I had become enamored with one particular YouTuber, PaulSoaresJr, who was a major player in the Minecraft community. His tutorials in particular were beloved by his fans and he had a channel that was growing at a very fast rate. While he dabbled in other games, most of his content was centered on Minecraft and for a while, his "Survive and Thrive" series was even featured on the Minecraft website.
I did a little research into how people were recording their footage, something I had always wondered going back to the days when I'd watching video game shows on tv (when you could find them), and I always wondered how in the hell they captured the footage even as a child. Well, here I was at the age of 31 still trying to figure it out.
Obviously it's become much easier to do it these days. There are any number of programs that allow you to do it as well as actual capture-cards. I discovered that many were using FRAPS, which cost money, but seemed like the easy way to get into it.
There was one problem with this idea though: I did not have a functional computer at the time. My desktop had died about a year or so earlier (well, the hard drive died, the rest of the build went to my mom who did who knows what with it) and I had been without one since. I had not felt a need to have one since the desktop died as my phone was more than capable of internet browsing and I didn't play games on the PC, I played them on my consoles.
I was always a console gamer, from the early days of the NES forward and at this point, I had my Xbox 360 and Nintendo GameCube. I wasn't worried about gaming on a PC for those reasons alone. I know, some will call me a console pleb, but that's a discussion for another day.
I used the Xbox 360 edition of Minecraft to check out the game, decided I wanted to get the real experience, and took steps to actually go through with it. First step was to get a PC of some sort, which is where my lack of knowledge towards computers first came into play. I didn't think Minecraft needed a very powerful machine, so I didn't look for anything robust, just something that had familiar terms to me. Naturally, I latched on the name Nvidia, as I was convinced that meant it was good for games.
I found a Compaq Presario on eBay running for about $100 and managed to snag it (mistake number one). I found the cheapest headset I could and figured it had a mic and would be good enough (mistake number two). I bought the game, FRAPS, and decided Movie Maker would be good enough for editing (mistake number three). I then installed the game, opened up my first world, and started running around.
The first thing that became abundantly evident was that this laptop could barely run the game. Having no clue when it came to tech, I had purchased a laptop with an AMD Athlon Dual-Core processor and a GTX 8800m. They were both pretty bad and the game ran equally poor. Early glimpses of gaming footage was, well, rough.
The headset was even worse. When I did get the volume up high enough to be heard, there was an awful feedback that could be heard. I'm guessing this is the result of using a mic that was connected via a 3.5mm port, but to this day, I regret making that choice.
The game ran at roughly 20-30 frames per second on a good day. Once I hit record, it often dropped to 15-20 at best, at least until I installed Optifine and managed to tweak it just enough to get close to 25-30 during recording if there wasn't a whole lot going on. It looked pretty bad though and was a reminder that making a good choice in hardware is paramount to getting a good experience.
Additionally, the laptop was stupid loud when I played, which when mixed with my terrible headset audio, meant you could barely hear me most recordings.
I still went through with it full-speed ahead. Initially I probably tried to mimic PaulSoaresJr a bit too much (mistake number four), but even more I tried to do too many different types of series at one time (mistake number five). In a genre saturated with too many Minecraft videos, I just added to the pile. Tutorial videos seemed to do the best at times, but even those trailed off after a while.
Despite my lackluster quality, the channel grew somewhat quickly. I made a few tweaks to try and get the game running better (upgraded the memory) and added a better mic, the Audio Technica ATR2500 USB mic. My audio was leaps and bounds better once I figured out the finer points of adjusting the level, but it also opened the videos up to more background noise, aka the fans. I also moved on from Movie Maker when I went and bought Sony Vegas Movie Studio to edit my footage in.
The channel grew despite all my shortcomings and I quickly approached 100 subscribers on YouTube. I did occasional special videos, tried to do unique things, but the laptop was the limiting factor. As 2013 went by, I began to envision the idea of building a desktop PC specifically to run games and make my videos better.
Around this time, I came across a guy who now goes by JonOfAllGames. I began watching his livestream on Twitch, a platform I had only recently become aware of. He and his viewers were much more tech savvy than I was and while I had a few basic ideas, I still had no idea when it came to PC components. I knew of a few companies such as Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, but I was completely in the dark when it came to most everything else. I began doing research online, began picking the brains of people in his chat, and started to settle on what kind of PC I wanted to build.
I wish I had saved the listing that I originally posted on PC Partpicker, as I'm sure it was a doozy. I was still very new at the idea of picking components, and while PC Part Picker does tell you if parts are compatible or not, it doesn't necessarily mean the part you chose is the best for what you're doing. I do know it had an i7 4770k CPU as the foundation with a Gigabyte motherboard, and at some point I had a GTX 760 for my GPU and a Western Digital HDD for storage, but the build evolved a bit once Jon's chat became involved.
