Thanks for giving us such a thorough review for Starforge! We really appreciate both the kind words and fair criticisms that you have, and will work to address them. We all have a lot of respect for the way you approach things! ... Also, I swear it's a hammer, not a penis!
I'm confused why they never compared to or ever brought up NZXT build. They do still build PCs and only charge MSRP plus $100 for the service. Not bashing on starforge I just feel like it would be a really good comparison
Would be cool to see a secret buyer or tech support video with Star forge to see how they respond to customer inquiries or customer issues experienced with their systems :)
@@Zenchyi well now they can´t do it, but They have tons of people we don´t see on camera, especially since that person would communicate with them over phone and email
I found this video 2 months later. It is pretty well detailed and shows what to look out for. But I would like to see a redo at some point just to see if Starforge improved or not
should've called their customer support to see if they could help you fix the unseated power cables :P good video tho, thanks for covering starforge, was hoping you or GN would do this :)
if you start the pc with cables half unplugged like that there is a decent chance you can break something. I would've 100% tried that if i were linus just to laugh at them more tbh. Idm the LED thing but the power cables? Com'on
I fully agree with Linus. As being in almost every position in IT who handled help desk calls at 16, now an "IT Director/CTO" with over 30 years in the corporate world, I quit making PC's for people in a general sense a long time ago except for myself, my daughter, and my immediate family. Anybody who has built computers for those people that are not technically savvy, will land themselves in a nightmare of tech support hell if sold to the wrong person. Let alone the problems if you have to ship it which makes me shudder. The Icing on the cake is if you are just so nice, you keep dealing with the person's computer issue to make you go nuts.
it's not dealing with computer issuses that makes you go nuts, it's dealing with stupidity of some people. Like when you go to check out how PC got too slow (multiple times might i add) only to find 4 antiviruses, loads of useless stuff in autoload and C drive being 98% filled, just because people can't read and don't listen.
I've made 'alright' income by building pcs out of second hand parts for 'as is' systems. But that is a game where you really need to know when not to buy the part, and for the love of all that is holy you really need a second phone number for that one. But, I was selling them via bulletin boards in gas stations and I was very upfront that those were budget systems made from salvaged parts off of ebay and as often as not that there is unconventional parts choices going on. The second hand Quadro market for instance can be a godsend for those types of systems and while they are not optimized for gaming they do tend to do an adequate job of it.
I build computers for my immediate family -- the younger ones are forced to watch and learn how to build and set up the OS. Otherwise, they don't get a PC.
You gave them a pretty fair shake. Asmongold had some pretty big cajones watching your review live on stream. And he owned their mistakes. Overall a win for you and them.
It's easy to own the mistakes when you can blame the people that actually build the PC as opposed to the guy throwing money at it and saying fix this shit.
@@lamikal2515 I don't watch all of his content, but I have seen him be fairly level headed with stuff like this. He actually recognizes the knowledge and wisdom of guys like Linus, and Steve from GN. Hopefully he doesn't make an ass of himself.
basically is telling them how to make money for nothing in return to himself. i don't like that since it makes the unfair 'streamers' get more money too.
@@Petah5 in denial about his own for what? his company spends months just making a single product perfecting it idk how that is being in denial about his own?
@MissingFile. Everyone's in it for the money when it comes to any business or job . You think they started up this business for fun and they weren't in it for the money?
It's clear that your criticisms come from a place of hope and respect, very nice to see. Also, looking forward to see what comes out of the lab's testing with the new CPUs and GPUs coming.
