We Secretly Challenged 3 communities to Build the Best $1000 Gaming PC! 

Not being able to talk about building a PC in the PC building Reddit is the most Reddit thing ever.

Fastest way on Reddit is to post obviously wrong information and someone will then actually give you the correct answer in the form on sarcasm within about 25 seconds

Think this may be a future project to add to the forums. A parts list for set price points that updates with currently available prices. You guys give great parts advice in terms of when the product launches, but that's a tiny segment of the market for people building PCs. Those that buy products after everything has been fully reviewed so they can make an informed decision (like you advise) deserve to get good advice too.

While they were only considering perfomance, I think recomemding a case thats easier to build in is totally valid. If someone is asking for parts suggestions, then its likely they dont have a ton of computer building experience (or at least arent up to date with current parts). Seems reasonable to me to suggest something that would be easier to work in if the person you're recommending to has limited experience.

LTT forums has never let me down except for that one guy who recommended I go with GTX 1080 SLI.

I would argue PcPartPicker's forums is more deserving of the number one spot because having the dialogue and response to make a brand new or first time PC builder feel like they're not getting in over their head is the quality of life that encourages a person to feel comfortable out of their comfort zone. Good job you guys~~~

I'm part of the active pcpp community and I'm so happy this vid was made! JDH is a cool guy and I'm glad he was featured

I suppose this emphasizes the importance of shopping around before building. Ask around in multiple communities, so you have access to the widest amount of people who might have ideas on what to buy, and then pit them against each other. Each rig had redeeming qualities.

I’m surprised Reddit didn’t just skip straight to suggesting Linus get a divorce, because that’s their typical solution to everything.

Huge props to LTT for being transparent about the LTT forums not being up to snuff for this video. They didn't seem biased in any way, and I respect that. Loved the concept for this and was well done!

One of my favorite websites to use as a reasonable starting point for choosing parts is logical increments. The website is constantly updated as new hardware comes out and prices change. It also provides a ton of price ranges and the possible parts you can pair together. While there's more to it than that, it gives you an idea of what parts you should be comparing for a given price range. When a friend requests my help for building a PC, that website is the the first place I go to get an idea of the current hardware landscape.

Side note: I really like the changes to how you change corrections like price changes. Good job.

It's important to note, that reddit had a list, that appears to be made and maintained by the whole community, while PCPartPicker and ltt forum had individuals, who suggested their own views on the best pc. They say two minds are better than one. And the reddit hive-mind is certainly effective. That list surely has the most *consistent* quality you could get across those three options.

I use PC Part Picker to check on compatibility on possible builds, and forums for more specific questions like "what's the best GPU that I can pair with my CPU?"

Some notes to the editor or QA: At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="640">10:40</a> for the LTT Forum build you mention 32GB of memory, showing in the background clearly 4 RAM sticks, while the pop-up reads: 2x 16GB. Something must've gone wrong here. At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="722">12:02</a> when Linus talks about the case choices, he lists them in this order: Fractal, Phanteks, Lian Li, corresponding to LTT Forum, Reddit and PC PartPicker, and the cases are flown in in the edit from left to right in that order. In the background of him talking the builds were ordered like this from left to right: Reddit, PCPartPicker, LTT Forum. Thus, I think it would've been cleaner if you showed first the LTT Forum/Fractal Case on the right (like he says it first), then the Phanteks case on the left (his second mention), still showing Linus gesticulating and talking in the middle, before you then show the third case he talks about in the middle (PCPartPicker/Lian Li). This way, not only would the conitnuum of the order of the builds be conserved, the viewer also gets the chance to follow Linus' performance the longest. Just my 2 cents :) Otherwise, cool video! Great to see what cool suggestions the communities came up with.

Reddit always reminds me of those experiments that show how any one individual is all but certain to not correctly guess how many Jelly Beans are in a jar, but if you ask 100 people and average their answers that will usually be pretty close to the correct number. Any one individual answer/comment has a high likelihood of being incorrect, but when almost all the comments consistently say the same thing it's usually worth looking into it, if for no other reason than to verify

Small form computers and itx builds? SFF network and SFF reddit. The sheer amount of resources, custom brackets or. Fan cooling, or just endless advice is beyond amazing for all your small form factor computer needs. Depending on the computer it's often better to just go to the large niche community who spends their time doing nothing but that computer build niche

PC Part Picker has never done me wrong.

