fail within a year or two, which is conveniently long enough for it to outlast the warranty period.
Point being: replace your garbage power supplies before the warranty expires.
"Then we've also had straight up shocking results"
Shows Gigabyte explosition.
In the end it will always come back to the explosive gigabyte PSU.
It's GN même of the year
@@NicolasChapadosGirard meme of the decade imo
Gigabyte is good for motherboards and graphic cards. But in terms of PSU, I prefer other brands
Gigabyte is good for motherboards and graphic cards. But in terms of PSU, I prefer other brands
@@solouno2280 idk man, you're probably right, but it's difficult to trust a company if act
*waves hand*
Like this
After watching your videos, I feel like I got gifted by god himself the perfect prebuilt PC from ABS on sale last year. The whole thing cost less than the card it came with in 2021. It works perfectly , wiring is great, and 16 G’s of RAM was installed correctly on the board. All I had to correct is add more cooling to the case/ build, all in all I got a way better deal than anyone now (2021) can do with a custom PC, and I still have more room for upgrades.
It'd be cool if you guys would partner with someone to do a history of PC parts. It might help contextualize some of these design decisions by Dell and HP.
Agreed, or even just a history of Dell's insane bullshit.
maybe partner with gaming historian
To address the non standard parts it would have to be very Dell and HP centric. The non standard parts they use today have no real history outside the company. Looking back at the PC history the progression of standards has been driven both by individual companies and by standards comities.
The XT standard was basically created in 1983 when a lot of companies chose to copy IBM XT motherboards. That is what you can call a de facto standard. IBM didn't intend to create a standard but the industry chose to copy their machines closely enough that the components could be interchanged.
This was followed in 1984 by the AT standard, which just happens to about the same size as the later SSI-EEB standard, but other than the size there are few similarities.
A year later the Baby AT standard came about. It was what IBM used for their PC XT 286. It was much more compact than the original AT standard and was quickly adopted as the standard formfactor for most PC class machines for the following ten years.
In 1995 Intel introduced the ATX standard. This time it was Intel instead of IBM that championed the new standard and this time it was intentional that it would be a wide spread standard. It was so successful that we are still using ATX and sub versions of it even today. Intel has kept updating the standard over time and the latest motherboard specification at the moment is 2.2. The ATX standard also included a new standard for power supplies and this part of the standard was last updated in 2020 to the 2.53 version. For being more than 25 years it has stood the test of time pretty well.
Inte however did try to introduce a new and according to them better standard, BTX in 2005. This was a pretty radical redesign and failed spectacularly in the market. My personal guess is that the redesign was so thorough that it was totally incompatible with everything ATX. Basically they swapped everything around and tightened up the standard where it came to positioning of components such as the CPU socket in order to allow the heatsinks to he bolted to the motherboard tray instead of the motherboard.
While Intel continuously have held the ATX spec some of the derivates has been created by the SSI or Server System Infrastructure forum. These are SSI CEB or Compact Electronics Bay, which is basically the same as the standard ATX motherboard formfactor at 12" by 10.5". SSI EEB or Enterprise Electronics Bay is basically what was often called E-ATX and the motherboards are up to 12" by 13". Finally there's SSI MEB or Midrange Electronics Bay which measures 16.2" by 13", which at least to me is a bit confusing as it's the largest of the three...
Intel was not alone in the standards game. Mini ITX is derived from ATX but the standard was set by VIA who continued to release several smaller standards such as Nano and Pico ITX.
While manufacturers following common standards is great for the customers and smaller companies, the big players have often chosen to create their own. Sometimes it was in order to provide something that the standards didn't support, but often it was used to cut cost and to a degree to lock in the customers into their ecosystem. Today you often see this in the server sector where custom motherboards allows for higher density servers. To get the most out of every rack unit it's necessary to forgo the standard formfactors, but it does mean that the machines are less likely to be upgradable years down the line when they have become obsolete.
The nonstandard parts used in office and apparently some "gaming" machines are of the cost saving kind.
Things like the proprietary power solutions were often created before there were a standard such as the ATX12VO. Once they have started to used something like this and sold a couple of hundred thousand machines it often makes more economic sense to keep using the same standard for new machines rather than switch to standard compliant components and increase the number of parts to keep track of.
