The All China PC

Whatever your political beliefs, we can all agree that China and the West have adopted a more contentious relationship in recent years. So whether you're pro-Chinese innovation or wary of it, we wanted to make this video a window into exactly what's happening in the 100-acre forest. Now, there is one part of this version that we haven't been able to get from a Chinese company yet. The processor. There are several domestic x86 chips like the Zhaoxin we reviewed a few years ago. But they are nowhere near the performance and efficiency of a modern Intel or AMD chip. More like slow CS.

That is why we decided on the best option. Intel Black Edition China Exclusive Core i5-13490F. It's basically a 13400F, but with increased boost clocks and 20% more level three cache. There's no official word from Intel on why they exist or who they're targeting with them, but Intel has been building these black edition chips for the Chinese market for three generations. Just as for three generations, my ancestors have been transitioning to our sponsor. Odoo, throw out all those mismatched apps you've been using to run your business. Odoo's all-in-one business software can help you focus on improving your business, not juggling applications.

Click the link below or watch to the end of this video to learn more. To pair it with our deliciously smooth black label processor, MaxSun sent their iCraft Z790 white motherboard. It has all the usual accessories in the box, such as a QR code that you can scan that thanks you for choosing its graphics card. The user manual, which is also a QR code that you scan, and is only available in Chinese. Fortunately, Google Translate now supports PDF files. Plus the standard cables, a cute case plate, and some ultra kawaii enchanted princess stickers, but... that's not what I like.

This is what I like. It comes with a mounting plate that you can use while testing your build out of the box. How cool is that? And it even comes with a small screwdriver. It has one Gen 5 GPU slot with a mix of Gen 3 and 4 for the rest. The four M.2 slots are Gen 4 and it has a pretty decent I/O mix considering the price. 20 gig USB, two and a half gig LAN, Intel Wi-Fi and a handy transparent CMOS button on the back. All in all, this is an unusually premium motherboard from a brand I only know for their strange products.

And at 1,149 yuan MSRP, or about $160 US, it's in line with the cheapest Z790 motherboards on the market. Maybe it makes sense that they can't charge a premium given their brand reputation. In 2018, it was revealed that some of MaxSun's H310 motherboards did not use the H310 chipset at all. Instead, they used minor hardware modifications and some BIOS hacks to make the H110 chipsets appear like H310, allowing the use of 8th generation Intel processors. But what they couldn't fake was the ability to use DDR4 RAM. However, none of this is so bad that it doesn't deserve a chance at redemption, and MaxSun's strategy seems to be a good one, targeting the budget-minded high-end player, which will end up being a theme for this build.

Continuing with our RAM. We'll be using this pair of King Bank 16-gigabyte dual-channel sharp-blade DDR5 memory that... Ouch! Just kidding. They're actually not sharp. They run at 6,400 megatransfers per second, support XMP3 and, this is great, King Bank lists the exact chips they're using in these devices, which is a welcome move that I wish more manufacturers would adopt. As long as we can trust them to use what they say they are using, and at King Bank, I'm not so sure. Look, they say they've been around since 2001, but their website only appears on the Wayback Machine until 2018. And their account on the popular e-commerce platform JD.com was only opened in 2016.

It's not the only one. something we were able to unearth about them. They were sued along with Adata by the alleged inventor of the USB flash drive in 2016. But other than this lawsuit, there does not seem to be any information available on Google that dated them before 2016. On Baidu, however, the Aichicha. ..Business Encyclopedia, similar to Bloomberg, shows them as registered in 2014. Anyway, they were not publicly a notable player in the memory space until some time after the Made in China 2025 campaign began in May 2015. That campaign started many Chinese technology companies and even more were born. One such company is the semiconductor manufacturer, YMTC, which has come a long way since its founding in 2016.

And whoever made this SSD, this YMTC Zhitai PC-005, came from a Newegg seller. It's one terabyte and only PCIe Gen 3, but it's noteworthy because it was the first SSD produced entirely in mainland China. It has been common for years to find some Chinese-made components in an SSD, but NAND flash chips are typically produced by Korean or Japanese companies, while controllers have often been produced in Taiwan. A curious fact, by the way, is that these chips would probably have been used in the iPhone 15 if it were not for international sanctions. Originally, the plan was to use these chips for iPhones sold in China, but due to their lower cost, Apple eventually changed the plan to use them in up to 40% of its iPhone NAND overall.

At least they were going to do that until 2022, when the US government added YMTC to the trade ban list, meaning they could no longer use US technologies in their products or manufacturing processes, leading Apple to Eliminate them from your plans. However, Lenovo still uses YMTC drives in some of its China-only systems. Now let's talk about refrigeration. PC Cooler sent us a couple different options from their new line of CPS parts aimed at the high-end market. And this is the CPS BE360. A 360 mil AIO with dual pumps, whatever that means, aluminum fins and a copper base. There is not much more information to extract from the outside.