This is something that should be revisited. I’d like to see a few videos on this to give more people a chance to chime in to give each community more data points.

So happy to see the intro back in a new video!!

I recently had to replace my PC, and I chose the Fractal Pop XL Silent case to build it in. I didn't regret it. Very nice case, and it came with 4 fans preinstalled which for about £90 is a steal.

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="203">3:23</a> Linus says that it's a 16GB kit but the on screen graphic displays it as a 32GB kit

Wow! I was so happy to see the intro coming back in this video!

This was an interesting approach. Very creative. I really enjoyed it. Thanks!

The results match my experience when I tried to build my first PC earlier this year. PC Part Picker's forums are genuinely more enthusiastic and helpful than I expected, and while LTT's tier lists were really helpful my final build ended up (for my use cases in FEA/CAD) ended up much closer to the PC Part Picker recommendations than the LTT forum ones. No shame to either one though - I appreciated all the advice on both!

I will say, for Reddit, asking for a complete build like they did here isn't where /r/buildapc shines. However, if you post a complete build and ask for thoughts/advice, you will usually get engagement. Expecially if you're like "here's my build. I want to play Starfield on 1080. Is anything really bottlenecking me here." And I think you'd get good responses in the comments. So it's sort of a square peg round hole issue for how they chose to use /r/buildapc

This was a great video, it went way farther than I thought it would.

Would love to see this format again but for troubleshooting help!

Love to see the regular 6800 there. These cards are tremendously good for their price

Would be good to revisit this one with $500 more and see which one is better for upgrading.

For me it seemed like the last one is suuuuper solid if you're planning on upgrading the gpu within the year or so since the GPU won't be as bottlenecked by other components, but that still is sacrificing performance in the present.

I am so happy you brought back the intro!!

Nice to see the builds, and I agree with the results. I think Reddit and PCPartPicker just have more community to overall pull from to get the results. Also nice seeing Antlion Mod Mic buying some space. Still have my mic I bought when I purchased my first set of PC parts. It's stiill working wonderfully with my Audio-technica headphones.

For the LTT forum build the ram showed 2x16gb at the top but installed in the computer was actually 4x8, I assume

I really like these videos I love the new way of attacking them please make more, they are probably my favorite, and they can be looked at later for if someone is curious how a certain produce had matured over time

that Phanteks case took me a month to find, but it hit every single thing I wanted. Affordable, pretty well made, and the airflow is excellent. Honestly, best case I've built in for the size. My previous case was a Corsair 200R, which at the time was nice, but is so massive and just didn't make sense to keep using for a new build. Even funnier on the second build, the Lian Li case was my higher priced option over the Phanteks, which the bigger front fans would be nice, but really not necessary. I would say you're unlikely to see a huge difference in heat. The front mesh panels on both are the big reason. They also grab a lot of dust without causing air flow issues. And the 6800 is an excellent GPU from what I am seeing, and if I'm upgrading from the 6600, it's a solid choice. On the 3rd option, I think they set the person building it up for a better long term upgrade with the GPU. I opted for a much higher end build on my own system and only sacrificed the GPU since prices were insane at the time, and the 6600 was the best bang for the buck at the time.

Hi LTT, Love the video but there are a few areas I believe that could lead to some confusion. 1. the LLT requirements at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="108">1:48</a> states "operating system required:Windows", however not all the builds chosen by LLT include an OS therefore not meeting LTT's own requirements (leading to difference in recommendations such as PC part picker at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="374">6:14</a>) nor staying within budget. This also skews the cost vs performance vs helpfulness of said forums. 2. Minor scripting error at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="203">3:23</a> when Linus states "16GB kit". On screen information and build both state 32GB 3. Possible discrepancy with Reddit Build at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="247">4:07</a>. The screenshot shown has two storage devices in the cart/build (2x WD Green 1TB NVME). This is different than the Single Titanium Micro TH4985 1TB listed in the video description and the Reddit buyers guide. Without knowing what build was actually purchased, this again could skew cost vs performance vs helpfulness. 4. Aligned with #3 above, at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="414">6:54</a> Linus mentions the PCPartPicker build has "half as much storage at 1TB". The storage for the Reddit built was never shown nor discussed in the video. Also based on #3 above there is no factual proof that the PCPartPicker is indeed half the storage, as if the listed Titanium Micro was purchased based on the video description then it would be the same not half. 5. Issue at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="388">6:28</a>. LTT removed the copy of windows although stating Windows and OS was required, see #1 above. Also the build was not chosen as it was quite under budget. However, the LLT forum build at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="624">10:24</a> is also $100(10%) under budget while stating at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="754">12:34</a> that all the systems are "the exact same amount". A 10% difference in price is a pretty significant margin of error/delta in cost when LLT chose the build, as that can allow for a tier bump on a CPU or GPU (would explain the lower performance). Recommendations: 1. A smaller margin of error/delta in costs when choosing builds. 2. Validation checks that the chosen builds meeting the outlined requirements. 3. Provide better transparency by including the full purchase order of parts and costs to the viewership, to better compare cost vs performance vs helpfulness of the forums to make more informed decisions.