PSU manufacturers like LiteON and Delta will happily sell them PSU's with any particular set of connectors the OEM's ask for. You don't even need particularly large orders to get this service. A company I used to work for ordered PSU's with ATX-GES cabling. This was AFAIK only used for one motherboard, the Tyan S2462 Thunder K7, which was a SSI-EEB size dual AMD Athlon MP motherboard. Though this has ATX in the name the pin-out is quite different. We also bought lots of PSU's with WTX cables which is another standard with connectors that looks a lot like ATX but again differs in the pin-out. These to were used by some server class motherboards and can be said to be the precursor of EPS, which was essentially the ATX connector with four added pins for better power delivery and instead of a 4-pin 12V connector that was doubled to 8 pins. Eventually the EPS standard was absorbed into ATX with the ATX12V 2.0 standard. But for a few years it was an exotic standard and we had to have the PSU's made to order.
Now we were a small company that ordered less than a hundred PSU's at a time, and yet the fee for having these made was pretty low. Now if you are a company that buy in lots of 10,000 or more then LiteON will probably not even mention a cost for special cabling.
I have a roll of toilet paper... Because its just shit Nothing has changed from their Packard Bell days AT case and all...
@@hisafe ???
I am liking the colorful glitch transitions. I watch your videos while doing something else usually and the glitch transition helps grab my eye to signify some change in the video versus the dissolve which can be pretty subtle in peripheral vision.
"This shouldn't be so hard" certainly is something that echoes differently on the engineering and planning/budgeting teams of OEMs.... :|
I almost bought a Skytech, ibuypower and I even looked at a G5. Ended up getting a decent pre-built by people who cared at least, wasn’t top notch but I could upgrade the parts I didn’t like.
After a new build recently and watching your vids I’m so glad I didn’t buy these so called good brands.
You’d think oh at least I get a decent video card but I’m not sure there’s anything good at all.
"... or have a really bad Tabs habit."
*Looks at gaming machine with 32gb of memory
Don't call me out like that, GN. It hurts.
I have literally crashed Brave from too many tabs...
I have 32gb, and two sticks failed so I had to send them in for RMA, and the computer felt so slow until they shipped me new ones...
I usually have around 50-60 tabs open
I was about to comment this on older videos but I thought I may be exceptional so I didn't express it.
We are in this together my brothers, united, the 32GB 'too many tabs' gang stands proud.
@@dominic6542 dude how the hell did you kill ram sticks
@@thatslegit Maybe he got corsair ones.
extremely known to die quickly
Bloatware - the reason why the last laptop I bought was one from Gigabyte because they make them available without OS.
just think they wasted a good gpu on these builds
They wasted perfectly good tree sap on the solder used in these builds.
3:23 - "There is an upside though. Proprietary Parts will benefit us in our not to distant dystopian future when humanity desperately harvests metal from landfills left behind by our ancestors. Dell and HP, for example, are actually helping the planet. They're guaranteeing that somebody is throwing away an OEM computer with every passing second. So these companies ensure that their shit is perpetually at the top of the landfill, thereby making it easier for our successors to find steel out of which they can forge their spears."
Fucking GOLD at how to describe Dell and HP "gaming" computers. Totally savage AF, but completely justified.
Fun fact: Dell customer support thinks 8x2 gigs of ram = 16x1 gigs
Edit: They also think a pc is overheating ONLY if it crashes.
they are not wrong in that aspect. because the cpu runs at XXX speeds, and with how throttling works, that statement is legitmate unless theres a error in installing. but hey im not a leading company in the prebuilt space.
@@mikeymaiku Not wrong but certainly not good
@@mikeymaiku
Uh... what? Do you know what dual channel memory is, and that on Ryzen it can create a 10%+ increase in CPU performance?
@@tifforo1 I think he is talking about the overheating part of the comment
@@mikeymaiku canadian youtuber dawid does tech stuff called them up for a dell xps prebuilt with a 3070 mind u, that he asked for dual channel ram and got single channel, he also got that cpu cooler for an i7-10700, and got sent on a rolercoaster with the departments.
"Killer" Ethernet networking on a $4799 MSI gaming laptop a few years ago. Yeah it was killer alright: it randomly killed my speeds down to 5 Mbps. A $20 USB 3.0 Ethernet dongle performed better and more reliably. Killer should just shut down as a company; they are the Ethernet equivalent of a pizza shop that hands you a pizza out of the oven with all the cheese slid over to one side, olives instead of bacon, and the crust is undercooked, doughy, and has rat turds in it.
