This Seems Like a BAD Idea - Intel $5,000 Extreme Tech Upgrade

This video chronicles Linus and Colin undertaking an ambitious personal tech upgrade project driven by an Intel Extreme Tech Upgrade sponsorship. The hosts begin by touring Colin's highly functional workshop, highlighting his creative space, favorite tools, and the ambitious plan to repurpose old hardware while integrating modern 12th Gen Intel components. The narrative follows the selection of parts, including the Core i7-11700K, a 12700K when available, and a powerful RTX 3080, all aimed at building a compact, high-performance workstation and hypervisor host within a home shop environment. The team discusses practical constraints such as power supply limits, RAM clearance, and case compatibility, while improvising with a mix of storage solutions and a 20-terabyte RAID setup to back up and host multiple virtual machines. The build expands beyond raw computing power to address listening experiences and sound reinforcement, introducing a new subwoofer system powered by a SpeakerPower SP1-700 plate amp and a dedicated audio path through Bluesound NODE 2i, with Tidal streaming for higher fidelity audio. Throughout, the video blends humor, teamwork, and hands-on welding and fabrication, culminating in a functional Proxmox and Windows VM setup with GPU passthrough and a practical off-site backup strategy, all while acknowledging the sponsorship and its role in enabling the upgrade. The result is a blend of home lab ambition, hobbyist engineering, and real-world tradeoffs, concluding with reflections on what worked, what didn’t, and the potential future iterations of the project in Colin’s expansive shop. The first segment focuses on acclimating to the new environment and introducing the core cast. The second segment dives into Colin’s hardware choices, including processor options, RAM, and storage strategy, and explains how Proxmox VM virtualization shapes the upgrade. The third segment centers on the physical build process, including welding, cable management, and cooling challenges, with a spotlight on the Miller Syncrowave 210 TIG welder and the TIG finger accessory. The fourth segment transitions to the audio upgrade, detailing the subwoofer enclosure, the SP1-700 amp, and the integration of a high-fidelity Bluesound music system to improve sound quality in the shop. The final segment evaluates the operational success of the upgrade, confirming GPU passthrough in the Windows VM, the practical benefits of the off-site backup, and the overall impression of undertaking such an ambitious, sponsor-supported project in a home workshop.

Topics · technology · diy · science_and_tech · sponsorship