Computer for young lad

SupahPhresh

SupahPhresh

SupahPhresh

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Joined
1 Dec 2013
Posts
52
Afternoon all

I have a young lad who is absolutely mad on computers so I thought that I'd get him his own PC for his birthday.

What I'm looking for is a very baseline specification just enough for general purpose use and very light gaming on the least demanding titles.

Money is not a worry, however I wouldn't expect to be breaking the bank for such a low end PC.

Many thanks for any help provided.

Edit: I already have a 23" HD monitor and a keyboard. The rest is required.
 
I'd have a look around for a cheap second hand quad core set - ideally say 4GB RAM, decent mobo and a quad. Maybe something from the P35/P45 era would be good value for money.

You can buy a cheap case to put it into (mATX might be a nice option if space is at a premium), get a 500GB HDD, a good 400W-ish PSU, and then something like a 660.

Later on if he gets into it you could easily start looking at newer components, but if that's all you're looking at I think it would be more than suitable.

Or if you want to make it even easier, maybe an FM2 APU rig, which will save the need for a graphics card (assuming the gaming is very lightweight).
 
This is what I've had a look at so far, I've tried to stick to the most basic I can get away with;

Intel Pentium G3220 3.0GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail - £49,99
MSI GeForce GT 720 OC SILENT 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £47,99
Gigabyte H81M-S2PV Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard - £41,99
Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) HDD - £34,99
BeQuiet System Power 7 350W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £27,95
TeamGroup Elite 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz Single Channel Module - £23,99
Zalman T1 Plus Mini-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £19,99
Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 Pro Rev.2 CPU Cooler £8,99

Total so far £269,38

Only need a keyboard now.
 
That seems reasonable, though I don't see the point in the CPU cooler - you might as well stick with the stock one.

I don't see the point in the graphics card either - that's ridiculously expensive for something that serves no purpose. If you want to buy all new and have some vaguely useful graphics, go for an AMD APU. But I would try to go second hand and see if you can snag a GTX 560/570 or something like that.
 
So would you recommend trading in the GPU and CPU and just going in for an APU then to get similar performance?

Edit: Swapped out the CPU, GPU and MOBO for;

Asus A88XM-PLUS AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard - £56,99
AMD A8-6600K 3.90GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Quad Core Processor - £73,99
 
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if money isnt a worry, and specification not really either....you perhaps should be concentrating on an off the shelf build from a retailer you trust that provides the longest hassle free warranty..that will get you best bang per buck (without hassle of second hand)....'build your own' wont save you anything at the cheapest end of the market....large company produce millions of units/buy in bulk..

the only part of your specification that perhaps needs careful product selection is "very light gaming on the least demanding titles"

if your going to bother buy a discrete gpu then id look no further than six row down.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32899-7.html

however least demanding titles wont need a discrete gpu (depends on use of least) .
 
SupahPhresh said:
So I've added;

Patriot Viper 3 "Venom Red" 4GB DDR3 PC3-17200C11 2133MHz Single Module (P34G211UR) - £37,99

Should that be enough to compliment the APU?
Click to expand...

No, you need dual channel for the APUs, otherwise you really compromise performance.

I'd get a cheaper CPU, and a r7 250x or similar, for anything intending to be used for gaming.
 
 
I have kids of my own who like to have a pc.

The good thing is I can pass old hardware down, the bad thing is that the older the kids get the more a plain plastic poor cheap boring case just does not cut it, nor old gpu's as the kids get into games. My kids are 4, 9, 11.
Old LGA 775 has served well but for the older lad an old 7950 twin frozr gpu has been pressed into service due to his games.

I would recommend something along the lines if a G3852 Anniversary with 8gb of memory, an SSD, with an Nvidia 750 or AMD 280. Unless you plan to ban the kid from anything other than the cbeebies website.

As for a case, well an NZXT with Phobya RGB lighting looks stunning in a kids room. My older lad likes the Silverstone TJ08B-E case. But the pc has to be better than the Xbox for games to have justification. Otherwise a tablet is sufficient for homework and kids basic pc use.
 
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