I would love a small hint to how much power a build uses. Just a few seconds saying an average or something. Not just for this video, but for future builds.

Perfect video for the holidays as im planning to buy parts this black friday/cyber monday! Thanks LTT

The Lian Li 215 is a great case, highly recommend it! I personally use the O11 Air Mini, but I helped a friend build a pc over video call and it could not have been easier.

There's also an issue for the RAM in the LTT forum section: text says 2 x 16, but the B roll shows four sticks of memory

This was great. Also oddly reminds me that my setup similar to Reddits means that maybe I dont have to rush for Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals because the difference in fps vs money going out isn't great enough for me. Products aren't really blowing each other out of the water anymore and it's really just smaller and the data does say smaller..victories.

Fantastic breakdown of the different builds! It's really insightful to see the diverse parts each of these platforms recommended. Even though there wasn't a clear "best" configuration, it's testament to how each config produced excellent performance in different ways! Valuable lesson learned: don't skimp on GPU for gaming rigs! Thanks for the practical guide. I'll definitely be referring back to this when building my next PC!

It feels so good to see the intro again!!

Realistically though, having an active community with more options, good discussions/assistance, and overall more activity is more important than whatever random build you get at specific price point. I'd argue this is true for first-time builders as much as veterans. Personally, while I'd have traded a bit more CPU for GPU than the LTT build, I would spend a bit more than the other 2 builds on the other parts like PSU, NVME, etc. It doesn't cost much to go from a low/mid grade component to a mid/upper grade one and not having your power supply or drive die in a few years is worth an extra $100-200 spent across those other components.

I wonder if LTT will ever make updated version of the "as fast as possible' series. Would be cool to see those with the better production quality and whatnots.

Glad he mentioned the upgrade path.

I got something of a best of both worlds from these builds with 6800 and 5700x in a lian li 215 case. Picked and built myself and was also considering a 4070. Pretty surprised they're this close in performance, considering i spent half the price on 6800, lol

Corrections for the LTT Build: At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="640">10:40</a>, it should be the Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (4x8) DDR4-3600 CL 18 At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="657">10:57</a>, it appears to be the Seasonic FOCUS GX-750, but I'm not entirely sure on that one. At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="663">11:03</a>, the card is a Sapphire PULSE RX 7600 (still a 2X card)

I recently got a new PC, before I ordered it I put the specs I was looking at on Reddit and got some great advice. Changed up a few parts based on the recommendations and couldn’t be happier with the PC I ended up with! So I can’t speak for everyone but I found Reddit a very helpful place to ask

Loved this video, these kinds are the best from this channel! ❤

I went to the LTT forum earlier this year to build my pc and i got the help i needed. Thanks for that. Danny from Beirut.

Interesting how the almost everything in the PC part picker build matches every part in my PC perfectly except for the graphics card, storage, and cooler. Looking forward to seeing how it compares to the rest.

I bought a used HP Omen desktop, 11900K, 3080Ti, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe for $900, it thermal throttled a lot, spent the extra $100 to put all those in a used Corsair 4000D with 6xML120 a Noctua D-15, everything runs cool and quiet. BTW, those HP Omen 25L/30L/45L systems have standard motherboards and CoolerMaster Gold PSU, so case swap is a breeze and is a such a good deal.

I used the LTT forumn at the start of the year for help to build mine, was very helpful!

This is not a bot comment but damn that Antlion ad spot was really well written and convincing. Still have my OG mod mic from back in the day

Nice vid! It’s hard to a newbie pull the trigger and give a good info to them. On the LTT build says that is 32GB of Ripjaws but are corsair on the build, on the PSU said it’s Corsair but on the video we saw a Seasonic. (The ram could impact the performace)

I built my workstation with pcpartpicker and some guidance from a friend. Only thing I ended up changing was ram and case because I wanted a good bit of ram and wanted front IO. A case is the part you see most from your PC so you might as well have something that looks good and has the features you want I say

Glad they brought back the intro music part.

