We Replaced His Google Home With THIS - AMD $5000 Ultimate Tech Upgrade

Nick Harris, the king of labs benchmarking, won an AMD ultimate $5,000 tech upgrade. The upgrade included pro networking gear, a new test bench, smart lighting, and some gaming gear. Nick, who tests hardware for a living, was asked what he would buy for himself. The video also announced an AMD giveaway of two gaming bundles, each containing an AMD Ryzen 7 9800 X3D CPU and a Power Color Hellhound Radeon RX970 XT 16 gig graphics card. Viewers were encouraged to enter the giveaway via a link. The host described Nick's apartment as a "vanilla nerdom space" filled with Star Wars, Lego, Dungeons and Dragons, computers, Star Trek, and Funko Pops. Nick was likened to "the type of guy who goes to ComicCon," or even worse, "Fan Expo." The upgrade began with networking infrastructure. Nick had a 5 gigabit internet deal, but most of his devices were 1 gig or 2.5 gig. He chose Ubiquiti gear to future-proof his setup with 5 gig and 10 gig SFP ports. The first piece of equipment was a USW Pro Max switch, featuring eight PoE+ gigabit ports, eight PoE++ gigabit ports, and eight PoE++ 2.5 gigabit ports, along with two 10 GB SFP uplinks. This switch provides 400 watts of power over Ethernet for security cameras and home automation. Nick revealed he doesn't typically handle physical installations or networking, mostly focusing on software development for benchmark tools. The hosts were surprised to find Robertson rack screws, which are uncommon outside of Canada. A discussion ensued about installing the switch, with Nick preferring it from the front. Next, the Cloud Gateway Max was introduced. Nick explained its purpose in line with software development principles: "get it working first and then iterate and optimize after." He also mentioned setting up another NAS to follow the 3-2-1 backup rule: three copies of data, on at least two different mediums, with one copy offsite. His setup included a TrueNAS box with three drives and another UNESC box with two drives, along with one drive in the cloud. The drives chosen were 8 TB Iron Wolves, sufficient for essential data like photos and documents. The installation of the networking gear in the rack presented some challenges due to the size of Nick's existing Proxmox PC. The plan was to hide the gateway, leaving a clean setup with minimal visible cables. A Ubiquiti Wi-Fi Man app was used to identify the weakest signal in the apartment, which was the bathroom, making it the ideal location for a new access point. Nick's bathroom featured a Mandalorian theme. Additional items for the rack included a UPS and a 2.5 GB network card for one of Nick's seven computers. Nick's Proxmox system had a 7950X (16-core CPU) without a GPU, with plans for GPU passthrough for Plex in the future. His TrueNAS system ran on a 5600G. His gaming rig was a 7800 X3D, and he also had a 12900K with two 3090s. The team also installed a new gaming mouse (replacing a G502) and an audio interface from MOTU, a brand known in audio circles. Nick, who has a bass guitar and pedal, declined to play for the camera. A Gravastar Mercury keyboard was introduced for the test bench. The conversation then shifted to a Reichi Mini, a pocket-sized AI assistant. Currently connected to OpenAI, the long-term goal is to run a local LLM for home automation to avoid OpenAI token costs. The Reichi Mini displays emotions and can respond to queries, though it couldn't do animal impressions. A Spider-Man poster was also put up, completing the aesthetic upgrades. The overall cleanup significantly improved the apartment's appearance. The RGB lighting, though disliked by the host, contributed to the new look. The upgrades included the new mouse and audio interface, an upgraded Wi-Fi system with the Ubiquiti access point, new hydrometers (sensors for humidity), and the 3-2-1 backup system. The Reichi Mini, while currently expensive to run, is intended to become a locally run AI assistant for various tasks, such as changing light colors based on humidity.