Featured PC: Lance Frisbee (Powerbang Gaming) – Computers and Coffee

For our first episode of Computers and Coffee, I sat down with Lance Frisbee (better known as Powerbang Gaming) to talk about his latest PC purchase with us. While he does a lot of gaming for his channel, this machine was designed with content creation in mind. Thanks again to Western Digital for sponsoring this episode, and for including 2 of the SN850 NVME SSDs in this rig!

This build prioritizes performance, and it shows:

ABOUT THE WD SN850

Read Lance’s extended interview below, or listen to our first episode instead!

I’ve got Lance Frisbee here with me; Lance, welcome to the show. Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself ?

Thank you so much, Sylvia. Great to be here, I am Lance Frisbee, CEO of Aftershock Media Group; many of you guys probably know me better as Powerbang gaming. I’ve been covering mobile games specifically for the past six years or so on my YouTube channel. And we’ve grown a social following of over two million. So, pretty fortunate in that regard. And I think my last three years or so have been spent covering PUBG Mobile as my primary title.

What were you looking for in a PC? Why did you pick iBUYPOWER?

We do a lot of production as one of our primary focus; digital media production, and we do a lot of videos for game publishers and developers worldwide. And often times, I have to step into those workflows and handle, you know, maybe 16, 20, 30 different content creators in the same video file in Premiere and to try to have, like, 30 video tracks, 30 audio tracks, and sync all of it. You need to be able to scrub the timeline without the computer dying. It’s really important to have that absolute monster of a PC. …We could be talking [about running several programs]at the same time, you know? Running OBS, doing a livestream, watching a YouTube video, Premiere Pro, the whole Adobe suite, Audition, Photoshop (probably 12 different Photoshop files at the same time as well), maybe a little Netflix on the side. And it is nice to have a machine be able to do all of that at once without worrying about like clicking that X, and closing stuff out as you go. Selected iBUYPOWER [as] just a matter of trust and I know that you guys have a solid reputation in the industry, so I figured I’d give it a shot and see what we can build.

I’ve got your specs in front of me- really powerful stuff. Do you have one component you’re excited about in particular?

If I had to take out one specific component that has been tried and true for me throughout the years. It’s definitely the Threadripper processor. I’ve owned the 1950x… and now [I’m] looking at the next series of Threadripper processors because, ultimately, I’ve been able to run everything that I could ever want to at the same time and those processes really don’t break a sweat.

The processor industry has been so interesting to watch over the last couple years! AMD has come a long way.

After they launched their Ryzen and Threadripper models, that was when I was just like, holy cow, I’m blown away by the performance here. And ever since then, I’ve been loyal to the brand, not for the sake of the brand… They just offered the best performance for me. So being that I’m not entirely focused on PC gaming and I’m interested more in doing as much as I possibly can with no sacrifice, I felt like all of the different cores and, you know, everything that the Threadripper brings was really, really solid for my particular use case.

This PC really is a workhorse for your content production. Do you get much time for gaming just for fun, outside the channel?

We have twenty-five employees that are at our company. And, you know, I feel like an extreme sense of responsibility to make sure everybody’s taken care of and that things are going well. So with that, you know, first thing that I sacrifice typically is [gaming]… I rarely game anymore in my downtime just for, like, fun. It sounds weird to say it’s not that I’m not having fun while I’m creating content, but it’s for the purpose of making a video or creating content. And luckily, it’s fun to do while I’m doing it. So it’s like killing two birds with one stone. But honestly, I’d say maybe 5 to 10 percent of my time these days is actually playing games. Primarily PUBG Mobile; I work with various brands, through sponsored engagements or up and coming titles. I’m consulting on the front end for games that aren’t out yet, or [are] planned for 2023, or whatever it is. So kind of seeing some stuff from the front end to provide user feedback and hopefully guide them towards a successful launch. But 99.9% of the time it is focused on the mobile platform.

So what is your current setup like? How will the PC fit in?

I have two different PCs right now, both of them have Threadripper 2950s, they’re great PCs, but the processors are… a couple of generations behind… And so that was why I decided to pull the trigger on the PC upgrade.