So happy the intro is back

The ssd tier list in the ltt forum is goated

Pc part picker is a great utility. Used it to spec my sons first build and its super useful. Didnt know there was a forum tho 😂😂

This is such a great idea for a video

From my experience building for the first time this year, all of the above resources. LTT was a huge source of inspiration for me to build rather than buy prebuilt and I now have my LTT screwdriver sitting proudly on my desk in front of the computer

I just built my new PC today, and then this video comes out, lol. I...took a different approach. Spreadsheets! Well, I basically did a combination of hardware benchmark ratings and pricing, and determined how the value laid out. I also compared these benchmarks to the PC I was replacing, just a 3 year old pretty much top of the line PC. From a purely benchmark standpoint, I found a few interesting things. One, SSDs have gotten WAY faster in read/write/etc. capability. Coming into this new build I was thinking a SSD is a SSD is a SSD, and they're not really that way. Their performances scaled up considerably. How much it matters in the day to day stuff, well, it's not nearly enough to put big weight on a benchmark score. But just from a few years ago, the raw capabilities and the PCI generation changes have bumped this up a whole lot. Two, CPUs, in terms of cost is pretty much linear. Both AMD and Intel play on the same field, and they both lay out their pricing pretty much flat across it with a pretty consistent price per performance gain. The good is you can pick anything, and you're getting a "well valued" gain for the price. A big bonus is this means a good, budget one is still a solid performer. This also means a top end pick doesn't break the bank either. If you're a CAD guy like me, I can go straight to a 14900K and not feel like I'm throwing away money to get the high single thread performance CAD software like SolidWorks needs. Three, GPUs, outside of something like modern ray tracing and scaling for modern monitors, they have lethargically moved. For example, I was coming from a pretty dated 1080, and the majority of modern mid to high end GPUs were a mild 30% to 60% bump. Again, just from a benchmark score standpoint, it took a 4070 Ti to bump me up to a +100% gain. I can buy a 1080 today for like $60. A 4070 TI is a $1000 GPU. And most reasonably valued options are really only bumping me up 10% to maybe 40%. It's...disheartening how bad of a value GPUs have become, and it kind of sucks there aren't work arounds like SLI to buy you time. Worse yet, generational changes also didn't help pricing. A 3000 series GPU isn't even cheap, at all, despite the 4000 series being out. Even the 2000 series stuff is overpriced and without enough of a performance bump to warrant even looking at them. AMD isn't an improvement either. Their cards are all overpriced versus Nvidia for their performance level. People are just demanding too much for what they are. For me, it was mainly a game of picking some of the best I could get, if the pricing wasn't skewed, and try to hunt down values by aiming at the used market where it made good sense, aka GPUs. I reused my peripherals, case, power supply (picked a "big" 750W a few years back that luckily held up to what I need today), and hard drives. The only new stuff needed for the upgrade was motherboard, cpu, cooler, ram, and GPU, although I did pick up one, bigger, new SSD and cloned my main drive over to that. Oh, and I did pick up the Alienware 34" QD-OLED to replace a couple of...uh...old 24" gaming monitors (from 2011). Mine wasn't a $1k target or anything, but it was an interesting exercise and refresher for me of all the new hardware that popped up the last few years. It was interesting to see what sectors have progressed. One thing I didn't do was look back on pricing to see how much the value proposition changed. A lot of the pricing "felt" similar when selecting a current equivalent level product, well, outside of GPUs and to an extent monitors if they're any of the "new tech" kind of stuff. The pricing sticks out like a sore thumb.

Im definitely doing the ltt build with a better gpu this summer. Im glad this video came around ive never built a pc but ive been watching ltt for years and have bought my hp envy as well as my asus tuf monitor based on their recommendations for my use case. Awesome videos guys. Literally the only youtubers ive bought merch from since its so funtional. Their waterbottle keeps my ice, ice cold for 3 days on ends

Ive used LTT Fourm for my last 2 pc builds, very helpful folks over there. Also used the LTT pc guide to build my current rig

PC Builder. I got the majority of my Information from Jason. Hands down that man is a gods send. Built my first PC with ease thanks to his advice.

i'd love to see a monthly ltt recommended build, or builds, have 3 levels every moth that you recommend.