Just here for the lols
Large companies like HP, Lenovo, IBM & Dell have been creating single use e-waste for over 15 years that I’ve been in IT and communications.
Acer/eMacines is the longest lasting ewaste manufacturer today, while Packard Bell still takes the cake for the absolute worst even after being defunct (of original iteration as modern ones are made by.............Acer)
🤣🤣 Steve love your sarcasm with this, priceless. THIS is why when people ask me about getting a new computer (non laptop) that I ask what they want it to do and then source the parts and if they ask about big name prebuilds I just ask if they want a headache and an "I told you so" comment.
"Or you can just watch this for entertainment." Yep! That one! Let's go with that one lol
I watched every prebuild review multiple times, and the highlight episode was still entertaining. well done
"like Pokemon you gotta catch em all!" "its probably Pokemon it could be like diseases" who writes this golden material its seriously funny ! Lol
"These companies insure that their shit is perpetually at the top of the landfill." I am absolutely dying of laughter right now and only 3:47 into the video. Oh this is gonna be good.
not really a mistake, a shitty thing to do.
"removing this sticker voids the warranty". I know it's illegal in the US, i'm unsure about Europe.
Proprietary parts is another one....
They've done it for a reason. I don't agree with it - but it is not a mistake and not even necessarily bad for the audience who are buying these things. If you buy a pre build for the shitty graphics card inside it that's on you.
This channel is in danger of getting a bit "uppity" and cute. They're beginning to justify the "elite" branding I've seen on motherboards in the past.
what sticker sir? I have never seen any sticker in there, you forgot to apply it! *hides bottle of 99% rubbing alcohol and razor*
99.99% IPA is every computer maniacs best friend
@@00O3O1B Interesting, I didn't know that. Not that it mattered because I opened it anyway :D
You guys should have taken money for this video. It could be its whole comedy routine in some comedy clubs.
I know it costs a lot of money, but this is my favorite content on your channel.
It's hilarious just how bad these pre-builts can be.
I bought a Cyberpower PC back in 2019 and it suffered from thermal throttling as well. The case fans were all exhaust, no intake fans and there was a cheap CPU cooler. No issues with assembly or component selection though.
Well, none of these prebuilts come with a cat bed for your CEO so they all have a lot to improve.
No treat dispenser either
Everything is a cat bed :3
I thought the cat beds were the cardboard boxes.
I thought the cat was the CFO...Chief Feline Officer? 🤔
My old i5 was perfectly cooled with a 120mm AIO, it was at 25-30° on Idle and never went above 60°. Don't know if it was due to the cooler being good or the CPU being very cool.
The 'glitch' transitions between categories are giving me flashbacks... Oh, the digital horror!
that was freaking me out, I thought it was my 3080, I had to check it on my laptop AND cell phone to be sure :P I've had a graphics card fail on me before and it looked just like that.
@@kylianthehylian Same here. It's at the moment not the time for replacing a GPU.
My first computer was a prebuilt. It was built by the shop that sold it rather than by a big company, and the best way i can describe it is "good learning material". As in it had 256mb of RAM which wasn't enough for win98 gaming, said RAM was not set at its rated frequency (so yeah, BIOS manual was super handy), the requested HDD fan was installed but not connected to anything, the CPU fan was 60mm at 6000RPM and the non-descript PSU died after 4 years.
Was also fun upgrading the thing. Installing the drivers for Creative SB Live 5.1 required waiting for about an hour of system being completely unresponsive, Sapphire Radeon 9600XT had overheating VRAM needing some custom radiators glued to it and on Radeons X800 with PCIe-AGP bridge said tiny bridge wanted to overheat.
Most of the time I notice that the RAM isn't even screwed on correctly.
You don't screw on RAM.
@@sadams12345678 The joke kind of eluded you now, didn't it? :D (Hint: Check his name)
Cmon I think the guy deserves a rest. Go watch his video with Linus if you want to get a bit more background on that infamous Verge video.
"Who cares inches long"
- Steve, Gamers Nexus 2021
Amazing work! It is insane those prebuilts and how they manage to put that out for the consumer. I wonder if it is the same with the "boutique" PC stores. It would be great if you could compare those next that it seems that they are the next one to be judged.
I don't think I have ever loved hearing someone hate something so much. Keep up the good work.
if they just added more rgb then the temps , airflow , burn risk , everything would be just fine
My first PC came from iBuyPower and it served me well since 2016. Thought about getting another pre-built this year when it came time to replace the old rig, but now looking at what I was able to do on my own... Just the cable management level of care versus a 'professional' was worth all the trouble. My original PC looked like a rats nest.