I think I like him also (otherwise wouldn't spend hours watching his videos) but real and straightforward is often subjective. In this case (noticed without deep analysis), DIY build besides time difference didn't price windows license. He is pointing out in videos many times one sided opinions on irrelevant (for many) details, not mentioning important stuff. I don't want to blame or shame him....some of this things is just how people see world differently, some are influenced by business practice also, and it's understandable. My dream is for people to understand that there are no heroes these days and for every honest opinion there is another swayed one. As former computer integrator and business owner I applaud his knowledge, energy, passion and business skills. I disagree on many things with Linus also (Apple, Tesla), but still support him by watching and recently buying his products. Just got a backpack, took it for a bachelor trip (LV baby) and I like it a lot. Still waiting for a screwdriver. Does it mean I will wear boxers with his logo? probably not. Just liked progress updates on developing process, trusted his price/quality/functionality judgment and I am happy. Sorry for venting out...I rarely do it...probably pre-wedding stress :)
@@smartlifesystems When you do a DIY build, you don't ever include the cost of a Windows License because it's not required to run Windows 10.The only reason SIs have to include it is because they can't ship the PC without licensing Windows. It's one of those wacky things. There is absolutely nothing that will stop you from using Windows without activating it though. We rarely activate it on our machines at work and never have any issues. We change those machines so frequently it's just not worth the headache to deal with a license for a testing machine. Basically, it's perfectly fine to price out DIY and compare to an SI without a license key. If you want it to be there, just add ~$115 for a key. You don't need to pay that much for one since Microsoft gives them away for free legally for tons of random reasons, and you can buy them easily for around $15 from a grey market, but if it makes you feel better about the pricing, you can slip it in there.
what's the big difference between this screw driver and this 15 in 1 Klein Tools Ratcheting Screwdriver that I have lived by for the longest? I'd love to know because it was very affordable..
@Bryan Brown he has a half hour video explaining why it took so long and why the high price point its called something like "why it took 3 years", just search on youtube for ltt screwdriver
Every time I watch an LTT video, I'm blown away by the production quality. I've been watching for years and it's been awesome to watch the progression.
3DMark does actually have a pass / fail system... it is the specific "Stress Test" option. It even gives a percentage of reliability. Keep up the good work LTT!
Damn, I gotta hand it to Linus’s production crew…. That shot of Linus rummaging through the literal dumpster was one of the most beautiful scenes on RU-vid.
@@danielduncan6806 This is more commentary on the composition of the shot itself rather than commentary on what he was actually doing… I don’t care whether or not he was actually looking for the thing, it was extremely well captured and edited.
Videos like this are why I started watching Linus when he was as the house that had Whole Room Water-cooling PC. He's willing to let things slide, but is also critical in a way as to be constructive with his feedback, rather than be negative without any suggestions. It means companies that have Linus review their things have a nice little list of things they can improve, if they choose to listen
@@Cyan101 Yes, they did. The model they bought was upgraded to a 3090 on the site for the same price after they had purchased (because GPU prices dropped). So they refunded them the difference in cost of that single component.
was awesome they refunded them, most companies wouldn’t as the market changes so fast but they still did it, could also be because linus purchased the pc and they wanted browny points but I hope that’s not the case and they do stuff like this for all customers
they're just trying to leave a good impression to get started; wait a short while and they won't ever do shit like that (except if they're on camera of course...)
You always put these 20-ish-minute videos and I think that I probably won't watch the whole thing and might even turn it off after a couple minutes, but I almost always get sucked in and watch the whole thing. That's a sign of a quality video. Good job LMG! Sure, you eat up a lot of my time, lol, but it's enjoyable. I often see people doing long videos to feed the youtube algorithm, but your videos actually seem to be packed with content to where it seems that all the moments of time used were important. Long-time fan (not from the NCIX days though, lol)
it's the same for me and at one point i just started watching stuff at 1.5x unless it's stuff that's based on pacing(music videos, game clips etc). i watched this one at normal speed for the first time and i felt like he was talking too slow lol
For those who don't know, GN did a long exposé on AB (artisan builds). They found that the COO was well loved and did a lot of the grunt work and interacting with employees. He eventually went to the AB east division and everything went downhill.
Yeah the mentionning of Artesian Build scared the Heck out of me until I realised who was who coming from it. It's a tough market to be in. I wish the best to everyone buying from them and moreover WORKING for them.
*Everything went downhill because of bad management from CEO. If I remember correctly, this guy was pumping out almost enough to carry the entire company while the CEO was out there killing it.