PCMR and PCbuild would have been better Reddits to ask

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="90">1:30</a> glad to see the Intro back, Its been a while.

I built my i9-10900KF and Arc A770 in a Fractal Pop case :3 I love love LOVE the optional CD/DVD/Blu-ray Drive at the bottom that keeps it clean! I hope to use this case for a LONG ass time.

For the reddit build, you said you got a 16GB kit, then promptly show a 32GB kit. Which is it? (<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="204">3:24</a>) The LTT parts, you say Corsair power supply, then show a Seasonic logo. (<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="655">10:55</a>)

I changed my PC around a month ago and got myself to build it on my own for the first time. I asked people on Reddit and someone gave me a PcPartPicker list, which I then used as a basis to swap components for ones fitting my budget. Eventually, I went on LTT forums to ask about mores specific advice. All in all, all 3 have been very helpful and this new PC is amazing. Kudos to the people on all three websites.

OMG the intro is back!!

literally was going to go on LTT forums to ask this exact question because I've been thinking of building a computuer for months. Perfect timing for this video.

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="644">10:44</a>, that looks like 4 sticks ram, not 2 x 16.

You should go to all three, and also to the manufacturer specs and any other site you find, and cross-reference them. That way you can detect any BS or errors from any one source.

I. Love. The introoooooooo. I love every video that brings the intro back.

gosh I missed that LTT intro so much

Did not expect the rx 6800 to put up such a mighty fight vs the 4070.

I found a RU-vidr that did builds. He had a link to his site, & it had specs. For my first build, I just altered what he had slightly & made sure it was compatible with the motherboard I chose.

good to see the intro is back

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="641">10:41</a> Should be 4x8GB.

The dota 2 results are very suprising. Are the 2 extra cores with the extra 1MB of really making the difference here? The 5600X boosts just as fast and has technically better memory (CL16) . Maybe driver overhead with NVIDIA plays a role here too. Super curious if this could be replicated by a third party

Hi linus your explanations benchmarks tests devices are the one pretty ❤😂

Very honest review. I agree,its almost allways better to spend more on your gpu than cpu. 👍🏻

Compared to these my build suggestions as of late are, lets say, more eclectic. I've been giving a lot of love to LGA 3647 and 2066 with Comet Lake and especially skylake xeons doing their EOL price nosedive and 16gb sticks of ECC DDR4 doing the same. The used workstation market is alive and well for the willing

Yay! The intro is back!

This was a very good video, LTT! Low bias, cool and useful concept, pretty good!

Please, in the future videos, use equalizer to remove the unused low end noise, I could hear constant hum on my studio monitors and it was annoying. Always use low cut below 100hz, not no all channels but on the channels with recordings.

Linus someone on the LTT forum gave me instructions on how to hide a body is this okay

love the inconsolata font you use on the video

Linus, one thing I noticed on PC forums is, that a whole lot of people have absolutely no idea about one very important part of the whole PC: the monitor! I´ve seen loads of posts where recommended PC parts will make a absolute high end overkill monster, but people play on 1080p 60hz monitors, with bad colors! Or some people who have those overkill PC, wonder why the image still looks bad, while their settings are set to 59.94hz. There are many people who have a good budget for a PC, but spend all on thhe computer itself and still use an old crappy monitor in the end. I am convinced that a lot of people would have a way better gaming experience, if they´d use their budget different, go a little lower on the PC specs, but get a quality monitor instead. So, for educational purposes, would it be an idea for you to make a video about monitors and how to get one that fits the computer it will be connected to, so you end up with a balanced setup?

When it comes to part selection, I've come to value the case, PSU and motherboard above all else. I would gladly trade 2-10% performance for something that won't take me 3+ hours to build (including breaks due to frustration), and I dread ever having to take it apart.

reddit usually aligns with or redirects to the ltt forum

The fact that there were so many things that changed during the making of this video proves its point 100%

I don't always comment on LTT videos, but I really really enjoyed this one!

I wouldn't expect this to be mentioned in the video but 4chans PC building general is really helpful. (Just don't ask them whether you should buy AMD or Nvidia)

Correction in the video, with the LTT Forums Pc: The ram was 4x8 ( I Presume ) not 2x16 and from Corsair, not from GSkill. The PSU is clearly labeled a Seasonic PSU, not a Corsair one.