---
title: 'How To Build A Gaming PC! 🤗'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hj75_aDCpfw'
video_id: 'Hj75_aDCpfw'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 4558
---

# How To Build A Gaming PC! 🤗

> Source: [How To Build A Gaming PC! 🤗](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hj75_aDCpfw)

## Summary

Building a gaming PC can be stressful, but this guide walks you through the process step-by-step, from choosing compatible parts to assembling them safely. The video covers essential components, common pitfalls, and final setup, aiming to make the experience straightforward for beginners.

### Key Points

- **Video Overview** [0:02] — This is the definitive guide to building a gaming PC, covering compatibility, installation, and common mistakes.
- **Tools Needed** [2:27] — You'll need two Phillips cross-head screwdrivers (one smaller for SSDs) and possibly pliers for standoffs. Anti-static wristband is optional.
- **Eight Essential PC Parts** [3:56] — Case, motherboard, CPU, cooler, storage (SSD), RAM, graphics card, and power supply.
- **Case Selection: Airflow and Size** [4:12] — Good airflow is crucial; case size must match motherboard form factor (ATX, microATX, miniITX).
- **Motherboard and CPU Compatibility** [5:45] — Match socket (e.g., AM5 for AMD Ryzen). Check motherboard's supported CPU list and BIOS version.
- **CPU Recommendation** [6:44] — The Ryzen 7 9700X is a solid mid-range gaming CPU. For gaming, a balanced CPU-GPU pairing is key.
- **Cooler Advice** [8:22] — A budget air cooler (e.g., Arctic Freezer 36) often provides better value than an expensive liquid cooler for most builds.
- **SSD Storage** [9:32] — Modern games require an SSD (NVMe). A 1-2TB drive is recommended; hard drives are obsolete for gaming.
- **RAM Specifications** [10:48] — Go for 32GB DDR5 at 6000 MHz with CL30 latency for the best value.
- **Graphics Card Selection** [11:40] — Invest most in the GPU. For VRAM: 8GB for 1080p, 12GB for 1440p, 16GB for 4K. Avoid 8GB cards if possible.
- **Power Supply Sizing** [13:31] — Check GPU spec for minimum wattage, then add 100W headroom (e.g., 650W → 750W) for future upgrades.
- **Extra Fans: Budget Tip** [14:56] — Don't overspend on expensive fans; cheap fans (e.g., $10-$15 each) are sufficient for most builds.
- **Build Order: Motherboard First** [17:46] — Start by preparing the motherboard (CPU, RAM, SSD) on its box before installing it into the case.
- **Motherboard Handling** [18:39] — Avoid touching CPU pins; the CPU socket area is the most delicate part. Use RAM slots 2 and 4 for dual-channel.
- **Installing CPU** [22:48] — Lift the retention arm, place the CPU gently, close the arm. The plastic cover will pop off automatically.
- **Installing RAM and SSD** [24:43] — RAM: line up notch, push firmly until clicks. SSD: remove heat sink, install M.2 drive, reattach heat sink.
- **Motherboard Connections Overview** [28:38] — Key headers: CPU fan, power switch (front panel), chassis fans, RGB, USB, SATA, ATX power, CPU power.
- **CPU Cooler Installation** [32:54] — Remove stock brackets, install AMD mounting hardware, apply thermal paste (pea-size), attach cooler fan.
- **Liquid Cooler vs Air Cooler** [40:33] — Liquid coolers look better and help with high-end GPUs, but air coolers offer better value for most systems.
- **Installing Motherboard in Case** [43:08] — Align motherboard with I/O shield; secure with screws. Ensure standoffs are correctly placed for your motherboard size.
- **Installing Case Fans** [48:22] — Use 120mm or 140mm fans; note fan orientation (intake/exhaust) and cable management. Daisy-chainable fans simplify cabling.
- **Connecting Front Panel Cables** [51:20] — Connect USB, HD Audio, power switch (single block or individual pins), and RGB headers to motherboard.
- **Installing AIO Cooler in Case** [52:45] — Mount radiator to top of case, attach pump to CPU with thermal paste, connect pump and fan cables to motherboard/hub.
- **GPU Installation** [55:46] — Remove PCIe slot covers, insert graphics card into top PCIe x16 slot, secure with screws. Connect power cable(s).
- **PSU Installation and Cable Management** [59:07] — Install PSU (fan facing down for most cases), connect ATX, CPU, GPU, SATA power cables. Leave slack for future adjustments.
- **Test Before Final Cable Tidy** [69:57] — Power on the system first; if it boots to BIOS, then proceed with cable management to avoid rework.
- **Common Display Mistake** [71:08] — Always plug monitor into the graphics card, not the motherboard. If using a TV, ensure it supports the BIOS signal.
- **First Boot and BIOS Setup** [72:02] — Press F1 to enter BIOS, enable EXPO for RAM speed, tune fan curves to silent, then install Windows via USB.

### Conclusion

Building a gaming PC is a rewarding process that requires careful part selection, methodical assembly, and patience. With the right guidance, even beginners can successfully build a powerful gaming rig.

## Transcript

How do you build a gaming PC? It's the
age-old question and it's one that
causes quite a lot of stress. It's a lot
of money to spend on different PC
components. Even if you go for a more
budget friendly system and the last
thing you want to do is break something
or just find that you put it together
and it doesn't work. The good news is
though, you've got me. And this is the
single video that we've ever done
doesn't really make any sense. This is
definitely the best video we've ever
done to give you the clearest possible
guide through all of the ins and the
outs, all of the intricacies, all of the
tiny little pins. And we're going to
show you exactly why everything we have
here works together. We'll be talking
about compatibility, but we'll be
showing you as in clearest detail as
possible, how to put everything in all
of the relative places, how to do so
without damaging anything or making any
mistakes, and obviously to helping you
get the best possible rig possible.
We've actually made a couple of little
mistakes in here that would be really
easy to make. and we're going to show
you exactly what they are and how to
prevent them in your build and just get
the best possible gaming PC. I'm also
going to say as well that whilst we have
chosen parts that go really well
together as well, we're also going to
leave links down in the description
below not only to current pricing but
also to some like parts from other
different price points as well because
obviously not everyone wants to spend I
think this one was about £1,600 but as
you'll see we could do this for as low
as like £1,200 1250. If you want to
spend more, you want to spend less
obviously we've got loads of different
recommendations. So, you can find those
all listed down below. But actually,
speaking of PC parts, this video is
proudly sponsored by Overclockers UK in
the UK. And essentially, Overclockers
are one of the best places to go for PC
parts. They have such an enormous list
of stock as well. So, you might find
that if you go on other sites, they're
going to have like some of the maybe
like the Ryzen CPUs or like some of the
cases, but if you really want the best
possible selection, you need to go to a
PC retailer and Overclockers UK. We've
been working with them for years.
They're fantastic. They also offer next
day delivery as well. even if you order
relatively uh late into the day or
afternoon, which is really useful if
you're putting something together and
you realize you're missing like a couple
of fans or uh you've just made a mistake
on your order. Really, really useful.
And you often get some Haribo as well in
the box, which is a nice little bonus.
Massive thank you to Overclockers UK for
sponsoring this video. Everything that
you find here is listed down below with
Overclockers UK links, as well as other
global stores as well. We're aware not
everyone lives in the UK, but let's now
enter the realm of PC gaming and get
this thing started. is incredibly
exciting and I really hope that you can
follow along at home. Now, the first
thing that you're going to need to do is
just make sure obviously you grab
everything that you need, including all
of the parts, but then also your tools.
And the good news is is very
straightforward. Most builds you
probably need two screwdrivers. Both are
Phillips cross heads. One is slightly
smaller than the other. This is going to
be used for things like plugging and
screwing your motherboard in, like
installing fans, whilst this one is just
going to be used for putting your
storage in your tiny little SSD. Now,
some rigs, most of them not, but some
rigs sometimes you need some pliers if
you've got a screw that needs kind of
like we say screw, it's a standoff, but
we'll walk you through what a standoff
is a little bit later. Sometimes they
need a little bit of a tighten or
sometimes you need to move them around.
Pliers are quite useful. As I say, most
of the time you won't need these, but
these are pretty much the only three
tools you need. A lot of people are also
worried about static and obviously it's
a fantastic idea if you want to have
like an anti-static wristband that's
kind of attached to the chassis cuz it
can ground you. I'm not specifically
going to recommend for or against that.
All I'm going to do is say that I've
built probably like 100 PCs in this very
room and I've never done it. And as far
as I know, I've never had an issue. That
doesn't mean you won't. If you want to
feel more comfortable you by using some
anti-atic protection, that's fantastic.
But all I'm saying is I haven't. I don't
and I haven't had an issue. But as I
say, it's a lot of expensive gear. So I
understand if you want to. My first rig
I did. Choosing parts. I've done a full
video on this that goes through
everything in much greater detail. And
if you haven't watched that, I highly
recommend that you do because choosing
your PC parts is incredibly important
because it means you're getting great
value for money and that everything will
be properly compatible. You can find
that video in the top right corner of
your screen. Honestly, really, really
good. Hopefully, by the end of it,
you'll be an expert on everything PC
parts. But a quick recap if you haven't
or you need a recap. Essentially, it's
kind of eight different PC parts that
you need for a full completed rig. You
can obviously go for more than this and
we are doing it here today, but
typically you need eight things to make
sure that your gaming PC works. The
first one is a case. Obviously, this is
got everything and it's going going to
go inside it. The key thing really you
need to worry about here or think about
I suppose is air flow. If you have a
really closed off case, then you might
find that it's a lot harder to get your
temperatures nice and low because it's
harder for air to enter or exit the
case. But then the other thing really is
just the size. if you want to have it on
your desk. Obviously, be aware that
large dual chamber cases take up a lot
of space. But then also size for the
motherboard. You can't go for a tiny
little case and then put a fulls size
motherboard in it. But likewise, you
can't well you can, but it would look a
little bit silly if you want for a
massive case and put a small motherboard
inside it. Now, we have different sizes
and these will be listed for your case.
And the different sizes are ATX,
microATX, or miniITX. This is a full
size ATX motherboard. that's going to be
the best bet for most people because
it's got loads of sockets on it, loads
of ports, and most cases are ATX these
days. But typically, if you want to step
down and go for something smaller, most
people probably go for ITX and build
like a really small rig, but especially
if you're building a budget friendly
system, you can get MATX, MicroATX, get
a slightly smaller case, and then you
can save a bit of money here as well.
