Something I learned early on, was that Windows Defender is really all you need in terms of virus/malware protection if you're not an idiot. Once I stopped using a 3rd party anti-virus, I noticed significantly better performance.

Timestamps and advices: 1:00 - stock CPU coolers are OK if you're not planning to push your hi-end system to the maximum and beyond. Even more OK if you're living in a colder climate with a lower ambient temp in your room. 5:30 - DO NOT defragment your SSD. HDDs still require defragmentation (my personal note: nowadays windows by default launches defragmentation automatically every week so you still don't have to do it manually) 7:34 - there's no point arguing about the fan types (airflow or static pressure), most fans are hybrid now, so you should pay more attention to things like loudness, aesthetics, motor design, anti vibration pads etc 10:43 - PSU efficiency bell curve changed to be more smooth at higher loads which means the efficiency doesn't drop so quickly after the 50% load so you don't have to buy a 1600W PSU for a 800W system. But it's still recommended to have some head room, so buy a 800W PSU for a 600W system 16:00 - Do not use powered USB-hubs for things like 4K webcams, Elgato stuff and other devices which transfers a lot of data, because it all goes through a single USB-port which may not be able to handle this much data. And also device's own software may not work properly when using a hub. Using a hub for just power is OK

I've built 3 computers over the years and typically do a new build every 7 to 10 years on average. Everytime I go for a new build I have to look things up again because everything is out dated...

Jay's explanation about the 80+ ratings on PSUs was awesome and I'm sure we all understood him. However, I just want to rectify one thing from his calculation of how many watts are needed to be pulled from the wall by an 80%-efficient 1000-W PSU to provide max output. It's actually 1250W, not 1200W. Just wanted to get that out there. 😁 Anyway, I've learned and am learning so much from this channel, and I'm very grateful. More power to JayzTwoCents! 👍

I've been out of the PC game for close to 10 years and just started out again in early 2021. I really appreciate your channel and all the easily digestable information you are supplying. Thank you! My PC wouldn't look as well if it wasn't for this channel. Greetings from Austria!

I love how this channel remembers to talk to new PC users. So many channels just cover the higher end stuff. I've been working with computers longer than Jay - And I still like to hear this newer advice. Remember that things change and skills from the past need updating too!

Excellent content. As an older enthusiast, (60) I've been in and out of computers as a hobby since i was a kid, depending on my where my finances were at any given point. Kids are expensive.😂 Its been ten years since I've dealt with new hardware, so this was a great quick refresh, as well as a reminder at how fast old computer knowledge can become obsolete. Thanks for this!

The thing is with defrag is that most operating systems will automatically defragment eligible drives for you. Windows actually doesn't allow you to defrag an SSD and instead you'll see an option to optimise or trim the drive.

fun fact about SSDs and defrag, during the earlier SSD days you had to specifically tell windows NOT to defrag it, As sometimes windows would automatically defrag your drives. Today the OS knows you stuck an SSD in there and turns off that feature of automatic action.

I upgraded about a year ago. The technician had good laugh because I wanted my CD/DVD drive installed. "You won't need that because everything is online and you get just download it" 1 week later: "I was so glad you kept that driver. My internet kept interrupting the download and caused improper installation errors. I was able to use a physical copy to get it running". So yeah, just because everything's online, doesn't mean it's reliable.

Damn so I can't say "sorry, I have to go home and defragment my hard drive" to people anymore

I've built 11 systems as a hobby... but aside from some moderately basic Laptop upgrades I haven't really dabbled in any builds for 10-ish years. Thank you SO much for this video which has helped me catch-up on improvements and variations in the art! Very informative and helpful video! 😁 More, please?

Another benefit to custom coolers: noise level. That could be a reason to upgrade as well.

Personally I would still swap out a stock air cooler with a 120mm air cooler simply because those stock coolers can be loud AF sometimes.

This has absolutely stopped me making a couple of errors on my first ever build. I had a lot of uni mates who made computers back in the day and this covers a lot of what I retained from them. I've even swapped out the PSU in my shopping cart for one with a bit more headroom than it had. Thanks for the advice!