Think you could do an interview with someone at HP/Dell about the decisions they make on prebuilts? I'm not too hopeful that they'd accept, but I guess it's worth a try?
The level incompetence and/or straight up evil in those boxes I think would be worth having to justify themselves.
His incredibly precise mutilation of OEM's is why I'm subbed 😌
At this point it's just funny, I watch your prebuilt videos only for entertainment XD
Absolutely thee BEST comedy channel on the interwebs, bar none!...and thee best computer info too. He should do stand up at the electronic conventions!
Another gruelling review by GN. I love how he doesn't hold back
My computer came with Windows, Nvidia control panel, and the folder showing the results of their benchmarks. Bloatware at an acceptable level.
12:45 Maybe Agent Sarah was on to something with her patented shake tests 😂
11:00 "unless you have a really bad tabs habit" say my name, say my name
After using tree style tabs I will always need 32GB of ram
"McAfee is speeding up your app" after slowing it down in the first place.
Steve this content gives me life. You and your team deserve all of the success in the world as hard as you work to fight the good fight and hold companies accountable for their horsefuckery.
MY experience with a shit SI build: Cyberpower's ITX system. They sent us the wrong case, they got thermal paste literally on almost everything, they managed the cables so badly that the right side panel has a permanent bulge in it, and they managed to somehow actually gouge the GPU shroud, power supply, and riser cable connector... ALL of which passed QC, by the way. Also the fan config was garbage-tier, 120 mm AIO with mismatched push/pull fans in front and no exhaust fans. Changes the config and positioned fans in the right spots, now the rig runs cool and quiet.
There will be nothing more funny to me than watching steve slowly realise the dells prebuilt has a load bearing cpu fan
One custom machine that stuck in my memory was from Packard Bell. It was a tower with a backplane, which isn't all that unusual, but what is unusual is what they did with the main board. It was stuck in the bottom of the case, and wider than the tower itself, so the case had a sort of foot shaped around it. Inside that cramped foot was where all the connectors were, which was quite the dexterity challenge to access, and of course it was an incredible dust and lint trap. One could hardly imagine a design more prone to fail while still enclosed.
IT just re enforces the old adage "You get what you pay for, If you know what you are Buying".
Funny, informative and valuable work Steve and the staff at Gamers Nexus. The heroes we deserve!!
"Rip and tear, until it is done!" - King Novik.
But damn! Steve shredded these things worse than Doom guy ever could :D
EDIT : Cheers mjc, turns out it wasn't The Seraphim at all.
Pretty sure it was King Novik who said that and yes I am a turbo-nerd🤓
Not on a pre-built, but I was building a computer for my brother, was buying parts from Best Buy. I kid you not, I went through 4 motherboards and 4 CPU's until I got both that worked. The motherboards were x570's and the cpu's were all 5600x's. It was insane! After the second of each, I went to Gee squad because I was pulling my hair out. They (geek squad) got to experience what I was going through for the next to motherboards and CPU's. It was insane!
Hard agree on the ram. I upgraded to 32gb because I play a Kerbal Space program with a ton of mods, and that'll use 16-18 gigs on its own. That's the one application that actually makes my system use more than 16gb
so ONE application made your computer use 50% of your RAM by itself but somehow this means 32GB is overkill? Hello? Read your own comment and think again?
@@prydzen no ypu
@@prydzen any other thing I do, including streaming, doesnt use close to 16 gigs of system memory. So yeah, for most people it's overkill, and a waste of money that could go towards a power supply that wouldn't explode or a cooler that has more than 8 cents of aluminum.
And again, I can't stress enough how many mods I run. It takes me about 6 minutes to load the game off of a WD SN850 (running at Gen 4, with a 5950x). It's a niche use case.
"Easier to do a clean install"
Not in the case of my Dell laptop...
Every time I clean install Windows... Even having Linux on there previously, The "Wave Maxx Pro Audio" application gets installed on first boot.
And to remove it, I need to fully remove the audio drivers themselves. The next time the system updates, it just comes back.
If I was a supervisor or chief in a prebuild company, I'd use this video as training material for the employees.
The employees are probably not paid enough to give a shit.