The downside though is that you don't
always get the full four RAM slots,
which is useful for upgrading. But then
just because it's a smaller motherboard,
there's usually less on it, which
doesn't necessarily matter to most
people. But if you want to put loads of
different PCIe devices and just have the
flexibility of maybe like loads of SSDs
and things, you are limited a bit more
by physical space. I will add, by the
way, that obviously we are going to
spend the next few minutes going through
all of the parts. If you think you
already know this and just want to skip
ahead to the process, use the timestamps
on the video that can take you to the
exact bit that you need or just skip
ahead to the bit where we actually build
it. But what I was going to say is that
this motherboard is an AMD motherboard.
You get AMD and Intel. And the best way
of knowing compatibility really is to
have a look at the socket. So this is an
AM5 compatible motherboard, which means
the processors that's going to go inside
this are AM5. Now, to doubly check that
your processor is compatible, I'd always
choose the processor first, then look at
the motherboards and just go on the
manufacturer's website and it will say
supported CPUs, and then assuming you've
got the latest BIOS update, this CPU
will be compatible with the motherboard.
The reason I add that last bit is
because here we're using a B650e
motherboard because this is around about
£100 cheaper than the newer B850
equivalent. But the only downside
really, other than losing USB 4 and
having slightly slower Wi-Fi really on
this particular board, is that you will
need to do a BIOS flash, a BIOS update
in order to actually get this to work. I
know this is starting to sound a little
bit complicated, but genuinely, I think
that's probably the most complicated
thing about the whole build. So, you can
relax. Everything else is much simpler.
Obviously, to pair with this, you are
going to need a CPU. And as I say, I
would pick this first. The one we're
using here is pretty much in a good way
the most middle- of the road high-end
gaming CPU you can get. It's really easy
to recommend for basically any system.
This is a Ryzen 7 9700X. Obviously, this
is from AMD. Most builds at the time of
filming that I do are AMD just because
the Ryzen CPUs at the moment are kind of
just geared towards gaming and give you
better value. But having said that,
there certainly are reasons to go for
Intel, especially if you go for like a
14th gen chip or if you're watching this
in the future, maybe Intel Core Ultra 2
has got like amazing gaming performance
and great value as well. But it doesn't
matter too much which way you go as long
as you know what you're buying into. I'd
always recommend having a look at the
benchmarks and things of different video
games to ensure that you're getting the
right chip for you. But obviously the
core count of the CPU is going to be
different depending on the one that you
go for. So the more money you spend
quite often the more cores you get. But
then you can buy like gaming CPUs like
the 7900 or 7800 I should say and the
9800 X3D. These are the best for gaming
as long as your graphics card is really
good as well. Again, there's no point
spending like £500 on a CPU and then
£300 on a graphics card. You be much
better off doing it the other way round,
but typically you need about eight
cores. You could get away with six for
gaming, especially on a budget friendly
system. And at the time of filming, any
more than that doesn't make masses of
difference, but if you're watching this
in 3 years time, it might be a different
story. You probably noticed that the box
for the CPU though is very, very small.
There's no cooler inside this particular
one. Budget friendly chips usually come
with something very small that you can
use. It's called a stock cooler. It's
fine for like getting you by, but if you
want something that's much quieter and
unlocks the full performance of a lot of
the chips, you need something third
party. Now, this is very overkill.
Remember when I said I was going to make
some mistakes, if you like throughout
this video potentially, it's to go for
something like this. This is a massive
360 liquid cooler. It's going to look
awesome. It's going to fill up our case.
It's going to give you great thermal
performance and low noise for your CPU.
But if you're trying to save as much
money as possible and really kind of
like pump up the FPS, then instead of
going for a liquid cooler, I'd usually
recommend that most people go for, he
says, trying not to drop stuff, one of
these. This is Arctic Freezer 36 ARGB.
It's my personal favorite cooler cuz in
terms of value for money, this is often
around about like 30 35 or dollars, even
with the ones with the RGB. And it's
actually suitable for most gaming CPUs.
It's going to be nice and quiet, going
to run relatively cool as well, and it's
going to all you need. So, ask yourself,
does it really make sense to be spending
like a extra $100 or $100 plus on
something like this when that could go
towards a better graphics card, and I'll
get a more noticeable improvement in
games. There's not necessarily a right
or wrong answer, but I'd probably say
most people would be better off with
this. But, we're going to install both
throughout this video, again, just to
show you the differences and well, how
to install both. Obviously, you're also
going to need to grab yourself some
storage or an SSD. Now, if you already
have like existing drives, so maybe like
an old school SATA SSD or like a hard
drive from yesterday year, then
obviously you can bring that across if
you want. But the benefits with this is
it's so much faster. In fact, a lot of
games these days won't actually work on
a hard drive at all cuz you need a
decent readr speed just to have all the
assets and things load in properly. But
then because there's no moving parts,
you won't have any like horrible
vibrations or anything in your system.
The downside is obviously they're a fair
bit more expensive, but in this day and
age, no one really installs Windows on a
hard drive. I mean, you might have done
like 10 years or so ago. Just grab
yourself an SSD. They're much cheaper
these days as well. This is a relatively
speaking quite a high-end one. This is a
Samsung 990 Pro, but typically you can
get something decent for around about
£60 or dollars or so. So, that can save
you about £30, but these are often on
sale and are pretty easily to recommend
to be honest. Other thing to note as
well is obviously the capacity of the
drive. It's very easy to add more at a
later date. So, I would always kind of
go for a lower capacity drive and spend
money on like other bits of your PC to
again just get you the best possible
performance. But particularly if you
have like really slow internet, that's
when having like a two or 4 TB SSD might
come in handy so you don't need to keep
like deleting games and reinstalling
them. But a terabyte or two is going to
be the best bet for most people. Then we
also need our RAM. Random access memory
is very easy for gaming PCs these days.
Typically, everyone wants to go for 32
GB. You want to get a speed of 6,000 MHz
and you want to find one that says CL30
on it. Now, that is the latency and
obviously that is the speed. The faster
the memory in theory, the better the CPU
performance can be, but there's a sweet
spot really where you start to spend
more money and you don't really gain any
extra performance. That's kind of over
6,000 MHz. And because most people are
buying 6,000 MHz memory, the pricing on
this is usually pretty good. I think at
the time of filming this one was £110.
You can get away with 16 gig, but it
should be advised that pretty much all
PCs these days are DDR5. So, if you have
older memory that says DDR4 on it, you
can't carry this across. You can't put
it in this system and upgrade it. Sadly,
it's not going to work. So, you will
have to buy some new DDR5 RAM. Oh, and
then I can't believe we left this this
long. The graphics card. Obviously, the
most exciting bit of any gaming PC and
always the thing that you should pump as
much money in to as possible. I mean,
the best way for choosing PC parts is to
pick a graphics card first, then find a
CPU that will kind of pair with it. You
want to make sure that the frame rates
of the two kind of line up really, so
again, you're not spending far too much
money on one and then not enough on the
other. But with the graphics card, you
do also need to be aware that obviously
you can buy an AMD or an Nvidia GPU.
They typically vary in the sense that
Nvidia has better software, but they
often charge a price premium. And in the
case of the RTX 5070, you don't actually
get as much VRAM on that. you get a 12
GB VRAM buffer, which again probably
sounds a little bit confusing. The cheat
sheet way of knowing is that an 8 GB
card should be okay for 1080p. 12 gig
should be fine for 1440 or quad HD
gaming and then 16 gig for 4K. However,
that's not like an absolute. And the
problem is that a lot of graphics cards
these days are coming with 8 GB of VRAM,
so things like the 50/50 or the 5060 for
instance. But then that already means
you're having to turn down settings
today when you bought the graphics card
because you've got enough power to run
the games, let's say, at the frame rate
and the settings that you want, but you
don't have enough memory or VRAM on the
card itself. And obviously, this is only
going to get worse over time. So, we
don't actually recommend most people go
for an 8 GB card unless you really are
on a budget or maybe you're getting
something used, for instance. That's not
to say you absolutely categorically
should not do it, but it's definitely
worth spending a little bit more to buy
like a 16 GB graphics card. So, this one
is a 5060 Ti. It comes in eight and 16.
We would always recommend people get the
16 cuz ultimately this is a card that's
going to last a lot longer. Remember
what I said I was going to give you a
quick overview of all these components.
Well, I've been a lot more thorough than
I thought I was going to be. Hopefully,
it's useful. But definitely with the
GPU, if you don't watch anything else,
watch this video up here that explains
how to buy a graphics card because
there's so much more to think about and
it's the most important thing in your
gaming PC. But last, but certainly not
least, we have this, the power supply.
And I'll be honest, it's pretty boring,
but it is really important. This
essentially gets your mains electricity
and then converts it to the voltages
that all of the different components
needs. Now, the easiest way to buy this
is actually just to go on your graphics
card specification sheet online, and
this will give you a minimum PSU
requirement. And this will tell you what
nine out of 10, probably more, uh,
people should be buying essentially. So,
if this says you need a 650 W power
supply, you can get a 650 and everything
should work because this is like going
to assume that you've got like a really
powerful CPU. So, it's giving you a
little bit headroom. So, you can get
away with something smaller. But
actually, for most people, I recommend
doing the opposite and to go for
something a little bit oversp spec. So,
if it says 650, maybe get a 750. If it
says 750, get an 850. And the reason for
this is just because chances are you're
probably going to upgrade your system at
a later date to a new graphics card. And
usually you end up spending a little bit
more on that component. And if you have
to buy a new power supply again just to
accommodate it is pretty frustrating and
there's not often that much difference
maybe like 30 $40 uh between a 750 and
an 850 for example. But it is a genuine
mistake that a lot of people make is
that they go out and buy like a really
high-end power supply that they don't
need and again then they have to maybe
step down to a cheaper CPU or a cheaper
GPU to compensate. So buy the right
power supply but if you've got a little
bit extra budget then yes step it up by
100 W would be my advice. Oh, and then
ladies and gentlemen, I think we are now
ready to actually get started. You
probably noticed though how I haven't
mentioned these, which are some extra
fans because these obviously are not
vital to your gaming PC. Most cases will
actually come with some as standard.
