Gaming PC’s TME

Whizzinby

Whizzinby

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My son has now gotten old enough to start asking for more expensive shit. He wants a gaming rig now. So I took it upon myself to show him the value of working and saving. So his ass has been pushing a mower around every week to earn an “allowance”. :ROFLMAO: I think he’s probably going to end up with around $700 saved by the christmas break, which is when he is hoping to get it all decked out. (I told him if he bought the machine, I’d get him the monitor and a gaming chair etc)

I’m not opposed to kicking in a few extra dollars to help him get something capable. (Obviously not telling him that though lol)

That said, I have no idea what sorta machine he can get for that coin, or honestly what we should be looking for. (Do people still say, “Can it run Crysis?”) :rofl

Him and his goober friends are still playing Minecraft and Roblux, so I’d imagine almost anything can play those games. But, it would be cool to have something a little future proofed, especially if he gets into first person shooters and stuff like that.

I was thinking a new M2 Mac Mini with 16gb of RAM should run everything he is into now and is in his budget, but I don’t know if people use MACs for gaming, or if that would confuse him from a Windows machine. But having a compact unit like that would be cool.

Are there any specific brands or lines of machines to look at?
 
Building your own is the best way to get a good deal, and this site is basically essential for that process: pcpartpicker.com
There are a million videos on YouTube that show how to actually put all of the parts in, and it's not as scary as it sounds provided you're careful.

However, there's nothing wrong with buying a pre-built machine if you can't be bothered rolling your own. There is a huge amount of information out there and it's easy to get lost in spec sheets and forum posts. Not unlike the guitar gear market. :unsure:
I know stuff like Origin PC exists and they seem to have a decent reputation, but I've never actually used them so /shrug.

Please don't buy him a Mac for gaming. Apple is irrelevant in this sphere and like 1% of games that people care about have Mac versions.
PC gaming = Windows. You can install Windows on a Mac but you would be locked in to the Mac's hardware at that point which negates one of the biggest positives of PC gaming, which is having complete control over your hardware and being able to swap whatever you want in or out.
 
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Yeah, they are a relatively "premium" builder as I understand it, so maybe not the best first place to look.

The better option may be to find a local PC hardware place and see if they do pre-made builds in-store. They will be slightly more expensive than if you did it yourself, but you should be able to ask a real person what they recommend for your budget.
I haven't been into this scene since 2018, so there might be a new go-to place for pre-builts that I don't know about. :idk

I would also ask your son if he just wants a PC, or if he wants to actually build one himself.
 
I ended up getting this last year and it's been pretty solid:



When I bought it, it was from Amazon direct and not a 3rd party seller, so you'd have to decide how trustworthy they are.

It's a little higher than the budget you mentioned, but cheaper than a custom build. I play some graphics intensive games and can run them on max settings with no issues at all. It has an RTX-3060 graphics card, which should be able to handle most current games. More basic games like Minecraft will run on a regular non-gaming PC, but I guess it depends on what you think he'll be playing in the future.

Edit: I can't see my link when using an ad blocker. The specs are: Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming 5i, RTX3060 graphics card, 16gb Ram, 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD, i5 12400 processor. About $900 on Amazon
 
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Absolutely don't buy a Mac. As much as I think my M2 Max Macbook Pro is a great (and expensive) machine, it's just an absolute turd for gaming because of the lack of game support and it does not perform particularly great for that.

I'd recommend building an ITX size PC with him. Doesn't take too much space, is fun to build. The Cooler Master NR200P is the case I use on my own and my gf's desktop PC. It can be had pretty cheap nowadays and you can find tutorials on YT about building into this. It's not one of the smallest ones on the market but that also means it doesn't require incredibly specific parts to fit. Motherboard just needs to be ITX size.

The Corsair SF600 and SF750 are the defacto power supplies for this.

The Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE is basically the best cooler you can buy right now and it's only something like 45-50 euros. Planning to cram one in my own setup. Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE is good too, might be a bit cheaper and easier to get.

For motherboards and CPU, AMD and Intel are both good options. You might be able to score older AMD AM4 setup used for very reasonable money. 5600 and up for example would be a good CPU, even the older 3700X is no slouch.

GPUs are the toughest one as they are expensive and the current gen cheaper options on the market are terrible. Personally I favor Nvidia for this stuff but AMD is often priced better.

16 GB RAM should be alright.
 
Just like guitars, there are levels at different price points. Do you want the Intel i5? i7? i9? AMD? Etc…

Search youtube for builds on price points you want and see if they list out the parts. Then you can tailor what you want around that. Just make sure everything is compatible with each other.

Then just do a start to finish youtube tutorial build. Doesn’t really take that long—a Sunday afternoon.
 
jellodog said:
Honestly, I would just buy a Playstation 5 and be done with it.

All the hardware choices and driver compatibility headaches are taken care of at a price that benefits from massive volume discounts for the manufacturer (Sony).

How much is your time worth?
Click to expand...

He already has an Xbox. One of the kids down the street has a PC rig so that’s become his goal in life. :ROFLMAO: I don’t think he’ll enjoy it as much as he thinks, (for now) but he’s busting his ass to save money for it so I’m encouraging the commitment. lol
 
jellodog said:
Honestly, I would just buy a Playstation 5 and be done with it.

All the hardware choices and driver compatibility headaches are taken care of at a price that benefits from massive volume discounts for the manufacturer (Sony).

How much is your time worth?
Click to expand...

Not to mention the (perceived or otherwise) need to constantly upgrade the hardware (video card, CPU, etc.) seemingly every 6 months. With a console at least you know you’re good for a few years.
 
CBHScott said:
Not to mention the (perceived or otherwise) need to constantly upgrade the hardware (video card, CPU, etc.) seemingly every 6 months. With a console at least you know you’re good for a few years.
Click to expand...
It’s actually not as bad as you’d think, but depends on the resolution you want to run. (4K etc) and, like you said, “perceived” needs.

I built a computer around an i7 Intel processor and a GeForce GTX 1070 video card in 2018 and it still holds up great for 1080p HD and 4K at 60fps. Haven’t changed a thing and it a still pretty fast.

Honestly, on gaming monitors less than 30”, 1080 vs 4K is almost indiscernible.
 
CBHScott said:
Not to mention the (perceived or otherwise) need to constantly upgrade the hardware (video card, CPU, etc.) seemingly every 6 months. With a console at least you know you’re good for a few years.
Click to expand...
There's no real need to upgrade if you are happy with the performance. I used my previous system for 3 years, now it continues on as my gf's desktop PC. If her previous system hadn't broken down I wouldn't have bothered upgrading at all, but it was certainly a good excuse.

New tech will keep rolling in and it's going to be better, but doesn't mean you need to keep up with the Joneses.

Consoles are very practical though, it's really nice to be able to just boot it and get straight back to gaming.
 
IMO building your own PC used to be the way to go to save money and get bang for your buck. It's been a while since I've looked, but some years ago premade PCs became just fine and often even cheaper than DIY.

It's sorta like building your own partscaster. Years ago, overseas guitars used to be crap so parts guitars used to be awesome for the price. But now pre-made guitars are economical and mostly great, and so partscasters is just its own hobby. Hobbyists will tell you it's still how you save money, get bang for your buck, etc., but most people just want to buy a guitar and there's plenty of fine ones available for great prices.

Just research some topics, "what graphics-card/cpu/memory do I need for X," and look for machines that check those boxes.
 
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