Can You Build an Operable PC in 37 Minutes? The Neo Forza & Newegg PC Building Event Winner Just Did

[btarunr]

The Newegg PC Building Contest finals were held in Taipei, on April 22nd. This isn't a typical e-sports event, or even an overclocking/benchmarking contest, but one with a very simple premise—build an operable PC using the parts of your choice, within a time-limit. The finals saw the top-5 contestants from a pool of 50 make their way to Taipei, and for the final event, the time set was just 1 hour. That seems like an eternity for someone used to building PCs, but this isn't a mom-and-pop Dell you're building—a fully fledged high-end gaming desktop with certain mandatory components to have (although the choice of make of the components is up to you). You're supposed to assemble the desktop and bring it up to an operable state.

Neo Forza became the DDR5 memory and SSD manufacturer of choice for most of the finalists. Three out of five finalists chose Neo Forza Trinity DDR5-7200 memory, and all five of them chose Neo Forza NFP455 NVMe Gen 4 SSD. While the winner put together the build in 37 minutes, the slowest of the five made it in just under the hour. They stated that the build was "stressful" and they never thought it could get so nerve-racking to put together a simple PC. Meanwhile, Neo Forza celebrated its unexpected claim to fame for being the memory vendor of choice among the finalists. "We were humbly overwhelmed as the event, inadvertently, showed Neo Forza as a preferred choice by experienced pro-users for DRAM and SSD in PC builds suitable for gaming, content-creation, streaming and 3D rendering," the company commented.



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[Hyderz]

not sure about 37mins but under an hour seems plausible for me.
but pc building is kinda therapeutic for me, so i wanna take my time

im sure Linus Media Group sees this and they will do a video about this challenge

 

[piloponth]

 

[TheLostSwede]

A bit rusty these days, but yeah, once upon a time I could've done that, easily.
That's assuming no operating system had to be installed.

 

[Woomack]

When I was working for one of the distributors long years ago, then we were building PCs in 15-25 mins - basic specs in a standard ATX case with a single HDD and ODD. 37 mins are nothing special considering that all coworkers could do that below 30 mins, and now a typical PC doesn't even have HDD/ODD.

 

[dj-electric]

Working at retail in the past, we were usually given 15-20 minutes for standard component builds, 20-25 would be something with additional drives, maybe an AIO. Rarely some complex high end machines could take 35-45 minutes.

This kind of stuff typically tunes your salespeople to aim towards more easy to assemble case recommendations. There's actually a lot of dynamics that go into making sure 15-20 customers get their DIY type computers every day per 1 assembly technitian. Maybe sometimes in the future it would be worth exapanding on it.

This was all, of course, considering no DOA's

 

[Fungi]

If the images in the article are from this competition then it looks like they had to do some custom water cooling. 37 minutes for that is very impressive.

 

[ZoneDymo]

tbh that seems long, if you have all the parts there and the tools with you and just it being operable is the goal....yeah I think I can pull that off in less time.
But I guess its also what you get done, I think in the end you being done in 32 minutes gets less praise then someone doing it in 34 minutes but with neat cable management etc.

If the images in the article are from this competition then it looks like they had to do some custom water cooling. 37 minutes for that is very impressive.

^ agreed

 

[TheLostSwede]

but with neat cable management etc.

Sorry, you want what?

 

[ZoneDymo]

Sorry, you want what?

cables neatly tugged away, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK, IS THAT A CRIME!!?!!

 

[maxfly]

A friend in college (mid 90s, when components were the size of small houses)worked for a company that built pcs on an assembly line. He knew nothing of computers and absolutely hated it. The only prerequisite being? Having the ability to use a screwdriver. Point being, I'm sure they cranked em out pretty quick but it was a three person process. And they were likely very basic units.

 

[Jun]

This is like masterchef but building computers instead.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Yep, but the cables can get fd.

 

[TheLostSwede]

cables neatly tugged away, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK, IS THAT A CRIME!!?!!

Actually, I had a colleague that used to braid the cable for the front panel connectors...

 

[Sithaer]

cables neatly tugged away, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK, IS THAT A CRIME!!?!!

Thats something I still struggle with, I mean the visible part of the system/cables I can manage well enough I think but the back side is a total mess. 'this is why I would never use a case with a glass back panel'

I don't really build PCs often and I usually take my sweet time with it and ofc I always run into an issue or two along the way. 'I think moving my system to my current case from my old one took my entire afternoon'

 

[claylomax]

On my last upgrade, motherboard and cpu only, it took me from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon.
Let's just say I take my time.

 

[bug]

A bit rusty these days, but yeah, once upon a time I could've done that, easily.
That's assuming no operating system had to be installed.

but this isn't a mom-and-pop Dell you're building—a fully fledged high-end gaming desktop with certain mandatory components to have

The article doesn't go into details about the mandatory components, but you can spot water-cooling in the pictures. That will mess with the build time, especially if a DIY solution was required.

Otherwise, yes, these days you get a CPU+IGP combo, throw in some RAM, screw in the NVMe SSD and the hardest part is connecting the power, reset, speaker and HDD led, if they are of the old design, where you have to connect them individually.

 

[Chrispy_]

As others have mentioned, the answer to this is a very easy "yes"

I can confirm that under no particular time constraints I do, roughly once a month, in one afternoon:

• unbox components,
• assemble 6-8 ATX PCs,
• cable-manage them
• configure BIOS options
• Boot into Macrium Technician suite to image them
• Domain-join and post-sysprep scripts
• Put it onto the "ready to go" shelf.

They're not complex builds thanks to M.2 and modular PSUs but 15 minutes is the absolute maximum it takes to assemble and screw it together and that's not even rushing. The overwhelming majority of the time is dealing with all the wasteful packaging.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I took my time the other day but still only took 3 hours with fully tidied cables but I do have a step process I follow, I'm quite used to building too.

 

[Paganstomp]

Case, install mobo, CPU, HSF, RAM, M2 HDD, PSU, load O/S from a thumb drive. Not like you need a sound, video, and LAN cards, optical drives, FDD drives or IDE / SATA cables these days.

 

[RandomWan]

It wholly depends on what the build requirements are. If I just need it functional, I can build something in far less than 37 minutes. If you start requiring cable management while including all the RGB bells and whistles or custom water-cooling, that'll take more time.

37 minutes with cable management while using AIOs or air coolers is doable, but I don't know how you could do you custom hardline water cooling in 37 minutes or less given how long it takes to produce one bend even when you're very practiced. Even if you're using straight pipes and fittings only, you still need to cut/finish the pipes and install the fittings and hope to hell you don't have a leak prior to actually booting it.

 

[KithKhan]

Those images are showing a custom loop with hardline tubing. Just measuring, cutting, bending, beveling, and installing the tubing alone would take me over an hour. Very impressive.

 

[maxfly]

Those images are showing a custom loop with hardline tubing. Just measuring, cutting, bending, beveling, and installing the tubing alone would take me over an hour. Very impressive.

Right. Even if they pre-cut, beveled and measured every tube there's no way they could build out a full CPU/GPU, res and rad hardline loop in 37 minutes. Not happenin.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Wonder why a company founded in California would hold an event in Taipei? The founder is originally from Taiwan so I guess that's why...

 

[Gmr_Chick]

On my last upgrade, motherboard and cpu only, it took me from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon.
Let's just say I take my time.

Nothing wrong with taking your sweet-ass time, especially with something like building a PC.

Also, I can't help but feel like this "contest" was just PR for Neo Forza. At least reading the article makes me feel this way.