Spec a first PC for my son

[markiejt]

So my build is done and went well, so now my son (8 year old) is looking for a build.

He will need everything inc mouse, keyboard, heads set, monitor (speakers if it doesn't have them).

Games he currently plays are rocket league, mine craft, robo blox.

He plays games on his PlayStation like FIFA etc so would be good if the monitor had 2 inputs so he can use for both. I would say 1080p 24" would be enough.

Looking for best bang for buck really. Not sure if £600 all in is too low?

Oh I have a windows key already.

 

[Lemin]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £64.99
• 1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard= £45.00
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAED38G2133HC11ADC= £38.99
• 1 x Bitfenix Nova Midi Tower Case - Black= £26.99
• 1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-K3)= £44.99
• 1 x Raijintek Rhea Heatpipe CPU Cooler - PWM - 92mm= £15.95
• 1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Dual X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £104.99
• 1 x AOC E2470SWHE 23.6" 1920x1080 TN Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black= £109.99
• 1 x Kingston 60GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/6= £35.99
• 1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA100)= £42.95
• 1 x MARS Gaming MCP0 Gaming Keyboard & Mouse - UK Layout= £24.95
• 1 x Creative A60 2.0 Speaker System (51MF1635AA001)= £14.99
• 1 x Mars Gaming MH2 Stereo Gaming Headset= £13.99
• 1 x BitFenix Spectre Plain BLACK 120mm Fan= £4.99

Total: £589.75
(includes shipping: £0.00)
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Chose a z97 so u can overclock the G 3258, and u can get a 4690k second hand later to upgrade.

 

[theforce]

Nice setup Lemin. What about an amd a10-7860K without a dedicated GPU. It should be good enough for the games he is playing atm but if/when he decides to play more demanding games, the 460 in Lemin's build should be much faster.

 

[markiejt]

wow that's more than I thought I would get for the money!

If he tried to play some AAA on this system, for example the new forza, would they run?

 

[adam98150]

wow that's more than I thought I would get for the money!

If he tried to play some AAA on this system, for example the new forza, would they run?

They'd run. But you'd have to turn some settings to low/mid instead of high/ultra.

 

[Lemin]

If u have win 10 it may....

http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/t...ith-a-G3258-load-past-the-start-screen.aspx?=

 

[mistersprinkles]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £64.99
• 1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard= £45.00
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAED38G2133HC11ADC= £38.99
• 1 x Bitfenix Nova Midi Tower Case - Black= £26.99
• 1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-K3)= £44.99
• 1 x Raijintek Rhea Heatpipe CPU Cooler - PWM - 92mm= £15.95
• 1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Dual X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £104.99
• 1 x AOC E2470SWHE 23.6" 1920x1080 TN Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black= £109.99
• 1 x Kingston 60GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/6= £35.99
• 1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA100)= £42.95
• 1 x MARS Gaming MCP0 Gaming Keyboard & Mouse - UK Layout= £24.95
• 1 x Creative A60 2.0 Speaker System (51MF1635AA001)= £14.99
• 1 x Mars Gaming MH2 Stereo Gaming Headset= £13.99
• 1 x BitFenix Spectre Plain BLACK 120mm Fan= £4.99

Total: £589.75
(includes shipping: £0.00)
​

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Chose a z97 so u can overclock the G 3258, and u can get a 4690k second hand later to upgrade.

Build this, but swap the CPU for an i5 4460. You can find them cheap now and it is so much better to have a quad core. He'll be able to play pretty much everything. It'll only be over budget by 80 pounds or so.

I had a 3258 and overclocked it is a very decent CPU but a lot of games these days won't even run unless they see 4 available threads.

 

[nashathedog]

Build this, but swap the CPU for an i5 4460. it is so much better to have a quad core.

+1

 

[Lemin]

For gaming the GPU has a far greater impact than CPU especially at resolutions 1080P and higher. QUOTE... Gibbo

 

[mistersprinkles]

That'll do you a lot of good when your game won't even launch because it only sees two threads, Lemin.

 

[Supernova]

That'll do you a lot of good when your game won't even launch because it only sees two threads, Lemin.

I was about to say- dual core is a bit risky as games may not start. Maybe switch to a Skylake motherboard and get a i3 6100 for 4 threads. What I have linked below is an extra £39 but well worth doing I believe.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Core i3-6100 3.70GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £113.99
• 1 x **B Grade** Asus H110M-K D3 Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard= £35.00

Total: £148.99
(includes shipping: £0.00)
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[sastusbulbas]

A lot of games these days won't even run unless they see 4 available threads.

Would be nice to see a list of actual games that will not run on a dual core, not got any games myself so far that have failed to play on two cores. I have a G3258 myself, but no idea what games to avoid on that build.


Regarding some of the above specified components, you could argue it's overspecced for an 8 yr old, while underspecced in key areas. The 60gb SSD should be avoided at all costs, put a better 120gb in there. Kids like bling, that case is appaling looking, get him an NZXT S340 and add an RGB kit for the lad. I think if you want to play serious games, then by all means, but stretch for a 1060 and be done.

There is an AMD card in there, yet no Freesync monitor considered? Does he have a TV in his room, you can save money by using that, my lads prefer their 32" 1080 Viera to a PC monitor. They can game and enjoy netflix etc that way.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Core i3-6100 3.70GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £113.99
• 1 x Asus H110-Plus Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £59.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Red (CMK8GX4M2A2400C1= £44.99
• 1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow UV400 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SUV400S37/1= £44.99
• 1 x WD Blue 1TB 7200rpm SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (WD10EZEX)= £48.95
• 1 x NZXT Source 340 Midi-Tower Case - White Window= £66.95
• 1 x Antec VPF550 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply= £52.99
• 1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 1060 Dual 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £188.99

Total: £621.84
(includes shipping: £0.00)
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By the way, many kids will never see the potential of such a system, the majority would not notice a difference if it was an old LGA775 and 1gb GPU from 5 or 10 years ago.

 

[markiejt]

Ok great! I'm happy to stretch the budget £100 or so if it would make a big difference. So possibly upgrade to i3 would be a way to go. Isn't that 2 core as well

 

[Supernova]

Ok great! I'm happy to stretch the budget £100 or so if it would make a big difference. So possibly upgrade to i3 would be a way to go. Isn't that 2 core as well

It is, but it has hyperthreading so there are 4 threads. I believe that games requiring 4 threads to run will accept that, as it were. Far Cry 4, Dragon Age Inquisition, GTA 5, and Star Wars Battlefront are ones I know of - obviously your son is a bit young for some of these. Forza Horizon 3 is also unplayable on a dual core from what I have read - severe stuttering though it does actually launch.

The dual core will probably be okay for a little while but you could easily find that a brand new game just doesn't support any fewer than 4 threads.