I've gotten a few people to switch to PC during my time in the Navy, helped a few build their first tower and i always reference them to your vids. Thanks a lot and keep it up ^^

Regarding power supplies: I still have to explain to a surprising amount of people that their PC is not going to pull all the power the PSU can provide all the time while it's on No Steve, your PC does not pull 650W when all you're doing is viewing a word document on an i3 and integrated graphics, do i have to tell you that for the 800th time?

"Fan marketing isn't about static pressure vs airflow anymore. It's all about RGB" We've truly regressed as a society

Thank you it’s hard to believe it was actually almost 10 years ago I first learned how to build a pc, and this channel was a big part of that!

For people who wonder what trim is, it's basically a cache clearing command that's deleting remnants of already deleted files and unused sectors that are temporary

In Windows 10, the "Optimize Drives" now runs TRIM on solid state drives instead of defragmentation.

Just to expand on your comments on defragging a drive, Jay: Defrag on a hard drive was to move sectors that were written and rewritten to be together - i.e. make sure all the data that should be together, is, so that the head on the drive doesn't have to seek any more than it absolutely needs to in order to access your data. On an SSD this is not needed, as there is no physical head to move and it doesn't actually matter what data is stored in what sector.

I was aware of not wanting to defrag an SSD, but the updates on fans, power supplies, and USB hubs were very helpful. Thank you.

Note - in areas where mains is 240V, many power supplies still do have a much more pronounced bell curve of efficiency.

6:59 Defragging on an SSD shouldn't be possible with current Windows versions of defrag (basically Windows 8 and newer). If you now run defrag on an SSD, it will instead run the TRIM command on the target SSD. Crucial has a very good explanation of what TRIM command is and how it works on their website that is worth a read.

When you talked about stock coolers, you left out one important reason many people still like to upgrade, that is for silent PC builds for studio and lab use which use an oversized cooler and fan then run it at half capacity. Combined with a high efficiency PSU and SSDs, you can get close to total silence.

my first build was with a ryzen 7 2700x with a wraith cooler, I overclocked it like 4.2-4.4. the wraith cooler handled it like a champ. I loved it.

Ahhhh the good old old PC days, i used to be a real computer nerd 20+ years ago, building and upgrading desktops as well as learning everything i could about component hardware as well as program software, times and technology have certainty moved on heaps and bounds. There is still great fun in building a new computer today, some things have just become confusing and over complicated, computer and PC component companies have kinda sapped the enjoyment out of PC building for a lot of people, who are either wanting to make their first new desktop etc, or haven't built one in a long time like myself. JayzTwoCents is a great guy and KZfaq channel who always offers good, constructive and sound advice to his audience, no matter whether you are a computer pro, semi pro or newbie, he offers something for everyone. I got very interesred in computer building again about 6 years ago and came across JayzTwoCents KZfaq channel which appeared in the recommendation feed, I've learnt so much from him since and watch his videos when he is discussing a PC topic that I'm interested in. Keep up the good work JayzTwoCents 👍😉

One man’s stock cooler is another man’s treasure.

Just a side note here. On Windows 10/11 if you go into the disk defragmenter and try to defrag a SSD it actually executes a trim instead.

Wow, great information. It's been years since I checked into this kind of stuff (too much horrible work burning out my brain). Definitely following your channel to get my knowledge up to date.

My advice is to subscribe to this channel. You nailed it when you mentioned building a computer after 10 years. That old-school advice was new 10 years ago but now ...old. Excellent information. Thank you!

Something you missed that I think should be pointed out: On newer versions of Windows, disk defragmenting(and trimming and garbage collection for SSDs) is carried out automatically. So even if someone is running Windows off a mechanical drive, there is almost never a reason for them to defragment it themselves, it's most likely already been done recently in the background.

