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I have no idea about this stuff, there's so many numbers.
Why are laptops better deals than desktops? Why is white more than black?
Why are they so expensive?
Look at somewhere like PCSpecialist or one of the UK builders. They will have base gaming builds that you can then tweak to suit your requirements. Check the game requirements and add some headroom for the spec + allow something for a decent screen.
Your big spend is the graphics card. Laptops can't compete when a decent card is bigger than a laptop.
What games he looking to play op? The latest and greatest (that might require a powerful PC) or Minecraft etc?
Also the budget?
For simple gaming performance a tower unit is optimum as it allows the fitment of the huge graphic cards we have today... Though some laptops now allow an external gfx card to be fitted, I doubt it's a good option for your lads needs and not the best use of funds.
So:
You likely want a tower PC.
An AMD CPU (based on cost and gaming performance Vs Intel though I would write off an intel PC entirely if the price is good)
An AMD gfx card or if you are throwing a lot of money at the pc, an Nvidia gfx card. You can save significantly on gfx cards by buying second hand and pairing the card with a 1080p or 1440p monitor. Less pixels you see, so don't need a mega powerful card to drive them.
A lot of your choice will come down to cost, if burying the OC new or second hand or building yourself of course.
Left field choice, one of the many Windows based (or a Linux based Steam deck) handheld gaming PC's. Around 400£ and can be plugged into a normal monitor via a dock. For pure gaming and for a kid, they might be ideal. They are a major growth area in PC gaming at the moment and for good reason👍
Your big spend is the graphics card. Laptops can't compete when a decent card is bigger than a laptop.
Sort of this.
The upside of a laptop is it probably works fairly consistently across a range of games, if it's got a 1080 60hz screen then the cpu and gpu will be sized to deliver useable performance at 1080p60. There's also economies of scale and integration. Laptop manufacturers will be buying chipsets from GPU manufacturers, not 3rd party board manufacturers so there's less layers of margins. Gaming Laptops are best thought of as being a bit like gaming consoles, but they run windows.
With a tower you can overspend on individual parts to your hearts content and cover it in unicorn puke LED's, and then top it off with a 1440p 144hz monitor that would cost more than the entire budget just on the GPU to get anywhere near those levels of detail.
The difference is you can't (beyond usually RAM and hard drives) upgrade a laptop, you just sell it and buy another one. A tower becomes Triggers Broom.
A tower makes sense, but you have to be ruthless when specing it. There's no point in spending £30 more on a 'gaming' motherboard, £30 more on 'gaming' RAM, £30 more on a AIO cooler, etc to future proof it because in 5 years time when you actually upgrade it that'll be old-tech anyway, put that combined ~£100 into the CPU and GPU where it makes a difference now.
Why are they so expensive?
It's a hobby. You need to spend £4k on a gaming setup to play the latest games at the highest settings on an 8k wraparound monitor.
You also need to realize that it isn't a need and a £400 setup will play them at 1080p with slightly less details.
Look at somewhere like PCSpecialist or one of the UK builders. They will have base gaming builds that you can then tweak to suit your requirements. Check the game requirements and add some headroom for the spec + allow something for a decent screen.
+1
Avoid ebay, it's full of builders who'll take 10 year old office PC's and put the guts in a case filled with LED's and fans and call it a gaming PC. IF your budget is £500, buy their £500 setup, don't fall into the trap of thinking there's a point of diminishing returns that you can hit. In reality that point is £0 and every upgrade costs more per unit of performance than the last one.
As above, what is he, (or friends) playing, or wanting to play? He'll have to accept that playing the latest stuff at 128fps with 4K graphics is not necessarily achievable.
Probably something that has to be done in collaboration with him so he understands the compromises, which bits are somewhat futureproofed, and which bits might have to be upgraded later down the line.
Budget is a huge thing. If you can give a ballpark figure then we should be able to recommend one thing or another.
Left field choice, one of the many Windows based (or a Linux based Steam deck) handheld gaming PC's. Around 400£ and can be plugged into a normal monitor via a dock. For pure gaming and for a kid, they might be ideal. They are a major growth area in PC gaming at the moment and for good reason👍
I read a report recently that they are very niche and not really growing - https://www.theverge.com/pc-gaming/618709/steam-deck-3-year-anniversary-handheld-gaming-shipments-idc
They seem to attract a disproportionate amount of coverage for the sales numbers. I don't really get them TBH, PC gaming is all about the mouse and keyboard.
How old is he, what's your budget and what's he likely to be playing?
PC gamers tend to be particular about their hardware. If he's not already specced it out for you I'd be considering a console.
We've just ordered a PS5 with disc drive for £430 from Argos with free Astrobot game and Turtle Beach headset.
Digital only bundle £340.
Not that interested in online gaming, which is extra on consoles besides specific games like Rocket League, which gives free online.
Far cheaper than replacing our ~10 years old gaming PC, that would cost £650+ for a new tower with 4060 graphics card.
Fwiw. I put together a tower pc for my similarly aged offspring.
Gfx card is Rtx3050, so 1080 only. My kids don't care. Frame rate is smooth in everything they play from steam or epic. 1080 based tower means cheap monitor too.
I can regurgitate the full spec if you want.
When I needed to buy a PC for my son for Christmas I just went to CCL, I picked something with a 4070ti and 32 gigs of RAM and the rest I just left it default. He seems fairly happy
Would you and your son be interested in building the pc from parts? Neither I nor my son had much knowledge but, with a lot of help from here and some you tube vids, we both learnt loads, had a good time doing it, and a real sense of satisfaction when it worked! And its still running 3 years later ( with a few upgrades! )
Have you considered cloud gaming? I've just got back into some casual gaming and all that was required is the subscription, all streams via app on TV, had a game controller kicking around. No need to worry about the hardware side of consoles and pcs