I have dual forty nine inch ultra wide [monitors], which is kind of overkill, but it’s really like the matrix in here. I have kind of a vertical twenty seven inch like little Alienware guy over here. And that’s mainly for reading chat and you know, looking at things while I’m on camera- like either a prompt script, reading chat donations, etc. And then I would say, you know, probably the best part of my setup outside of the PC; I have three different Sony A7 Mark Threes that just came out recently.

And those are overkill for a webcam. But for the production that I do, it’s really nice to have a high quality camera to be able to lean on as well and worked those straight into like the capture card that’s in my PC.

And so, this PC, [I] can’t wait to slip it into the setup. It’s going to be a great addition and hopefully make this complete for at least a few years. I tried to future-proof it a little bit.

For those of you that might be a little newer to PC Building futureproofing is kind of strategy  that helps you get the most life out of your system for the longest amount of time. GPUs, for example, tend to live longer than CPUs.  So, what was your strategy for futureproofing here?

Yeah. That’s an interesting question. And it’s a great point too, when you talk about future proofing and key components. It seems like processors are rapidly accelerating year-over-year. It seems like there’s a couple times a year where there’s new processors coming out with vastly superior ability. So those tend to climb quickly, but the GPUs tend to stay a while, and not only that- I think a lot of it has to do with the software and applications that are using that particular component, because you’re not seeing advances as often. You know, the graphics engines or whatever is running these games, or video programs that we might be using. So, I feel like GPUs are a safe bet.

With regards to like my build that we just did… It’s kind of silly, but I look at it almost like a World of Warcraft character where it’s like, “Okay cool. How many dungeons do I got to do to get best-in-slot everything?” And that was the plan here… to try to find best-in-slot components for everything in the machine, from the solid state drives all the way to the GPU and then the processor. [I] really just didn’t want to sacrifice in any area because ultimately, for me, time is everything, and so when it comes down to render speed, if its two minutes faster it’s worth it to me because I’m going to do that so many times over again. A lot of times I’ll be stuck in a spot where my schedule is so cramped as is, and if there’s any sort of delay or technical difficulty, that means I don’t upload that day because I’ve got to go on to the next thing. So if I can cram something in quicker, it’s incredibly valuable for me, especially in performance and processing power.

You mentioned the WD SN850 NVME SSDs in your system. How does a more powerful SSD impact your performance with your work?

I’ve got to say that the read-write speed for me, and what I do, is incredibly crucial. And one of the places that I find its most impactful is when I’m editing in Premiere and I’m trying to scrub the timeline. Loading in the footage and dragging it to where I need to find something specific that was said or [a video] preview. But quickly, on my terms with a lesser SSD, you get a lot of freezing and lagging and stuttering. And so having that additional like read-write speed, I’m really hoping is going to come in clutch when it comes to the editing.

Were aesthetics important to you in this build?

Yeah, I’m a sucker for making things look good, man. One of the things I kind of am known for on my on my YouTube channel is I do a lot of, like crate openings and buying outfits and like, looking good, you know? And so with my studio, I’m in the process of kind of rebuilding and customizing it right now. I definitely would love to have the PC be able to be kind of a centerpiece. So aesthetics are definitely important, although for me function is everything when it comes to a PC. So that’s like first and foremost. But if it can look good while doing a great function, then I’m all for it.

One last question for you. What do you think the first thing you’re going to do when you get this and then box it turn it on? What’s the first thing you want to do?

Oh, man, that’s a great question. I’ve tried to sync most of what I do in the cloud to some regard, so I’m going to probably get my files on there and then just like see how quickly I can [get going]. It’s been a while, like there’s been a lot of advances made since the last PC that I purchased. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of physical transfer of things to this next one. So I think it might just be close to plug and play.

That’s exactly what we aim for. Anything else you’d like to add before you go?

Just wanted to thank you for taking the time to chat with me about the PC, and thanks to iBUYPOWER for hooking it up! Thanks to WD for hooking up the solid states. That’s going to be awesome. I’m actually thrilled, I can’t wait to get this thing hooked up and start operating on it immediately. It feels like it’s been a long time coming, but I can’t wait to get it part of the setup.

We hope you love your new system, Lance!  Thanks again!