Building the Best $700 Gaming PC Possible

thought I'd build a computer today -- this is  the monthly build for November, we're aiming for around a $700 price so we're sticking to a budget  for this one but when I did my planning video, my monthly builds video, I got some feedback  which is mostly about the graphics card I chose -- the Intel Arc a750 so I have two choices  for you guys today the a750 or the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT either card can be found for about $220  right now so I figured ¿Por qué no los dos? and I've altered the deal

from the or original plan  because I wanted to show Micro ATX some love. excellent today's video is brought to you  by lexar's Thor OC ddr5 memory kits powering the latest generation of desktop gaming and  workstation PCS available and speeds up to 6,000 mega transfers per second with cl32 timings and  equipped with both XMP 3.0 and Expo support for Intel or AMD platforms Lexar Thor OC ddr5 memory  provides stability reliability and efficiency in a classy and elegant low profile design for more

on  lexar's Thor OC ddr5 memory kits click the sponsor Link in the video description so let's get right  into it with the parts I'm building with today as usual I have these listed in the video description  and as usual most of the parts I'm using are the ones I've recommended in the description for  anyone who's building this $700 is PC but I do have a couple that I've swapped in like the  power supply and the memory most notably mainly because I needed to work with parts I already had  on han

d with some of these and they're parts that shouldn't really affect performance for the  memory though since we're here might as well start I have a 32 gig kit so I recommend a 32  gig kit of ddr4 3600 or 3200 speed memory and uh for that purpose I looked around and like one  of the only kits I have that kind of meets those criteria is the selar Hades kit so I wasn't going  to have any RGB in this build but I guess there will be a little bit in the description I have a  different kit linked prob

ably something a little bit more sensible like maybe a g skill rip Jaws  kit because our main focus with the memory is the capacity and the speed you don't necessarily care  quite as much about RGB but you do have options now the memory is part of this truck Trifecta  the memory the motherboard and the CPU and if you watch my monthly builds video I presented  three possible platforms to build on right now this is the older platform from AMD which is what  we're going with since we're doing a bud

get build but in that video if you want to check it out I  have alternative builds with an Intel LGA 1700 motherboard or an AMD am5 motherboard if you are  willing to spend a little bit more money to give yourself a little bit more of an upgrade path that  said we can upgrade with the b550 motherboard that we have right here which is AMD am4 potentially to  the 5800 x3d and that's still one of the best CPUs for gaming this motherboard is a very solid deal  for about $90 the b550m pro vdh Wi-Fi M

icro ATX motherboards often cost 2030 $40 less than their  ATX counterparts they are 20 30% smaller so does make sense that they cost a little bit less but  they still have more expandability than many ITX and this particular motherboard from MSI is one of  the best reviewed ones and it also includes Wi-Fi which is nice we're paying that with the ryzen 5  5600 x 64 123 processor from AMD I actually don't have my 5600 anymore which is why I went with  the 5600s this is currently selling for maybe

20 bucks more than the 5600 so if you're really  on a budget you can get most of the performance with the 5600 and save yourself 20 or $25 but that  does it for the core components the components on the right side here the SSD the power supply and  the case you should be able to get all three of these for about $150 possibly pushing up to 200 if  you go for slightly upgraded options like for in 2 terab nvme ssds even faster ones like this fa  100 from Acer you can find for $70 or $80 right now

if you go for a 1 tbyte one you can get that  for 35 or 40 bucks again saving you a little bit of money but you'll run out of space a little bit  faster I've been wanting to try this case out for a while it's actually a case from Asus the prime  case ap21 a microatx case with mesh pretty much all around there's a tempered glass option as well  but I went with the mesh one fulls sizee ATX power supply support and a smaller form factor case is  a good thing because fullsize ATX power supplies tend

to cost a little bit less than the mini ITX  options or I should say sfx options but you also have some neat features here like a 360 mm all one  liquid cooler support and gpus going up to 338 mm and then there's a power supply I'm recommending  a 600 wat power supply if you're on a budget but look at the graphics card you're planning to  get in the future and maybe upgrade from 600 to 700 or 750 watts and although it's not sort of  a universal Badge of goodness an 80 plus bronze or gold rated