I’m no expert, I’m a newbie to the PC building scene, and I build PCs better than billion dollar companies 😂 thanks Steve. Entertaining content yet again.
Me who’s getting a prebuilt soon: *nervous sweating*
Oh boy. Which brand/model did you go with?
For the first time in 20+ years of building my own computers, I bought a pre-built. Not because I didn't want to put in the effort of building something, but rather because I couldn't buy a GPU. I wound up with an Nzxt H1-based system (which will hopefully not catch fire) because I genuinely like SFF PCs.
After a reinstall of Windows, things are going mostly well. Still have an annoying sleep issue I haven't quite figured out yet...
@@genericasian GPUs are readily available on newegg and stock x though....
@@genericasian Can't see the Sleep option, or does Sleep not work at all? I have a chinese motherboard and it doesn't support Sleep function, it turns off display and USB but not the CPU or fans, which in practice is the same as turning off the monitor.
Don't get me wrong, these Huananzhi boards are awesome, but BIOS is designed in a way that prevents OCs and Sleep.
@@MastersPipe sleep works, as in I can manually put the computer to sleep. However, it doesn't seem to want to automatically put the monitor or computer to sleep. It actually worked for about 24 hours, but then it stopped working after a reboot. No changes to hardware or attached devices.
Very strange...
You said it brother, I am watching your videos for entertainment as you have some funny way of presenting faults and flaws and that is a skill besides you being very knowleadgable and a great hardware person. Thumbs way up for you >
Steve, did you forget that more RAM and a higher wattage PSU give you more FPS? It's like red cars have at least 10-15hp more xD
Carey Holzman once reviewed a cheap HP and it had a proprietary mobo, a proprietary case, zero expansion capabilities, used a laptop charger as a power source and the HDD wasn't plugged into the SATA cable.
Dell and HP are now firmly on the "Never Buy" list.
To be fair, never buy a pre-built gaming PC... from any manufacturer or integrator. They are almost universally a bad value, either due to lower quality components, inflated price or both... and that's not even mentioning build quality. Even the few that GN didn't outright hate, they could only recommend because BYOPC is insanely difficult due to supply shortages.
That said, Dell or HP for general home / standard business work? Those are typically solid choices. Remember they lease their business line PCs by the shit load... For all the complaints about "proprietary parts" in this video, I guarantee five years from now it will be far easier to source a 2nd hand replacement Dell Optiplex motherboard then it will to source a given Asus or Gigabyte board.
For me? Always have been.
You should add Alienware (which is just a Dell in different clothes) and Lenovo to that list.
I absolutely love this channel especially the rants from the crew I absolutely love! Its why I've bought so much stuff since I started watching in march, I'm going back for a mod mat and tool kit next!
“It’s either depressing or extremely funny”
Why not both?
I dare say it's easier to source parts and assemble yourself than to get a decent product from a pre-built. Either their ordering systems are terrible and confusing, they're scamming you with unwanted soft or misleading hardware descriptions, or jacking up prices because "the economy". There are so many good build tutorials. I STRONGLY encourage anyone looking for a new computer to take the plunge and build it yourself. You'll save money, maintain sanity, and get a sense of accomplishment for a job well done all while ending up with a reliable and serviceable machine.
Steve, as a manufacturing engineer, I have a hard time understanding your frustration with the font panel IO being on the main board. That’s VASTLY superior from a signal integrity, assembly, and quality perspective. The only down side is it means your cant have a standard form factor board, but that’s pretty uncommon in prebuilts, and the number of people that pull boards out of prebuilts is likely extremely low. I would wager, removing unneeded components like back plates saves considerable resources overall, even when taking into account the difficulty in reuse. Things like cables and connectors have costs higher than a slightly longer PCB, and I would estimate a considerable relative drop in resources and carbon by avoiding them. So for the likely well below 1% of machines that would end up being repaired, or having parts harvested, I still think the net impact is vastly positive overall. But a few good points otherwise, the proprietary PSU thing really grinds my gears.
I procured several Dell SFF machines for my old work directly from dell. ALL of them starting randomly bluescreen crashing (Dell equivalent diagnostic screen) with an error code, something about missing HDD (despite only having ssd's). Their error code diagnostic search was basically useless and always lead to contacting them. Our sales rep wanted to do a return but we couldn't suffer the down time, they were new staff PC's.
My enthusiast gut was telling me to reseat the M.2 ssd's and after a meeting and getting approval from management I did so. None of the PC's ever crashed again.