I Asked These Creators About Their Gaming/Workstation Specs
I have always wondered what PC/laptop set-ups the big tech creators use for their own personal gaming and/or video editing, so I emailed ten of my favorite creators and I asked them.
The results were really interesting for a few different reasons, as I explorein this video.
If you prefer text over video, please read on for the guide/transcript version of this video.
Video Transcript And Guide
Hey everyone, I’ve always been really interested in what personal gaming and workstation specs the big tech creators have. Do they game on Razer laptops or use old-school CRT monitors? Well, yes, yes they do. I know that because I emailed a bunch of my favorite creators and I had some really interesting replies, so we’ll look at all of these creators’ specs in this video, and you’ll also be able to see whether your personal computer is more powerful than theirs.
Andy from Salem Techsperts
So, we start off withAndy from Salem Techsperts, who was the first person to reply, and basically, they are waiting for the X3D chip from the 9000 series to upgrade everything. But right now, they havean AM4 CPU, the 5800X CPU, which is slightly undervolted. As we’ll look at later, he’s also got some really fast DDR4 RAM, the RTX 490, which they’ve built the system around for future-proofing reasons, and Andy describes it as a bit of an investment. The motherboard is X570, so it offers more features and more PCIe Lanes than the B550 variant, and the case is a Thermaltake, maybe from 2015. It’s got no side panel, and cable management isn’t something Andy is worried about because temperatures are low, and that’s all that matters to Andy, and that makes perfect sense. I’m actually fairly similar when it comes to cable management; it’s always more of an afterthought in my mind.
So, all in all, a really good build that’ll do great for both video editing and gaming. When we look at storage, there’s then 3 terabytes of NVMe in the native slots. You’ve got the 12 terabyte hard drive as well, but here’s where things get super interesting, because Andy’s invested in 16 terabyte of data center SSD via a U.2 to PCIe NVMe adapter, and this is not a cheap thing to go for, but Andy says that when you’re doing content, every second counts for transferring 4K content, and this apparently makes a night and day difference for their video editing. In terms of the monitor situation, Andy mainly uses a 27 inch LG 4K OLED with a really high refresh rate. They have tried a “substandard” widescreen monitor, but in general, they just go back to the LG one, and to be honest, that makes perfect sense. That is an absolute brilliant monitor, so this monitor will be great for both video editing and also gaming, of course.
And the whole email from Andy, which I really appreciate this level of detail, it’s full of absolute gems, so I’ll put it on the screen now, but feel free to pause ’cause it’ll only be on the screen for a few more seconds.
Iceberg Tech
And next, we come toIceberg Tech, and this was a really cool upgrade that they’ve done only a couple of months ago, and it’s a no-RGB build, but it’s just packed full of really good hardware. So, a really good 12-core CPU, the Ryzen 7900 with the X3D variant, so it’s particularly good for gaming. It’s got 48 gigs of DDR5 RAM running at 6,400 MHz, so really fast. The GPU is high-end as well, and again, an X670 motherboard, so slightly better than the B variant. They also house everything in a Fractal Design North case, a really nice-looking build, but most of the hardware, other than the case and the cooler, was actually sent to Iceberg Tech, and actually, you can see the old computer specs weren’t too bad, you know, a mid-range CPU and a high-end GPU, but a big bit of this sponsorship was the old desk and chair that Iceberg Tech had wasn’t really suitable, so Flexispot sent them a really nice standing desk and chair that you can check out in the build video because it’s a massive upgrade.
So, you might be thinking they’re doing all the gaming on this, right? Well, no, actually, they do most of the gaming on a Razer Blade 2020 laptop, and as you can see from the quote, it handles most modern games, but it is noisy and quite hot, and the laptop itself has a Core i7 Intel CPU and an RTX 2060, so it’s actually not a bad laptop, and it’s only 4 years old. You might be thinking it’s a bit odd to have this really powerful desktop computer and then do most of the gaming on a Razer laptop, but I think the reason for that is, and I’ve done it myself, if you’re on a computer editing all day, when you game, you actually want to come away from that, so I can kind of understand what Iceberg Tech is thinking here.
Toasty Bros
And then we come toToasty Bros with Matt and Jackson, and Jackson’s specs are on the screen now, so an 8-core Ryzen CPU from AM4, of course, 32 gigs of DDR4 RAM, and an Nvidia RTX 4070 Super, and actually, Matt said to me that they take pride in not overspending on their builds, and as a result, they do that for their own rigs as well, and actually, I can speak from experience that this sort of build is absolutely fine for video editing and everything you throw at it. Matt’s build is then very similar, an RTX 4070 Ti, not a Super, but a Ti, so slightly more powerful, and Matt mentioned to me that AM4 is still holding on fine. They have no issues with it, and again, I’ve got a workstation computer which is AM4, the 5900X, and it works absolutely fine for me, so I totally get this too. In terms of the two GPUs, Daniel Owen, who we’ll look at their specs later on in this video actually, done a great video that shows that the Ti is around 10% better at max, but there’s not that much difference between it, so really, Matt and Jackson from Toasty Bros have fairly similar builds with the 8-core Ryzen CPU, 32 gigs of RAM, and then fairly similar GPUs as well.