power supply is a good way to go and  of course you should go with a reputable power supply manufacturer this one's from Silverstone  they definitely count also maybe Corsair thermal take be quiet and EVGA among others this one's 80  plus Platinum rated and it's actually the power supply that was in uh my wife's HotBox build  her old system so I am repurposing it but it was 750 WTS and it is modular which are a couple  of the criteria that I was looking for for this build that's everything almos

t we have graphics  cards too and I've been really happy with how far Intel has brought the Arc series The a750 and a770  with driver updates and lots of improvements along those lines about $220 is still a little maybe  just a touch steep for the a750 they have been on sale for 200 or 190 but you do get a lot of GPU  for that $220 price as well as a 8 gig vram buffer but that also applies to this graphics card here  the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT this one's made by power color the powercolor hellhou

nd but also 8 gigs of  vram and also a lot of performance for the price this actually dropped in price to less than the  6600 XT which is why again it's a really nice and viable option right now and in the follow-up video  where I test this system I will compare these two graphics cards one to the other so these are  the parts I will be building with today Shall We Begin all right let's take a closer look at the  case because uh the case is what you build in and getting an idea of how it's laid

out is a good  idea the first thing I noticed about this case is it's not very small the Asus Prime ap21 which  I think stands for Asus Prime 2011 uh is a Micro ATX case but in terms of like the footprint it's  pretty much just as big as a full-size ATX case it is a little bit shorter this way though the  power supply Mount is up here in the front other than that you have a pretty standard microatx  motherboard area right here and you have lots of mesh ventilation with these side panels which  a

re a single piece of metal and uh they're not too difficult to pop on and off they just have the  little plugs sort of pop in along the top and it has a little bit of a groove right right there  for you to get your finger in and pop it back off I bought this case for $70 in terms of price  that is a bit more expensive than the case I used last month but there is a price tradeoff  that pretty much becomes a wash because this motherboard costs about $90 and the case costs  about $70 we're still at

about the same price as a 120 to$ 130ish motherboard and a case that  costs 40 or 50 bucks for Io right up here we have a power button a mic and headphone jack couple  USB 3.0 and we have a USB 3.2 Gen 2 and and that is another nice feature of the motherboard is it  does have that USB 3.2 Gen 2 front panel header forgot to mention but there's a single 120 mm  fan that is included then if we flip around to the opposite side we pull this panel off in the  same fashion and you guys might be able t

o see but there's really minimal space back here behind  the motherboard tray you're pretty much planning to tuck as many of your cables as you can up in  this front area up here I guess perhaps above your power supply up there might work as well there's  an extension cable that runs for the power supply down here so you can see that popping out the  back so you can still plug in your AC power and while you're only going to be able to do  minimal Cable Management back here they have tucked a 2.5

in Drive Mount there as well on the  bottom there's a magnetic removable dust filter which is good because there's also uh intake  fan mounts there at the bottom and I believe you could potentially install a radiator there  if you wanted to and then you do have a couple velcro tie downs right here with all of your front  panel connectors as well as a little baggie with your screws and standoffs now that we've taken a  look at the case let's get the motherboard set up we're going to do the CPU a

nd cooler installation  the memory as well as our m.2 and BME SSD for our CPU Cooler we're just using The Wraith stealth  that was included with the CPU that's the nice thing about the 5600 x is it does include a cooler  there are some reasonable air cooler CPU upgrades for around $35 or so that I will link in the  description so that means we don't need to worry about putting thermal paste on the CPU before we  install this just make sure you don't touch that stuff all right so we got our IO Sh

ield popped in  that's definitely one of the things that stands out with this motherboard as being a budget  board that is absolutely a budget IO shield and one of the ones that you can cut yourself  on so be careful with that the motherboard is is all set up otherwise though and before  I drop it into our case and fortunately our standoffs are pre-installed as you can  hopefully see right there but I did want to point out one other shortcoming it's a microatx  board which gives you some expansi

