Build or buy a gaming pc??

ET13

All

First, i know NOTHING about pc's let alone a Gaming PC.

My son (age 14) wants to get his first gaming pc - he is progressing from PS4. Plays minecraft, warzone, phsamaphobua etc.

His budget, all in, is about €750.

Any advice on
who to buy from
What to buy
Ir
Should i build.....if building, can anyone give me a breakdown on what i need

Thank you in advance

Elaine

Samuel T. Cogley

TBH you're better off buying one at the moment, it's near impossible to get parts. I take it by all in he needs a monitor?

brcwatters

Jumping in here too if you don't mind. Young fella asked for money for Christmas to build his own as his laptop not up to much, but the parts seem to be way more expensive than they were early December when he started looking, or not available. He is getting fed up looking at this stage and is considering just going with the pre-built one, hoping to get a bit of a warranty there too.

Don't want to go the UK route - is there an Irish or European site to get pre-built ones? Budget around 800-900, he has a monitor, mouse, keyboard.

BloodBath

Better off just buying a PS5 atm tbh. The PC market is a shambles atm. No stock of new parts and anything that trickles through is massively inflated in price.

Stock and price on last gen stuff is abysmal as well. Contributing to the problem is crypto currencies which have exploded in value so people mining those currencies are hoovering up stock as well.

Covid and brexit on top of that and it's a complete clusterF. No idea when it will return to normal. It could be 6 months or more.

Lumen

When I was going through this before Christmas I was aiming for:

16GB RAM, 1TB storage (with at least 256GB of that as SSD), GTX 1650 Super GPU, whatever for the CPU.

Something like this comes close (although it's UK, and Brexit has happened, so....)

https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/scan-gamer-intel

It's annoying that 16GB RAM is almost impossible to find at this price point, but I guess you can always upgrade to that yourself.

I don't think at that budget it's worth getting a new monitor right now, because the GPU will struggle to push anything over 1080p resolution, whereas the next generation of mid-range GPUs will comfortably handle 1440p. You should be able to pick up a secondhand monitor or even TV for basically nothing, and then upgrade to a new GPU and 1440p monitor in a year's time when prices are less mental.

My son was using a crappy old TV with his old gaming PC and he didn't complain that much.

In the end I ended up building something much more expensive, because I am an idiot.

Consoles are theoretically better value now but also unobtainable.

ET13

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

TBH you're better off buying one at the moment, it's near impossible to get parts. I take it by all in he needs a monitor?

Hi

Yes, he needs all components. What make/model would you reccomend? Is it possible within the 750 budget?
Cheers
Elaine

ET13

BloodBath wrote: »

Better off just buying a PS5 atm tbh. The PC market is a shambles atm. No stock of new parts and anything that trickles through is massively inflated in price.

Stock and price on last gen stuff is abysmal as well. Contributing to the problem is crypto currencies which have exploded in value so people mining those currencies are hoovering up stock as well.

Covid and brexit on top of that and it's a complete clusterF. No idea when it will return to normal. It could be 6 months or more.

Really appreciate the advice. Sadly he doesn't want the ps5, his pals have gaming PC's so there's a number of games he cant get involved with.

Can you reccomend a reliable place to buy a ready made gaming pc?

Cheers
E

ET13

Lumen wrote: »

When I was going through this before Christmas I was aiming for:

16GB RAM, 1TB storage (with at least 256GB of that as SSD), GTX 1650 Super GPU, whatever for the CPU.

Something like this comes close (although it's UK, and Brexit has

It's annoying that 16GB RAM is almost impossible to find at this price point, but I guess you can always upgrade to that yourself.

I don't think at that budget it's worth getting a new monitor right now, because the GPU will struggle to push anything over 1080p resolution, whereas the next generation of mid-range GPUs will comfortably handle 1440p. You should be able to pick up a secondhand monitor or even TV for basically nothing, and then upgrade to a new GPU and 1440p monitor in a year's time when prices are less mental.

My son was using a crappy old TV with his old gaming PC and he didn't complain that much.

