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!

Man... that intro was just extremely silly... glad y'all had fun XD

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

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

I wish the industry I work in had someone like Linus and his team being a loud-but-level-headed voice of reason.

That's at least an hour of stream content for the whole of OTK

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?

I'm gonna HARD PASS on anything promoted by twitch streamers.

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 :)

I am really appreciative of how honest Linus is in this video

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.

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.

7:11 has got to be the cleanest screw driver equip animation I have ever seen

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.

So my nephew is from the US and came to visit in France as he does every year, i built him a brand new PC (with a used rx 580 as GPU prices are still ridiculous in europe). Every point you made is every point i touched upon when building his PC. I built it as he first arrived so he had about a month or so to test, zero issues. I sent it back on the plane (cheaper then shipping) along with the cpu cooler mounting hardware (in case he needs it) and with every single psu cable. Also sent the mobo box and cpu box in case theres a need for RMA. The issue i have with most system builders, they're more concerned about money then their customers. This is why i don't build professionally as i know most places that build PCs dont do it well, and as i used to do tech sales 20 years ago, i know that customers are just fubar, and i don't have the personality to deal with em lol.

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.

It was pretty nice for customer care to do the discount after purchase when they updated the specs of the item beyond what you had purchased.

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.

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.

Not sure the advantage of saving the extra PSU cables with new stock, but as a majoritively used system integrator, I usually have to to buy alot of the cables separately to go with used PSU lots. I tend to not include too many extra cables over what I know the PC is gonna use, other than I'll usually include 2 PCIe cables if the PSU will be able the handle a GPU upgrade later, but the current card only uses one 8 pin.

We can always rely on Linus to be real and straight forward. Love the dude and glad he stayed with us.

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!

Corpa Upward-Trend

This was awesome. Glad to see the constructive criticism and I have a hunch that with the goons that are running it, it should go well once they knock out the dents

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.

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 loved the intro! Thanks for talking to me in the office! They kept me their forever & I got pretty lonely being by myself in a office all day drove me nuts stupid schools! I did nothing wrong! Our conversation we had were awesome & you made my day a lot better everytime you came & talked to me in the office! Love ya buddy! Even though your wifey hates me :p

That is the best intro I have seen on a KZfaq video in a long time. Possibly ever. Keep up the production quality!

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 KZfaq.

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

Like the fair criticism and giving credit where credit is due. Subscribed.

This is basically high praise coming from Linus. He's one of the, understandably, most critical people in the tech space.

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

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.

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.

I used to work for a PC building company. They haven't put COA stickers on cases for years with OA3 being used to inject the key into the board. Just make sure the key is tied to a microsoft account if you change boards or forever deal with the activation watermark.

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)

We need some Sarah secret shopper levels of testing for starforge at this point.

I hope they survive and thrive, while more expensive compared to a DIY (and DIY should always be cheaper anyways), still leagues cheaper than other "boutique" pc shops and pre-builts. I stand behind the option of buying a prebuilt and upgrading over time as you get a pc working out the gate, and its much easier to learn pc building one upgrade at a time since you started with something that you know works and so easier to figure out what went wrong. I've had several pre-builts and laptops over the years and my current pc started life as a Cyber Power (i think?) prebuilt on sale for not much more than DIY. Its kinda a "Ship of Theseus" at this point as its gone through so many interations over the years and the only things now that are original are the case and one of the drives and thats only cause im too cheap to buy a new case (a case is a case amirite?) I've graduated from pre-builts and have scatch built and upgraded several pc's for family and friends. So I wouldn't likely be a future buyer but definitly will recommend them to others looking for a pre-built as they are pretty competivly priced and once the QC is fine tuned will make a solid purchase

I LOVE this type of video. just you going around a computer looking at it and giving an honest review.

I look forward to Asmon's 2hr video reacting to this video and pausing ever 4 seconds.

I like that you’re stepping up to communicate your discoveries and not just troll someone. Good job.

I really appreciate LMG’s commitment to accurate information and unbiased opinions

on the topic of company-customer relations, anyone looking to produce a product for a pre-existing market/fan base, take a leaf out of LTT's book (or many of them), i can't fault anything i've experienced so far, especially the transparency of the LTT screwdriver, excellent example to lead. these guys have got it right, not sure why so many businesses like starforge, or similar, struggle to follow suit.

My friends and family "Why don't you start a PC business?" Hell no.

8:15 "what are you gonna do with your mountain of modular SATA cables" StarForge: Our goals are beyond your understanding

I have that case. the power button light should be static blue for power and blink the red color when there is drive activity. So that is half correct.