What I did know was I wanted to use tax money in 2014 to build it. It was going to get my channel jump-started, give viewers quality I could only dream of. I spent many nights plotting out each detail until I could barely stay awake. I revised the parts as I slowly started to learn more about them. I felt good about it.
Then my car needed tires and brakes. I no longer was going to be using tax money to build this PC.
I came up with a backup plan. The PC build was going to cost me around $1500, but if I could find a decent laptop for $500-700, I could get by with that until I could afford all the rest of the parts. The idea, in my head, was to buy a part on my credit card, pay it off, then buy another one. It was a sound idea in theory, one that life didn't let me go forward with (and probably for good reason).
I did find the laptop though. My ex came across a nice one on HP's website for an HP Envy. It had an AMD quad-core processor and a discrete GPU. It seemed on paper like a fairly modest bump in quality, and as it turned out, it was just that.
The improvement in video quality was very clear from the start. Instead of struggling to reach 25FPS, I was getting 45-60. The videos looked much smoother, plus I had figured out how to get rid of the annoying motion blur that Movie Studio incorporated by default. The quality was closer to where I wanted it to be, but could still be better. I continued to try to learn about making videos, continued to try and improve, and that meant more upgrades.
The Envy was a nice laptop compared to the Compaq Presario. It was faster, more powerful, but still had some serious fan noise, especially at any kind of load. Videos rendered much faster on the Envy, which saved me a tremendous amount of time. On the old laptop, a 720p 30fps video would take upwards of 6 hours to render out. On the Envy, render times dropped to 1-2 hours, even for a 720p 60fps video (once YouTube allowed 60fps uploads). My editing skills were still pretty lacking though and I had to learn to be better about what footage to keep and what to cut.
Meanwhile, I went out to Micro Center and purchased my Intel i7 4770k CPU and Gigabyte motherboard. I had the building blocks to my future build and figured it was only a matter of time.
Then I received notice I was being garnished by Capital One in October of 2014.
This not only wrecked my plans, it nearly ruined me overall. I was struggling to keep everything together. Our cell phones were turned off, rent was constantly late, the electric was adding up, and I was just trying to keep as much of it together as possible. I started selling off anything I felt I could get rid of. All my old consoles and games were sold to help pay bills. Things that I had held on to for years had to go. And those prized building blocks for my build? Sold on eBay to help keep everything together. It was one of the most stressful times of my life and I often felt like I just wasn't meant to do anything nice for myself (which sounds completely selfish). I gave up on the idea of building a PC and began focusing on fixing the financial problems instead.
2015 was a rough year personally, but I began to turn it around financially. Instead of building a PC, I made some small upgrade choices. I went and bumped the Envy's RAM to 16GB to help with editing and finally purchased high-quality headphones. I bought a USB hub and a web cam for when I randomly would livestream to Twitch. I switched to Adobe Premiere Pro for video editing to give myself better options when editing.
As the year went on, the number of videos declined. My child, who had been born shortly after I started YouTube, was now 2 and on the move. Personal things in my life made me determined to spend as much time with her as I could. I was convinced I couldn't do YouTube until I had better hardware and the time to actually do it, which meant it was going to be a while. I also realized that streaming was passing YouTube as a way to show your gaming prowess.
My focus drifted away from games and the communities around them. Hopes of playing with others faded as the year went on and I just didn't make time for it, instead focusing my energy on other things. I often feel I missed out on a big chance to do something more with gaming and the communities I've been around, but I made a choice to put my daughter first during this time period and couldn't justify doing something on the computer over spending time with her.
2015 drifted into 2016 and the work on my finances was starting to pay off. Our phones were back on, bills were caught up, and I hadn't missed a credit card payment in over a year. I was slowly getting myself into a position to start thinking about building a PC again, but this time I was going to do it right. I was going to research every part, watch every video possible, and make smart, informed decisions.
I began following tech reviewers like JayzTwoCents, Paul's Hardware, Hardware Canucks, Bitwit, and so many others. I watched people build computers, watched reviews on all kinds of products, and realized that if I had built a computer two years previously, it would've been a disaster. I knew nothing about keeping a CPU cool, the different graphics cards on the market, the RAM frequencies, what kind of power supply to get, what case would be best, and so on.
I knew nothing. I only the name of my processor. I didn't know what kind of motherboard I was getting. I didn't know how quickly I was outdating myself with a GTX 760. I didn't know how each component affected the build.
Now I was learning though. I now knew there were air coolers, all-in-one coolers, and custom loops. I knew that Nvidia graphics cards were more powerful, but more expensive than AMD cards. I knew that Intel CPU's were far better and multi-threaded tasks than AMD's processors. I knew that content creation relied on multi-threading to be as good as I needed it to be. I knew that more RAM at a better speed would be better for editing.
