Son's first build: £550-£600, spec please

Lovemonk

Lovemonk

Lovemonk

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My family and I are clubbing together to get my son the bits for his first build for his Christmas. My last build was about 2 and a half years ago so i'm completely out of touch. I've had a look through the recent threads and i can't find a pretty similar request to this one so here goes.

My son is about to become a teenager so games are pretty important to him. Am looking for a good bang for buck budget gaming system. It will need everything including monitor, OS, and to be wireless ready. Doesn't need huge storage. Will not be overclocking unless he does it on the sly. If it could also be upgradeable in a couple of years time then that would be a bonus. Upgradewise i'm thinking of no more than possibly additional RAM, graphics card. CPU at a push too. I'm planning to be buying in about 2 weeks or so.

One other thing, he's getting to the age where i'm starting to become worried about what he'll be looking at. Anyone know some good parental control software?

Any help/knowledge is greatfully appreciated.
 
About the parental controls I believe some anti-virus/internet security progammes allow parental control features. Not 100% sure though.
 
Hmm, difficult as you want upgrade ability.


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• The Z68 board gives you extra features such as SSD cacahing, Lucid virtu and Quicksync.
• The case is roomy and takes big GFX cards and coolers.
• The 13 2120 cant be overclocked, for this you need a P67 or Z68 board and a "K" CPU
• The board can take all the socket 1155 cpus on the market and future ivybridge CPU when they are released next year.
• The monitor has a good panel, DVI input and the 6850 is a powerful bargain currently.
• The i3 2120 is fast though - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-2120-2100_5.html#sect0

Any other questions?
 
That looks good to me Stulid. Thanks for the help although it's going to make me envious as it'll be better than mine! Can't buy it just yet so will miss out on the Black Fridays. I'll keep an eye on the This Week Only's to see if anything comes up that could swap in. That power supply looks quite cheap for a Corsair. Am guessing though the quality is still pretty good.
 
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Well I got one for my sister and it maxs out at 200K-300K/sec or something like that, so not great (but for her and my niece its fine). I just use wires myself.

What about those mains lines network adapters?
 
stulid said:
What about those mains lines network adapters?
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Just tried reading that. Blew my head up a wee bit. Think i will go with a cheapish card and see how it goes. Might work in my favour as I could own him in a game due to his latency and gain bragging rights. :P Wait a minute, can't believe i just said i'd own my own son. I'm off to ponder if that's a good or bad thing. Thanks again for all the help.
 
No software can hold back the internet, its too big and varied. You are better off trying to program your son into not doing whatever it is you want him to not do. Besides, he is likely to know how to bypass browsing restrictions in school via proxy and/or re-linking sites anyways.


Also I would warmly recommend getting a wireless adapter with the option of attaching a corded antenna if its a USB variety, and honestly the internal kind with those little black antennas at the back of the PC almost get blocked out by mere virtue of being exactly there unless the router is quite near. Then you have the option of getting an antenna if it doesn't reach. In any case, consider getting one that keeps up with your router, preferably a "wireless-N" kind.
 
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I think my new build is ok, not fantastic by any means but leaves the option for a bit of upgrade-ability. It also came to £501 without the OS -

Sharkoon T9 Value
Corsair GS700 (wish I had went for a cheaper, good brand modular)
Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3
AMD Phenom II 955 BE
G.Skill RipJawsX 2x4Gb 1600MHz
VTX3D HD 6670 2Gb DDR3 (should have went for the 1Gb GDDR5 or a 6750/70)
WD Caviar Blue SATA-3 250Gb
LG Super Multi Blu-ray Drive
AOC F22+
V7 Standard Keyboard
USB Optical Scroll Wheel Mouse

Christmas is coming fast and buying presents dented by budget by quite a lot so I had to sacrifice a lot of components. After Christmas I'm going to chuck in a 6850, a second HDD and an SSD and a Logitech MK520 combo though :)
 
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