So, that wraps up the first three creators we’ve looked at, and as you can see so far, AMD rules supreme when it comes to CPUs. So, the RAM and the GPU vary, but the CPU does not, and I haven’t hand-picked three AMD-based creators to begin with, and the next creator we’ll look at will actually use an Intel CPU, but I think when it comes to why AMD is ruling supreme for video editing and for gaming, they just tend to offer a lot of bang for your buck at each different price point.
Steve from Random Gaming in HD
And now, we come toSteve from Random Gaming in HDthat has an Intel Core i5 CPU, the 12th gen one, 32 gigs of DDR4 RAM running at 3,200 MHz, and an Nvidia RTX 4060, and a fairly decent motherboard and PSU, but nothing super expensive either. And Steve mentioned that they’ve changed their CPU quite a lot, but they’ve always ended up coming back to this particular one ’cause it just works well for them. In terms of the monitor, you’re looking at a 24in monitor from Samsung, it’s 1080p, 75 Hz refresh rate, and they bought it years ago, but actually it works perfectly well, and why change what you don’t need to change? Unfortunately, Steve doesn’t have that much time for personal gaming anymore, and actually, they spend a lot of time video editing, and obviously doing the gaming benchmarks and their own videos. They edit in DaVinci Resolve, and the system works fine for them, and I totally get that. I used to use Premiere Pro, which was a lot laggier, but DaVinci Resolve runs perfectly fine, so I can imagine that this simple, functional build, as Steve describes it, would work absolutely fine. I could totally see that.
Fábio from Ancient Gameplays
But next, we come toFábio, from Ancient Gameplays, who’s gone a different route and has a super powerful 16-core Ryzen CPU, 32 gigs of DDR5 RAM, and a really good GPU as well, and then the motherboard is an ASUS B650, so not the X variant, but this motherboard would be absolutely fine, and then a really powerful PSU to top it all off, and that is Fábio’s test rig, and they use a KTC 42in OLED monitor for both their gaming and their editing and things like that. It’s got a super low refresh rate, quite a high Hz as well, 138 Hz, and it’s a pretty good monitor overall and has KVM support and everything else, so a really nice monitor. But then, obviously, Fabio has multiple builds due to all the benchmarking they do, so we looked at their test rig, but this is actually their main rig, and obviously, it’s got that 48 gigs of DDR5 RAM, an 8-core Ryzen CPU, the 9700X, and then Fábio switches between the RTX 480 and the RX 7900 XTX, the most powerful one that AMD do, and Fábio uses both of them, but this is for the main rig where editing is done and things like that.
Tobias from Tech Lab UK
Now, we come toTobias from Tech Lab UK, who again has multiple builds, and this one is used for gaming and streaming, so it’s got a 14th gen Intel CPU, which hasn’t yet melted, kidding, kidding. But really, a powerful CPU, 32 gigs of DDR5 RAM from Corsair Dominator, it’s then got the Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU, and obviously, the motherboard and the PSU are fairly good as well. As you can see, then we come to the editing rig, and this actually has an AM4 CPU, the 12-core 5900 X, 64 gigs of DDR4 RAM, a fairly mid-range GPU, and then the motherboard and PSU as well, and this is actually quite interesting because this is for editing, and yet it uses an AMD CPU, but yet conventional wisdom, as I’ve mentioned earlier on, conventional wisdom is that Intel CPUs are usually better for video editing because they have QuickSync technology, and Puget Systems are fair well known in this space, and they mention that Intel are usually best for the most common type of media. You might think in some ways you should flip these builds and have the Ryzen system for the gaming and then the Intel CPU for the editing rig because that will benefit from QuickSync, but in my own experience, and I have the same CPU, the 5900X,in my workstation editing rig, I don’t actually feel like I’m lacking anything with Ryzen. The QuickSync would offer slightly better performance, but not that much to be honest.
And then, you comes to the RAM usage, and you’ve got 32 gigs in some of the builds, 48 gigs in others, and then 64 gigs a couple of times as well, and I’ve actually got 64 gigsin my workstation… and hence editing computer, but to be honest, I don’t tend to use more than around 30 to 40 gigs of RAM, so while 32 gigs might not be enough for me in every single case, 48 gigs certainly would be.
Just Josh
And next, we come toJust Josh, who are naturally a specialist laptop review channel, and as they mentioned, they use their laptops for everything, which makes sense. If they stopped rolling the cameras and then started using desktops, that would be a bit strange, so they have lots of different laptops, but the three that they use the most are the ZenBook Pro and the ASUS Scar from ASUS, and then they got a MacBook Pro, or two actually, one with an M2 Max chip and one with an M3 Max chip, and at the end of all their videos, they list what laptops they use, and the ones we just mentioned are used for the heavy lifting, the video editing, and then for the lighter things like the thumbnails and the script research, that’s done on Ultrabooks and Airs and things like that, which makes sense.