Small nit pick: Defragmenting isn’t about drive “health” per se for spinning drives, it’s about performance… reducing the need for random access of related sectors, minimizing track head movement. When the OS writes data it defaults to “first fit” allocation. When you defrag, you’re reallocating to “best fit”, trying to line up as many sectors that are related to each other as possible. The irony is that modern file systems ( ntfs included ) operates on the principle that sectors in the FS are allocated sparsely to give you consistent performance, so defragging theoretically shouldn’t have done much for performance anyway on modern windows systems. But of course your main point is absolutely true: there is no point at all to defragging an SSD. All you’re doing is reducing the life of your SSD

Gosh. Almost everything I did to maintain or build my PC is now wrong. Some of your advice seemed tongue in cheek. I am glad you explained this. Things change.

Built a PC in 2012, took it out of the shed and it started up like a champ! Phenom 6 X-2 12 Gig RAM Cas L. 9 Solid champ, paired with a 660Ti

For power supplies I always say it's the one item in your pc you absolutely shouldnt skimp out on Cause it's really the ONLY part that could not only take out your pc but your entire house depending how bad the short is

Steve from GN has shown the 80+ means nothing. Manufacturers can put in a model for testing for the 80+ then after being awarded a rating, the manufacturers can change the internals of the PSU and it can no longer reach a 80+ titanium for example but they get to keep the original rating

This is a really nice form of video. This answers a lot of specific questions in advance that may come up for casuals like me. I appreciate this and hope for more

i haven't built a pc in 17 years, just didn't bother and been buying prebuilt but about to build a new rig and most of this advice was helpful

01:00 "Stock coolers are garbage" 05:29 "Defragment your drive" 07:33 "Fan Types Matter" 10:43 "Should I prioritize higher PSU wattage or higher efficiency?" 16:00 "Always use a powered USB hub"

I've built a few PC's over the years and it's VERY important to keep your advice and knowledge base up to date because things change REALLY fast... My old desktop PC was built in a case that now is around 20 years old, it was solid enough for that but now the USB's have changed, PSU sizes have changed, fan sizes have changed, GPU's are bigger, we have liquid cooling options now... that case won't cut it anymore (I really like the case but it's time for a new one). Got to move with the times sometimes.

thanks for these advices. I am now planning to update my 10 year old system and esp. the PSU-thing helps a lot to make an decision.

Also just to add to the PSU thing: headroom matters more for high end systems because high end GPUs have massive power draw spikes. RTX 3090 was notorious for throttling on PCs with PSUs that were supposedly enough, according to regular wisdom! I think I remember reading somewhere that the RTX 3090 can spike beyond double it's rated TDP quite regularly

To add onto the USB hub topic, a good alternative is a USB add on card. Normally will net you at least 4 extra USB ports and you’ll have the added benefit of them having their own controller, as well as being connected straight to the pc

Jay I used your videos from 2019 and 2020 to learn from and begin my research on how to build my own computer and find the right parts. In July of 2020 I finally built said computer and going off your advice I am still reaping the rewards of the PC that I built. Just wanted to say thank you for those videos back then and all the content you are still producing! Keep it up my dude!

Right now I still have mostly older hardware that still works fine with what was standard in 2015. But in the near -ish future I'll probably have to upgrade. Thanks so much for letting me know what tips will no longer be valid when I get a brand new setup!

Still have a 580w bequiet powersupply from 2006 - my first prebuild pc. The supply got coil whine in around 2011-2012 everytime my pc was turned off which didnt bother me because of a Toggle switch power strip at my setup. It still worked and was used in my primary pc until the end of 2021 with a system i bought at the end of 2013. That PC was used between 6-14h daily so not that bad.

I'm one of those people returning to the PC world after spending 20ish years in the console world. I can't believe how much I love this stuff. It feels like I'm home.

Quick Note, in markets outside of the US, the 80+ standars and definitely still a thing. 80+ is the most common and the silver and gold are considered enthusiast. I have been a PC builder for 6 year now here in Colombia and I have seen just a couple of Titaniums

Jay, I've been subscribed to your channel for less than 2 months, and I really appreciate you doing these types of videos!!! YES to Everything you just mentioned about who the new peps are, and why they need this content, and what for! When we have new tech that makes older things obsolete we must talk about those things... I am personally building my first PC, slowly and methodically, over the next year with lots of specifics (like already got the Hyte Y60, all Lian Li ST120 Fans, 360mm Cooler, and sticking to the 13th Gen, just to name a few). Mostly taking my time for having the money, but also pushing these parts out I've learned Gold Series 13th Gen will have some kind of good bump up, as do those motherboards, and prices go down as the newest comes out. Also, I learn more important things and particulars like mentioned in this video. Win!-Win!... Jay, you're def help me the most on KZfaq!!!