This is actually my favorite case. This
is the NV5 V2. And as you can see, it
doesn't come with any. So, we are going
to add some. But the biggest mistake
that a lot of people make with a gaming
PC is to be honest, it's buying things
like this. Now, to be clear, this is a
good product. I like these. They're very
good fans. But these fans cost more than
the case for a pack of three fans. I
know they're going to look great. I know
they're easily controllable and we'll be
using them today. But if you're on a
budget or you're really just trying to
maximize FPS, I would advise going for
some cheaper fans and just turning them
down. It might not look quite so pretty.
But again, you're going to be looking at
your monitor anyway and getting a higher
frame rate. So, the two packs of fans
that we have here today cost around
about £220. So, it's very easy to take a
lot of money off this rig uh just by
going for cheaper fans or not even
necessarily populating all of them. I
mean, you could see what thermals you're
going to get. I probably wouldn't
recommend it, but obviously you will
have a CPU cooler in here that will be
moving air around. So, you might find
that you don't actually need anything,
but you can get fans quite cheap for
like $10 $15 each and just get a couple
and you know, you'd be fine. Other
reason as well that I wanted to use
these is just to show you that they come
in different flavors. So, these are
LX120s RGB and then this one, you notice
has that R in the name. Now, that stands
for reverse blade. If you're going for
high-end fans that have got like a
pretty side and an ugly side, then
because obviously it's only going to be
on one side of the fan, uh sometimes you
need to buy R or reverse blade just so
they look right in your rig. So, for
example, here we're going to use this
bit, this side as an intake. And for
most fans, that would mean you'd see the
back of the fan. So, that's why you want
the reverse blades. So, the reverse side
is the pretty bit. Got that? I mean, if
you're not building a gaming PC without
reverse blade fans. Oh, are you even a
real gamer? That's a trick question. The
answer is yes. Oh, but now, ladies and
gentlemen, comes the bit where the party
really gets started. The time to build
has begun. And there's not necessarily a
right or wrong order or way to actually
put everything together, but there's
definitely quite a few things you can do
just to make your life easier to speed
it up and just to save you a mess and a
headache. The first one really is to
make sure you're building in an area
with lots of light. There's some tiny
little labels you're going to have to
look at throughout this. And if it's
especially if it's inside the black
case, if you've in a dark gingy space,
it's going to make it a lot more
difficult. You'd be like flying around
with a torch. Not ideal. The other thing
is just to make sure the space that
you're building on is large. We're going
to be opening quite a lot of boxes, some
of them all at the same time. So, you
don't want to kind of end up with like
some cables in the wrong box or screws
going back to the wrong place. It can
get confusing. It's a nice big area. And
as you open a box, once you're done with
it, do put it away neatly. I know I'm a
bit guilty of not always doing that, but
practice what I preach, not necessarily
what I do, but I'm going to be on best
behavior in this video, so don't worry
about it. The other thing, and I think a
lot of people would be kind of making a
beline towards their case, and this
would be the first thing that they would
be getting ready, but we don't actually
need to touch this at all until we've
got our motherboard ready because it's a
lot easier to start on top of the box
cuz we can access everything. We can see
everything. And then the other thing as
well is if you can build with someone
else there, obviously ideally someone
that's done it before, but even two
people that haven't done it, it's going
to be a lot easier because you're both
going to be able to see things that the
other person hasn't seen. You can double
check the connections and if someone
does something wrong, there's obviously
a higher chance that someone will notice
and go, "Oh, no, no, you've put that in
the wrong place." We walk you through
some of the easy mistakes, as I say,
throughout this video, including the
ones that I did for my first ever gaming
PC. You'll notice that this is in quite
a loud bag. This is an anti-static bag.
And again, I've not really had any
issues with damaged components. But if
you get something out of an anti-static
bag and you ever need to put it like
back away, put it back in the bag. Don't
leave it on the bag cuz that that's not
going to do anything. But this is what
your motherboard looks like. And again,
will come in different sizes. This is
the full size ATX. A microATX kind of
cuts off here. So it's like 2/3 of a
board, whereas ITX would literally just
be this here. So again, most people want
a fulls size board, full size case.
Certainly for your first build, it makes
everything a lot easier. But the main
areas you do need to be aware of. You
can see I'm you are able to handle it.
Don't obviously throw it around, but
don't be too scared to kind of like pick
it up and look at bits and bobs. As long
as you don't drop it, you should be
fine. This is the really delicate area
underneath this cover. This is where
your CPU is going to go. It will have
some pins. If you touch any of these
pins or dare I say accidentally drop
something on the pins, there's a high
chance your motherboard can break. This
is by far the most delicate bit of the
whole build. Uh this is where our RAM is
going to go. You'll see we have four
slots on this, but again, smaller
motherboards sometimes have two, which
is a bit annoying if you want to upgrade
it at a later date. While you're here, I
would actually recommend that you open
up slots two and four. These are the
ones that we're going to use. It would
be very tempting to kind of put them
directly next to the CPU. You'd actually
be getting half the speed if you do
that. So, open them up. Now, you want
two and four. This is where your
graphics card is going to go in this
slot here. This is called a PCIe slot.
They have different speeds. Currently,
we're on PCI generation 5. Now, you'll
probably not notice this, but this is
actually a heat sink for the SSD. This
is where our drive is going to sit.
We're going to open this up and it can
go under there. But then we also have a
few other bays here as well for extra
drives if we want to upgrade it in the
future. But generally speaking, you
always want to use this top slot as it
should be the fastest speed available.
Editor Cole should now cut to the lovely
B-roll that we took earlier of the IO or
the input output. And this shows all of
the ports that we have on this
particular motherboard. And you may
notice as well that we have Wi-Fi.
Remember I said earlier, newer
motherboards with more bandwidth
typically have a better Wi-Fi standard.
But this only really matters if you've
got a router that's the same standard or
it's not going to necessarily be any
faster. But a lot of cheaper
motherboards don't have Wi-Fi at all. So
I would highly recommend that if you are
going to use Wi-Fi that you get a
motherboard that's a little bit more
expensive that has it from the off
because otherwise you have to buy an
add-in card and by the time you've done
that it might even end up more expensive
than just buying a decent motherboard in
the first place. Depending on what and
how you're going to use your
motherboards, you might also need some
of the other bits inside the box. This
is the Wi-Fi antenna. This is going to
connect to these little gold connections
here. But underneath this, you'll
probably find that you're going to have
a manual. And if you've ever read a
manual in your life, I mean, we're only
talking like five, six pages. It's
probably this because this is going to
walk you through where to plug
everything in. Uh the dos and the
don'ts. And if you do ever have a
problem, if you have like a error, maybe
it's a LED, maybe it's like a number on
the motherboard depending on what you
buy. This should tell you how to fix the
problem. So, I don't often need a look
at this, but even these days, sometimes
if I get a weird bug or error, it's
always worth checking in your
motherboard. Again, everything's very
small as well. All the text is small on
the motherboard. It should be easier to
read on this. That aside, though, you
also find you get some like welcome
stuff that obviously you really don't
need. Uh, these are SATA cables. These
are going to be used if you have like an
older SSD or like a hard drive or
something. Chances are you probably
already got these though if you're
moving them from an old rig. But if you
buy a hard drive, you will need one of
these plugged in for data. We've got
some cable ties. Be useful to get
everything tidy. Got an SSD screw there.
Couple of M.2 pads if you're using like
the lower down slots and things. Thermal
pad. Most of these things you're not
going to need cuz I mean, case in point,
I didn't actually know what was in this
box. And I've been using this
motherboard for about 3 years. But let's
close this up, grab our motherboard, and
then properly get our party started. And
as I say, it's going to be a little bit
nerve-wracking, but hopefully you will
have fun. And if at any point you get
stressed, I've said this a million times
and it always sounds like I'm like
making some British joke. I'm dead
serious. Take a time out. Just go and
sit somewhere for like 15 minutes with
like a cup of tea or a cup of coffee if
you really want to do that, just cuz it
should calm you down because it's very
stressful. And if something isn't
plugging into the bit that you think it
is, or maybe like you're getting some
weird boot errors or something if your
PC is not working, sometimes it's just
nice to have a clear head. just take a
time out. I promise every single time I
get in that situation and I do it, I'm
so thankful that I have, but hopefully
you shouldn't need to do that because it
is actually pretty straightforward. So,
the first thing we're going to do is
actually install our CPU. So, remember
this is our cover. We don't need to take
this off. This will automatically remove
when we put our chip inside. So, what we
can do is grab our Ryzen 7, and then
with what I'd describe as a normal
amount of force, just gently open this
up, leave it to one side for a second,
and then we're going to have to lift
this little cover or this retention arm
like so. And then we're going to
actually lift up the flap here. And this
is where obviously all of the pins are
now exposed. Please don't drop anything
in there. Please don't touch it. It
would be so incredibly sad cuz you'd be
saying bye-bye to your rig. And you do
not want to do that. But the good news
is this is pretty much the only ultra
sensitive bit of the whole process. You
can pick up your processor and you can
have a look at it. I wouldn't advise
touching it any more than you need to,
but you see like you can and it's not
going to spontaneously combust. But
definitely try to be a little bit more
careful of the backside of it because
you don't want oils and things to go on
here. But again, it's not the absolute
end of the world if it does. But this is
by far the most sensitive bit. Be very
careful. But just drop this into place.
So you can see here it's almost in, but
that's okay. I just gave it a slight
nudge and then it will kind of clip
itself into position. To get this secure
though, obviously we need to push this
flap downwards. Kind of catch it a
little bit with this lever. And then
you'll notice this starts to ping off.
That is according to plan. You just part
this back. Make sure that this does then
remove and make sure that this is
properly inside. Carl can show the clip
now of the only time I haven't managed
to do this properly. You lift up your
motherboard and this will happen. True
stories. Could have just rushed. True
stories. Could have just rushed.
How did that happen? Which I'll be
honest, wasn't very fun. And it won't be
very fun if it's your CPU. So, get it
secure. With that complete, then as I
say, just tidy as you go. But I'm really
pleased to say that the most sensitive
bit has been undertaken. So,
congratulations. Give yourself a pat on
the back. But now we can press on to
some easier stuff. So, we're going to
move on to the RAM or the random access
memory. And you're going to get two
different sticks, two different dims.
