 Ah, the mantra of the PC Master Race. Build your own PC, they say. It's cheaper than a pre-built, they say. But just how cheaply can you build a completely new system? And what compromises would you make if you were to do so? To find out, we purchased this bag of potatoes. Oh, and also we built this PC. EK Water Blocks' all-aluminum, fluid gaming lineup offers great custom-grade water cooling performance for an affordable price. Learn more at the link in the video description. Okay, so the exact spec of the cheapest PC you can build seems to vary a bit, depending on the day that you're shopping for it. And also just how ghetto-fabulous you want to get. But long story short, we ended up with something, let's say, usable for $151.99. And to clarify the usable bit there, we actually had managed to find a full system with this single-core Intel Celeron 440 that would have been $1.51 cheaper, but unfortunately, the Acer motherboard it was attached to was a lot funkier than we at first thought. And using it would have required some heavy case modification. So we settled for this slightly more expensive combo, a quad-core AMD A83870 and this ECS motherboard. Now, even with the right standoffs, assembly of this thing was nothing short of heroic. We dodged, we spun, we rolled away from the sharp, spiky insides of the Zion case that we picked up for $23. I swear, around every corner, there must have been a sharp piece of metal just waiting for a finger to run across it. Finally, though, still alive but not entirely unscathed, we fired our rig up and installed Windows 10. And with it all assembled now, had a chance to look at what it was that we'd created. At which time, we promptly wished we hadn't. Because the build quality of this thing is atrocious. If this were the subject of an LTT review, it would probably go a little something like this. All the materials of this product feel super cheap. Because they are. And the whole system is lighter than some of the laptops that we've reviewed recently. At least I'll give them credit for this. The outside of the case is mostly free of sharp edges. But I still wouldn't recommend performing the ol', uh, reach around to plug something in in the dark if you don't want to get bit by this here wildcat. Rawr. Overall, though, in fairness, the look of the case isn't that bad, and it's not like it wouldn't be functional if you are on a tight budget. Though the inclusion of a rear case fan for exhaust would have been a nice touch. With that said, arguably our 400 watt power supply does seem to take care of that job for the most part. Probably because the Coolmax i400 runs its fan at full speed. As often as you should be using a condom at a brothel. So that is 100% of the time. In all seriousness, though, even at idle, this system is uncomfortably loud due to that fan. And at full load, once the CPU fan joins the chorus, you'll actually probably be wishing for some earmuffs. The silver lining here, at least, is that with all that noise, you do get some half-decent thermals. With both the CPU and GPU leveling off at around 64 degrees. Spec-wise, though, well, you can forget about your favorite AAA games, because this thing barely scrapes by the minimum specs for Windows 10. I mean, the CPU is actually half-decent for 38 bucks. Its four cores at 3 gigahertz feel like they're being held back somewhat by the rest of the system. So for productivity, this box works reasonably well, once all the extra visuals are disabled. Surfing the internet was serviceable, and even full HD YouTube playback was nice and smooth. At least until we ran out of RAM. And since there's only two gigs of the stuff, well, you can expect to be hitting the page file every so often. Ha! Just kidding, always. And, oh, man. Once you have to access the hard drive, any resemblance of haste goes away. At only 5400 RPM, the 160 gigabytes of storage is molasses slow. Like, type in a search for one of the four Blu-ray movies that you could fit on it, then go make a cup of tea while you wait for the results. But come on, who cares about hard drive performance? Let's answer the burning question on all of your minds. Can it game? I mean, the system does have dedicated graphics, so it should be able to, right? Ha! The dedicated, I think, indifferent graphics would probably be a better term, since our GeForce 8440 GS doesn't give too cold shits about your frame rate. Coming in at $19, it sports 256 megs of DDR2 memory, and with a Dinosauric 460 MHz core clock, its 3DMark score is 36 times lower than that of the lowly GTX 750 Ti. That's right, not a GTX 1080 Ti, but the 750 Ti, a card that costs only five times as much. So, needless to say, in our tests, we're going for playable rather than pretty. Half-Life 2, then, at 720p, medium to low-ish details, actually not the worst gaming experience I've ever had. Though that's more of an endorsement of Valve's excellent storytelling than this gaming PC. And as for anything newer than 2010, well, you can forget about that. Even CS GO at 720p with the lowest settings yields an absolutely unplayable 10 frames per second. But wait! Crysis was released before 2010! Can it? Can it run Crysis? Yes, yes it can, at 800x600 and the lowest settings. And it's actually somewhat playable, which is cool. But we also wanted to bench our system in such a way that you can compare it at home. So we booted up 3DMark, where only the Ice Storm benchmark for mobile devices was able to run, since everything else required either a higher level of DirectX support or more VRAM. Funny story, our GeForce 8440GS managed a score of 4,989, which actually kind of sounded like a big number, until it got absolutely butt-wrecked by the 24,320 score recorded by the AMD integrated GPU built in to our processor. So I guess then that spending that $19 on some Mountain Dew and Doritos would have had a bigger impact on the gaming experience. So then, with the GeForce 8440 ripped out, actually the whole system got more usable in general. We managed almost 60 FPS in CSGO at 720p low, and GTA V, well, hey, it got the game to launch. Which at this point, we consider a win, even if it did only manage frame rates in the 20s, among other issues. So bottom line, would we recommend this system? Absolutely not. I mean, to be clear, there's still a lot of fun to be had with it. I mean, older titles like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 and emulators worked awesome, but this is a lesson in smart spending. Even if you're on a super tight budget, the cheapest thing on the market is almost never a good value. So our previous guidance still stands. Below a certain price point, you really are actually better off with a pre-built, or going further down, used hardware, no matter how many crack pipes you might find in it, is pretty much the way to go. Blue Apron lets you create delicious chef-designed meals at home. They deliver all the farm-fresh ingredients you need, right to your doorstep, in exactly the right proportions. No trips to the grocery store, no waste from unused ingredients. And because they're shipped in a refrigerated box, the ingredients stay fresh even if you're not at home when your package arrives. Their whole vision is to develop a more sustainable food system through sustainable fishing, responsible farming, and reducing food waste. So they source their ingredients from quality suppliers, and they offer two types of plans. The two-person plan and the family plan. There's no commitment, you can skip or cancel at any time, and each meal is between 500 to 800 calories per person, and is able to be prepared in 40 minutes or less. They're always adding new dishes every week, so there's tons of variety. So, stop making the same old dishes, because the first 100 people will get three free meals on their first Blue Apron order by using the link in the video description. So thanks for watching, you guys. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you didn't, well, you know where that button is, but if you did like it, hit the like button, get subscribed, and maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we've featured at the link in the video description. Also down there, we're gonna have a link to our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, as well as our community forum, which you should totally join.