It's finally occurred to me just how much I've learned from you in the past few weeks and I seriously have to say thank you for all of your time and dedication man. You lay everything out in just an easy to understand format and you're incredibly thorough. Much love and appreciation Jay

Thanks Jay, I watched you when I first got into the PC space almost 10 years ago. I'm getting back into it and I'm glad to see you're still out here as a resource for people like me to refer to.

Thanks for taking the time to make this video. Last build I made was 5+ years and many things have changed a lot, although I've been out of the scene for a while this type of videos help me to stay current.

Really good to hear about in depth info on hardware like this. Gr8 channel

go on be a rebel and defrag your nvme m.2 ssd i dare you !!

I built my first computer in well over a decade just last year. Plenty of your videos smoothed the process immensely, so thank you, Jay. I'm glad I watched this and was personally satisfied to know a lot of that stuff and that my competency returned so quickly. Thanks again for your help.

I’ve been around your channel on and off for close to 5 years, this is the type of content that keeps me coming back, no BS, just “here are the facts, and here’s why your stupid, don’t be stupid.” But it’s info people need to hear in order to push through all the marketing bs and keyboard warrior techies. Good stuff as always.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane! 🙂

I am watching this video 2 years after it was released. The issue about USB hubs (powered and not) is still highly relevant today. Boy you would think manufacturers would fix things. The only way I get consistent connections on key components is connecting them to my high-end docking station. My docking station plugs into 1 USB-C thunderbolt on my laptop, leaving me with one more USB-C thunderbolt and 1 USB-C port. I am glad I have the docking station. I have sent a number of hubs back to Amazon because they did not live up to manufacturer claims.

This was _extremely_ helpful. I was an enthusiast many years ago but dropped out and so a lot of my knowledge is out of date. The last gaming PC I built was back in the mid 2000s, with HDD's and CRT's. Then I went to grad school and put gaming aside. For the past 10-15 years, I've been using laptops for work. I was thinking of building a gaming rig but then the pandemic hit and here we are. I've been finding that a lot of my knowledge is out of date but, worse, some stuff I think I know but I'm wrong. So this video was very helpful. My work laptop has Thunderbolt 3, and I don't know what I would do without it. I get my whole desktop setup (mic, headphones, webcam, keyboard, mouse, external monitor and AC power) all on one hub (the Caldigit one everyone recommends) going through one cable to my laptop. When I have to leave, I just pull one plug and my stuff for travel is already packed. When I get home, I only have one cable to plug in. For me, Thunderbolt is mandatory for future laptops. You just need to make sure you have a high-quality hub and a proper cable and you'll be fine. The other big thing I noticed is that the websites I used to trust for reviews have mostly gone way downhill. Most were bought out by big mainstream media corporations. The quality of the analysis and writing is way down, and most are very clearly just regurgitating manufacturers' PR talking points. It seems like the new center of gravity for PC build advice and reviews is on KZfaq. Thanks for the great advice!

Great video, I have no real advice other than research your parts thoroughly and do not rush, take your time and if you need to wait. In 2013 I build my wonderful pc lga2011 x79, and I am also one of those people looking to upgrade, ill be looking at the lga4677-x platform in the new year. Did not realise that there were that many people building and doing the same now.

I love old PC bits. My parents got me a custom-built cyberpower pc back in 2014 that had a pentium g320 with a 120mm AIO on it. I'm now running that same 10-year old cooler on an i9 9900k lol

One thing that really got me hooked on AM4 was the Wraith Spire cooler and the stock back plate and mounting hardware.