You can use just one, but you'll be
getting half the speed. But unless
you're buying a really high-end like
thread ripper system, if you buy four,
it's not going to increase the speed. It
will just increase the capacity. Now,
remember, as I say, this is DDR5. This
is a DDR5 motherboard. Make sure that
they match or it's physically not going
to fit, and you'll be very sad. But it's
very straightforward in these slots that
we've already opened up. So, two and
four. Just make sure that this lines up
with this little notch here. DDR5, it's
almost in the middle, which is a bit
annoying. So, you might have to give it
a little wiggle until you actually get
it in place. And then obviously pick up
the second stick. This one should be
easier because you know which way it
actually goes in. It's very satisfying
actually plugging in RAM. You get that
proper thud. But the important bit is to
make sure that these have actually gone
back all of the way. Sometimes they'll
be on the top and the bottom. This one
just has them on the top. So a dead
giveaway if it's not inserted properly.
It might look something like that. Look,
which you might not notice, but you do
need to give it a proper push until that
clicks in all the way. It's subtle, but
if it's not pushed in all the way, then
your PC might not boot and you might be
really confused. And it's also sometimes
confusing because whilst it should say
RAM error, sometimes it doesn't actually
say RAM error, it might say like CPU or
something. You like, why why is my CPU
not working?
>> But it's actually just the RAM. But that
that's rare. As I say, as long as you've
plugged everything in properly, you
should be fine. Then we can press on to
our SSD. And again, this one's quite
high-end. You can go for a cheaper one
that will give you very similar I was
going to say very sim similar
performance. I mean, it is similar
enough anyway. But in terms of what
you're actually going to notice when
you're using your PC and loading games,
yes, definitely very similar. But we can
just open this one up. Look. And you
will notice that this thing is
absolutely tiny. It always blows my mind
actually just how small these are. I
mean, it's kind of like the size of your
index finger, which is pretty cool. But
this is the point where you're going to
need to grab that smaller size
screwdriver. And we're just going to
open this up. Look, just by unscrewing
these two screws. This should then
remove. And don't look at this, guys.
This is the thermal pad. Remember, we
had a spare one in the box. This is why
because I've used this board like 10,
11, 12 times, and this is getting more
and more mangled. But yours will look a
lot nicer than this. And we'll have a
little peel. You just take this off. And
then this thermal pad just helps the
heat go from the SSD into the heat sink.
And then obviously the fans in your
system will then help help to kind of
blow that heat away. But make sure you
take that peel off just so you're
actually getting it to do something.
then you can pick up your SSD. Some of
them will be double-sided. This is more
down to the capacity. This is one
terabyte, so it's not. But it's worth
noting that if you're having a like
really high capacity SSD, may well be
worth going for one that actually has a
heat sink built into it because then
you're covering both sides of the SSD.
But some high-end motherboards,
especially newer ones, do have
double-sided heat sinks these days. But
this literally just pushes down. Just
need to move this catch. Look. And then
move that so that it's secured into
position. And then we can pick this up
again. And then just gently lay this
over those holes and then screw that
back into position. And then once you've
done that, the good news is that your
motherboard is actually pretty much
ready to go in your chassis depending on
whether you're using an air cooler or
using a all-in-one liquid. But before we
do that, I think it's going to be a lot
more useful to kind of walk you through
the motherboard and what you're looking
at really and what you're going to need
to connect things to so you understand
it. And the best way of doing this
obviously would be to look in your
motherboard manual if there's any name
or anything there that you don't kind of
know if you need it or what it does. Uh
that should tell you. But for a little
bit of quick insight essentially, you'll
notice obviously there's a lot of stuff
here. So we've talked about the CPU
socket, the RAM, the M.2, and then these
PCIe expansion slots. So this one is
where your graphics card is going to go.
Uh but if you got like a Wi-Fi card or
like a capture card for gaming or
something like that, uh then it will
connect to one of these ones here.
They're different sizes which have
different speeds. Uh but there's loads
of these tiny little pins dotted
throughout that you kind of do need to
use. So the most important one, well
most important two I'd say are these two
up here. These are for your CPU fans. So
when you connect your cooler, you're
going to connect to these. If
something's not connected, your PC uh
won't usually boot into Windows. It will
give you an error because it doesn't
want to cook itself. So this will send
power to your fan and then the fan will
spin up. And the clever thing about it
is is that it can kind of read the CPU
temperature and adjust the speed
accordingly because you don't want your
fans to be running 100% all of the time.
Could be really annoying. It's like the
compressor in your fridge, right? If
your fridge is making that really loud
noise all of the time, be pretty
annoying, but it only does that every
now and then when it needs to. Now, the
other thing is down the bottom here.
This is where we're going to plug in our
power switch to the case. So, this is
obviously what makes this button turn
your PC on. And if you don't connect
this up, the buttons quite literally not
going to do anything. All it is is a
little gate essentially. So when you
press it down, the signal can go from
one pin to the other. So if you're ever
testing whether the button on your case
uh works or not, you can just grab a
little screwdriver and then where are
they? These these two here. You can just
press these together and then in theory
your PC should turn on. That's
essentially what the button does. But
you notice that there's quite a few
different things here as well. Typically
you won't be using like the right of
this. You just use uh these four here on
the left. So, you've got your power
switch, power LEDs, uh, hard drive LEDs,
and then your reset switch. One of the
most common things, and the first thing
that I did in my first ever gaming PC,
don't be ashamed if this happens to you,
is that I plugged my power switch into
the power LEDs. So, sure enough, when I
turned on the PC, nothing happened.
That's when I got really upset. That's
when I needed to go and take a timeout.
I was like, "Oh, why didn't I just buy a
Dell or an Alienware?" But, it was
actually a very easy thing to remedy.
So, yes, don't get your power switch
confused with your power LEDs. But all
of the text here you see is very small
which is why I recommend the motherboard
manual. But then most rigs you're also
going to be plugging in more fans.
They're called chef fan chassis fan. We
also have these RGB headers as well. So
you've got a four pin which is kind of
old school fans or old school callers.
But most of them are these three pin
addressables. So we've got one here and
then two more down the bottom. But this
is going to vary depending on the
motherboard. So if you buy a lower-end
motherboard, it might have less of these
or potentially none. It was all down to
the board. So obviously check before you
buy anything. You also have USB. These
are USB 2.0, so they're slow, but fine
for most fan controllers or if you're
using like a fancy cooler uh and your
motherboard can control it, then they're
going to plug in down here. We've got
much faster USB, and this is usually for
the front panel of your chassis. You've
got USBC. Annoyingly, this actually
isn't a USBC port, which would be
better, but that turns into USBC. And
then this is the USB 3. So, that blue
one on the front of your chassis uh will
plug in down here. And then this one
here, that's called AAFP. I guess that
stands for analog audio front panel, but
most motherboards it will say HD audio.
Uh, this is if you're going to plug in
an old school pair of headphones or an
analog headset into your case. Again,
this is what sends that sound signal
between the case and the board. Uh, you
also have some SATA ports. You're
getting less and less on new boards as
well. So, if you're plugging in a hard
drive or again using like an old school
SSD, uh, these will plug in down here.
But do remember that those need to be
powered as well, not just data. You have
two cables for those. one for the
motherboard and then one to actually
power it up. Oh, and speaking of power,
last things last. We also have our power
connections. This is an ATX. This is
very big. You can't miss it. This is
going to connect to the power supply.
And then your CPU also takes power up
here at the top left. Now, for most
systems, and emphasis on most, you only
need to plug in one eight pin. You'll
often find that you have one eight and
then one four or eight. Well, then
another eight for two. This is usually
only for high-end overclocking or like
really high-end CPUs like I don't know
14900K or something where it needs more
power. I'm not saying here that you
should only plug one in, but if you're
doing a budget friendly build and your
power supply only has one cable that can
go to it, don't worry about it. I can't
remember the exact figure, so if I can
get editor Carl to note it down, but I
think you can do like 150 160 watts or
something uh through a single 8 pin. And
most CPUs are anywhere between 65 and
about 120 really, especially for Ryzen
CPUs, which is why I say you should be
fine with these. Your PC would still
boot. It's just potentially you won't be
able to overclock it as far, but it's
good practice to plug in both. So, that
in a nutshell should be everything that
you need to know. But now comes the time
to actually get our cooling installed.
So, I'm going to end up with an
all-in-one liquid cooler inside this.
But, as I say, most people I think
you're going to want to go for one of
these, which is an air cooler just to
maximize the bang for buck and the
amount of FPS you're getting for the
money that you'd spend. There's no doubt
in my mind if I was building a personal
gaming PC like this for me tomorrow. It
would be with this cooler, right? I know
all-in- ones look better, especially if
you're getting like a pre-build or
something. I should say as well,
actually, if you do want to grab a PC
build, then the sponsor of this video,
Overclockers UK, have loads of
pre-builds. So, if you're watching this
and you you think, I just don't want to
do it, then have a look at Overclockers
UK's pre-builds as well, cuz as I say,
you've got loads of options and they
send it to you. Some of them, I assume,
next day, but depends whether they have
to build them. The point I was trying to
make is that if you go for a pre-build,
then actually allin-one does make more
sense because it's less likely to get uh
damaged in shipping. But then I would
guess that's not really your fault
anyway. So it shouldn't make too much uh
difference to you. But this is what an
air cooler typically looks like. A lot
bigger than a stock one. I'll see if I
can find one. And I mean, look at that.
That is that is tiny. The heat sink on
that, the amount of metal that the heat
has to absorb into essentially is tiny.
And then you've got this really small
fan on top. So look, when you do a side
by side, there's no competition really,
is there? And what this is designed to
do is to dissipate heat and mean you can
put more power into your CPU and do so
while having less noise essentially. So
this is not a very good solution, but is
free and comes with certain CPUs. This
for about £35 actually makes your end
user experience, which is just a much
quieter, nicer, and better looking PC.
So well worth it. But to actually get
this cooler installed is worth bearing
in mind that every single caller is
going to be slightly different. They
often use the same mounting mechanism
because you've got these four physical
screws here. Uh this is actually what we
call the default AM5 mount where some
callers you will literally hook onto
these and then it kind of secures down
into place. But most callers don't
actually do that which is a little bit
weird especially bear in mind a lot of
AMD's own like stock callers also don't
use this mechanism. So I don't really
know why they bother. Uh but you've got
these bits of plastic and don't worry
this is normal depending on obviously
what you're installing. You just want to
remove these four screws here like so.
And then that should remove. Don't lose
these just in case you change your
cooler and you might need it
essentially. It's just good practice.
Just put it in your motherboard box.
Just do this with both halves. Then
you're going to want to go to your
cooler box and pick up the accessories
bag that will have a load of screws and
some brackets and things and look a
little bit like this. Look. But the
thing to remember is that typically a
third of what's in there is what you
need because you have different mounting
solutions for different size sockets. So
the mounting solution for AMD is
different to Intel. And if you buy like
a Thread Ripper CPU or you buy like a
really high-end X299 CPU from yesterday
year that has different physical sizes,
which is why you need different physical
mounts in order to actually get your
cooler to fit. But I think everything
here actually I've pre-sorted to just
the AMD stuff. So you've got these
little brackets here. The best way of
working it out if you're unsure is just
to kind of line them up as they fit over
the holes. You're almost certainly onto
a winner look. But once again, whilst
this is absolutely going to vary
depending on the cooler that you get,
with this particular one, we just want
to put these little spacers on top and
they look different depending on the
brands, but most cooling solutions you
have to do something similar. Then
you'll get some brackets and again
varies depending on the brand, but most
brands install this way. So, let's get
this screwed down with this little nubb
in look facing upwards because the
cooler is going to then screw into that
and then get safe and secure. If you're
wondering how tight you should be
screwing things like this, by the way,
it's going to it sounds obvious, but
it's like the right amount of tightness.
So, obviously you screw down till you
get a bit of resistance. Then you can go
slightly more and then you stop. You
don't want to be hammering down until
there's absolutely nothing more that you
can do. It's not necessarily going to
break everything, but it would almost
certainly break something if you do
that. So, if in doubt, keep it. I don't
want to say loose, but just don't go ham
on it. But let's repeat with the other
side. And then comes the really fun bit
that a lot of people get a bit nervous
about, but you really don't need to be.
It's thermal compound. You get two
typical uh ways of installing this if
you like. So, some coolers, probably
like the Corsair one, has it
pre-applied. This is easier because you
don't need to do anything. You just make
sure that you don't kind of accidentally
remove it when you're installing it, but
you just drop it down into place. It
will be on the underside of your cooler
and then you can screw it in and then
you know you've got the right quantity,
the right spread, all of this stuff. But
I prefer it like this where they give
you a little tube and you have to add
this yourself because it just means that
you've got multiple installations. So if
you ever want to take your cooler off
and put a new CPU in, you don't have to
buy new thermal compound. But you can
see this is the last actually of this
stuff that I have in the tube. That's
probably the right amount. We say a
small P-sized amount, but as long as
you've got enough, you'll be fine. like
don't go putting like crazy amounts on
cuz it's not really going to make any
difference. But if you forget the
thermal compound, you'd certainly know
about it. But we're just going to grab
this. Look. And then we're going to
gently lay that over those screws. Then
we're going to screw to about 25% on one
side, 50 on the other. And then kind of
just alternate
until it is safe and secure. You'll find
that there's a fair bit of resistance.
This one kind of just stops rather than
kind of like letting you do a little bit
more at a time. But then you can see we
have our heat sink actually attached and
then the heat from the CPU obviously
will go up into the cooler. But in order
for that to actually be expelled
somewhere, obviously we need some fans.
So these are the ones that you get as
standard. Very important. Make sure that
they're blowing the right way cuz
obviously a fan will go like that. So if
you plug it in like this, especially if
you got two fans and you have them
blowing in towards each other, uh that's
not going to be very good for your
thermals, is it? So, if you ever have uh
significant problems and you can't work
out what it is, check the orientation of
your fans. But generally speaking, if
you can see the label, it means it's
blowing away from you. And you want to
make sure all of your cables are
actually at the bottom so they are nice
and neat and out of the way. And on this
cooler, it's really easy. So, they
literally just push on like that. And
then our cooler is installed. All we
need to do is find these little cables
here. These are our addressable RGB and
our fan speed. So, we just need to find
our CPU headers that you should be
seeing from this lovely B-roll. And then
just carefully plugging this in, look to
this gray one. On some motherboards, to
be fair, the gray is for like an
allin-one pump, which is designed to be
on all of the time so you know uh that
your pump is running at the max speed
essentially, but you can customize them
in software. But the main thing is that
they are actually plugged in. So, that's
our fan. And then you can see these are
daisy chained as well. So, the two fans
are already connected together, but
we've got three pins. So you just want
to make sure that obviously the single
pin is over the single pin. These are
annoyingly fiddly. That should just go
over like that. And then that would be
your CPU cooler installed if you were
going for a air cooler. And then this
would obviously just drop into the PC
and we can resume. But as I say, we're
going for allin-one today. So let's get
on with that. Which means I have to now
take this off. But I can show you a
quick trick actually while we're here,
which is if you're unsure whether your
CPU is making good contact with the
cooler, then you can actually install
it, take it off, and then have a look at
this spread. Because as long as the
thermal compound is covering most of the
CPU, you know you've installed it
properly. If you've got like some really
obvious gaps, then it might be you
haven't used enough paste or that
there's not enough contact essentially
between the cooler and the CPU. But it's
worth remembering that when you turn it
on and you get a bit of heat, this is
going to help to just spread it just
that little bit more. So, I wouldn't be
worried about the fact that you're
missing a little bit there, for
instance. But in an ideal world, I
probably would added a little bit more
if I got a bigger tube. So, with that
out of the way, we can then press on to
our cooler. And it's worth remembering
that we're not actually going to install
this yet. We want to get our motherboard
inside the case, but it's definitely
worth grabbing the box now just to check
how it mounts because if we need to say
put these back on or if they were off
and you needed to take them off and put
some third party mount again, it's a lot
easier to do this whilst the motherboard
is here and we can clearly see and
access everything before we put it in
our case. But having said that, if you
forget, it's not the end of the world.
But this one is actually pretty easy to
set up if I can remember correctly
because a lot of modern ones you'll find
that the fans are pre-installed to the
radiator. And the mounting on this as
well, it just screws directly into the
socket. Remembered now, which is uh very
very neat. But a lot of them you will
have to like put some third party plate
or something on the motherboard like we
did with the air cooler. But I realize
you're probably brand new to PC gaming.
So, if you're wondering essentially what
this is, how it works, it's a similar
principle to a normal like air CPU
cooler whereby the heat goes into the
little pump unit that we have here, but
there's actually a plate inside here and
the water will run through it and then
go through these tubes and then will be
dumped in this radiator which obviously
has a very large surface area and then
the fans will blow through this and then
it will go out or depending on your
orientation into your chassis and then
that process will then cool the water
that will then go back down the tubes
and then obviously it will repeat the
process. These are great for a number of
reasons. Firstly, I think most people
agree they look better. You've not got
like a huge mass or something on top of
your CPU. It's also better for
transportation as we've said, but also
if you're going for like a really
high-end system where you've got like a
really big beefy graphics card, you got
to remember if you're using an air
cooler, quite often the graphics card
will spit hot air directly out into uh
the line of your air cooler, which then
means that it's harder to actually get
that to run cooly. So, it either run
faster or potentially you might find
that it actually can't keep up with all
of this hot air and then your CPU clock
speeds will be reduced because it's just
getting too warm. Whereas, if you go for
an all-in-one, you can just move that
heat from here to either the top of the
chassis or like the side or the front
depending on the case that you're going
for, which can be more optimal and just
give you better temperatures throughout.
As I say, it's very expensive and for
most systems, I think an air cooler will
be absolutely fine. But when you start
talking, you know, like 5070 Ti, uh,
5080, 5090, that sort of stuff, yes,
this really does start to kind of make a
lot more sense. But, as I say, this one
is incredibly easy to install. You just
have these two little AMD brackets.
Look, so you find your pump unit. Just
slide these on top till they meet. And
then you've got these four screw holes.
Look, that will line up with those on
the board, and we'll just go straight
in. Happy days. No third party mount
required. So, the good news with that
then is that we can just gently part
that to one side for a second. And now
we're ready to put this inside our case.
Very exciting stuff. And we haven't
talked about the case really at all
other than the size and form factor. But
this is my favorite case on the market.
As I say, this is the Fantex NV5 V2. And
the reason I really like this one is cuz
it's very well priced. It's roughly £100
depending on when and where you're
buying it from. Comes in a few different
colors and it's just very well made. So
by that it's kind of like thickness of
the metals and the glass and obviously
the fact that it's just really nicely
designed inside. So, uh, you will have
to add some fans. That's the main
downside with this. As I say, you can
absolutely do it on the cheap. You can
buy some like ID cooling fans or
something, uh, dot them throughout. As
long as they're turned down, you'll be
absolutely fine. But, it's just really
easy to build inside this. And you've
got this cool little RGB strip down the
bottom here as well. It It just looks
neat. My personal rig, you can find this
in the top right corner of your screen,
is in this, but white. I love that
build. I'm still using it today. It's
amazing. But what you will need to do is
take these side panels off. So, both the
front and the back. So, you can access
everything. And this is the point where
you might start to think, "Oh, maybe
I've uh gone a little bit too far. What
have I got myself in for?" But I promise
it is actually very straightforward.
These cables, all they're going to do is
connect to the motherboard essentially,
just so that the case can talk to it.
It's really, really, really
straightforward. So, we've got a few
different cables, and I'll film some
B-roll for this, so it should be nice
and clear for you. We've got our USBs.
So, we've got a USB 3. This says USB 3.1
on it. We have a USB 3, which is that
blue one. We have our HD audio here. So,
remember on this motherboard, it's going
to AAFP, analog audio, front panel.
We've also got our power switch. And
actually, on most cases, this will
probably say front panel. Uh, this
combines like the power switch, the
reset button, and any of those LEDs all
in one container. Some cases there still
be those tiny little individual ones
that are really annoying, but actually a
lot of decent cases these days will come
as a single block. And then this just
plugs in down the bottom as discussed
earlier. And then, is there anything
else here? Yes, depending on the case
you have, you might have one of these
which is a SATA power connection. So,
this is for all of the RGB on this
computer to work essentially because
it's going to take a decent amount of
power. But you might also have some USB
2s. Uh USB 2 is what the cooler is going
to use and this will connect down the
bottom. But again, if you've got like a
smart case that has a hub on it,
something like that, you might find that
needs to connect. And then somewhere on
this, you should Yeah. also have one of
these, which is an RGB connection. So,
this is a three pin. So, this can daisy
chain off of some other RGB fans or RGB
strips or something that you put in your
case. But because this is Fantex, it
also has a Fantex connection as well,
which uses digital RGB. They're
basically the same. They just got a
slightly different pin layout. But we
don't actually need to worry about those
cables for now. Instead, we can just
tuck them out of the way and then just
gently lay the case down flat like so.