13:50 If someone from Starforge is reading this. You can get custom colored and labeled 100mil headers and adapters made really really cheap and MOQ is also only around 1000-5000. So I would recommend you make yourself a custom adapter with colors, this way your techs can plug the cables first into the adapter and then they only have to connect one thing to the MB, plus you give your end-user a labeled adapter in case they want to change something later on.
some motherboards even have that included. but what would be even better, if the case manufacturers start using a single block instead of the individual connectors. all motherboards these days have the same layout for the 4 front i/o cables anyways. there is absolutly no need to have seperate connectors.
@@FeuerToifel I like having them separate because I find the drive activity light annoying, particularly if I leave my PC on overnight (in my bedroom). I want the power LED, though, so I just use part of that header
i find a lot of influencers very entertaining but i'm gonna be honest, i don't think i'd ever buy anything nearly as important as a new gaming rig from any of them lmao
A lot of twitch streamers are probably their own tech support, so at the very least they know approximately what they're doing. I don't know if I trust any of them enough to buy a PC from them, but if someone is gonna run a pre-built company, it may as well be twitch streamers
Coming out of college I worked in a tech room 10 years ago building pre-configed computers (mostly home/office and a few gaming pc’s). Things become loose so easy during transit (screws/4-8 pin connectors etc…). The calls I used to receive were just so brutal with so many issues. While I was there the company literally started charging for extended warranties because the scope of calls were getting ridiculous. The company stopped doing pre-builds in the mail about a year after I left. The owner said it just wasn’t worth it. They did however keep custom PCs in their actual store and that business ran strong until 2020 when they closed the doors and just because an eBay/Amazon store.
15:00 Major props to the writers for the framing of this section. It's slight, but the walk from the bin back to the computer while going over this really made it that much more engaging and interesting than if it was just at the computer itself. The callback 'plot' beat of looking for the outer box was a neat touch. It's also just nice to have a walk-n-talk and passively see how to get here-from-there on a non-tour video.
Even so, it's the execution of the shot I'm applauding and complimenting LTT on. The content within that shot is a discussion on its own, for sure but isn't what I was focusing on.
Eh. All it did was make me think how awkward it must be to walk backwards like that and how I would absolutely be standing still doing that segment, lol
Fun Fact: a sponsor of StarForge found out about this video in less than a minute of it being released, and is watching it live on stream right now lol.
Were y'all born bitter, negative, and dumb, or did you work hard at it? He watched a video review of HIS computer company. Which drove me to watch the source video. Which gave this channel another view, and comment. LMAO!!!!!
@@pandanutiypanda Yeah, so people playing videogame and posting the result on youtube/twitch are stealing content from gaming company uh? Lol go read about fair use
This video was actually great feedback and I'm interested to see if starforge then takes it in and works their stuff like they did with the community feedback. You should do this again in 6-8 months, sorta checkup, you know?
@@DutchGuyMike The cynic in me agrees but I try to have some faith in humanity and trust until I've got good reason not to. From everything I've heard they took the good parts (passionate, knowledgeable people) from a failure of a company and are trying to do it better.
@@armanke13 I don't understand the problem people have with click baiting. I mean, i do, those youtubers who just blatantly lie, those are just not worthy of any attention, but besides that, click baiting is just how things work, its why people such as yourself might click on this video.
@@armanke13 Referring to Starforge as the C&B or the PRCC might be a little bit mean... Or was that just the Twitch chats of all those who have watched the review so far?
Plus, when he said the average customer has no reason to be opening the case, I think he totally forgot that he literally *had* to remove the side panel because there's a couple giant inflatable foam things that have to be removed, so *every* user has to open the case. I could still very much see them missing the peel, but as long as it's not going to potentially cause any problems down the line if it's forgotten I think that's fine.
@@Sithhy which they have done. They have proven that they take the public's opinion very seriously and actually want to do this thing right. I hope nothing but the best for this company.
