helping my lad build a PC on a budget

[ROVpilot]

Hi all,

i'm Mick, and in times gone past i have built a few of my own PCs, however as i'm now a 40 year old i am behind the curve somewhat with specs etc, and my lad, who has just turned 16 wants a new gaming PC to replace the laptop he is currently using as there are a couple of games his laptop cannot handle and he just has to be able to play them!!!

he has seen a prebuilt PC on amazon for £540ish, that has i5 3470, 8gig ram, nvidia 650 and 1 tb HDD, i'll try add a link later if one is allowe don these forums

his laptop is an ASUS K55V, i53210M, 8 GB ram, Nvidia 610M 2 GB, and 1 Tb HDD

he has spoken to some friends who have said the prebuilt is good enough to play the new games, and says he has not been able to find the components at a low enough price to buy and build the setup himself cheaper.

Now i beleive that it would be possible to build a reasonable gaming PC, probably an AMD one, for that amount of money that would be better, and be able to be upgraded in 12 months or so by a better graphics card etc

so, for 540 or so, can anyone suggest a list of components, inc os, that we could buy, and put together, to make his wish come true before santa turns up

Mick

 

[ROVpilot]

thanks for the replies so far, most appreciated

he'll be back from school soon so i'll either post the link to the prebuilt from amazon if that is allowed, or just post the specs of it if it's not

he will def need an OS, but there is a chance we could cannibalise some of the components from inside his old vista desktop, even if it's just the optical drive it will keep the budget down.

one of the main reasons for me wanting to go down this route is that he's quite a practical kid, and i would like him to build something himself (with my help), that he will get use of, that will give him the best bang for the buck

the budget will depend on how much he gets from xmas from various members of the family, and how much i punt to him to take his laptop off him (i'm thinking about 300 as it cost him just under 400 last january) to replace my old centrino lappy

so the budget may be from 500-700

obviously he's knowledgeable enough to understand that waiting till january sales might help him out too, but i'll show him this thread and recomendations and see what he says

Mick

 

[ROVpilot]

ok, just read the forum rules so not going to post the full link to the deal my lad has seen, however these are the specs of the item:

(Intel i5 3470 3.2GHz Processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Nvidia GTX 650 1GB Graphics Card, Windows 8)

Processor Brand Intel
Processor Speed 3.4 GHz
Processor Count 4
RAM Size 8 GB
Computer Memory Type DDR3 SDRAM
Hard Drive Size 1000 GB
Graphics Card Description GEF GTX650
Graphics Card Ram Size 1024 MB
Operating System WINDOWS 8
Lithium Battery Weight 300 grams


Now as i said i'm not up to speed with the differences between intel and AMD etc etc, but i cant help thinking that even the entry level prebuilt by this site/company is better than the above.

also just seen this thread : http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25345416&postcount=10

which i am sure would also be much better AND my lad doesnt need the monitor so could get better components OR save himself a few quid (and the free BF4 would be a bonus)

thoughts?

 

[ROVpilot]

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Sapphire Radeon R9 270 "BF4 Edition" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card Sapphire Radeon R9 270 "BF4 Edition" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99

AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £85.99

Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £71.99

Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G) Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G) £61.99

Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £56.99

BeQuiet Pure Power L8 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in BeQuiet Pure Power L8 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £53.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £43.99

BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99

Submit Sub Total : £464.93
Shipping : £11.75

Total : £572.02


first time i've tried this list thing so bear with me when i get it wrong

thoughts on above? useable and upgradeable???

he wont be looking at overclocking anything just yet i hope!!!

 

[ROVpilot]

Just as a bit of an update:

bought the CPU, HDD, RAM, mobo, as sugested and went for the 270x card as it had a BF4 game offer with it.

ended up slightly over budget by about £50 as the optical drive and wifi card from the old system didnt fit the new system (not 100% sure about that as my lad ended up building it with his mate while i was still away at sea)

my only input was to go into his BIOS settings and enable the RAM optimisation XMP feature that set it to 1600 as it had defaulted to 1333.

Forgot to mention that he now gets about 120 Fps on BF4, a figure he is very happy with!!!

Anyway, thanks loads for your help, much appreciated by an old(ish) fella

Now onto a new problems: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=25730896#post25730896