I have a very serious problem with comparing the price/performance of a boutique system from an SI to a DIY build. The entire reason to purchase the system from an SI is so that you are not responsible for building it yourself. The extra cost is deserved if the build quality is there because you are paying for the system to be professionally assembled, and you get a warranty on the ENTIRE PC. If you build the computer yourself and it starts having stability issues a year later, you’d better hope you are good at troubleshooting or know a good repair shop. Many repair shops also won’t work on systems that you built yourself. If the build quality and product support are up to snuff, then a system from an SI should cost about 15 - 20% more than building it yourself.

You handled the mizkif thing extremly well probs to you guys didnt expect anything different from you

This is one of those LTT videos that you show to someone to make them understand why LTT is such an important channel nowadays.

I can truly appreciate the fact that 10:59 is the first true time I've ever heard Linus swear. I'm sure he has in the past, and in previous videos, but this is the first time I can remember it. Love it

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

I think the peel thing is a personal choice. I would very much prefer to do my own peels. It's kind of like marking your territory

Such genuine feedback. This will really help StarForge grow as a company. Great work.

Love the videos! You put so much time and work into them and they make my day better

Great video and great review. This reminded me that if you want something done right/well do it yourself!

They really had linus get on top of the bin just like ... its gone... *nearly falls in

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

Does anybody know the keyboard and mouse he is using at 11:15 ? Would love to buy those....

If the out of box experience is being done prior to the users receiving the machine, I would think that the more pressing issue would be that "creator" account existing on all their PCs with local admin rights to all the PCs. I really hope the password is randomly generated at least because that sounds like security hell.

I still can’t believe we live in a world where a bunch of Twitch streamers can create a PC-building company.

Asmongolds face reacting to this is priceless....thanks guys lmao!!!!

I've built a lot of my own computers over the year, but I've also used Scan Computers (in the UK) for prebuilt systems before, and their service has been excellent over 30 years of using them - it definitely IS possible for a system builder to survive for the long haul, it's just a lot more work than most people think.

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.

Looking at the current configs and price honestly they look like a REALLY good value on the lower end right now even if the configs still have some slightly weird choices (a lot of unnecessary aesthetics for the pricepoint, but somehow they don't seem to have sacrificed performance). Idk how much shipping would be but an identical system to the one they're currently selling for $850 US before shipping (11400F, ASUS B560m-AC, 6600XT, 16 GB DDR4-3200 CL16, 600W Gold PSU, 512GB Gen3x4 SSD) was like $1000 including shipping on pcpartpicker and the cheapest one I could throw together in a few minutes without sacrificing performance or reliable parts was still around $900. That said, them going with 11400F when a 12400F and an equivalent b660 is only like $10-15 more for a decent generational performance jump even at the lower end is weird and if I weren't going to just build my own whenever I happen to upgrade next them going with last-gen hardware that isn't even meaningfully cheaper than current-gen would definitely be a bit of a turn-off. Definitely weird that they had such obvious QI issues as they did with that system, especially on the top end one where the margins are inherently MUCH higher and them hiring basically the whole Artesian business unit is definitely a sketchy look (plus the stuff with Mizkif and suppressing negative feedback really doesn't help) but I have to admit that pure price to performance their 2 cheaper builds are priced very competitively (currently) and their top ones aren't terribly priced either especially for a system integrator. Definitely interesting to say the least. EDIT: 6 days since this comment and I checked back- they redid their configs (and mostly in a good way!). They increased the price for the baseline from $850 to $1100, BUT they also changed the specs a little (12400, B660, 6650XT) so the exact match system on pcpartpicker atm is $1089. That's just a $10 premium to get it built and configured externally which is still a very good value IF it's built properly and shipped safely. However, with a bit of looking, I was able to spec out a build with the exact same performance (well, a 12400f can't do onboard video for troubleshooting/initial boot testing but in practical applications it's identical) for $981. At that point, it's still nowhere near a bad value relative to others in the space (ex. BuildRedux lets you config a build that's virtually identical except for a 3060 instead of 6650 and a 700W PSU instead of 600, and they charge $1400 for it) but it's enough of a premium that it becomes worthwhile to consider building yourself or finding a friend who can help build it and buying them a pizza as a thank you. As to the other builds? For $400 more the $1500 model changes 2 things: a 750W PSU (about a $25-30 value add) and a 6800 XT instead of 6650 XT (a $250-275 value add). Overall it's worth about $300 more, and you're now hitting a $225 markup to get it built externally. And the $2300 model? you won't sacrifice anything going from a 13600K to KF, nor will you sacrifice anything (other than a few more PCIe 4.0 lanes that this build doesn't touch anyways) by sticking with a Z690 rather than Z790 and so with the KF/690 config it will go for $1950 while the K/790 build will be more like $2135. So the markup for an exact match is around $265 while the markup over the cheapest equivalent build in performance and quality is more like $350.