@@BeetleBuns To be honest it's pretty infuriating that all the time I spent learning how to make custom water loop cooled caselabs SMA8 etc.. 3 way SLI PCs over the years is essentially a dead skill akin to a degree in 'feminist dance theory' or some shit. I fully planned to make a business out of this, but sat on my ass past the tech boom that happened due to mobile phones becoming as globally ubiquitous as they were. I was still stuck in 2012 thinking "the normies won't catch on yet" and my small amazon pc selling career was left at just that, despite me having the ability to throw a quarter million dollars at it before the pandemic and some bad decisions financially ruined me. Now with the low margins and highly saturated/competitive industry-scape it's just not worth it apparently. Sad that my chance to see a hobby become a livelihood is up in smoke.
@ProudOfYourRoots When it's your hobby you pursue particular aspects of that hobby that are interesting. When it's your job you do what the boss/clients ask you to do, typically the same or similar job over and over. I agree with you, keep your hobby and job separate.
@Ian Visser If you actually choose the same parts as the Starforge system on pcpartpicker it comes out to under $2600 with windows 11 pro. That is still over 400$ less even with the sale that they have going on right now.
Man… I forgot that Linus use to be a pc building and components review channel. Even though it is still that in some points, I watch Linus and the Linus media group for my tech news. Keep up the great work guys. From a random viewer.
Seeing Asmongold react to this live on stream was not only gutsy but beyond hilarious. This might be one of my favorite pre-build reviews you've done lmao
In 10 hours and the company’s representative/head/boss Asmongold (I don’t really know his official title in otk) made a review video of your review. Imo he was responding to it very well and I hope his company will take your criticism into consideration.
Wouldn’t keeping the peels on protect the surfaces from getting scratched during shipping? I’d imagine there’s likely some dust in there that could cause small scratches that the peels probably protect it from them.
Is there an 1 year review for this pc company? Would be nice to see if they have improved, and how they are doing with their builds after 1 year of experience
Its tempting fate calling your company Starforge , An infamous kickstarter game that promised the world and severely under delivered , leading it to be the worst rated game on steam before its removal .
Really fun to watch video for me because at my minijob I build PCs and have to avoid exactly such mistakes Linus pointed out. I am happy to report Im feeling quite confident in my work after seeing this haha
@@bobhanson1037 except nowhere is that stated, and nowhere is there any written content to state that they are merely figureheads, everything that has been shown so far makes you think this is purely a streamers driven project with them doing everything, you have to go out of your way to do background research which is never a good sign, it should be made apparent up front that this company is run by an external team of people who handle the day to day activities with the streamers being the face of the company, you shouldn't need to go digging to find that out.
@@rogoth01themasterwizard11 No way you actually believe a group of twitch streamers with no working experience are building the computers and running the company LMAO
@@victor-gn4jg where did i say that i believed it?, i stated quite clearly and plainly that there's nothing stating this as the fact and that anyone who doesn't have a small amount of passing knowledge would be more than forgiven for assuming such to be true, how are you unable to read and comprehend what is written?
4:41 that's why the INSANE amount of LEGO I have always comes in a completely unmarked brown cardboard box. Many Hundreds of sets. Yes. I'm 40.. no, I don't have a problem. YOU have a problem.
6:03 - I nearly ended my relationship with a phone carrier because the clerk took the clear protectors off the phone for me. Leaving them on is a HUGE PLUS. And it lets me know the parts were new, most likely, on installation.
a phone and a CPU cooler are just different. how u ask? any person who ordered a pc from an SI , is likely not familiar with things inside a pc and probably just want the computer, that makes little to no chance of them opening the case themselves and removing peels from components inside the PC. it's best to just remove them , no sense in leaving the peel on on the components inside
@@yashgupta1724 Leaving them on does nothing to affect the performance. So, in the end it doesn't matter. It should be left on and removed by the consumer. When I buy electronics, I have to remove things before use ALL the time. I just removed 27 pieces of plastic covering from a printer I bought. I didn't build the printer. I just wanted to print things. And yes, some were inside, but the instructions made sure to tell me about them. Reading, it's fckn crazy how it works. If you're too smooth brained to ready a product before its first use, maybe you shouldn't have one.