Great video. I think a similar video about debunking computer myths would be fun. This reminded me of how everyone used to say that shutting down your computer was bad for it and that it's better to leave it on all the time. They claimed it damaged the CPU or hard drives. Yet, most of the PCs I repaired for people were ones that were left on all the time.

2:48 I built my new PC for the first time since 2009 and when I googled changing the stock fan was surprised to find stock is fine these days.

i really like how you added segments in the video time. good shit

I'm finally building a PC and I've wanted to for a few years now. Thank you for all the great videos! Hands down my favorite channel.

Best advice that I could give (and it aged well) is: Buy a PC case with as much as possible dust protection, which is easy to remove and clean because it not only saves you time (and sometimes broken components) while cleaning, but also helps you to see your RGB backlight (if you're in that sort of thing) instead of an RGB dust cloud. Obviously the temperatures and noise level will also be lower in the long run.

The hub commentary is spot-on. Had issues using a hub for my Elgato facecam, streamdeck xl, and avermedia 4K capture card, but a laptop has limited ports. At least on my desktop I’m able to individually plug in my usb devices. I still used a powered hub for things that aren’t too complicated like my iPhone, iPad, and powered external speakers.

I think powered hubs are still a good idea, but you need to have some idea of the bandwidth vs power consumption of the device. The elgato streamdeck doesn't use a lot of data, but uses a ton of power. The elgato facecam uses a moderate amount of power, but uses an absolute firehose worth of data. The streamdeck can go on the powered hub, the camera needs to go to an actual port (which is usually also a hub attached to a single USB controller on your motherboard but...)

Back in middle school so about 8 years ago I was very into computer and coding and after getting back into the swing of things I am very happy with how farm computer tech has progressed learning the new lingo and what products have become better and which ones have died in time has been very entertaining and we’ll deserved to see

One of the BEST "OLDSCHOOL" JayzTwoCents videos in recent years, Brother; you, sir, organically create AWESOME content when you simply speak from the heart Jay!!! ...a true "return to form" =)

Wow, some of these things I still believed lol I'm so glad I watched this before I started my next build Thanks, Jayztwocents

Some good advice in this one. Thanks Jay.

All great advice! Appreciated the advice around impact of ambient temperature where you live when it comes to cooling! It's a factor often overlooked by folks living in places where air conditioning is the norm, and can be a huge deal depending on where in the world you are. When I've lived in places without aircon that get to 30C/85F ambient air temperature, going overkill with air cooling at stock speeds on a high end system has been important for system stability.

"The old days..." for me were when nobody had cooling for the CPU, and usually the only fan was in the back of the power supply. Fan, singular. There was no such thing as RGB lighting effects, because "B" hadn't been invented yet (really). And for floating point efficiency, you needed to install a separate math co-processor, something few people bothered with. If you were wealthy enough to afford a hard drive or two, defragging was a necessity, and your storage maxed out around 20MB... and those were the new, fancy hard drives. Many people just made due with floppies, and a single megabyte of RAM... or less. *That's* the old days, to me...

As someone about to build my first PC, thank you

I bought just bought a new 3.0 USB hub but I still use a computer case with drive bays and outdated hardware. When using a hub it's important not to use too long of a cable from the hub to the PC, usually 6ft max before a performance drop, especially when using external drives.

I bought a seagate m.2 ssd for my first build. I could absolutely have fallen into the trap of defragmenting my ssd if it weren't for channels like yours. Thanks Jay and crew!

It's been a few years since I've really got into building a PC and some of this info was extremely helpful. Thanks for the update! You're really helping a fellow boomer out.