I began to study the different cases, the different motherboards, and the chipsets available. Terms like Z97, Z170, X99, and AM3 that once seemed so foreign were now familiar to me. I knew what CPU went with which board, what board was better for overclocking and what board was more entry-level. I understood what base clock, boost clock, and turbo boost meant.
I knew what different things on the motherboard did and instead of falling for fancy gimicks, began to decide what I wanted my build to have. I knew what kinds of hard drives I wanted as I learned the differences between NVMe, SSD's, and HDD's.
Instead of guessing, I now knew what I wanted to feature in my build. It helped that technology was advancing and I was now up to speed, but knowing was always half the battle. I was no longer relying on a company's box to figure out how to build my PC, but rather is what they're selling me actually fit?
I admittedly fell in love with a few things that directly steered my build in the path it was heading, but I knew what I wanted and began to formulate any number of build ideas based on budget.
Meanwhile, my Envy was at the end of its usefulness towards me as summer 2016 began. The most obvious mark of its limitations was when I tried to play Star Wars: Battlefront on it.
It failed spectacularly and that's when I decided that I needed to consider an upgrade to my laptop if I could find it. See, my credit limit had just been boosted from $300 to $1300 due to my paying on-time and I suddenly had money to play with, which is always a bad thing for my impulsive ass.
I began zeroing in on slight upgrades that would hopefully cost less than $700. I had an AMD-based Dell laptop fall into my laptop around that time, but the system was useless to me as it was not for gaming at all, so I figured if I could get $400, I was only really spending around $300-400. I eventually found my current laptop, the Acer Aspire Nitro, for around $600. It was a mild upgrade, but one I wanted as I had always become disenchanted with AMD due to issues I was having recording Minecraft all of a sudden using Dxtory (another mild upgrade that was given to me by a friend). I was trying to get away from AMD plus boost my gaming performance and this laptop fit the bill.
It had an i7 4720HQ CPU along with a GTX 960m, 16GB of RAM, and an M.2 boot drive. Upon using it for the first time, it put the Envy to shame all the way around. Minecraft was suddenly at 60fps with ease, SW: Battlefront was at 50-60fps at medium, as was Battlefield 1 when it came out. Simply put, it allowed me to play games at a decent level, record them well enough, and those 1-2 hour render times on the Envy? 30-45 minutes now, even at 1080p 60fps, which I couldn't even attempt to play at on the Envy.
Oh yeah, The Aspire allowed me to move into 1080p, which I couldn't do with the Envy, which became an issue when I decided to buy a 1080p display to use as a second screen. The Envy was past being useful, the Aspire fit the bill, and I moved on. It was actually the perfect "bridging the gap" PC until I could assemble my build.
My level of determination grew as the year came to a close. I knew I wasn't going to be behind on any bills, the tax money was coming, and I could use a PTO payout at work to give myself a nice bump in my bank account. I began looking not just at core parts, but peripherals. I had upgraded my web cam from a Logitech C615 to the popular C920 and my mic to the Audio Technica AT2020USB+ thanks to a fellow viewer of Jon's. I had a healthy love of Logitech products and zeroed in on their mice and keyboard lineup. I just needed the right sale and I was lucky enough to have a Logitech G910 keyboard and G502 mouse practically fall into my lap for far cheaper than they normally sell.
I immediately realized why people loved mechanical keyboards and what I had been missing not using a gaming mouse for so long. My excitement for the build grew and the parts began to fall into place.
I knew I was going with Intel's X99 platform. I wanted the extra cores for streaming and content creation and the 5820k was reasonably priced at Micro Center. The motherboard was trickier as there were so many options from so many companies, but I began to drift towards two of the offerings by ASUS. The Deluxe-II and A-II jumped to the top of my list as the reviews were solid and while the Deluxe-II was far more expensive, the A-II had all the features I required as well.
I knew I wanted an NVMe for a boot drive, at least one SSD for my games, and HDD's for file storage. I knew I wanted at least a GTX 1070 for my GPU and at least 650 watts for my power supply, as that's when the optional CPU became available, which is something X99 boards feature. I knew I wanted 32GB of RAM and an NZXT X62 Kraken cooler until I built a custom loop.
Settling in on what I wanted made deciding on specific products either. Many were decided early on and bought when they went on sale. The NZXT H440 was bought in December as part of a refurbished discount offer they had (although the H440 was littered with quality control problems). The Corsair RM850 was a refurbished unit from Micro Center for nearly half its normal price.