You’re confusing product security for customer service, only weirdos leave the plastic on the screen of a new phone and now we all know you’re a weirdo. They were doing you a favor
@@UTP_ENT I don't 'leave it on'.... I don't use the phone while the film is still on the phone... I don't know HOW you determined that's what I meant.... >.>
You should make another video about these guys. I ordered my pc from them on October 12th and im STILL waiting. 4 delays so far what a disaster these guys and from what i've seen many others still waiting as well.
@nate the oneeeee positive so far is they are replacing my 3090ti for the 4080 16gb at 0 additional cost for the inconvenience but whenever they decide to finally freaking ship it! 🤦🏻♂️
Wouldn't the name "Colton" used by the mystery buyer for LTT, ring some bells. There was a point in time, when Colton was being fired in almost every other video 😂
I'm sure there are several people with name Colton. As well there are several people with pretty much any specific name. So trying to give a special treatment to everyone whose name resembles one of a famous person would quickly make the "special treatment" not so special. With the same effort they could just do their job just as good for every customer.
@@DGARedRaven How many would even know his surname? I didn't, and I've watched at least a hundred of LTT videos. I can't imagine that when an order arrives, the name of the customer is passed around to employees to ask if the person could be someone famous. Unless the name is something that immediately rings a bell on the one or two people who handle the order, I doubt no-one is going to notice. With the same effort, wouldn't it be better to just do every build properly? If something goes wrong, it'd create more work for customer support, and would bring some bad reputation.
This was a fantastic review of a new company. Kudos for being fair and giving us a solid review of the experience. Refreshing to say the least. Also OMG their logo design... WTF it really does look like male anatomy. Graphic designer brain screaming
I can't believe how fucking dumb I am. I've running my RAM at 2133mhz instead of 3200 for 4 full years because I never bothered to check the XMP on my bios when I upgraded it and I just snaped while viewing this video on your comment to the RAM
I'm impressed by their willingness to make changes quickly based on the cost of graphics cards and user feedback about the processor. The QC problems suck but that comes down to the error of a single builder. At some point you have to trust your employees to be doing good work especially if you're a fairly small company.
You have a checklist and an employee, that didn't build the system, goes through it before you button up the case. It is not rocket science. It takes about 3 minutes of additional labor to stop nearly 100% of your unforced errors that cause failure to boot on arrivals.
@@votefornormality that person probably has better shit to do then double check everyone else's work. The builder is responsible for doing a post build check and confirming everything is up to standard.
@@votefornormality it actually did boot up 😉 As someone who sometimes write how-to and checklists for the (non IT) industry, I can assure you it's always trickier than what people think.
@@3g2i63 As someone who has worked in manufacturing auditing for 3 years, I've seen countless idiots who cut corners or ignore critical control points which gets businesses slapped with non conformity flags in SEDEX audit reports. This shit can literally cost businesses their contract when it comes up for tender.
I think for Starforge it solves a big problem they actually have "what PC should I get" is a huge common question in Twitch chats for streamers. Being able to capitalize on that question is valuable when you're a streamer and viewers aren't going to care if the price difference is 25% over self building.
Are you in general more interested in affordable IT or rather freakish super high end crazy stuff? I am asking to try to understand my audience better, too 🙏
Zack from OTK has said it before: "People will pay for convenience." Sure you could build one yourself, but a 25% mark up seems fair if you have zero knowledge of how to build a pc and want one quickly. You dont have to worry about; Plugging things incorrectly Parts arriving at different times Getting cheaper deals on parts from different sellers on different websites Parts arriving DOA
It is our appreciation that allows them to have 80 + employees, multiple channels, multiple internal businesses and the freedom not to be bound to corporate overlords so...yea...
One thing I noticed at the end is all of the price comparisons (specifically the differentials) at the end were compared to the price that they purchased the system at and not the price after the adjustments. I think a little bit more praise should have been given for the after purchase price adjustments and the final comparisons should have been made to the adjusted price.
With the recent OTK controversy and pretty recent Artesian controversy, it would of been super easy to just sh*t on Starforge the whole video. Glad you didn't punch down at the same time not holding back punches either. Most of us watching this video would probably build our own systems though.
