New prebuilt gaming PC for £1.5 - £2k.

MikeManchester

MikeManchester

MikeManchester

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I'm a complete computer numptie who is looking to buy a new gaming PC for a 13-year old next month. It will need to play modern games and will be used for homework, chatting, watching videos etc. I'm essentially looking for something that he will be able to use for several years without needing any major upgrades.

Budget will be between £1500 - £2000. It will have to be completely prebuilt and come with Windows 10 or 11 installed so it can just be turned on and played.

I'd appreciate any recommendations for a monitor as well. Not sure of the optimum size but as he occasionally watches videos & YouTube etc, I was thinking of a 27" screen. Would that usually be adequate for playing games?

After buying the PC and monitor, I assume I'll just have to buy a mouse and keyboard. Is that correct, or am I missing something obvious?

If there is a prebuilt PC on the Overclockers website that would be suitable, but with a few adjustments (different processor, graphics card etc.), I'd appreciate any recommendations.

Thanks in advance for any help - things were much easier during my Commodore 64 days.
 
mickyflinn said:
Hi there are lots of options but does the budget include the monitor ?

Then there's resoloution 1080p , 1440p which the higher the resolution the more demanding.

You will also need speakers unless the monitor has built it but won't be great, maybe some headphones too.
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The monitor is likely to be separate from the £1.5 - £2k budget. I've looked at a couple of 27" options in the £250 range with a 144Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. I'm hoping that will be adequate.

He's already got decent headphones and I'm hoping the soundbar attached to his TV could be attached to the monitor via HDMI.
 
Craig_d1 said:
If budget is for the PC without monitor and keyboard etc, and you want from ocuk, then below is a nice system with a 3070ti based on alderlake. I'd get them to swap out the bronze psu for a gold rated like the rm850, but that's about it. If you need monitor and keyboard etc also, then need to look again

My basket at Overclockers UK:
  • 1 x OcUK Gaming Sabre - Intel 12th Gen i5, RTX 3070Ti Gaming PC = £1,899.95
    • Processor:*Build* INTEL CORE I5-12600KF 3.70GHZ SKTLGA1700 20.00MB CACHE TRAY
    • Memory:Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey
    • M.2 Solid State Drive (SSD) 1 - Primary:WD Black SN750 SE 500GB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS500G1B0E)
    • M.2 Solid State Drive (SSD) 2 - Secondary:WD Blue SN550 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T2B0C)
    • 2.5" Solid State Drive (SSD) - Storage:Unwanted
    • Operating System:Microsoft Windows 11 Home 64-Bit DVD - OEM (KW9-00632)
    • Security Software:**Special Offer** Bullguard Internet Security - Anti-Virus and Security - 1 Year 3 PC
    • Case:Kolink Stronghold Prism ARGB Midi Tower Case - Gunmetal Grey
    • Graphics Card:*Build Stock* MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Ventus 3X LHR 8GB GDDR6X Graphics Card
Total: £1,914.05 (includes shipping: £14.10)
​
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Thanks very much for this. I appreciate your help.
I will look into the RM850 PSU you recommend. Hopefully it won't push the price over the £2k maximum budget.
 
MikeManchester said:
Thanks very much for this. I appreciate your help.
I will look into the RM850 PSU you recommend. Hopefully it won't push the price over the £2k maximum budget.
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Just wondering whether it would be worth upgrading to an Intel Core i7 12700KF. Looks like it would cost an extra £100 to upgrade, which would put me slightly over budget, but I'll bite the bullet if it is worth it.
 
Craig_d1 said:
You can get away with a RM750 psu with a 3070ti, I said RM850 as gives a little headroom for a more powerful gpu down the line. I've put in a few below...the 1st 2 pics show RM750 2018-2021 model, the 2nd is an RM750 2021- onwards, then 2 rm850's same, 1st older model, 2nd new model, and last out of the corsair the RM850X(there's an RM750X)..the X is the next level up and from what I've read use japanese capacitors rather than chinese in the RM series, which are better...the new model psu's also have magnetic levitation fans which are much more durable..lastly, there's a MSI psu which is also very good, though currently out of stock....if you do go for the Sabre prebuild, when you phone(they'll prob ask for you to send an email with what you want after so they can send you a proper quote, they should deduct the amount of the bronze rated psu before adding the cost of the new one. If the psu you want is out of stock, just check when it'll be back. they all come with 10yrs warranty though, so should last
You can change anything you want really, so if there's a particular case, they just swap it and you pay/get back the difference

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £607.42 (includes shipping: £12.60)


regarding the 12700 cpu, it has 2 more P cores compared to the 12600. it is very good, with benchmarks putting it up there with the 5900X and 5950X is some benchmarks. Personally, I'd ask for the 'k' version rather than the 'kf'. I know it comes with a dedicated gpu, but if ever it fails or you sell it before getting a new one if upgrading, having integrated graphics on the cpu means at least you can still use it as a pc, rather than it just sitting there..there £20 diff between the 2...worth it for me(the 12700k is same price as the 12700kf on OCuk, making it a no brainer for me), though again not strictly necessary. for gaming the 12700 is slightly ahead of the 12600 but not massively, ...I put both reviews below...the 12600 was reviewed after the 12700, so that review has the 12700 results in the table...It's a personal choice of if you want to pay more, though the 12700 will be a more powerful pc for productivity work too, and the tomahawk motherboard is a very capable board. The only reason if just gaming at the mo for going for the 12700k is longevity. With pc's being so powerful and quick, and with the gpu slot upgrade potential there for future also, i don't see why this pc can't last years, and don't see why your daughter wont be using it at uni, and the 2 extra P cores may just mean a bit more use before needing an upgrade...a few years down the line those extra cores may be more utilised, but it's an old arguement
If you really want to future proof, you could swap the 16gb Ram to 32GB also...cheapest option would be the patriot viper 3600C18 non rgb which is about £100, so would add £50 to build. This will end up a very powerful reasonably high end machine that will last. The gpu slot is gen5 so will be no limiting factor as all gpu's are gen4 at the mo anyway, so in 4 years, you'll be able to upgrade gpu know slot will be current etc. you also have 4 nvme slots, so will have 2 spare for future expansion also
Very easy to just keep adding. I Know, I did it with my build..I could even suggest swapping the 1tb SN550 for the 1tb SN570 for £10..it's the newer version of the same nvme, newer version being slightly quicker..all the little extra's all start adding up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlngwUuDYoc&t=292s&ab_channel=HardwareUnboxed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzhwVLUVork&t=740s&ab_channel=HardwareUnboxed

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Thanks very much for the detailed reply. Future proofing is definitely a consideration. While I'm happy to shell out initially, I don't want to spend a fortune every 6 months just so he can play the newest games. I'll upgrade to the RM850, 12700k and Patriot Viper 32GBRam. By my reckoning that should put the total cost at about £2100. Slightly more than I intended spending but worth it if it lasts him a few years. Thanks again
 
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