Good gaming PC

[techmot]

Anyone know of a good spec gaming PC as I am looking for one for my son for Chrstmas. There's a shop fairly close by in my area that sells gaming PCs, the starting prices are from £299 (8GB ram which seems pretty low to me), then upwards of £399, etc dependng on the processor and ram, and these are refurbished PCs. It's kind surprising so many youngers have these gaming PCs with how expensive they are...

I've looked into the mini PCs like the Beelink. I suppose the best option is to build your own, but I don't really have time or patience to do that. I try to stay clear of the likes of PC World.

[usually_quiet]

Anyone. know of a good spec gaming PC as I am looking for one for my son for Chrstmas. There's a shop fairly close by in my area that sells gaming PCs, the starting prices are from £299 (8GB ram which seems pretty low to me), then upwards of £399, etc dependng on the processor and ram, and these are refurbished PCs. It's kind surprising so many youngers have these gaming PCs with how expensive they are...

I've looked into the mini PCs like the Beelink. I suppose the best option is to build your own, but I don't really have time or patience to do that. I try to stay clear of the likes of PC World.

I build my own PCs, which are relatively modest machines without a discrete video card. So, I don't know all that much about gaming PCs.

However, I do know that gaming PCs are normally not inexpensive mini PCs, and putting together a small but capable gaming PC in a mini ITX case is not an easy task. Since gaming graphics cards suck up a lot of power and generate a lot of heat, they require a higher-wattage PSU and additional cooling, which also adds to the cost. The graphics card is often the single most expensive single item in a gaming PC. Popular recent gaming graphics cards can sell for more than £399 all by themselves.

Does your son really need a gaming PC? Could a gaming console be an acceptable alternative?

[Xhumeka]

I play a lot of PC games, and if I were to buy a refurbished PC I'd look for:

-AMD Ryzen 5 2700X or better CPU (I prefer AMD over Intel but that's personal preference)
-nVidia GeForce 3070 or better GPU (3070ti and 3080ti cards have came down in price recently)


You should also consider purchasing a 120Hz or better LCD (no point getting more than 60 fps if your monitor can't support it)

Yes, PC gaming is expensive

[Subtitles]

Perhaps your son can visit the gaming shop and test a PC with his favorite game. The price is too cheap so IMHO it would be a waste of money.
Ask him about his mates gaming PC's, what models do they have and the cost.
I build my own PC's (not for gaming though) and I know for sure that a good gaming PC can be very expensive even if you build it yourself.
There are so many YouTube videos about gaming PC's I would recommend watching few preferably those created in 2023 so that you would have an idea about the cost and performance. You can also ask questions there and usually people are quite helpful.

[sophisticles]

The term "gaming pc" os so grossly abused, it hurts.

Years ago one of my neighbor's daughter borrowed the credit card, with her mother's permission, and bought a high end custom gaming PC. It had 2 of the fastest Nvidia cards in SLI,, a high end CPU, lots of ram, water cooling, RAID 0+1, lots of lights, a high end case and high end power supply. She also bought a really nice gaming monitor.

Back then it cost well over 3 grand.

I remember asking the daughter why she bought a machine like that and she told me that it was because she played this one particular game a lot and wanted a high end system to play it.

When she told me the game I thought i was going to die laughing, she played WoW.

I had a coworker that built a high end PC just to play Turok.

The point is do not get suckered into spending big bucks to buy a "gaming" PC, find out what game he plays and then proceed accordingly.

There's a good chance that a PC with a low end AMD APU will handle the game he plays just fine.

[jagabo]

Anyone know of a good spec gaming PC as I am looking for one for my son for Chrstmas. There's a shop fairly close by in my area that sells gaming PCs, the starting prices are from £299 (8GB ram which seems pretty low to me), then upwards of £399

Your son will be restricted to casual/light gaming on such computers. You can barely get a low end gaming graphics card (Nvidia RTX 4060) for that kind of money. For a low end gaming computer you're looking at well over £1000. You need to know what type of games he'll be playing.

[techmot]

Anyone know of a good spec gaming PC as I am looking for one for my son for Chrstmas. There's a shop fairly close by in my area that sells gaming PCs, the starting prices are from £299 (8GB ram which seems pretty low to me), then upwards of £399

Your son will be restricted to casual/light gaming on such computers. You can barely get a low end gaming graphics card (Nvidia RTX 4060) for that kind of money. For a low end gaming computer you're looking at well over £1000. You need to know what type of games he'll be playing.

Thanks for the help. The game he plays the most is Roblox but he wants a gaming PC to play Fortnite. He currently has a very basic Lenovo Ideapad (same model that I use) running Win 11 with 4GB ram and he says it stutters and is slow.

[techmot]

The term "gaming pc" os so grossly abused, it hurts.

Years ago one of my neighbor's daughter borrowed the credit card, his her mother's permission, and bought a high end custom gaming PC. Ot had 2 of the fastest Nvidia cards in SLI,, a high end CPU, lots of ram, water cooling, RAID 0+1, lots of lights, a high end case and high end power supply. She also bought a really nice gaming monitor.

Back then it cost well over 3 grand.

I remember asking the daughter why she bought a machine like that and she told me that it was because she played this one particular game a lot and wanted a high end system to play it.

When she told me the game I thought i was going to die laughing, she played WoW.

I had a coworker that built a high end PC just to play Turok.

The point is do not get suckered into spending big bucks to buy a "gaming" PC, find out what game he plays and then proceed accordingly.

There's a good chance that a PC with a low end AMD APU will handle the game he plays just fine.

He just wants it to play Fortnight on it. It currently uses it to play Roblox.

[jagabo]

He just wants it to play Fortnight on it.

Maybe this will help: https://www.userbenchmark.com/PCGame/FPS-Estimates-Fortnite/3954/0.0.0.0.0

[sophisticles]

A 3400G handles Fortnite just fine:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fortnite+3400g

[techmot]

A 3400G handles Fortnite just fine:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fortnite+3400g

Well today ordered one of the gaming PCs from a local shop, decided on the pricier model at £499, including keyboard and large monitor and bundled with some games like Fortnite. 16GB ram. I know to many on here that's too cheap but who the hell has over £1000 spare for a gaming PC?, I doubt most parents where I live of that kind of money to spend on their kids gaming PC. The shop was very busy with customers so they must be reputable. I'm not expecting an RTX graphics card or anything fancy like the latest Ryzen processor, but for what it is should be good enough for the games he wants to play on it.

[davexnet]

Best of luck with it, out of interest which CPU did it come with ?

[techmot]

[QUOTE=davexnet;2712187]Best of luck with it, out of interest which CPU did it come with ?[/QUOTE

Thanks, hopefully it will be good for what he wants it for:

Here's the specs:

Processor: Intel Core 6100
Memory: 16GB DDR4
Storage: 1TB SSD
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1650

They state that they are built using refurbished motherboards and CPU and all other items are brand new. I let the kids mum buy it not me lol.

[johns0]

A better system would be a
Ryzen 5 5600x
16gb ram ddr4
1 tb nvme ssd
nividia gtx 1660

[usually_quiet]

The video graphics card is probably OK for the game he wants to play on a 1080p 60Hz monitor. An i3-6100 (2 cores, 4 threads) would be enough for doing schoolwork. I suspect a more powerful processor would be needed for more demanding games.