Complete Gaming PC Newb - Help building a gaming PC for 9 Year Old £500ish Budget

1ntense

1ntense

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Looking to get my son a gaming PC for Christmas and thinking with Black Friday coming up, it may be a good time to buy one now.

Does Overclockers offer a building service (think I saw someone mention something about this)?

I basically literally have no clue whatsoever on parts and how to build but I’m guessing that having one built is the way forward over prebuilt.

It will predominantly be used by my 9 year old son for playing Fortnite and Minecraft and similar games and for general browsing and YouTube.

I’m looking for something around my budget (can go over a bit) as I’m guessing it won’t buy an amazing overall spec with needing a monitor too. I’ve already ordered him a keyboard and plan to get him a mouse separately too so have those parts covered at least lol

I think I read that some parts like the motherboard are difficult to upgrade so would prefer a good one with the ability to upgrade the easier things if I wanted to in the future.

I have an old TV he could potentially use for now, not sure how much a suitable monitor is, probably better saying 500ish not including a monitor actually as I imagine 500 with a monitor won’t get me much.

Thanks in advance
 
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scorchedbee

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Go for a second hand monitor from certain local selling apps?

Or drop the 1tb drive and lower to 8gb of ram to free up £50?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £495.44 (includes shipping: £12.60)
​
 

Plec

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The above is a solid Fortnite/Minecraft spec and a second hand monitor is a good way to go.

I've opted for a slightly different approach to give you options/guide - more expensive but will grow with your son's game changes/choices over the next 5 years (had similar experience with my own kids). Quality mATX motherboard (smaller physical footprint as can use a smaller case), 3200MHz memory on special and the best bang for buck Zen 2 CPU - all you should need to upgrade is the graphics card when required. You may also need to add a larger SSD in the future (in addition to the specced one) but 500GB should be ample for his present gaming needs:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £591.15 (includes shipping: £12.30)
​


Or my preferred as within budget and easy to upgrade - swap out the 3600 for the 2600 - and upgrade the CPU in the future if/when required as the motherboard is a quality Zen 2 primed board - and only a tad over budget:


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £537.15 (includes shipping: £12.30)



EDIT: And i would watch lots of 'How to build a computer' YouTube videos as having it pre-built will eat £100 plus of your budget. It's not hard and plenty of people around here to help if you run into any issues.​
 

1ntense

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Thanks guys, suggestions look great.

Im thinking it’s maybe wise to go for Radeon RC 590 over the 570? (Budget is flexible)

MSi B450M Mortar Max and MSi Tomahawk Max seem to be the suggested motherboards at this price point, could someone help to explain the difference to help me choose between the 2 please?

Ram and Processor; I’ve decided on the Ryzen 5 3600 and Vulcan T-Force 16GB as they seem to be the most suggested bang for your buck.

Im unluckily to hardwire via Ethernet, do I need to add anything to get WiFi to the build?

Power source I’m a little stuck on, I was looking at the Be Quiet Pure Power II 500w. Any info that might help me decide with which to choose for this?

Thanks so much for the help so far, very impressed with the forum. Feels like a nice place to be ☺️☺️
 

Plec

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Basically the same boards but the Mortar is Micro ATX - slightly smaller; less PCIe slots (not needed) allows for a smaller case. Tomahawk Full ATX so you will need a midi tower case minimum. Depends on how important space is...

The 3600 is the best bang for buck if you have the funds - as for the 590 i would only buy one if you could get it for the same price as a cheap RX580 - otherwise the price difference isn't worth the premium for his needs and it's the first component that will get swapped out when your son starts to stretch its silicon legs - either flavour.

As for PSU if you're thinking of dropping £70 i would look at the Corsair RM650 series - ~£80, it's fully modular (only attach cables that you need - great if choosing mATX), 10 year warranty and will suck up any power hungry GPU you may add in the future.
 

scorchedbee

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Yep the 3600 ryzen is a great chip, I have that myself.

- for motherboards, instead of getting a 30ish quid wifi card maybe go for this as wifi is inbuilt, again this is what I went for, for the same reason - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ocket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33s-ms.html

- For the 590 only get it while its 149.99 here, price difference vs what you gain over a 580 is minimal. - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/powe...raphics-card-black-friday-deal-gx-197-pc.html

- for psu, this would suffice for now, but the corsair RM series are quality also - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/coolermaster-masterwatt-550-550w-80-plus-bronze-semi-modular-power-supply-ca-37l-cm.html

and yes this forum is super helpful, youll see most people have been around here for years so lots of experience around, ive been helped out countless times.
Also, if your building it, build it with your son? more boxes to open at Christmas too! This is how I learnt how to build a pc and the workings of it. All be it 25 years ago with my pops now ha

You will be surprised how easy it actually is, everything has its own place or slot and the manual with the MSI motherboard I linked is really intuitive too and literally step by steps you.. a bit like following a lego plan I guess :)
 
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1ntense

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Plec said:
Basically the same boards but the Mortar is Micro ATX - slightly smaller; less PCIe slots (not needed) allows for a smaller case. Tomahawk Full ATX so you will need a midi tower case minimum. Depends on how important space is...

The 3600 is the best bang for buck if you have the funds - as for the 590 i would only buy one if you could get it for the same price as a cheap RX580 - otherwise the price difference isn't worth the premium for his needs and it's the first component that will get swapped out when your son starts to stretch its silicon legs - either flavour.

As for PSU if you're thinking of dropping £70 i would look at the Corsair RM650 series - ~£80, it's fully modular (only attach cables that you need - great if choosing mATX), 10 year warranty and will suck up any power hungry GPU you may add in the future.
Click to expand...