So, if we look at the ASUS ZenBook Pro, it’s an absolutely amazing laptop. I’ve considered getting this myself. It’s got a really good CPU and an RTX 4080, and the screen is absolutely brilliant. It’s an amazing OLED touchscreen, and really good, and the Asus Scar, which is more of a “thicc boi”, to use the wrong term, this houses more powerful hardware, so slightly more powerful CPU and obviously the RTX 4090, and both the CPU and the GPU run at quite a high speed, and the screen is still pretty good with a really high refresh rate. It’s not quite as good as the ZenBook. Then obviously, we’ve got the MacBook Pros, and to be honest, I don’t know much about Apple or Apple silicon or anything like that, but I know that the M3 Max is slightly better than the M2 Max, but let’s move on to stuff I do know more about.
Most people at Just Josh use the laptop keyboards themselves, but Josh sometimes gets out the Razer Huntsman V2, which is a really nice keyboard, and uses that alongside obviously the laptop. When it comes to the mice, they don’t tend to use the trackpads. Instead, they got really nice Logitech Lightspeed mice, the G903s, which are really good, really powerful mice, so it makes sense they use that instead of the little trackpad. And then for video editing, they have 27inch 4K monitors, the 850 series, and actually, these have some really good color gamuts and things like that, and they’re more designed for graphics design and video editing than gaming.
Adam from MrYeester
And next up, we come toAdam from mryeester, and the specs are really powerful. It’s one of the more powerful builds we’ve looked at, so a really nice, Lian Li case and the all-in-one cooler, 32 gigs of DDR5 RAM, then the best GPU that AMD currently sells, and a really powerful 16-core Ryzen CPU. In terms of the storage, it’s got 2 terabytes of M.2 NVMe drives and then some 6 TB hard drives, which makes sense for video editing. You can probably do active editing on the main M.2 drive, then move over to the hard drive for more cold storage. Then if we check out the monitor specs, they both Samsung Odyssey, so the main one that Adam uses is a 32inch OLED, which is a really nice monitor all around, just really nice, nice low refresh rate, really nice color gamuts and things like that, and obviously, lots of I/O as well, and then for the secondary display, more of the same, but the 27inch G6 instead, but again, it’s OLED, very good refresh rate, so makes sense to combine these two together and have a really nice two-monitor setup. And Adam mentioned to me that they were a bit of an AMD fan, whenever they’ve gone to spec out to build, they’ve usually just ended with AMD due to the cheaper price points, which I totally get. I’m from that as well, even if Intel is technically better for video editing, you just get so much more with AMD in many cases.
Daniel Owen
Next up, we come toDaniel Owen, and the specs are on the screen now. They got multiple builds, but the main ones would be the benchmarking system with the 3D chip from the 7000 series and then an RTX 4090 to make sure nothing is bottlenecked, and then for editing and streaming and things like that, they’ve got a 16-core CPU from the AM4 series and an RTX 4080, because that doesn’t need to be quite as powerful, but obviously, still that’s a very powerful setup overall. In terms of gaming, Daniel does more personal gaming than some of the other creators we’ve spoken to. Daniel does a lot of gaming on the Steam Deck, and then also sneaks a Mini PC with an RTX 4060 into their workplace. I have a theory here. Daniel is a teacher, so could Daniel be sneaking in his Mini PC with an RTX 4060 so that he can do gaming on his lunch break with the overhead projector? I don’t know. I won’t ask him because I don’t want to spoil the illusion if he says no, but for now, I’m going to think that he does actually do that in his lunch breaks, which would be pretty cool if so.
Logan from Tek Syndicate
Finally, we come toLogan from Tek Syndicate, who has a really powerful 16-core CPU from the AM4 range, and then 64 gigs of DDR4 RAM running at 3,600 MHz. The GPU is an RTX 3080 Ti from ASUS Strix Gaming. It’s got a B550 motherboard, and then everything’s packed into a really small case, the CoolerMaster Silencio S400. Logan hasn’t felt the need to upgrade this build yet, and to be honest, I get that. In terms of the monitor setup, Logan has four monitors, and yes, I know there’s only three here. The main one is the Alienware in the center. There’s then a portrait Lenovo on the left and a really old Dell, which is very old and bulky, but the vertical pixels, 1,600p of the Dell, matches the Alienware, so that actually makes really good sense for this three-monitor setup. But what about the fourth one? Well, Logan is old school and has a CRT monitor, which they use for Retro Gaming or sometimes they play modern games on a CRT, which is really cool. I really like that style.
So, that wraps up the specs for these 10 creators. I’m really grateful I was able to give these small channels a little bit of extra exposure. Kidding, kidding. Totally kidding. No, I’m really happy that they took pity on me and actually got back to me with all this really useful information because I feel like this has been a really good video. I hope you agree and if you did, please click the thumbs up button and please subscribe to see more videos like this. Thanks for watching!
Tristan has been interested in computer hardware and software since he was 10 years old. He has built loads of computers over the years, along with installing, modifying and writing software (he’s a backend software developer ‘by trade’).Tristan also has an academic background in technology (in Math and Computer Science), so he enjoys drilling into the deeper aspects of technology.Tristan is also an avid PC gamer, with FFX and Rocket League being his favorite games.