In the end I ended up building something much more expensive, because I am an idiot.

Consoles are theoretically better value now but also unobtainable.

Yup Brexit really has screwed up the buying options!!

Can you reccomend anyone in Ireland that wont try rip me off by upselling me a system spec above and beyond what i need?

Samuel T. Cogley

Only place I can think of now with Brexit is Amazon. The other day I was thinking AWD-IT but I doubt they are registered for Irish VAT.

Edit: I'm looking about and I have to be honest I just don't think it's doable on €750. I think anything he gets he's be disappointed with. I know it's asking the impossible of a child but he should wait until the summer when hopefully things have calmed down.

ET13

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

Only place I can think of now with Brexit is Amazon. The other day I was thinking AWD-IT but I doubt they are registered for Irish VAT.

Edit: I'm looking about and I have to be honest I just don't think it's doable on €750. I think anything he gets he's be disappointed with. I know it's asking the impossible of a child but he should wait until the summer when hopefully things have calmed down.

Really really appreciate the time and input. You're probably right in its asking the impossible but I'll try persuading him.....may require bribery and/or blackmail 🀔ðŸ˜

Again, thank you (and everyone) for the help

Elaine

ET13

ET13 wrote: »

Yup Brexit really has screwed up the buying options!!

Can you reccomend anyone in Ireland that wont try rip me off by upselling me a system spec above and beyond what i need?

Guys, i found a pc with the following spec - is this any good (cpu, graphics, memory, stirage etc)

Antec NX230 ARGB, Black, Mid Tower Chassis w/ Window, 120mm Fan, USB 3.0, ATX/MicroATX/Mini-ITX

Intel Core i3 9100F, S 1151, Coffee Lake Refresh, Quad Core, 4 Thread, 3.6GHz, 4.2GHz Turbo, 6MB, w/o iGPU, 65W, CPU,Box

EVGA GeForce GTX 1650 SC Ultra Gaming 4GB GDDR6 Graphics Card, 896 Core, 1485MHz GPU, 1710MHz Boost

ASUS PRIME H310M-A R2.0, Intel H310, S 1151, DDR4, SATA3, M.2, Realtek GbE, USB 3.1 Gen1 A, MicroATX

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black, PC4-24000 (3000), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 16-18-18-36, XMP 2.0, 1.35V

700W Aerocool Integrator 80PLUS PSU with 120mm Black Fan

WD 240 GB Internal SSD M.2 SATA

1TB Seagate BarraCuda ST1000DM010, 3.5" HDD, SATA III - 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, 8.5ms, NCQ

Thanking you in advance
E

Homelander

Not really. It's fairly low end.

As stated above the market is a mess right now, most parts out of stock or selling at inflated prices, and then you've Brexit as well.

Something like this is twice as fast as the one above for €880.

Would order a 2nd stick of 8GB ram though, 16GB is the new standard really, plus a single 8GB stick is single channel mode which hurts performance.

https://www.dell.com/en-ie/shop/gaming-and-games/new-g5-gaming-desktop/spd/g-series-5000-desktop/cd500001

Keyzer

Crapola...

I'm in the same boat having taken up sim racing in the lockdown. Ps4 is fine but I'd like to try a couple of games (iRacing, RFactor2) which are only on PC so it looks like I'm stuck for the time being...

ET13

Homelander wrote: »

Not really. It's fairly low end.

As stated above the market is a mess right now, most parts out of stock or selling at inflated prices, and then you've Brexit as well.

Something like this is twice as fast as the one above for €880.

Would order a 2nd stick of 8GB ram though, 16GB is the new standard really, plus a single 8GB stick is single channel mode which hurts performance.

https://www.dell.com/en-ie/shop/gaming-and-games/new-g5-gaming-desktop/spd/g-series-5000-desktop/cd500001

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Many thanks, really appreciate the feedback

E

Pcgamer

Another here a bit over budget.

https://www.amazon.de/HP-Pavilion-TG01-1066ng-Desktop-i7-10700F/dp/B08KG9N29K