Son wants a gaming PC - need advice!
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Anonymous
| My son wants to get a PC/desktop for gaming. I don't want to spend a ton of dough. I'm fine getting something refurbished if it's good/trustworthy. I keep reading about buying one vs. building one. Would love any advice folks can offer. Where should I look/shop? Should I try and find someone who can build one or go with something off the shelf? If so, where do I look for such a person? Nextdoor? Ask friends? My son is a young teen and I'm not looking for anything crazy expensive. Would appreciate any advice knowledgeable people can offer. Thanks. |
Anonymous
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Three biggest questions to start:
What is your max budget? What resolution will his monitor be? 1080p, 1440p, or 4K? Do you already own it or need to buy? What types of games will he play? |
Anonymous
| Tell him to research the components and prices. This would be a great exercise to get your son more educated in technology and also on the value of money and labor time. I started modifying a computer my parents gave me when I was 11 years old back in the early 90s and slowly progressed to building my own computers. At that time, yes it was cheaper to build your own PC. Micro Center is a great place to get hardware at reasonable prices locally. |
Anonymous
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Agreed with the comments above. The questions listed are good. Micro Center is good--they can help you find parts that meet your needs and budget, and their prices compare reasonably well with online stores.
For general reference, "entry level" would be about $500, plus $100 or so for a basic monitor, if you don't already have one. $1k gets you something decent. $1500-2k is probably the sweet spot for price/performance. The problem right now is timing: there is a shortage of graphics cards (which are essentially for gaming) right now and the prices have been driven way up. Your choices right now are to buy an older model on Ebay (say, a GTX 960 for ~$100 or so) and upgrade it later, or over-pay for a new model. If you do the former, make sure that you have a beefy enough power supply (750-850 watts) to accommodate a high-end graphics card later. Everything else (CPUs, RAM, storage) is reasonably priced right now, though. If you really want a new high-end GPU today, a pre-built machine may be a better value. This is not generally the case, but it may be right now. Pre-built machines have the advantage of a single point of contact for warranty issues, but often skimp on things like power supplies and cooling. |
Anonymous
| Also, if you haven't done it before, don't be afraid of the build-your-own approach. The parts go together like Legos, but for adults. There are tons of online tutorials, too. Micro Center (or a similar retailer) can help you with part selection (CPU needs to match motherboard, RAM needs to match motherboard, power supply needs to be adequately sized, etc.). Don't skimp on power supplies--a bad one can make the entire system unstable in weird ways and/or fry multiple parts at once. |
Anonymous
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Gaming computers can be expensive because they use high-end parts to be faster and to look better. Desktop computers are pretty modular (e.g., parts can be replaced/upgraded), so I would start with a desktop in your budget now and upgrade, as needed. I would not build one (although not hard) because parts are expensive, particularly graphics cards because there is a world wide chip shortage and because the available graphics cards are being bought up to mine bitcoins. Also, the Windows license is expensive. You could not built a computer for the price (e.g., $600) of desktop from a store.
I would look at your usual places (Costco, best buy) for a pre-built desktop with a graphics card and not "integrated graphics," which is bad for gaming because some of the computer memory and processing is being used for for graphics processing and are, therefore, bad for gaming. |
Anonymous
| Just buy one. Costco. |
Anonymous
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Www.nzxt.com
There are some good tools to build for your game, frame rate and resolution. This is the high end pro gamer type stuff but you can work backwards towards your budget - but at least you can see what type of graphics card and cooling you will need. My kid is a twitch streamer and we got a good discount if he plugs their hw x amount of times. |
Anonymous
| You will have a hard time finding a GPU if you are building one. Prices are through the roof now because of cryptocurrency mining and shortages. Loads of people have builds but no GPU. Get a pre-built to keep it simple. |
Anonymous
| I did the simplest thing when it came to my my 11 year old gamer: I had him do the research himself for a refurbished PC, that met his gaming requirements (and he knows them) and we ended up buying one from best buy. It's been good. |
Anonymous
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What is he doing to earn this item?
My son wants one too, but he’s working for it this summer by working for me a few hours a day doing projects like weeding, cleaning, etc. He has also researched what he wants extensively. I would strongly suggest you make your kid do the legwork on both fronts. |
Anonymous
| Micro center has an online builder, you can pick out everything you want online, go to store pickup and put together at home or pay and fee and have them build. |
Anonymous
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Parts are super expensive right now (due to covid and trade war with China).
Even pre pandemic, my DS looked into building one, but if you wait for good sales, like Black Friday, you can get a good one for less than $1300. |
Anonymous
| gpu are nuts right now. I been rebuilding my kids PCs but to get a budget video card is still like 600. |
Anonymous
Not PP, but since you seem to want to know what kids do to "earn them". My son has $700 saved for a PC. He's 13yrs. old. My oldest has $1,000 saved but doesn't care for a new PC, nor he will spend his money on one. All the money has been earned from hard labor. |