The base looks like it uses an Asetek cold plate, but also the mounting mechanism is totally different and Asetek does not use dual pumps. So maybe it's something of his own making. While playing with these fans, I noticed that they were very rigid. These feel really good. Wow, they look a lot like the Noctua ones. They even have the small one. Removable rubber corners. Wow, do they ever look alike? We couldn't find much else about this cooler company, but they also sent us this fishbowl-looking case. It's somewhat similar to the NZXT H9 Flow, but with an MSRP of $100, which is $60 cheaper.

It looks pretty impressive. It supports ATX, MATX, mini ITX and the new YTX motherboard size, as well as supporting rear-mounted connectors. Without a doubt, it's a little tight to work with. I found that, in particular, screwing in these bottom motherboard screws was quite fiddly, but for its size, it has ample support for fans and radiators, even if it lacks some conveniences, such as support for a vertical GPU mount or support for any GPU larger than 400 millimeters. Luckily though, the largest RTX 4090 we found was 380 millimeters, so you can pretty much put whatever you want on this thing.

This looks great so far, apart from the strange yellow discoloration on the water cooling tubes. Anyway, along with their motherboard, MaxSun also shipped their RTX 4080, which I'm informed is the best option for gamers. Very good, MacSun. Let's take a look, shall we? They have a stabilizer included in the box and a GPU that feels robust enough to need. Oh my God. Did they sneak into my brain to come up with the aesthetics of this backplate? Tanner is looking at me, but I like him. Triple fan cooler on the other side, and it has a shorter PCB, so it ends right here, so you get some of that blowing action that helps with cooling.

But it's not white. The annoying part is that they actually have a white version that combines the branding with Enchantment Heart Princess. It would have really matched the aesthetic of this build, but what are you going to do? Aside from the mismatched appearances, I have no complaints, but on the ever-popular GPU forum on Baidu, which is sort of a Chinese version of Google, users have compared Max Sun's after-sales support to Asus', for what it's worth Of something. When a user returned a GPU with a noisy fan, they were told that it arrived with a scratch and would therefore not be covered under warranty due to physical damage.

MaxSun allegedly pressured the customer to pay for repairs. Then when the customer refused, he said, "Okay, we'll send it back without repairing it." Except when he returned, the customer noticed that the serial number did not match the serial number on the card he sent. MaxSun ended up making a public apology, as they should, and stated that they would punish the entire customer support team involved in the incident. But whether or not they learned from that experience remains to be seen. What I know now is that this at least looks pretty interesting, even if we would have preferred the waifu edition.

At this point we are done with this side of the case and it is time to turn our attention to the back where cable management should be an issue and we also need to install our power supply, but what power supply? It is? Well, we went a little overboard and bought the Great Wall Hunter's Fire F12 1200 Watt on AliExpress. Despite having FIRE in big letters on the front of the box, it's apparently a pretty solid offering. 80 plus platinum, which advertises an efficiency of 93.7% and Japanese capacitors. From what we can tell, they appear to be manufactured by Nichicon, Rubicon, and possibly Nippon Chemicon.

Of course, we haven't sent this through the labs team yet as of this writing, but we'll link to the results from this power supply in a pinned comment as soon as we have them. It feels really light for a 1200 watt power supply. As for the price, it usually costs around US$140 on popular Chinese market sites, which is quite attractive for this level of power and efficiency. But we didn't choose it because of the price. Great Wall is a widely distributed brand throughout the world, but remains relatively unknown in the West. This is likely due to their design, as they focus on their OEM work, rather than their own branded power supplies.

They provide power supplies for all types of prebuilts, as well as better-known enthusiast brands like Corsair and Asus. This model even uses Corsair type four cables, meaning our Cable Mod kit worked perfectly. Now, Great Wall is a really interesting organization. As a subsidiary of the state-owned China Electronics Corp, its sister companies are involved in all kinds of shenanigans. There's Tongguang Group, an electrical infrastructure manufacturer that helped build the Belarus nuclear power plant, and Fidium, a fabulous semiconductor company that makes ARM server processors, including the servers used to test the DF-17 hypersonic missile. from China. There's also Panda Electronics, which makes and assembles desktops and laptops, including these fancy water-cooled gaming PCs they built for North Korea.

They even included a Corsair power supply. Big moment. It's time to see if it works. Or wait, no, let's get a monitor. Oh, another interesting OEM that many of you may not have heard of is KTC, which has a history of producing displays for companies like Samsung, ViewSonic, and LG. The MSRP of this bad boy is around 200 US dollars, but on Taobao it regularly sells for 140,250. Unfortunately, the height is not adjustable, but it is otherwise comparable to this ONN 27-inch curved monitor from Walmart that It has the same resolution, size, panel type, refresh rate and response time.

This one, in particular, has two DisplayPort inputs instead of two HDMI, and... Oh, support for HDR 10. Although at this contrast ratio, I'd probably prefer to have ONN's more robust support. KTC also produces mini LED and OLED displays, but at much higher prices. Let's see if it works. Oh. Were all these RGB fans included in that $100 price? Yes, six of them. Man, this build looks amazing. And look, it even started. But wait. I'm going to need peripherals. I'm going to need peripherals. Get to know the Hecate G3M Pro from... Get to know the Hecate G3M Pro from Edifier.

