Help with a gaming PC on a tight budget for a Christmas present please?

Associate
Joined
20 Nov 2005
Posts
203
Hi,

Please can you help me with a PC build for my son and on a tight budget?

I am thinking about getting my son a pc for Christmas that we can build together. He has been hinting he wants one for gaming and homework, CS Go has been mentioned but no other games (I am sure he will want to play the latest games).

I am trying to keep the cost down as I am little worried he might get bored with it and go straight back on his Xbox One, you know what kids are like! This will be his first PC.

My budget is about £450, but I am getting a price in the range of £700+, which is way too much for a Christmas present. To be honest I think I am going to be hard pressed to do it on £450. Please can you help me find the parts in my budget and still have a good pc for gaming and future upgrades.

So as to save money at this point I am happy not to include a SSD or a graphics card, but will need a motherboard that can us the Ryzen on board graphics. He could add the GPU and SSD later on for his birthday. Also, is it possible to make a saving on the operating system with a OEM version?

Based on a Ryzen 5 2400G CPU, ATX;

I was looking for a Gigabyte motherboard with WI-FI and on board graphics that can use the Ryzen graphics. But i am not sure if the one i picked is suitable?

I have yet to choose a nice case that has a side window, nice lights and isn't to big so that i can fit under his desk


  • Case - yet to be chosen
  • CD / DVD drive - yet to be chosen
  • Wi-Fi card - yet to be chosen (if not on motherboard)

Total £675 (without a case and CD / DVD drive)

Thank you for your help
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2015
Posts
18,514
Hi, thank you. I will have a look at that this evening

no worries, board comes with wifi you'd end up spending £60 for a stand alone wifi card.

case can take 220mm cards if needs be in the future and PSU can handle middle range cards just fine, modular and small enough to fit in that case .

downloading windows media creation tool and installing windows OS onto usb stick and buying a CD key normally costs £20 and save a fair bit of cash there

pushing system at a lower costs, 8gb ram instead of 16gb , lessor quality PSU but still small enough for the case to add mid-tier GPU later

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £481.00 (includes shipping: £11.10)​


system with weaker 4 core 4 thread instead of 4 cores and 8 threads, but with a much stronger Stand along GPU

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £556.59 (includes shipping: £11.70)​
 
Associate
OP
Joined
20 Nov 2005
Posts
203
no worries, board comes with wifi you'd end up spending £60 for a stand alone wifi card.

case can take 220mm cards if needs be in the future and PSU can handle middle range cards just fine, modular and small enough to fit in that case .

downloading windows media creation tool and installing windows OS onto usb stick and buying a CD key normally costs £20 and save a fair bit of cash there

pushing system at a lower costs, 8gb ram instead of 16gb , lessor quality PSU but still small enough for the case to add mid-tier GPU later

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £481.00 (includes shipping: £11.10)


system with weaker 4 core 4 thread instead of 4 cores and 8 threads, but with a much stronger Stand along GPU

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £556.59 (includes shipping: £11.70)
Thanks guys.

You've given me some good ideas to get the price down, having a look in the OCUK shop right now!
 
Associate
OP
Joined
20 Nov 2005
Posts
203
Yeah don’t buy the OS as others have advised. I paid £4 for mine from a certain auction site. No issues.

Thanks, I was surprised how much you could save this way actually.

After quite a bit of thought and a good look at the options you guys have mentioned. I have decided not to do the pc build just yet, I get the impression my son might not use it enough to justify the price. He's going to save his money from Christmas etc and if I still interested, I will have a look again at another time. Wish he had mentioned it earlier in the year, he only dropped it on me a couple of weeks back!

Thank you, you have all been excellent and very helpful.
 
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