And we're going to pick our motherboard
up and put it in here. But it's worth
bearing in mind a couple of things.
Firstly, you have what's called an IO
shield on most motherboards. Now, that's
actually baked into the motherboard. So,
if I hadn't told you this, you'd never
know about it, you know. Fine, great.
But if you go for a budget friendly
system, you probably get this little
metal plate inside the motherboard box.
You need to push this here and this
little hole. Look, as otherwise, you're
going to have well, massive hole in your
computer. It's meant to be a bit of
shielding, but these days I don't really
think it really does much, but hey, like
put it in otherwise your PC will look a
little bit weird. Uh, then you also need
to bear in mind these points here. These
are the standoffs that we spoke about
earlier. So, most cases have them
pre-installed. So, if you're using an
ATX case, a large case like we are here,
you can see everything that says A
actually has a standoff pre-applied. But
if we wanted to put a smaller
motherboard inside this, this is when
we'd need to use our good old friend,
the pliers, cuz we need to take these
out and then move them to all of the
holes that say M. I say all of them. It
depends on the motherboard. Some
MicroATX motherboards have more holes
than others, which is a little bit
annoying, but you should know about it
if it doesn't line up cuz you'll go to
push your motherboard in and something
won't quite be right. It should fit
really nice and flush. But again, you've
got ITX as well. So, it would just be
these four screws if you're doing ITX.
This case does actually come with a
little uh removal tool for the
standoffs. So, you wouldn't even need to
use the pliers, which is great. But most
cases kind of annoyingly don't come with
one of those. But the good news is most
people should just be able to grab your
motherboard and drop it into place as it
will be good to go for you. So, we're
going to do just that. We'll gently line
this up. Be careful, but you know, if
you have a couple of knocks, it's not
the end of the world. It's fine. And
this central standoff usually is a
little bit taller. So, it kind of
catches the motherboard and then you'll
see that this now isn't going to move.
Obviously, you need to screw it down.
You're not going to leave it like this.
Uh, but that just makes it a lot easier.
As I say, it kind of like catches it in
place. I'm going to show some B-roll now
of the motherboard screws that you're
going to need to use. These will come in
the box and they've got these kind of
like ring on it so you know that they're
the right ones. But, this particular
case also comes with a case of screws
which is nice and they should be pre-
sorted for you as well. So, it's very
easy to work out what screws it is that
you need. But the motherboard ones are
those ring ones. And then, as you'd
expect, you just need to screw in to all
of those open points on the board.
Once you've done that, you should notice
that your PC is starting to resemble a
PC. Things are getting a bit exciting.
There's not actually that much more that
you need to do. Now, obviously, with
this particular case, again, remember,
there's no fans. So, we are going to add
these, well, I say a little bit later.
May as well do it now. And it's
definitely worth bearing in mind that
different fans have different levels of
performance, but in terms of physical
size, different fans will go in
different locations. So, your safest bet
is to grab 120s. These will fit in
almost all places really. But if you go
for a larger chassis, then you'll find
you can get 140 mil fans. 140s are
pretty much always better. The reason
for this is just because you have a
larger mass of fan, so it doesn't need
to spin as fast and cause as much noise
to actually move as much air, which is
great. So you can get better performance
and lower noise levels, but most fans
are 120 because most cases accept 120s.
But we're going to put these three
reverse blade fans here. I was thinking
about adding two more, but I think that
is a waste of money, so we're just going
to use the three. There you go. I've
just saved you 105 quid. Just as easy as
that. I told you we're going to make
some mistakes, but the good news was we
can clear them up as we go along. So
these being fancy fans, one of the
reasons they're more expensive is
because they actually use one of these
intelligent hubs, like one of these IQ
Link hubs. So unlike traditional fans
that have two cables, they can get
messy. One for RGB, one for fan speed.
Uh they all daisy chain together and
then over one cable they connect to the
hub and then everything is just going to
be much cleaner and tidier. So these are
quite high-end, but remember that you
definitely do not have to buy these
specific ones. And again, depending on
the case, you'll probably get some
fitted as standard, which for most
builds will be absolutely fine. But here
you can see these are pretty high-end,
actually. They're nice looking fans,
though. Expensive, but nice. But that's
what I mean about like reverse blades.
This still looks fine to me, but
obviously that side looks nicer than
this side, which is why you want to make
sure you buy the appropriate fan. But
with these Corsair ones, you have these
little connections that literally just
push in. And then you get a little
plastic dummy for rigidity as well. Then
you should just be able to get these two
fans, line them up, and then as if by
magnet, there you are. They connect
together. Very straightforward, pretty
tough, pretty sturdy. Let's do the same
though with our third fan. And then
making sure we've got the orientation
that we want, we can just position these
in the side of the case, pick up our fan
screws. And I will say that these are
kind of the fancy screws that come with
Corsair fans. They make it a lot easier
to screw in. The normal fan screw looks
like this. Little bit longer, a little
bit chunkier, and just requires a bit
more screwing. But I'll come around this
side. Look, so you can properly see. All
I'm going to do is grab one screw and
just gently get this in. Remember,
because we have this block, we don't
need to do a screw for every single one.
That's one of the advantages for going
for daisy chainable fans, but just get
one in just to kind of line it up and
then you can tighten as you go. I mean,
with fans, it's a lot harder to
overtighten. So, I wouldn't worry about
it too much, but the more screws you're
going to use, the more secure it's in
place and the less chance of any
vibrations. So, this is the way I'll
check just to kind of do that. But there
you go. Look, as if by magic, and to be
fair, they are expensive, but they are
so easy to install and obviously very,
very clean. You will now have some fans
in your case. And do you see how much
better and more normal that looks? Not
sure it needed to cost £105, but you can
do that for probably what, like 30, 35,
or you could just get a case, as I say,
that comes with them fitted as standard.
But that's good to go. So, what we need
to do now is start thinking about
cables. So, I'm going to turn this round
again just to ensure you can see. And
those same cables that we showed you
earlier, it's now time to kind of like
tuck them into their respective
positions. So, it'll be slightly
different depending on the case or the
motherboard, but mostly it's the same.
We just want to get this USB and then
feed that through to the main chamber
somewhere in the middle. The HD audio
and the addressable RGB we can tuck
through to the bottom. USBC can come
here at the top. The power switch goes
right down here at the bottom. And then
lastly, our SATA we're going to leave
for a little bit cuz we can't plug that
in until our power supply is installed.
So, when we give this another spin
around and then cutting to my favorite
thing in the world, the B-roll we took
earlier, we can get these plugged in.
So, the power switch again goes at the
bottom right hand side of the
motherboard. It's not reversible, so
make sure this is plugging in the right
way. Then we have our USBs, and again,
lovely B-roll. Look, we've got our USB 3
and then our USBC. I'm not sure how this
is going to look, but this is what we've
done so far. We're mixing two formats.
It's very edgy here on this channel. And
then cutting back to our best friend BL,
we have our addressable RGB right down
at the bottom. And then our HD audio
again all the way at the bottom left.
Once you've done it, it should look
something like this. But it's good
practice just to kind of go over all of
those cables again. Just give them a
slight push just to make sure that they
are in properly and any slack if you can
kind of push it through just to make it
a little bit neater. It's definitely
going to help you. I think the next
thing that we need to do is to install
the cooler though. It says almost
knocking screws flying everywhere. So
let's return to this. And rather than
plugging the pump head into the
motherboard first, it's always better
really to grab your radiator and install
this. Having said that, depending on the
case, sometimes it's going to be easier
to plug a power supply cable into the
top here now rather than putting the
radiator in because if there's not much
clearance here at the top, you'll find
as soon as you put your radiator in, it
will actually physically cover up a lot
of the ports here. So, this could be
your CPU fan, could be your address RGB
or any of these powers. In this case,
I'm not bothered about it because we've
got a lot of space, but on most cases,
it's good practice to think about this
before you install it. There's just two
screws here on the back that I need to
remove. And then this will obviously
come out. Then we can see, I'll show
you, look, that we actually have this
kind of rail here, and this is where our
radiator obviously going to fit. But
there's quite a few cases that you have
multiple sizes. So, this could be for
slightly larger fans if you're using
140s, or maybe if you just want to kind
of bring it out or push it back a little
bit. uh cases that give you more
flexibility are usually kind of nicer to
work with. But here, all we need to do
is just kind of put that pump head there
and let it sit for a second. And then
just gently bring this up. Realize that
I haven't got the screws out yet. So,
let's grab this bag that lovingly says
screws on it and open this up. And this
is where I say you don't want to get
your screws muddled really. So, you want
to make sure you know what's what. These
longer ones you'll see are if you're
going to get a fan and actually kind of
go through the fan into the radiator to
to secure it this way. Uh whereas the
ones we want are these really small
ones. And you do get washers as well as
depending on the case, you might find
that the hole up here is a little bit
too big. So once again, let's line this
up into position. And this is where
having two people is a lot easier. But
you can just put that screw in. Grab
your screwdriver. Potentially wish that
you had more friends available. And then
just put one in like that. Be sure not
to drop this yet as you'll be putting
way too much force on one bit of the
radiator and you don't want to bend
anything. So instead, screw in the other
corner. Even if it's just a little bit,
there you go. Then your back and
shoulders will be very grateful. You can
loosen this one up a bit then. And then
you can see you can just kind of slide
it so you can get it into the exact
position that you want. And you should
see what I mean here. You can just about
going to still see all of those
connections. And there's big holes at
the back. So actually managing this
should be fine. But again, if it's a
shorter case, it would get problematic.
Now, so let's continue with the rest of
the screws. Then we can get our top
panel and slide that back on. And then
to make things as easy as possible, I'm
going to lay this down flat once again.
