£550 Gaming Build for a 12 Year Old

OliverDavis

OliverDavis

OliverDavis

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Location
Mirfield, West Yorkshire,
A friend of mines son wants a gaming PC and has a budget of £540, and this has to include everything except OS. I have told his father that £540 will not get him a gaming PC and it will be much better to build. This is where I come in. As he has a strict £540 I am going to add £50 of my own money to this. £590 is a strict budget. Whats the suggestions?

Its to play;
Call of Duty
Amnesia
Cry of Fear etc..

I have come up with this...

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-6800K Black Edition 4.10GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Quad Core Processor (AD680KWOHLBOX) £124.99
1 x BenQ G2255 21.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £107.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G186C9K) £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £52.99
1 x ASRock FM2A75M-DGS AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £52.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020047-UK) £49.99
1 x Alpenföhn Brocken CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £32.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Windowed Case - Black £32.99
1 x Creative A220 2.1 Speakers (51MF0400AA008) £25.99
1 x Asus PCE-N10 Network Adapter 150Mbps - PCI Express £14.99
1 x Samsung SH-118AB/BEBE SATA 18x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM £12.95
1 x OcUK Black Gaming Keyboard - With Free Gaming Mouse Pad (5105GU) £10.99
1 x Gigabyte M6800 1600DPI Gaming Mouse £8.99
2 x Akasa AK-CBSA05-15BL Super slim SATA rev 3.0 data cable with securing latches - 15cm, Blue £2.99 (£5.98)
Total : £594.80 (includes shipping : FREE).



It has to look alright as well as being made from decent parts. Not too noisy either, so the APU is a plus here with one set of fans going. I will also spend a day overclocking the GPU on it if I were to buy these parts.

All parts have to be new with warrenty (Ignore the losing warrenty on OC'd parts, ill cover them) and all from OCuk
 
Akasa Nero 3 is a decent cooler for a few quids less. Also the TrueSpirit 120, and the Hyper 212 Evo. AFAIK the Matterhorn Pure has better performance than the Brocken.

I prefer the Asgard Pro, but if likes a windowed case (and what 12 years old doesn't), should be ok.

Otherwise yeah, looks solid. The PSU is OK, I prefer the XFX Core 550W, but he doesn't need all that extra power. The CX500 is 38A on 12V, ChannelWell / CWT OEM. XFX is 44A on 12 volts, Seasonic OEM.

I think you picked up a good set of budget components overall for the price.
 
olivier renault said:
Akasa Nero 3 is a decent cooler for a few quids less. Also the TrueSpirit 120, and the Hyper 212 Evo. AFAIK the Matterhorn Pure has better performance than the Brocken.

I prefer the Asgard Pro, but if likes a windowed case (and what 12 years old doesn't), should be ok.

Otherwise yeah, looks solid. The PSU is OK, I prefer the XFX Core 550W, but he doesn't need all that extra power. The CX500 is 38A on 12V, ChannelWell / CWT OEM. XFX is 44A on 12 volts, Seasonic OEM.

I think you picked up a good set of budget components overall for the price.
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I am going to focus on a hefty iGPU OC for the build. I am sure 40+ fps and he will be happy. A same point I went for on the case!

Will check coolers
 
OliverDavis said:
I just asked what games he is wanting to play and they were part of the response from him. Creepy I know. The Slenders are there too!
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But maybe you should be regulating which games he can play. I wouldn't let a 12 yo play Amnesia :p

olivier renault said:
I sneaked downstairs to watch Alien while parents were sleeping, when I was 13, that freaked me out for a while.

But hey, no lasting damage, right? :D
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No movie can compare to Amnesia :o

Anyway you can get back ontopic if you like. ^^
 
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snitcher said:
alternatively could choose an i5 chip. the ram is sufficient i guess for the games to be played.
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Swap out the i5 chip and run the HDxxxx? No thank you.

Also the lower i5's are still £130+ and then I have to add a dedicated GPU to be able to actually play anything at more than 5fps, which would eat in to the budget like crazy.
 
He will bugger up his eyesight trying to play those games with that iGPU.

If it were my son, it would have to be an extra 200GBP for a semi decent GPU, or he would be waiting for the PS4, which will be able to be bought for well within his original budget. It will also offer considerbly better gaming performance than the machine listed above with around 8 guaranteed future proof years to boot.

It is one of life's little paradoxes, that most people cant have access to these expensive toys when they are at the most appropriate age for getting the maximum pleasure out of them.
 
MatTheCat said:
He will bugger up his eyesight trying to play those games with that iGPU.

If it were my son, it would have to be an extra 200GBP for a semi decent GPU, or he would be waiting for the PS4, which will be able to be bought for well within his original budget. It will also offer considerbly better gaming performance than the machine listed above with around 8 guaranteed future proof years to boot.

It is one of life's little paradoxes, that most people cant have access to these expensive toys when they are at the most appropriate age for getting the maximum pleasure out of them.
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The thing is he will also need the PC for High School, so a console is out of the question. And I think you underestimate the iGPU's once OC'd. For someone who has not had a decent PC before it will be great for him. I know it wont be on par with a £750 build but for the price it offers great performance considering all parts are new.
 
Try and get a A85 chipset board,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte F2A85X-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £68.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £61.99
Total : £141.78 (includes shipping : £9.00).




Also get the best (fastest) RAM you can afford, to be honest 1866Mhz is nothing for a APU.


Edit..check to see which BIOS version you need to support Richland, it may work fine straight out of the box, or it may need updating first to work.
 
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stulid said:
Try and get a A85 chipset board,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte F2A85X-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £68.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £61.99
Total : £141.78 (includes shipping : £9.00).




Also get the best (fastest) RAM you can afford, to be honest 1866Mhz is nothing for a APU.


Edit..check to see which BIOS version you need to support Richland, it may work fine straight out of the box, or it may need updating first to work.
Click to expand...

Trying to keep the budget under £600 here, could you have a go at a full spec?
 
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