The memory was well under $200, which seems crazy now that RAM has skyrocketed in price. My NVMe was around $120 for a high-speed Samsung 256GB drive. My Samsung Evo SSD's were each bought for far less than their normal price. I already had a 2TB Seagate HDD from my failed build attempt and I added a 4TB when Newegg offered a sale for around $100.
It was all coming together and while the laptop purchase had been followed up by a near-crisis with the electric build, I was being far more careful with my money for these parts. I was buying when I had extra money and when products were on sale, which left me with wiggle room for bills and such.
I was also adding pieces to my overall setup. I bought a new chair with the first round of tax money and my new desk with the second round. I bought a light kit to improve video quality and a shotgun mic to improve audio when using my camcorder. My setup was coming together, the pieces were coming together, and eventually all that were left were the CPU, motherboard, and GPU.
At this point, we were still a month away from Ryzen dropping. Having decided I couldn't take the chance of being an early adopter of the CPU lineup from AMD, I stuck with my plan of Intel's X99 platform. Ryzen intrigued me though and I immediately decided if the chance came, I'd do a Ryzen build as well. I had hoped though that the various CPU's in the X99 chipset would fall in price by this point though. The better processors still started at around $550, which was simply too steep for me to consider. If the 6850k had dropped to closer to $400 by this point, I would've gone for it, but it didn't, so the 5820k ended up being the winner. However, I had to move fast as X99 boards were selling out fast. The Deluxe-II was no longer in stock, so I went with the A-II instead.
I then went and purchased the ASUS GTX 1070 Strix OC, partly because it was a well-reviewed board, but also because it would allow me to sync up the lighting effects on the board and GPU, which was a factor in my decisions.
I had all my parts and it was time to build the PC.
I had a few issues to deal with, but it was ultimately done and it booted, which was the most important part of the process. There were a few hiccups after the build was done of course. The GPU was originally faulty so I had to exchange it, which solved that problem. The case gave me issues when it came to the X62 Kraken as well as how to connect all my fans. The full list of issues can be seen in the video below.
The first bit of buyer's remorse had hit at this point. I had fallen in love with the H440 very early on and probably developed tunnel vision in regards to it. NZXT seemed to be a great company and reviews on the case were sparkling for the most part. But I had dealt with too many issues with the case, but more importantly, a lack of response from NZXT in regards to my issues. I had come across the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX tempered glass edition case and was in awe of it. THAT was what my build deserved, that was a case I could be proud of displaying my system in.
My god is it expensive. My god is this long.
Thankfully, Newegg had a sale. I went for it and began the process of cutting ties with NZXT products in my build. I also decided that if I was going to put my build into a case with tempered glass on both side panels, I should get some custom-sleeved power supply cables. That involved even more research as I had never even thought of going that route before. It was initially overwhelming, but I narrowed down what I wanted to do, found what companies could help me, and settled on CableMod. This was partly influenced by the fact that someone from CableMod reached out to me and assisted me completely through the process, even giving me some discounts in exchange for the business.
The black and white cables look great in the build, and coupled with some LED strips, have given my build a level of elegance I couldn't have achieved otherwise.
Once I had all the new pieces, I took my build out of the H440 and reassembled it in the Phanteks case. It was a relatively painless process, only complicated by my own inexperience with the case that I rectified fairly easily.
While the X62 Kraken is still in there (and will be for a while as building a custom loop will cost at least $400-600), I feel the build looks so much better in the Phanteks case. The lighting at the moment is just a simple transition from purple to blue, which looks stunning to me. Much like when I first used a mechanical keyboard, I get the hype behind tempered glass. From the right angle, it can look like there's nothing there to stop you from touching the components. The downside is it does show any kind of dust that gets in on the glass and needs to be cleaned fairly regularly, but it still looks stunning.
I mean, look at it.
Of course, I've already began plotting out an upgrade path as there are pieces I'd love to improve. I could always get faster RAM in a more neutral color (the red G Skill initially was a perfect fit in the black and red H440 case, but not so much with the new scheme), but I think in terms of components the first upgrades will be to the GPU and displays. I would go with the ASUS GTX 1080ti Strix, a 1440p display, and a 4k display for editing. Then once that's done, I'd feel better about going with a full custom water loop, which in theory would cool things even more and make my already quiet system even more quiet, especially under load (a downside to the tempered glass; the system is pretty loud once things ramp up, although very silent most of the time).
I also might get one of Phantek's Halo fan shrouds once available for the exhaust fan to add some color to the back of the case.
I also could use a better camera for filming as my Canon Vixia HF R50 is pretty bad. That's another $500-900 depending on quality, lenses, and other factors though, so we'll see if I can do that any time soon.
The history of this build is a long one that spans over 4 years, several revisions, and moments when it seemed it would never happen. Thanks for reading this very long-winded account of that journey. I look forward to seeing where this build, and my content creation, goes next.a
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