And obviously, we do need to get our
pump head. And at this stage, you'd
hopefully still have like a plastic
cover and some thermal compound
pre-applied to this exact unit. But
again, cuz I'm reusing this, I need to
grab some more. That was I was going to
say purchase separately. ASUS actually
sent this one out, but you'll need to
grab some separately. And then once
again, kind of like a P-sized amount in
the middle. And then it really should
just be a case of lining this up, look,
with those holes, grabbing your
screwdriver, and then 20% force on one
bit, the same on the other diagonal, and
then it's just a case of tightening up
the rest. And I tell you what, guys,
this really is starting to look like a
gaming PC now, isn't it? And especially
at the point of installing your graphics
card. I can't stress enough again, watch
the guide in the top right corner of
your screen that goes through how to
pick a graphics card and just make sure
that you do get the right one for you.
Uh, but I'd say for most people it's
still expensive, but this is kind of the
best mid-range option really. It's a
5060 Ti 16 gig. This is going to be
great for 1080p, 1440, and actually a
fair amount of 4K gaming as long as
you're willing to use DLSS. It's going
to be okay at ray tracing, but not like
amazing, but I think most people are
okay with that. And it's going to give
you high multiplayer frame rates as
well. So, pretty much all you need. But
if you step up to this to something like
a 5070, 5070Ti, 9070, 9070 XT, then
you're just going to have even higher
frame rates really in multiplayer games
and it will allow you to turn on a few
more RA tracing settings in single
player. But as I say, for most people,
this is probably all you need. If you
want to step down, I would go for a 9060
XT from AMD because it's performance
isn't that far away from this, but
usually is a fair bit cheaper and it
still has 16 GB of VRAM, which is nice.
But let's get this out of the box. And
this particular version is from Pallet,
but obviously you've got a whole host of
different manufacturers and I don't
really have any favorites to be honest
because you'll find that actually the
cards, they're all using the same GPU.
So in theory, the performance should be
basically the same. But you will find
that they will vary depending on the
size of the graphics card. So thickness,
length, and then obviously the amount of
fans and things that they have. And
generally speaking, the more fans and
the more cooling you've got, the quieter
it will be. But especially in this
generation, I can't really think of any
graphics cards that are really loud. You
used to get that all of the time on the
cheaper ones, but these days I'd
probably just go for the entry-level
ones because in almost all instances,
they're more than good enough really.
People like ASUS, Semi, Gigabytes, all
of them. No one's not guilty of this.
They build really overspecs cards and
kind of give it all all that about how
great it is, but in terms of frame
rates, as I say, they're not really that
different and they're just making a load
of money out of bigging uh building
bigging I've lost it. Building bigger
calling solutions. So, go for a more
entry- level one if you can. I've
already removed these two slot covers
here, but you do just take these screws
out and then it will fit in. And in this
particular instance, we want two and
three to be removed. You then find this
little PI finger here. Look. And this is
going to go in this top slot. Uh, but
you just want to line this up. Sorry
about me, Ed. I just need to make sure
it is lined up. And then you can push it
into place. You get a nice audible
click. And then this will be secured in.
If you need to remove it for any reason,
you'll find that there is this little
catch that's quite hard to activate on
this board actually. Oh, no, it's not.
It's got a quick release. Some
motherboards have one of these quick
releases. So, you push this down and it
will release the catch that's holding it
into position and then you can remove
it. If you don't do that, then you will
break something um plastic when you're
kind of trying to force it out. So,
don't force it. Uh just use the uh quick
release mechanism. But obviously, once
you've got it installed, you will need
to now replace those screws to get this
fitted nice and securely. Oh, and then
it's starting to get heavy. You'll
probably notice this now. But look, look
at the system as it's coming together.
Isn't it pretty? I know it looks better
with the more expensive caller, but
again, remember to save money for better
frame rates for the same cost. Uh you
could have gone for their air cooler. I
mean, some people don't like the look of
these tubes, but hey, each their own
really. This is why you want to cable
manage as you go as well, cuz the more
stuff you put in it, the harder it is to
get everything to look nice. So, just
little bit of attention to detail as you
pro proceed throughout the build
definitely goes a long way. But, it's
just a couple more things to do now.
Mainly being the power supply, but also
to get this cooler to actually be
plumbed in cuz at the moment it's not
connected to anything. So, where's my
box? And here it is. And inside here,
remember, most builds won't need all of
this gubbins, but I mean, it makes sense
for me to walk you through everything
because different brands obviously have
similar things that work in different
ways. So, if it was like a lean lead
cooler, you'd still have like a junction
box and things like this. They're much
better when they're magnetic, which a
lot of them are, which is quite cool.
The Corsair one is very small, but you
have these little connections on both
sides and these will connect to the
cooler or to the fans, and you can daisy
chain them together, which is just one
of the ways of removing the amount of
cables that you have. You'll see that
I've already got this plugged in. This
is like a little dummy CPU header.
Remember, we didn't plug a CPU fan cable
in at the moment because we took that
air cooler out. Well, that's what this
is. That will connect your motherboard
to the cooler. But then also inside the
box, we've got the cables that will go
to the fans alongside a USB 2 cable to
actually get the cooler connected to the
motherboard. And then we also have this
little power connection here as well. So
this is going to use a PCIe from the
power supply to supply power to this
hub. So all of the fans, the cooler,
everything is powered over a single
cable. So one of these cables needs to
plug into the cooler. Then this will go
to the junction box. But I can just feed
this through. Look at the top to get
everything neat. And then there's also
one on the back of this block of fans.
So, another cable that we can just feed
through into the back chamber. Connect
the pump head to this little block. Then
we need to get this fan cable that's
going from the top fans into these fans,
which isn't actually that fiddly when
you compare it to the alternative, but
it feels fiddly at the moment. And I
must admit, I am asking myself, why
didn't I do this when I installed the
fans? Do the same to the port at the
bottom. Then get this connected to the
hub. You also need to connect the USB to
the bottom of the hub alongside the
power. Then just feed the CPU cable all
the way up to the top. And again,
remembering to cable manage as you go.
So, I'm going to loosen this and just
snap all of the cables into position.
Then you just connect that USB to one of
the ports at the bottom. Then that CPU
cable plugs into that CPU header. And
then I'm really pleased to say that we
actually are almost done. It's almost
time to get gaming. It is literally just
the power supply to go. And once again,
as a reminder, this power supply is a
little bit oversp spec for this system.
I'd probably go for a 750 for this. But
again, depends obviously what you're
going to upgrade to and obviously what
you want to prioritize. This particular
one is also from Corsair RM850e, but
there's quite a few brands personally
speaking that I trust, but I've used
like Corsair power supplies for ages.
And as far as I know, I haven't had any
real issues. I think there was one is a
watercooled system, and I don't know
whether it's the power supply that's
causing the system to turn off or
something else I've done. That's still
under investigation. But yeah, Corsair
power supplies I've been using for
years. They're pretty good, but MSI make
good ones as well. CIC loads
essentially, but obviously always look
at the individual one, the reviews and
how they perform essentially. But you'll
notice that this doesn't have any cables
pre-attached. This is actually not
normal for a power supply. It kind of is
in PC gaming, but most power supplies
are called non-modular, which means
everything is pre-attached and it saves
you money. The benefit of having a
modular power supply is that you only
need to plug in the cables that you
actually need, which neatens everything
up. It potentially means in the future
that you can get different cables,
whether that's ones that look better or
if there's a new standard that's brought
in. Sometimes they will bring out like
adapters like Corsair for PCI generation
5. Uh they brought out these adaption
cables that could be plugged in which
were pretty cool. Uh but it is just nice
to not have the cables in your rig that
you don't need. But it's a good
illustration here to show you what we
need. I'll get this the right way up.
You can see our motherboard cables. It's
a little bit weird. I I still don't
really know why to this day, but you
have different connections here
sometimes than you do actually in your
PC. I think it's a good thing cuz it
then means you can't accidentally plug
uh the wrong side of the cable into the
wrong thing. But a lot of them look
quite similar. So, motherboard will plug
in here. It really is very
straightforward. But do make sure that
it is pushed in all the way so that
clicks and you've double checked the
safety and security of these because
quite often, and I have had real life
examples of this where I've had friends
calling me saying that their PC doesn't
work. They're getting really upset,
really stressed. They didn't take a time
out and a cup of tea, but it did just
turn out that the power connections
weren't actually properly inserted into
their power supply. So, that's why I say
always double check all your connections
as you go. On this particular one, cuz
it's an Nvidia GPU, we do need one of
these, which is a PCI generation 5
connection. If you don't have one, then
you may well have an adapter inside the
box with your graphics card that you can
use. But these will plug in where it
says PCIe/CPU.
And speaking of CPU, obviously we will
need our CPU connection for the
motherboard. Remember I said you've got
an 8 pin here, which is what most rigs
need, but you'll find that some will be
28 pins or eight and four depending on
the CPU that you're using. They're also
labeled as well. So this is one of the
ones that looks very similar um on here
as it does when you actually get to the
motherboard. So look at the labels and
the side that says CPU that actually
goes to your board. And then here, the
plain side goes into the power supply.
And then remember that our case actually
has that bakedin RGB and had that little
dangling SATA connection. So we do need
to plug one of these into our power
supply so we can actually obviously meet
it at the other end. These are typically
used for hard drives, SATA SSDs or most
third party hubs will actually connect
with a SATA connection. But while the
case that we're using today uses SATA,
the hub actually uses a PCIe cuz that
can do more power. It's quite rare
though. It's only really Corsair that
does this. This is what one of these
PCIes looks like. By the way, you'll
notice that it can actually be split.
So, you have six or eight. And depending
on that camera's dial, depending on the
graphics card that you're using, it
might have a six pin, it might have an
eight, or it might have a combination of
multiple, but they should just pull
apart like this. And just like other
side of your CPU, if you need a four
pin, then that usually detaches. Look.
So, you don't I'm looking at that one
again. It's died. You don't need to
worry too much about it. You can just
like split them and then use them like
that. So, let's get our final PI
installed, shall we? And then we should
be ready to actually get this in our PC.
And as I say, this is the last thing
that we need to do. Now, depending on
the case. Now, NZXT cases, the new ones,
these are the ones that are a little bit
different, but most case, you want to
get your power supply, find the fan,
which is where obviously it's going to
be able to breathe from. And then make
sure it lines up with the vents on your
system, which is usually downwards. So,
most cases, 90 95% uh you want these
facing downwards. But the new NZXT ones,
as I say, you usually want to do the
opposite on those. But check your case.