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.

This is just literally the most consistent, top quality production, amazing content

Can anybody tell me what keyboard Linus is using at 14:12 . Would be really helpfull.

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.

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.

I love how every streamer has personality in their picture while Charlie is just staring into your soul.

Based on what we saw from GN, this sounds like it's the east coast team for artesian. They were very well regarded.

I worked as a system builder and one of the things on our checklist was cable connections. Making sure everything was hooked up properly. Colleagues checked that after the testing, before the final packaging.

Overall seems like a pretty good fair interpretation of what’s out there. Great job great video.

If I buy the screwdriver, does it come with the fancy flip out of the pocket animation preinstalled?

OBS can be preinstalled, since it's GPL - just need a slip of paper (or a txt on the desktop I suppose) that offers source code access.

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.

I work in logistics and those expanding foam packs get really hot and have a tendency to tear open, id be happier seeing them use internal braces like you described. The foam can also over expand and press on the frame and glass causing warping due to the heat. I know because I've done this shipping a pc before and felt like an idiot afterwards.

At 15:40, there are colourful helmets hanging on the wall, what are those for? They look like climbing helmets maybe?

They were hiring positions in a big town an hour away and a half from where I live for building PCs. It’s a shame I couldn’t afford to move closer to them to even consider applying, but I hope they grow into a reputable company in the future

To be fair to StarForge PC, I just recently ordered an NZXT pre-built PC and it has/had a lot of the "issues" Linus brought up in this video. My pre-built PC came with: 1. No discrete packaging/box. The box was just the pc case box. 4:34 2. A front mounted radiator, not top mounted. 5:57 3. XMP was not enabled. I had to go into the BIOS and enable it myself. 13:06 4. DDR 4 RAM on an intel platform board. 9:13 5. Windows was pre-installed however, a "creator account" was not present to my understanding. 11:30 6. No windows license sticker on the case (not a huge deal because, like he said, the license is digitally bound to the motherboard). 12:04 7. A KF processor. 12:47 7. Some unused cords/accessories missing. 7:36 8. NZXT did not pay for the shipping of my pc. The shipping cost $100. 9. A 3.0 ssd that was installed in the one and only 4.0 PCIe lane on my motherboard (It's not a big deal but I did have to swap it to a 3.0 PCIe lane after buying a gen 4 Samsung 980 evo that I wanted to go into the 4.0 PCIe lane to get the fastest speeds from it).

that intro, had me smiling from ear to ear so much the other people at the chicken shop couldn't help but feel their stares. oh well I loved it.

I love prebuilt reviews. I really love how well cable managed prebuilts are and I have never had the patience to get one properly wired. I can never really afford prebuilts. I bought a prebuilt in like 2011 and refreshed the guts in 2018. I always look to see if I can get a nice new one first though and I love to hear how they do. Especially because every time I crack open my cause I get nervous even though I have a rough idea of what I'm doing.

man im glad Linus did this thing...those little mistakes can be easily overlooked by customers who know nothing about computer components, they tend to be the one who calls customer support right away without trying to fix things themselves and giving bad reviews right away. so hope they figure that shit out for their own good

I wasn't expecting for chalie to be a part of such company.

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.

0:26 that customer role is the ideal dream of every employee 🤣🤣🤣

The constant jump cuts every few seconds, zooms to his face is so much whiplash

That was very entertaining and also rather educational as well. Great job LTT

7:11 I always love the Linus screwdriver flips lol

I agree with your go through, but I gotta say the seating of everything should be checked regardless, it went through shipping so every single connection should be checked!

What website did you use for the price comparison in the end?

Love this video. great editing - very smooth sound interchange from inside to outside. Standards always going up

LTT’s cold opens are a glorious moment of joy in my day. Thanks for the laughs! 👏

I am confused over the windows licensing issue, I'm in the UK working for a pc building company. If a client wants windows put onto the PC. They are given step by step instructions on how to retrieve the license key either by associating it with there personal Microsoft account or the actual license key on the system (Usually a notepad), they can also request the license key via email if there is any complications up to 3 years after purchase (Standard warranty). As we do NOT want to ruin the case by putting a lame sticker on the case. And the licensing infrastructure we get from Microsoft as a gold partner, they don't assign us official stickers to give the client anyway using that method. We do offer the windows Pen drive as a free extra which would come with the licenses sticker but this does cost us more so we don't push clients towards it.

I don't really like nitpicking stuff, but if I pay grand money for something, I want it to be PERFECT. Linus is absolutely correct for everything he says.