[Closed] PC Build help

From the advert

"Intel Core i7 2600"

That processor is ancient. Like 2011 ancient. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

Go to PC part picker and see whats about.

But the million dollar question is: What kind of gaming does he want to do with it?

As above - what’s he want to play on it, and more importantly what’s the budget?

Loads of forums have decent ‘what pc build for under £500/£750/£1000’ etc threads.

Pre built will never (unless very lucky) get you the value that buying and building will.

Although the 2nd and 3rd gen Intel cpus were great (I'm still running a 3570k i5) they are old now and no new pc should have one. Current gen is 10th gen, I think.

The psu in that thing is likely to be dog turd too.

And it comes with a 19" monitor, you can bet it's 20 quids worth of 19" monitor too.

Does he need everything? Monitor/keyboard/mouse/pc?

Budget?

Games are Minecraft, Farming Simulator and some stratagey games on Steam.

One way of getting to know what components are what is to find a reputable seller and use their custom PC builder to try and get a PC built to your budget. Look at what you can compromise eg CPU power to get eg better graphics*. That's what I did and found it really useful to get up to speed with current hardware.

I'd steer clear from listings like that on Amazon where you don't know what you're getting.

* Last time I looked, a decent GPU was considered more important for gaming than a high spec CPU.

Cheers peeps.

Making a list of games and requirements. Then start building a PC based on that.

As others have said, you need to clarify whether you're looking to buy an actual "gaming PC" or something that will run Minecraft. If the former then expect to pay North of a grand.

TBH, if he hasn't come to you with a shopping list detailing exactly which GFX card, CPU and motherboard he wants then he's probably better off with a Playstaion.

Most recent APUs will comfortably handle Minecraft but depending on the strategy games you may need a discrete GPU.
Newer strategy games are starting to benefit the extra IPC & cores of AMD CPUs so I'd be looking an lower end Ryzen.

PC Partpicker as mentioned above is the place to start for self build.
Otherwise there's some old threads on here with various recommended PC builders that don't charge a big premium.

Go to PC part picker and see whats about.

Only after checking [url= https://www.logicalincrements.com/ ]Logical Increments[/url]! Start there then cost it up on PC Partpicker.

Ah yeah, Logical Increments is the one I was trying to remember when I went looking before!

Go there, it'll recommend a PC for your price point.

I've been looking at exactly this to get my dad something that'll play Flight Sim 2020. If you go to https://pcmasterrace.org/builds there are a few examples. The "starter" one is supposedly comparable with a PS4 Pro/Xbox One X and comes in under £500. PCPartPicker links are there for all builds, which in turn lets you modify the components to adjust for price/performance, but I think I'm just going to go for the starter one as is.

Thanks. Looked at all the gamrs he want to run and built up using mobo processor and GPU to match budget and requirements.

Above should have read games he wants to run.

Anyway gone for the Starter one from PCMasterRace.

Just needs to save his pocket money.

Looked at all the gamrs he want to run and built up using mobo processor and GPU to match budget and requirements.

Is it a secret? Your findings might be helpful for future readers. That's how forums work.

Is it a secret? Your findings might be helpful for future readers. That’s how forums work.

I bet he posts really niche questions about technical issues then closes the thread with "never mind I sorted it".

😉

TBH, if he hasn’t come to you with a shopping list detailing exactly which GFX card, CPU and motherboard he wants then he’s probably better off with a Playstaion.

Not necessarily, my lads both love pc gaming, not so much playstation.

Anyway, Ive done 2x builds for the same sorts of requirements recently. I got loads of really valuable help off the overclockers forum. Both times, I posted up a suggested build, then got recommendations of tweaks to improve it.

Was a really worthwhile process to go through with both my lads (selecting parts, doing the build)

Pre built will never (unless very lucky) get you the value that buying and building will

I disagree, under £1000 you generally only pay a £50-100 premium for having it built (as the people supplying pre-builts can get the components cheaper than you). But you also get a one-stop-shop warranty (even if RTB) which, to me at least, is worth £50-100.

My previous gaming PC was a pre-built from Overclockers, it arrived DoA and they replaced a few days later.

My current gaming PC I built and had issues with (it was a flaky motherboard but in the end I had to buy a replacement, for £250, as the manufacturer claimed I had damaged the pins on it - I was sure I hadn't but didn't take pics before sending off so had no proof. As a 'good will' gesture they offered to repair the pins for £90 but with no guarantee it would work or attempt to diagnose the original fault). With the replacement board everything has worked fine since.

So yeah maybe I had an unusual bad experience but I just don't think it's great advice to keep recommending people build their own unless it's something they really want to do or want to be able to heavily customise cabling etc. A Lego set is more interesting (and challenging) than putting a basic-build PC together and if you don't have spares (RAM, GPU etc.) if you do get issues you're unlikely to be able to diagnose them yourself in order to get a vendor to warranty a component.

That's a fiar point Fuzzy - I was more refering to the Currys/Amazon et al pre built gaming machines. I should've been more specific

Places like overclockers and other specialist retailers can be great, and they do do good bundles (I got a cracking ex demo system from them about 8 years ago).