And then you literally just pour that
into position. And then when we give
this a spin round, you should see that
there are some holes on the back of your
case. And these need to obviously line
up with the power supply. And you also
have this onoff switch. You may as well
just turn this on now cuz otherwise when
your PC doesn't work, you might wonder
why. But cutting back to our good old
friend B-roll, you want to find the hex
screws that either come with your power
supply or the case. And then you can
just grab them on the end of your
screwdriver and then secure your power
supply down. Oh, and then ladies and
gentlemen, you should now be pretty much
ready to go. There's nothing else you
need to put inside this. You literally
just need to wire up the last few
cables. And it really is very
straightforward. I promise you've done
harder things throughout this video. You
just literally need to grab this really
thick ATX and then you put this at the
top. Then you grab the one that says CPU
and this can go all the way at the top
right. And this is that cable that if
you're using, as I say, a shorter case,
I would advise putting this into your
motherboard before you put your crawler
crawler in. Before you put your cooler
in. Then you've got your ATX3 or your
PCI generation 5, depending on what you
want to call it. Again, this single 16
pin connection for the graphics card. Oh
no, what am I saying? This is a 5060 Ti.
It uses an 8 pin. There is no 16. I'm
getting carried away. This is probably a
good thing for the video though because,
as I say, different graphics cards have
different connections. And if you're
using an Nvidia RTX 5070 or above, then
it will almost certainly come with a
16pin power connection, which is that
single cable. But because we're using a
506Ti, then we want a PCI 8 pin just
like we need for that Corsair hub. So,
let's pretend that didn't happen and
just carefully remove this and swap it
out. No one would have noticed.
So, there you go then. Living proof that
even I make mistakes. It's easily done,
but easily rectified, too. The next
thing we need to do is just to plug in
these little SATA connections. These uh
well, I say SATA connections. It's just
the single one, isn't it? For that RGB.
There's only one right way of doing
this. So, if it's the wrong way, just
give it a little wiggle and then that
should fit in just like that. And then
any cables once you're done with them,
you can tidy them up by obviously
clumping them down or just kind of
stuffing them a little bit out of the
way, out of sight, out of mind. If you
can't see them, should be absolutely
fine. And then last, but certainly not
least, this side. We do have that power
connection look for the Corsair hub. So,
we can just use one single six pin.
Again, remember we've split that eight
into a six. Push that in until it
clicks. And then from this side, I will
tidy it up. But for now, we are pretty
much all good to go, which means last
but certainly not least, we obviously
need to plug in the cables this side. So
for our graphics card, it is one eight
pin. Some GPUs you'll need a daisy
chain, but this one look just a single
connection that we can push in and then
tuck in and neaten like that. And then
we can come around to the top. Look, and
our ATX just inserts like so. And then
our final cable look, and I'm very
excited about this one, is the CPU. And
again, this is going to get a little bit
tight if you've got a shorter case, but
should be okay on this. Cable's a little
bit twisted. So, we just need to move
this round. And then give it a wiggle
and a push, and that should click into
position. And then, ladies and
gentlemen, there you are. We don't know
it works yet. We've got one cable to
tidy up. But beside that, I think we are
pretty much good to go. I told you it
was straightforward and simple because
even if you do make mistakes, as I say,
you realize what you've done and you
just go back and you redo it and okay,
it might take you an afternoon, but
especially if there's two of you, should
be relatively stress free. And
obviously, if you've gone for all of the
parts that we're using here, you can
follow along almost precisely at home.
Just like don't make that mistake with a
cable. But if you're building other
parts, which let's be honest, you
probably are, then the good news is that
for the most part, it's all exactly the
same. It's only that Corsair bit that's
a little bit proprietary. Sometimes the
mounting with the uh coolers obviously
is a little bit different. The cables
for the graphics card, you know, small
things like that, but the whole process
is the same. Doesn't matter the brand of
motherboard as well. All of the ports,
they might be like different amounts of
them, but the ports are all the same
standards as long as obviously it
supports that standard. So, there's not
really too much to worry about. It's a
nice easy process just cable manage as
you go just to try and make it nice and
neat. Because at the moment, this is
looking not exactly fantastic, is it?
Whereas if I had been kind of tucking
these throughout the video rather than
being very conscious that that camera
was uh going to run out of storage, then
this would have been a whole lot easier.
But the thing I like about this case as
well is that obviously you get this
little panel that in theory once we put
that back into position can obviously
help to kind of hide some of these
cables and any oddities essentially. So
there's a lot more work we can do. But
before you do any of that because that
is one of the other mistakes people
make. be way way too aggressive uh with
the cable management. They've got to get
it perfect before you've tested that it
works. And then if something doesn't
work, you have to pull it all apart and
you're just going to be tearing your
hair out. So instead, before we cable
manage, let's see if it works. And your
best bet for this, and I know it's going
to sound like I'm joking, but I'm dead
serious, is to grab yourself a PC
monitor specifically. Now, a TV should
be fine, but the reason I say this is
because my first ever build, besides the
power button being plugged into power
LED rather than power switch, I was
actually plugging it into a TV that
didn't support the signal that gets sent
from your computer to your screen when
you're in the motherboard. So,
everything was working, but I didn't
know this because the display was
completely black and I didn't know. And
it was only when I changed, I think, to
a different cable or might have actually
been to a different display that I could
see everything was working properly and
then I could set everything up and then
go back to use the television I was
using and it would just work, but it
just wouldn't work in the BIOS. Uh, so
for that reason, if you have a monitor
does help, but obviously by all means
try a TV. Uh, but be aware if if it's
just getting a black signal, but
everything else seems to be working
fine, it could be your display that's a
problem. And speaking of display output,
by the way, one of the key and biggest
mistakes that I see people make when
they're plugging in their computer and
then thinking that the whole thing
doesn't work is that they've actually
grabbed their HDMI or display port cable
and they've come along and they found it
on their motherboard. Look, and they've
connected it like that to the monitor,
turn it on, nothing happens. Why? I've
plugged it in. Well, actually, it's
because instead of plugging the display
into the motherboard, you have to plug
it into the graphics card because the
CPUs, or at least a lot of them will
have what we call integrated GPUs. And
if you plug into the motherboard, you're
expecting that to output. But this often
gets automatically shut off when you
plug in a discrete graphics card. And
then what you're supposed to do is plug
into this and then the graphics card is
going to go to your display. Sometimes
you'll find that you might get a display
output and it kind of will work if you
plug into your motherboard, but that
would still be misconfigured and
wouldn't give you like the optimum
refresh rate and optimum experience. So,
you always want to plug in to the
graphics card at the bottom. But let's
get that hooked up, plugged into power.
We're going to plug in a keyboard and
mouse, but nothing else. And then, of
course, the single most important thing
of this whole video, you need to grab
yourself a PCcentric mouse mat from
pccentric.store
or find the link down below. This thing
is in a clearance sale. Once it's gone,
it's gone. It would really help out the
channel if you've enjoyed this video and
if you're new to PC gaming, you get
something that looks fantastic. And this
is always the big question, isn't it?
The moment of truth. You should hear a
little wor. You should start to see like
some RGB slowly coming to life. Usually
the fans don't light up straight away.
There's a bit of a delay on it. But if
you press your button and nothing
happens, at least wait like 10 seconds
before you panic. Then obviously if it
doesn't light up, you can check all of
your connections. And then the next
stage is you've got to hope that you see
a series of lights here. A white LED at
the top right is usually a good sign.
And then assuming that your monitor is
actually plugged into power, which
obviously I've forgotten to do, so uh
you then should see something come up on
your display. That's two mistakes I've
made in this video. Now, should we try
again? Hopefully this time we are going
to get an output. We've spent a lot of
time on this. is going to be, as I say,
a lot of stress if you're kind of
building this from scratch and you
haven't done it before, but good things
come to those who wait. And ladies and
gentlemen, there it is. You have now
created your well, could be your second,
but your first gaming PC. And when
you've got this like display output, you
know, for the most part at least that it
should work properly. If you don't get
this far, as I say, you're just going to
check your cable connections, have a
look at any error codes that appear on
your PC. In fact, if you want to see a
full video that goes through every
reason why your PC went boot, you can
find it in the top right corner of your
screen. You can watch this before you
get your parts so you know what you're
doing or obviously watch it after
bookmark it in case you need it. But
yes, if you can see this screen, that is
a great result. All you need to do now
is just press F1 on your keyboard. Then
you'll enter this, which is the BIOS,
and then you'll see a screen like this.
Depends on the motherboard that you're
using. If it's like Gigabyte, MSI,
ASRock, it will obviously look slightly
different, but essentially this is where
you can control your motherboard. So you
can change like the fan speed, you can
turn like your RAM overclocking on. The
way we do this is where it says expo,
we're going to set this to enabled and
then the PC will restart once we've
saved and exited uh with all of the
changes. And then assuming it works
properly, sometimes it won't and you
have to reverse this. Then your RAM will
then run at its full rated speed rather
than the slower base speed that it will
just run by for safety essentially. But
I would advise that you do tune your
fans. So just go into your fan tuning
utility here. It's called Q fan control.
just make sure you set everything to
silent essentially. But actually where
we're using the Corsair fans, we need to
tune these in the software uh rather
than in the utility. But for most
people, this will control all of your
fans. Once you've done that though,
really simple and straightforward. You
just need to grab yourself a copy of
Windows. I've made a full video that
walks you through how to do this. Find
it in the top right corner of your
screen. But essentially, you just grab
Windows on a USB flash drive by
downloading it on a different computer.
Then you whack this in the back of your
system. Then you can just turn it off,
restart, and then follow the
instructions, and then you'll be away.
And then, ladies and gentlemen, you've
got everything set up. Your gaming PC is
complete. And the story doesn't stop
there. If you want to see exactly what
you need to do next, how to set up your
PC for all of the best experiences and
to obviously play like I would, I
suppose, you can find that video again
in the top rightand corner of your
screen or link down below that will go
through all of the best practices to set
up a gaming PC from scratch. As I say,
thanks for watching this video. Smash
the like button, get yourself
subscribed, and if you do want to check
out current pricing on anything that was
featured in this video, you can find
that listed down below with our
affiliate links for all of these parts
and similar parts. And once again, a
massive thank you to Overclockers UK for
sponsoring this video. It's really
helpful. And if you do want to grab PC
parts in the UK, then they are
absolutely one of the best places to go.
And as I say, that next day delivery
really can be incredibly helpful. But
thank you guys so much. We'll catch you
in the next one.
[Music]