The last part is so true in an office setting; so many mysterious device failures because things are plugged into a hub. Because office laptops cone with like 2 usb c ports... It is getting better now, but many still uses work laptops that are 4+ years old, and are stuck with a limited port selection

I appreciate a video like this because I built my first system around 20 years ago and then I built another one maybe 10 years ago... with my most recent mod/ upgrade happening this last year. I have kind of delved back into PCs a bit and have been learning a bunch. most of what you covered in this video sounded familiar to me since I've obviously been around, but I think each point had a different spin on it, that I might not have predicted because as you said every tip has been a product of things just getting better! 😃

I like these refresher videos. I build a new PC every 4 or 5 years and in between I don't pay as much attention to technology changes and trends. So these are good for people like me who are getting back up to speed while building and setting up a new PC. I bought an Asus ROG Dark Hero motherboard primarily for all of the USB ports on the rear I/O since I'm connecting my keyboard, mouse, printer, iPod, phone, external backup HDD and monitor USB to the computer plus the occasional thumb drive to the case I/O. I was unaware of the SSD defrag, but I'm glad I know it now!

do you have a video on if someone is wanting to get into true custom pc buidling? like what kind of skills would you need/ tools? like if you wanted to cut designs into cases (easiest way to go about it), how to paint cases (best methods/ paints to use on cases) , want kind of vinyls you oculd use, etc. if that makes any sense?

I've been watching so many of your videos and I really love how your one of the most honest youtubers explaining all this stuff. I built my first PC in 2021 just for online university work so I basically just took whatever needed parts my father-in-law gave me at the time. Now that I work from home though on some pretty dense programs I really need an upgrade so I'm doing my research to say the least. I do care about esthetics since I am a console gamer and have my PC set up together with that. Buuuut also a parent on a budget so all this advice has been amazing. Excited to get my PC to where it needs to be for what I do and make it look good too without wasting a ton of cash in the process.

As always, great advice. Another consideration is to buy a PSU which can operate in silent mode (fan off) up to around 250W-300W for office tasks. My build is inaudible during office use even in closed very quiet room.

I haven't been into this stuff in so many years so finally getting back into it has been hard. I was looking around for static pressure fans, optical bay fan controllers, USB 3.0 PCIE cards, wifi cards...etc. Nobody uses that stuff anymore lol. It's crazy.

When I found out about not having to defrag an SSD a few years ago, I was so happy. Because I'm lazy and hated defragmenting my spinning drives.

Thanks to advice from people like you I got myself a little overhead on my PSU and I am glad I did, everyone kept telling me to go with the cheaper model and I ask myself why I’d try to save just a little bit of money now when in the long run this PSU is better for me : )

I really appreciate this video. I've been so consumed with work and home life for the past several years that I haven't personally had time to keep up with what is happening in the PC space. I found this video very informative, particularly the USB hub portion. I have been getting some spotty performance out of some of my devices, and that may be why. Thanks for your Two Cents!

In my limited experience, buying an OEM CPU and for the “saved” money buying a cooler usually works substantially better than stock cooler.

I have the Corsair LL120's all over my case (8 to be exact.) They are fantastic and remain so. They are 4 years old and not a single one has malfunctioned out become exceedingly loud. Best fans IMO b/c they have hydro bearings, RGB, isolator pads. All that a gamer needs.

Thanks for this video, it has been about 15 years since I built my own PC. The only one I knew was don't defrag SSDs.

I am building a PC at the moment and I appreciate these videos alot. Even if it does not apply to me at the moment if a time arises I will be glad I saw this. 👍

From my experience, Windows 10 doesn't defragment on an SSD, it does something different (optimize). If it shows up as an SSD in the defragment area, Windows won't defragment it (you would have to use a third party program to force the process)

The only time I’ve had an issue with the stock cooler was my second processor, it was running really hot. I don’t overclock my systems and it never triggered the turn off fail safe, but it was running way hotter than it should have been.

I just picked up my first liquid cooler for my 5800x build. I went Uber Chad with the 360 mm Nzxt with LCD screen I'm so excited to turn in on

Good updated advice! I use an Anker powered USB hub that has 2 USB drives, mouse, keyboard, external DVD burner and gaming headset permanently connected. Had this setup for over a year now with no issues. I admit trying and returning a number of hubs from Amazon until finally getting one that worked well which was the Anker 7 + 3 model. The B550M motherboard I have had limited usb ports so I needed this solution. I have my latency critical devices such as my audio hub, midi keyboard and webcam connected straight to the motherboard ports.

"AMD for budget, Intel for performance" - I still see this one every now and then. I don't think I have to elaborate why it's wrong nowadays.