Just got my Starforge delivered, doesn't turn on at all. Checking wires and everything so far seems good. I am out of practice with todays building though (which is why I spent the extra $$$ to have it pre-built) so a bit annoyed but cannot blame them until I figure it out or call support and they figure it out. Could be delivery issues). Still, for now, poop.
Great video! Would have liked to have seen if the PC booted up before the tear down though. Because anyone buying a pre build is only opening the case to remove the packing materials and then booting it up. Tearing it down first and checking the plugs and fixing the mistakes before boot up doesn't really give us an out of box view.
It does though. We see what sort of mistakes can be made and left unchecked. What would be the point of seeing if it boots when they know there's issues that they can just discuss the issues instead? I think anyone buying a pre-built pc should check cables and connections to ensure that things are hooked up right. Anyone who just opens it up, removes the package and boots up immediately is asking for trouble. Especially when most SI's will include instructions that tell consumers to check cables and components themselves in case things have loosened in shipping or weren't assembled properly.
@@ch4z_bucks my point is the majority of people buying these just want to unpack it and boot it up. Nothing would be lost. However, fixing all the issues that might prevent it from booting, well now that opportunity is lost
Not as bad as i thought. I am sure they will have allot of happy customers who are unable to DIY for whatever reasons. Personally, ill always DIY. But for those who cant/don't this is great.
Its beyond me how someone is unable to put a pc together, its literally easier then lego, but if you can pay almost 1k extra for a prebuild then I guess you are some millionaire
@@faustinpippin9208 I have a few friends with disabilities who cant do it for themselves. Both mental and physical. There are totally folk out there who cant, or dont want to for whatever reason. I agree for an able-bodied person its easy if they are willing. But if your unknowing for example but able and on 50k+ a year. Why bother putting the effort in learning and seeing if the parts are compatible when you have no interest. It's cheaper probably to put that time and research into just working and have someone else build it ;)
@@faustinpippin9208 do you repair your own car? build your own fridge? washing machine, kitchen table? PC is just a tool for a lot of people, they just want to buy one and forget about it also, if a complete newbie has to spend 10-20h doing research and then another couple hours building it on its own, if you multiply that time spend with your hourly salary and you get a number higher than pre-build markup, just buy prebuild, it saves time AND money
@@wapniak666 that answer to most of those questions is yes, I do repair my own shit, it's not that hard and it's FAR cheaper. The people that don't repair their own crap probably still don't own a house, and complain that they have no money to buy one.
@@BeetleBuns no its not cheaper, if I had to spend 10-20 fixing my car Im already down hundreds of dollars and that's not counting cost of tools, space etc Irs way cheaper to just pay someone and deal with that instead
why do i feel like Linus whips his screwdriver out more than a half dozen times a day waiting for others approval that its the best. haha kidding Linus it is a great tool just gotta bust your chops
16:40, its even worse than just not getting their paychecks. In some cases the company actually filed a claim against their employees on paypal to take back money they had already been paid and paypal just sided with the company since they were larger.
it would be interesting to see if the options in the $700 to $2000 price range get the same treatment. because they'll probably sell less $3,5k builds, are they built with more care or less?
Front panel headers really should just be a one-connector solution in this, The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty Two. Having streamers, who would really be end-users in this case and want a perfectly built 100% Out-of-Box-Ready product, as owners also means that the executive office may always have the end-user in mind when making decisions.
While I agree with you, one doesn't impact the other. Starforge is just an SI, not an actual manufacturer. If every motherboard manufacturer agreed to keep the layout the same, then it would make sense. I believe there is one case manufacturer that uses a single plug, but god-forbid you have the one motherboard with the not-so-standard Front IO layout. Though I highly doubt motherboard and case manufacturers will agree to that, because just like Apple for their iPhones, everyone has to be different.
I think the worst thing on that computer is that they didn't give you all the power cables. Like you said what if someone needs molex? I know people hate that connector but you really should account for people adding stuff.
Honestly seems pretty good for what is essentially a small start up. If they keep listening to feedback and making improvements they might end up being a serious contender in the market.
