Gaming Rig for Young Teenager £1000-1500

[tamzzy]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AOC Q3279VWFD8 32" 2560x1440 IPS 75Hz FREESYNC WideScreen LED Monitor= £219.95
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £184.99
• 1 x MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £99.95
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Grey (TLGD= £89.99
• 1 x Sapphire Radeon RX VEGA 56 Pulse 8GB HBM2 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11276-02-40G)= £248.99
• 1 x CoolerMaster MasterWatt 650 - 650W 80 Plus Bronze Semi Modular Power Supply= £64.99
• 1 x Corsair Force MP510 series 960GB NVMe PCIe M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F960GBMP510)= £149.99
• 1 x Zalman i3 Midi-Tower Case - Black Window= £42.95
• 1 x Cooler Master MasterKeys Combo RGB Gaming Bundle - Keyboard and Mouse= £44.99
• 1 x Creative SoundblasterX Kratos S3 2.1 Speaker System= £56.99
• 1 x HyperX Cloud Alpha Pro Gaming Headset, Black/Red (HX-HSCA-RD/EM)= £69.95

Total: £1,273.73 (includes shipping: £0.00)

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e: your budget means there is a great deal of flexability in component choices.
i've just listed here the best bang/buck combination.
of course if you don't need new peripherals, one can spec higher performing parts, but do note that going higher performance than this = diminishing returns on the budget.

 

[Franksi]

tamzzy that looks great, thank you!

 

[tamzzy]

tamzzy that looks great, thank you!

if you need me to explain the rationale for the parts chosen just say

 

[NathG79]

@tamzzy good choice on the GPU, minimum is Vega 56 now for 1440p.

 

[Franksi]

if you need me to explain the rationale for the parts chosen just say

if you don't mind, although i am doing some reading in parallel to do that myself

I assume you've wanted to set him up with a full gaming rig at 1440p so have found the right monitor/GPU combination at around the price point i've been talking about? Saved some money by going semi-modular on the PSU and getting a cheaper case?

 

[tamzzy]

aoc vwfd8 = best bang/buck monitor currently. no other monitor comes close to its spec: IPS, 1440p 32" (pretty big - check if you have desk space - but definitely nice for F1 sim), 75hz, freesync compatible. review: https://pcmonitors.info/reviews/aoc-q3279vwfd8/ (fwiw, i've got 2 of these monitors, so not just speccing randomly)
3600 = best bang/buck ryzen 3000 cpu currently. cooler is semi-decent, so don't really need an aftermarket one (though it's well within budget if you desperately want one)
msi b450 tomahawk max = one of the best b450 boards, and also being the new MAX revision, already has support for ryzen 3000 so no need to flash bios when you get it
ram = meh, much of a muchness, bang/buck is ~3200c16
vega 56 = best bang/buck after the rx570 (rx570 is much inferior in performance) and will have the grunt to power 1440p 75hz no issues
650w psu = the psu specced is "borderline" i guess better option would be the bitfenix formula 650w gold...up to you, no right/wrong answer to this. the coolermaster specced is bronze rated, semi-modular, 5 year warranty. formula is gold rated, non-modular.
mp510 = one of the best bang/buck nvme ssd currently (although ocuk prices are somewhat extortionate). i'd be tempted to swap it out for adata sx8200 pro 1tb if you can find it cheaper.
zalman i3 = again, best bang/buck case with 4 white led fans, though i appreciate that cases can be a bit personal/marmite, so choose what you want
cm kb/mouse combo = decent bang/buck combo, best value would be the non-rgb version. but hey, rgb bling bling is worth the extra tenner or so
kratos s3 = best entry level 2.1 sound system
cloud alpha pro = best headset south of £100

 

[Franksi]

Sorry for the thread necro, but I could do with updating the advice. The boy has got £200 to put towards the project himself and he’s also advised that he wants to get intro streaming.

Does that alter CPU and GPU requirements? Is it worth going to 8 cores and a 5770?

TIA