Cool, I’ll go with your recommendation and stick to the 570 then unless you think I should go for the RX580 instead?

I’m ok with a midi really, cases I have no idea about though, I’m currently going by aesthetics

What’s the purpose of the PSU? Does it improve the performance of the machine? Sorry for the dumb question lol
 

scorchedbee

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1ntense said:
Cool, I’ll go with your recommendation and stick to the 570 then unless you think I should go for the RX580 instead?

I’m ok with a midi really, cases I have no idea about though, I’m currently going by aesthetics

What’s the purpose of the PSU? Does it improve the performance of the machine? Sorry for the dumb question lol
Click to expand...

PSU is a power supply, its only job is provide enough power to the parts in the pc. In simple terms aslong as its rated high enough all parts will work as intended. A higher watt (750w vs 550w) will not gain more performance, you just need to ensure you have enough power to go around all the bits :)
 

1ntense

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scorchedbee said:
PSU is a power supply, its only job is provide enough power to the parts in the pc. In simple terms aslong as its rated high enough all parts will work as intended. A higher watt (750w vs 550w) will not gain more performance, you just need to ensure you have enough power to go around all the bits :)
Click to expand...

Perfect explanation.

I heard someone mention gold and I’ve seen bronze ones so wasn’t sure lol
 

1ntense

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scorchedbee said:
Yep the 3600 ryzen is a great chip, I have that myself.

- for motherboards, instead of getting a 30ish quid wifi card maybe go for this as wifi is inbuilt, again this is what I went for, for the same reason - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ocket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-33s-ms.html

- For the 590 only get it while its 149.99 here, price difference vs what you gain over a 580 is minimal. - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/powe...raphics-card-black-friday-deal-gx-197-pc.html

- for psu, this would suffice for now, but the corsair RM series are quality also - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/coolermaster-masterwatt-550-550w-80-plus-bronze-semi-modular-power-supply-ca-37l-cm.html

and yes this forum is super helpful, youll see most people have been around here for years so lots of experience around, ive been helped out countless times.
Also, if your building it, build it with your son? more boxes to open at Christmas too! This is how I learnt how to build a pc and the workings of it. All be it 25 years ago with my pops now ha

You will be surprised how easy it actually is, everything has its own place or slot and the manual with the MSI motherboard I linked is really intuitive too and literally step by steps you.. a bit like following a lego plan I guess :)
Click to expand...

I think I’m set on the 3600 tbh, what advantages are there to the one you linked? The lack of the need of a single plugged in?

So 580 (or 590 if the price is similar to 580) would benefit him for his needs over a 570 and worth the extra?

I’m a bit of a brand snob so will likely go for the Corsair if it’s not much more than the other ones suggested.

That’s my current thinking, if it only takes a couple of hours and it’s Lego-like then I fancy that. Not sure if I read that installing Windows takes a long time though? I was considering building it beforehand to make sure everything works and so I’ve had a dry run at it to speed things up on the day.
 

scorchedbee

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- the 3600 is a solid choice.

- the motherboard I linked has wifi in built, supports the 3000 series amd chips out of the box with no need for bios updating (bios is basically motherboard software that works behind the scenes and stores some settings)

- yeah the 580 will be an improvement over the 570, and at the moment the 590 I linkerd is 149.99 so well worth it

- Being a "brand snob" is very wise with a power supply. Without going too deep not all 500w supplies are equal for example and its common advice around here to get a decent branded one!

- the gold/silver/bronze is the rating of how efficient the supply is. How much electricity is outputted vs intput from mains. Its referred to normally as 80bronze - 80gold etc I believe. You'll be fine with a bronze rated one. (now I know there are better explanations from guys on here and i'm no psu expert)

- windows install from a USB doesn't take long at all nowadays. Install from a USB and select the settings you want, it installs most of the drivers/behind the scenes software itself now too.
 

w1llyg

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scorchedbee said:
- the 3600 is a solid choice.

- the motherboard I linked has wifi in built, supports the 3000 series amd chips out of the box with no need for bios updating (bios is basically motherboard software that works behind the scenes and stores some settings)

- yeah the 580 will be an improvement over the 570, and at the moment the 590 I linkerd is 149.99 so well worth it

- Being a "brand snob" is very wise with a power supply. Without going too deep not all 500w supplies are equal for example and its common advice around here to get a decent branded one!

- the gold/silver/bronze is the rating of how efficient the supply is. How much electricity is outputted vs intput from mains. Its referred to normally as 80bronze - 80gold etc I believe. You'll be fine with a bronze rated one. (now I know there are better explanations from guys on here and i'm no psu expert)

- windows install from a USB doesn't take long at all nowadays. Install from a USB and select the settings you want, it installs most of the drivers/behind the scenes software itself now too.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure the MSI Carbon you've linked needs a BIOS update to run the 3000 series. Only the MAX B450 run them straight out of the box.
 

1ntense

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I think I’ll go with the Max B450 unless the Carbon is going to benefit me more? Going with the components that seem to be recommended the most seems like the safest bet.

Anyone know which Corsair PSU would be a good option for my build?
 

Danny75

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scorchedbee said:
Maybe I was lucky and the newer “batch” or something but either way it has the feature to update cpu’less :)
Click to expand...

:) Well that's two of you now so hopefully all from now on.


1ntense said:
I think I’ll go with the Max B450 unless the Carbon is going to benefit me more? Going with the components that seem to be recommended the most seems like the safest bet.
Click to expand...

If you need wifi it makes sense to go for the better Carbon Pro board (which has also been recommended for "ages") because a wifi card as good as the onboard wifi it has will cost you the difference between Tomahawk and Carbon Pro anyway.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £150.48 (includes shipping: £10.50)​
​
 
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