United States
United Kingdom
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
IrelandLinus Tech Tips' "F-You To Sam Altman" is a home AI rig with two RTX 5090s
A 3,000-watt power supply that needs a 240-volt outlet is only one snag in a build its own title card calls "Baby's First Data Center."
Linus Tech Tips
Story of No. 17 on the daily chartNo. 2 on the Tech chart
Why this story? One of the most watched videos since yesterday, with 1,432,927 views.
My F-You To Sam Altman
Video summary
Press to jump
- 0:00Linus lays out cloud AI's problems, from subscriptions to privacy, and pitches a local AI workstation.
- 2:12The SilverStone Alta T1 case appears, introduced as an update to his favorite TJ07.
- 5:24The core parts: a Xeon w9-3495X, an Asus W790 workstation board and Corsair RDIMM memory.
- 6:27Two RTX 5090s, one liquid-cooled and one fitted with an XT120 power connector.
- 10:41The motherboard will not fit cleanly, blocked by its rear armor and the case grommets.
- 16:47A 3000W power supply turns out to need 220 to 240 volts and is swapped for a 1650W unit.
Linus Sebastian's escape from monthly AI bills runs into a 3,000-watt power supply he cannot plug in. The unit accepts only 220 to 240 volts, and crew member Lucas confirms it: "Yeah, this one's, yeah, 220 to 240." In Canada, ordinary wall outlets supply about 120 volts, so it gets swapped for a SilverStone Zeus 1650W.
That detour sits inside "My F-You To Sam Altman," a build video aimed at the OpenAI co-founder's world of cloud AI. Sebastian's opening case lists outages, recurring subscriptions and privacy worries. His alternative is a workstation that runs large language models "on my hardware, with no subscription, which has many benefits."
The parts list is not a modest one. An Intel Xeon w9-3495X sits on an Asus Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE board with eight sticks of Corsair server-grade DDR5 memory. Two RTX 5090s go in: one liquid-cooled, the other modified with an XT120 power connector. Everything lives in SilverStone's aluminum Alta T1, which Sebastian presents as the update to his favorite vintage case, the Temjin TJ07. The motherboard's rear armor then collides with the case's grommets. "This is what happens when you're operating at the edges of standards," he says. The video also carries a sponsored segment for Squarespace.
It arrives days after Luke went to Michigan to double an RTX 4090's memory, and memory is again what viewers talk about. Many joke about RAM and hard drive prices and about who is buying all the chips. Others point out that the first step in this tutorial is owning a warehouse of parts. In under half a day it drew about 1.4 million views, and its comment section already holds nearly twice the channel's usual full first day.
One of the most liked comments compares waiting on local AI to waiting for web pages to load in the dial-up years. Another thanks Sebastian for building the machine its writer wanted but could not afford.
Published on Trari
Where next?
What viewers say
Thank you Linus for doing what I wanted but didnt have the budget for
@hildur4543See it on YouTubeLocal AI being slow to process and you doing something else while it runs is our generations version of waiting for the internet web page to load.
@ImpuritexSee it on YouTubeWatching this setup makes my bank account cry in binary. At least the cable management looks... 'artistic"
@pokendystormSee it on YouTube
7 more comments
Linus: It's not a Showcase build.
Also Linus: uses 1300$ Case@bertkromer72See it on YouTubeWhen he asked how much a 5090 was worth I audibly said out loud $8,000. Now, I see that 8 grand was actually too optimistic.
@criminalcuteness3952See it on YouTubeTutorial: Building a local AI workstation:
Step 1. Have a warehouse full of high end hardware@juli12345istRecorsiSee it on YouTubeDeepseek: What is my purpose
Lukas: You make cookie cutters@irishbruseSee it on YouTubePraying hard drive prices go down, can't even buy refurbished without feeling sick. Can't wait to regret not buying again when next month rolls around.
@fpvtristanSee it on YouTubeLighting and production in this is SO much nicer than your usual flat look. PLEASE keep this aesthetic! Labs is an awesome backdrop
@hocuspocus6681See it on YouTubeI have 24 gigs of Vram and 64 gigs of ram. I use it to play dota 2, and team fortress.
I will do it again.@SenseiLlamaSee it on YouTube
Public comments from the video's page on YouTube
Is this your channel?For the channel's owners and team: a ready picture and text for your audience
Share the story with your audience. Everything is ready:
For an Instagram story or a WhatsApp status
For a community post or your channel's description
- Channel
- Linus Tech Tips
- Subscribers
- 16,900,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 17,767,685
- Channel views, pace per day
- 1,572,709 (on a normal day: 2,848,334)
- Video published
- November 2, 2026
- Video views so far
- 1,432,927 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 2,192,837
The numbers
The build drew a large audience within hours of going up, and its comment section filled faster than usual for the channel.
💡 Test your knowledge
Which AI company did Sam Altman co-found?
Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with a group that included Elon Musk, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever.