I have no idea where to start, please help if you can

[MidnightKisses]

Hi im looking for a pc for my son, hes 12 and loves editing his game footage / vlogging family trips etc. Would anyone be able to point me in the direction of a pc that would be ideal for this please
I'm not sure if I should have one built, I did contact someone that can do this and their advice was to go with low spec and build it up as he needs it, they said that they could do this for £800 not including monitor, keyboard & mouse.
Or should I buy one that's already pre built, If so which one should I buy?
I'm not up to date with pcs at all
I've spoken with a few people that have knowledge of pcs and each have a very different opinon, and I'm finding it very confusing
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Many thanks

 

[MidnightKisses]

Start with a budget.

If it was me, I would look on Facebook marketplace, can find some really good used bargains on there

I have tried Facebook marketplace, problem is they don't reply or theres a slight fault with something. I'm also not sure what it is that he needs so its not exactly an ideal place for me to be looking.

 

[MidnightKisses]

Does your son have a TV he uses, and if so what is the exact model? While not ideal it could be used as a monitor until funds allow for a dedicated screen.

Is he wanting to game on the pc or is it mainly to edit game footage from a console? If he wants to game on it what sorts of things does he play?

At the moment mainly for editing. He uses his nintendoswitch to play with his friends also he uses his tablet for a couple of games. He does have access to a ps4 and an xbox but he's really not interested in playing with his friends on these. He plays with a small group of the same friends online that he knows in person. He mainly plays fornite and minecraft so if he plays any games on the pc it would be these two. He has a 40inch samsung TV, I wouldnt like to use this as a monitor as its far to big. I'm mainly looking to get the tower part right then I can work on getting the monitor and other things that he needs. The tower I'm finding the most confusing.

 

[MidnightKisses]

It's difficult to say what is best without knowing how 'hardcore' his usage is, if the usage is pretty casual, then practically any pre-build (like a 4600G/5600G based system, which are fairly plentiful) would be fine as a starting point. But, if he's very serious, then he'll want something more capable with plenty of cores, RAM and storage.

This is an £800 self-build, to give you an idea of the spec. I chose the 13400 because it has an IGP, so no graphics card is needed and QuickSync might be handy for him.

Intel Core i5-13400 (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail - £229.99
Gigabyte B760 DS3H DDR4 (LGA 1700) DDR4 ATX Motherboard - £144.99
Lexar Hades 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit - £79.99

WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T2X0E) - £149.99

Akasa Alucia H4 Plus Premium CPU Cooler - £38.95
Super Flower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black - £64.99
Lian Li LANCOOL 215 Mid-Tower aRGB Tempered Glass Black - £89.99

Grand Total: £810.88 (includes delivery charge, £11.99)

If upgradability is important then pre-built (or refurbished) OEM systems are probably not a good idea, especially if he plans to game on the PC at some point, since they often have proprietary parts and weak PSUs.

I don't think hel be hardcore gaming on it, maybe in a few years if that's what he gets into. He only plays with his friends in the evening at the moment. If he wants to play minecraft or fortnite on it with his friends, it would be nice if it was able to handle this. Its mainly editing at the moment, it needs to be able to take on a lot of recorded footage and edit it with ease. Thank you for showing me what an £800 pre built could look like, I wasn't given any idea of what it would have inside it, only that it could be done for £800 using lower specs and that we would be able to upgrade it over time as he needs it.

 

[MidnightKisses]

Honestly the bit what's concerning me the most is the parts I've put in bold. Gaming side is fairly easy, we just give you a list of the best options for your budget but editing recorded footage is a different situation because it has slightly different requirements.

What type of footage is being edited, I'm assuming the gaming is recorded from the pc/console (does he need video capture is another thing to consider) but you also mention vlogging, what camera is used and ideally things like the resolution being used. What software does he use to edit the footage.

My view is at the very least you're going to need more storage than you would have with a gaming machine, I'd be looking at a drive for the OS and maybe game, then probably another 2 drives purely for video editting, one being the scratch disk and the other the storage disk etc... size really depends on usage and budget. You'd also need 32GB ram minimum imo (2x16GB, so you have spare slots for upgrades) and an nvidia gpu with cuda imo (it's better supported in most video editing software, especially the free but highly regarded davinci resolve).

As for the 'suggested price' of £800 using lower specs.... honestly their suggestion is a bad idea, even more so if that's a company rather than a friend, you'll end up spending far more in the long run and potentially need to replace things like the motherboard, psu etc (I can see that being an am4 rig which has no real upgrade route).

IMO the best approach would be for you to give us your budget, what you need and we'll see what we can come up with... are you able to build a pc yourself?

Footage he takes is from pc gaming, playstation, phone, DSLR camera. Were talking on average an hour of footage each time. I'm not in the know when it comes to specs, software etc. I'm trying to reach out to someone that does without their being a money incentive. Unfortunately I'm not able to build a pc, im really doing my best to learn but I dont think building one will be an option. I tried to speak to a new local business today about a pc and they suggested an Intel i7 3.7 GHZ, Nvidia RTX Geforce 1650 4GB, 8GB Ram, 440GB Storage, Windows 10 Pro activated, Front RGB lighting - with various modes, Wifi, 6 USB Ports (2 Front 4 back), when i questioned if 8gb would be enough as iv previously been told it wouldn't be, the price jumped by £100, exactly the same computer but 16gb. It started off at £499 then. 8gb more took us to £599. I'm not sure at this point if this is something I'm going to be able to do, I had no idea how hard getting a pc for my boy would be. If it could be under a grand including monitor, keyboard and mouse that would be ideal. I'm not sure how much any of this should be costing, I think I may have a lot to learn before parting with any money for a pc in my area.

 

[MidnightKisses]

Thank you. Even if I could find someone local and say the parts I need in the tower ,knowing what theyl cost then plus their labour costs on top atleast I would know its exactly what I need and I'm not going to end up with something that is no use to us and with us being out of pocket.

 

[MidnightKisses]

The bare minimum for gaming now is 16GB when on PC, many newer games are starting to benefit from more than that which means the new standard for modern gaming builds is verging into 32GB.

When dealing with video editing and content creation the RAM requirement tends to go up, although I'd still say it's perfectly viable on 16-32gb depending on what you're doing. The recommendation from your local business is very skewed, I wouldn't personally trust them when they're telling you to buy an i7 with 8gb of RAM and a 1650. Either they're clueless or they're trying to shift excess stock onto you because they assume that you are.

Your son might be better off with a laptop, a bunch have had some healthy discounts lately and £800 would get you something with a pretty good spec as well as a screen built into the equation. You can also connect a laptop to a monitor if a larger screen is desired, and a separate mouse and keyboard if that's necessary also. You should be able to get something along the lines of a 5600/16gb of ram/Nvidia 3060 for that sort of money.

I never thought I'd recommend a laptop to someone for £800 that wanted to do gaming and content creation, what a time to be alive.

We actually started off looking at laptops however I quickly came to learn that they burn out easily and within 3 years itl be out dated and a new one would needed. I'm now looking at pcs as they don't burn out as quick and can easily be upgraded in 3 years where as a laptop cant be apparently. My first stop when starting this journey was Currys, they suggested the Acer Nitro 5 for just over a grand. Everyone I spoke to after that though said that was the worst idea ever.

 

[MidnightKisses]

Ok I think we are trying to min max your situation too much and will just end up confusing you even more. I will see what the ocuk configurator can put together for a prebuild within your budget.

Thank you. Even if I could find someone local and say the parts I need in the tower ,knowing what theyl cost then plus their labour costs on top atleast I would know its exactly what I need and I'm not going to end up with something that is no use to us and with us being out of pocket.

 

[MidnightKisses]

PC recommendations pretty much always start from the software, for the simple reason that once you know the software (and the tasks that are being done with it) then you can measure it, which gives you a number to compare with other PCs. With something like video editing, we can even get down to "with this CPU it will take 2 hours, with this PC the same task will be 3 hours". That's why we're struggling to help you, because we're just guessing about exactly what the PC is going to be used for and the PC shops you're talking to are going to have the same problem.

Basically editing footage thats most likely an hour long from a PlayStation or DSLR camera. It would be nice if he was able to play minecraft or fortnite on it as he's never had a pc at home before and I'm sure itl be something that he would like to do. He may use it for 2 hours each day, and longer on the weekends. Editing program wise would most likely be Movavi. He's no pro at this at the moment he's still learning but it's something he loves to do and would love to be able to do it at home.

 

[MidnightKisses]

Ok here you go.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x MSI 24" PRO MP242C 1920x1080 VA 75Hz 4ms Curved Widescreen Gaming Monitor (SKU: MO-01X-MS) = £108.95
• 1 x Logitech MK120 Keyboard and Mouse Desktop Set (920-002552) (SKU: KB-205-LG) = £19.99
• 1 x OcUK Gaming Harrier - AMD Ryzen 5 5600, Radeon Gaming PC (SKU: FS-1EU-OG) = £813.91
  • Case: 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P300 Air Midi Tower Case - Black Window
    
  • Memory: 1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey
    
  • Graphics Card: 1 x Asus Radeon RX 6500 XT Dual OC 4GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card
    
  • Primary Solid State Drive (M.2.): 1 x WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E)
    
  • Operating System: 1 x Microsoft Windows 11 Home Advanced - Systems

Total: £958.85 (includes delivery: £16.00)​

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The above PC is perfectly useable and is built by OCUK so it will have a 3 year ocuk guarantee. The above build contains many parts I normally advise people to avoid but this is the only way to get within your budget with the OCUK configurators. Points I do not like in it are the PSU and GPU but it is what it is I am afraid. I even left in the OS so all you would have to do is plug it in and turn it on.

How much would I be looking at with the parts that you like to avoid taken out and replaced with parts that you would recommend? Also is this upgradable over time? Or am I not able to allow for that with my budget?

 

[MidnightKisses]

It's an extremely weird time to buy into the desktop PC world at the moment, especially for the sake of longevity while on a budget. The system recommend by @Haz123 is a good shout, but hold in mind that in 3 years time the best you'll be able to do with that is upgrade the graphics card and buy a second hand CPU such as the 5800X3D, it's effectively end of life due to the platform it's based on. The included PSU will almost certainly be a bottom of the barrel Kolink unit too. When you do go to upgrade in 3 years you're going to have to update the PSU + buy a second hand CPU. The most you're getting out of that build in the long term otherwise is a mid range GPU upgrade and maybe another 16GB of RAM, storage is easily added to any build including laptops.

I'm not at all an advocate of laptops under normal circumstances, but a decent company should offer you 3-5 years warranty and you would get a better out of the gate spec.

If you can spend up to a grand there might be more wiggle room.

I honestly never took into account the warranty. Hearing of editing and possible game play everyone I spoke to pushed for me to ideally get a pc.

 

[MidnightKisses]

You'd be shocked how easy building a pc is, there are no end of tutorials on youtube so I'd maybe spend a bit of time watching some of them... it also wouldn't hurt for your son to have basic knowledge of how to build/upgrade the pc because it would save money long term.
The reason being is that generally speaking you'll end up losing about £200, sometimes more, of your budget if you have it built for you, an upgrade to the pc could also end up costing money each time too... that's a pretty large chunk when you're aiming for around £1000 for everything.


Don't go back to that new local business, they're just going to waste your money... that spec wouldn't have been borderline for what you're asking for 5 years ago let alone now....

I can't even believe I'm going to suggest this as an idea (I'm heavily pc master race lol)... what about a m2 mac mini (son's in school so education discount).... it plays minecraft and fortnite, it will run movavi in rosetta emulation (not the fastest way) and if your son wanted to pick up a more 'industry standard' piece of software for video editing it will happily support davinci resolve (it's free)

If you do go with a windows pc, the one thing I would try to ensure is that you go with an nvidia card with cuda... it's far better supported by software that can make use of gpu acceleration (davinci resolve does for example)

Thank you for all the info and advise. I'm going to keep learning as much as I can.

 

[MidnightKisses]

Forum rules do not allow us to mention competitors or link to other websites so I will pick one of the cheapest laptops available on OCUK so you can see what is available.

Medion Erazer Deputy P25 NVIDIA RTX 3060, 16GB, 15.6" 144Hz FHD, AMD R5-5600H Gaming Laptop

Order Medion Erazer Deputy P25 NVIDIA RTX 3060, 16GB, 15.6" 144Hz FHD, AMD R5-5600H Gaming Laptop now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

It will not be pretty and it may be quite loud but will work and has a 2 year warranty. The main problem with the above laptop is the 512mb of storage, that will get filled up very very quickly with video projects and you will need to add storage. A normal tower PC is much easier to add storage to than a laptop.

A little over a year ago I picked up a similar spec laptop to the one above for my son, was an Asus one and it works just fine. Was £800 and B grade so this option at that price point will remain available.

Ok thank you

 

[MidnightKisses]

Forum rules do not allow us to mention competitors or link to other websites so I will pick one of the cheapest laptops available on OCUK so you can see what is available.

Medion Erazer Deputy P25 NVIDIA RTX 3060, 16GB, 15.6" 144Hz FHD, AMD R5-5600H Gaming Laptop

Order Medion Erazer Deputy P25 NVIDIA RTX 3060, 16GB, 15.6" 144Hz FHD, AMD R5-5600H Gaming Laptop now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

It will not be pretty and it may be quite loud but will work and has a 2 year warranty. The main problem with the above laptop is the 512mb of storage, that will get filled up very very quickly with video projects and you will need to add storage. A normal tower PC is much easier to add storage to than a laptop.

A little over a year ago I picked up a similar spec laptop to the one above for my son, was an Asus one and it works just fine. Was £800 and B grade so this option at that price point will remain available.

Ok thank you

 

[MidnightKisses]

I've put together something I would be looking to build if it was me... it's a little over budget and doesn't include windows (you can run the windows insider version for free or get a cheap license) but I'm sure some others might tweak it here or there. I can't vouch for all the parts personally but they 'should' be good quality in most cases. Remember this is without paying the 'build it for me tax', having said that if you shop around (not that we can suggest anywhere) you may get some offers which are similar to this sort of price range.

And in case anyone is curious why I went matx... size considerations and the potential to downsize it to media pc or server if it ever gets upgraded with a new motherboard etc..... plus I just prefer matx

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 5700X Eight Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3D1-AM) = £209.99 - 8 cores, 16 threads - plenty of performance for games and video encoding
• 1 x Gigabyte B550M AORUS ELITE (AMD AM4) B550 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-58U-GI) = £99.95 - cheapest 'good' b550 motherboard
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB (2x8GB) 3600 MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Dual Kit (CMK16GX4M2Z3600C18) (SKU: MY-4BW-CS) = £49.99
• 1 x WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3B0C) (SKU: HD-589-WD) = £53.99 - tried to fit 2 in budget but couldn't quite make it, grab a second if you can.
• 1 x Alpenfohn Ben Nevis CPU Cooler - 120mm (SKU: HS-048-AL) = £21.94 - can't say if this is good or not, I've gone water cooled, but it should be fine.
• 1 x MSI 24" PRO MP242C 1920x1080 VA 75Hz 4ms Curved Widescreen Gaming Monitor (SKU: MO-01X-MS) = £108.95 - I would have prefered a flat screen rather than a curved one but cost was a factor.
• 1 x Logitech Wireless Desktop MK270 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse (920-004523) (SKU: KB-252-LG) = £29.99 - I prefer wireless and it's logitech so should be sound.
• 1 x Kolink Citadel Mesh Micro-ATX Case - Black (SKU: CA-051-KK) = £52.99 - plenty of air flow to keep stuff cool
• 1 x Super Flower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black (SKU: CA-004-SF) = £64.99 - super flower had a good rep last I checked
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 Twin Edge LHR 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-12G-ZT) = £320.00 - should be more than enough for 1080p gaming and has plenty of vram if used with gpu encoding etc
• 3 x Arctic P12 PWM PST Black Fan - 120mm (SKU: FG-04H-AR) = £5.95 - to fill the 3 slots in the case without any fans.

Total: £1,042.62 (includes delivery: £11.99)​

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Thank you and thank you for the info under each item, it helps me a lot.

 

[MidnightKisses]

Unfortunately, I can't find any recent benchmarks specifically for Movavi, but in their "learning portal" I noticed they refer the reader to Puget, who do a lot of content creation benchmarks.

In their hardware and system requirements pages, they don't seem to place much importance on the the graphics card, so I think a 1650 (or higher) would be fine for now, but this review says:

Movavi Video Editor

User-friendly, inexpensive video editing software

uk.pcmag.com

Nowadays, that's a pretty old system (i7-6700 is from 2015). The CPU in Haz123's spec is much faster than the i7-6700 and a 6500 XT is somewhat faster, so it will be fine for video editing and playing Minecraft or Fortnite.

Thank you