on slots down here that you don't get with many ITX which  usually only gives you this by6 slot here but MSI has only given you a couple uh pcie by one  connectors there so if you do want to install something else in one of these pcie expansion  slots like say a 4K capture card uh you might want to consider a different motherboard and  I have linked a few in the videos description including a gigabyte one that does give you a  full or at least I think a by8 expansion slot down there but of cours

e the CPU only has  20 pcae lanes available so you are getting them used up on this board by uh your m.2  slot which you have two of one here and one [Music] here next we're going to install the power  supply to do that we pull the front of the case and this whole panel pops right off more  mesh then we have two screws that hold the case in and that's where we Mount our power [Music] supply here's a tough call I have these  custom sleeved cables that were made specifically for this power supply

they're Replacements not  extensions made by insourced customs and they they they worked for a while they're kind  of Dusty this system was in use for a bit before it was decommissioned but that was like  an orange themed water cooled build these don't really match necessarily with this build here  although it is a mesh side panel case so it's not like they're going to be that visible but I  can't use all of them I could use the CPU and the main motherboard 24 pin I can't really use the  pcie on

es because I need a eight pin and a six pin and these are both uh wired up for just  to be the full solid block of eight I guess I could use this for the 6650 XT cuz it just  has a single eight pin but the uh Arc a750 has an 8 and a six okay after giving it some thought  since I can't use all these I'm just going to go with with the stock uh cables that came with  this power supply because they are this flat black ribbon style so they should be fairly easy  to Cable manage and tuck away but let

me know in the comments you guys I am going to be doing a  follow-up video testing this system so if you really really want to see these installed  let me know maybe I'll maybe I'll pop them in all right well that power supply install  was different but I've got the AC extension plugged in up here remember to switch your  power supply on if you're doing one of these internal installs although I guess with  the switch right there it doesn't make it too difficult to reach and the last little  deta

il is depending on the length of your power supply they've actually given you three  mounting positions so you can see one here up top one a little bit lower one a little bit  lower than that so you can shift it up or down depending on whether or not you want to  install like a case fan as as well but I put the fan on this side so it can take in fresh  air popping the front panel back on and then uh you may have noticed but they also have this  little modesty panel or whatever you want to call i

t that you can remove right here and that  gives you much easier access to the power supply area [Music] the final steps for this build were the cable  management of course and there is a little bit of space behind that rear panel to tuck some  cables away and there are a fair amount of tie down points as well they're just a little  small so you got to poke the zip ties through there and get them wrapped around around if you  actually want to cinch things down after Double cheing all the power c

onnectors and the front  panel cables the final step was installing the graphics card and of course I have two graphics  cards to install we got the Intel Arc a750 and we've got the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT for these  Final Shots of the system I had the Intel Arc a750 installed it is a nice looking card this  is the Intel Limited Edition version that does have the Intel Arc logo on the side which lights  up and even though this is a budget build and I was somewhat grateful that there wasn't a lot 

of RGB to connect just having a little bit of Lighting in there with the memory and the  Intel Arc logo on the graphics card I think sets things off and the other thing I noticed  was that even though we have sort of a solid side panel here it is mesh because we dealing  with mesh the lights still shine through and you can still see them and it gives it kind  of a nice subtle look overall I don't know let me know what you guys think about it in the  comments down below but there are some questio

ns still to answer for this build for example I've  got two graphics cards which ones going to give us better performance so if you enjoyed this  video and you want to catch the followup where I'll be testing both of these C cards against  each other in this system then definitely hit that subscribe button so you can find out when  that video goes live and also for anyone who's just getting into PC Building I've done sort of a  walkthrough for this build today but if you want a step-by-step guid

e that includes details on  CPU installation and other parts that might be a little finicky check out my hell to build a PC  playlist where I have a new series that was just published a couple months ago for 2023 before  I go if you're wondering why I suddenly have a beard it is a reminder to me and hopefully  a reminder to you guys that we have an extra life charity live stream coming up on December  9th so mark your calendars we'll be streaming for about 8 hours raising money for Children's  M

iracle Network hospitals via extra life thank you guys so much again for watching this video  links to all the parts I use today are down in the video's description stay tuned for the follow up  where I'll be testing the graphics cards hit the thumbs up button on your way out if you enjoyed  the video and we'll see you all in the next one