Yes, that Edifier, the one we do know in the West, but more for its premium audio products. Its Hecate-branded esports peripherals include some keyboards, microphones, and mobile phone coolers. The G3M ​​Pro weighs 62 grams. Does it have a PAW3395 sensor and a small switch on the bottom to switch between switches? That's how it is. Can you hear me. You have switched between switches. Noisy. Don't worry. Noisy. Don't worry. The loud switch is a Huano blue shell pink dot, while the quiet one is a motion micro switchHuano. That is better. And how fun is this vibrant yellow USB-C charging cable?

They are available for $40 on Chinese sites like mechkeys.com or $55 if you want the transparent version. And at that price, it seems like a pretty good value. In all three pairing modes and with both types of switches, it achieved very reasonable latency results with just half a millisecond added by the 2.4 gigahertz wireless dongle. Do you know what else a wireless dongle has? This F98 keyboard that Aula sent us. It is a 99 key layout. It weighs one kilogram. And it will cost the average Taobao or JD buyer around 370 yuan or a little over 50 US dollars. Actually? That's all, huh?

She makes noise pretty well for 50 bucks. Like many of the products we've reviewed today, it's more expensive through Western brands like EpoMaker because, I don't know. Screw you, Guilo, I guess. But anyway, it's hot-swappable and uses semi-transparent ACE sole switches made by Leobog, Aula's sister company. For the first one, it's not so bad. The feature change seems to change the RGB mode in a way that I hadn't even noticed before. He's the only one who knows both sides. The Function tab changes, you can see here as I go to the Function tab. Not in mine. Not in your, really?

Just wondering if there's a lock somewhere here or something. Hey, here we go. Function backslash. Here is everything. All its different lighting modes. Damn, that's great. And in our lab testing, we found really excellent consistency across the board with the switches traveling four millimeters with an actuation point of 1.9 mils and 40 grams and a bottom force of 55 grams. Now, that's not to say we didn't have any problems with one of our units. The screws holding the nameplate on the front have caused the clear plastic to do what clear plastic does best: crack, but it's only a little.

And overall, given the price, I really like this. However, Aula's biggest claim to fame is not its own-brand products, but its status as an OEM of keyboards, mice, and headsets for companies like HP, AOC, Philips, and Lenovo's Leku. They also have a wide range of entry-level mechanical keyboards that can be purchased in bulk for very little money. But this collaboration with Epomaker seems to indicate that its focus could be on premium products in the long term. Now is the time to try it all together. I will accept it. Time to play some games with this, but before I do, overall I love the look of this version and the overall value per dollar, aside from the GPU which is expensive for a 4080.

Everything here is really reasonable, especially this keyboard. I love this keyboard and mouse combo for under $100. One thing I noticed right away is that this SSD is not very fast. Its usage is extremely high and the data speed while patching Halo Infinite is quite slow. Let's reboot it quickly and see if maybe, you know, we can enable it's cool, legacy gaming compatibility mode. You can press the scroll lock key to toggle the course efficiently between being parked and not parked when the LED is on and off. Is this a thing? I have no idea. Maybe I just missed it, but I hadn't seen it before.

Oh, turbo, here we go. Okay. I don't see any obvious way to increase turbo duration or anything. So, okay, let's see. Wait a minute. Second, this is funny. Power button on the motherboard. Sure, I hope to see that. Power button on the GPU. What are you doing? I didn't even realize it was a screen. Is it even a screen? No No, it's just LED lighting with clear light. Okay, that's great. There's one here too. Alright, let's see if that memory configuration held up. Yes, 6400. Maybe the CPU just didn't need to speed that up. still high. I guess we'll find out.

Ah, there it goes. Oh, I saw four gigahertz there. Alright. By the way, did you notice the white cable ties we were using earlier? We have so many different colors in LTT store. There are no complaints regarding performance. Good sauce. We are looking at between 150 and 200 FPS at the low 1%. So the averages are more like 250 FPS. And this is at 1440p Ultra in Halo Infinite. I think the star of the show. is the case. Simply exceptional. A hundred bucks with all that RGB, all that cooling potential, and that look. For better or worse, it's a really interesting time for Chinese PC technology.

Semiconductor manufacturing on the mainland continues to grow and evolve, while the government appears determined to eliminate any dependence on foreign technology, which is, of course, the main impetus behind its Made in China 2025 initiative. Just like the initiative main thing I have to tell you about our sponsor, oh no, Odoo. So you're running a business, but it's held together by a bunch of different software, like our car, which owes a lot of debt to duct tape. Odoo has a better idea: use your all-in-one business management software, you need the essentials. elements of any business and combines them into a unified operating system, CRM and sales applications make lead generation and closing deals easier than ever, while its point-of-sale and inventory applications convert the sale and tracking products from an arduous task to child's play and accounting.

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If you enjoyed this video, check out the pre-built PC we bought on Taobao. It had a very strange motherboard that is worth checking out.