Help! Wanting to buy my teen a gaming PC

[hk_89]

If anyone could give me any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.

My 16-year-old is wanting a gaming PC. I have no clue where to start or what brand would be best. We live in the U.S and I would like to stay around $800 or less if possible.

We would prefer a desktop over a laptop.

 

[Why_Me]

If anyone could give me any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.

My 16-year-old is wanting a gaming PC. I have no clue where to start or what brand would be best. We live in the U.S and I would like to stay around $800 or less if possible.

We would prefer a desktop over a laptop.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor ($111.34 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING SE-214-XT ARGB 68.2 CFM CPU Cooler ($15.19 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: *ASRock B760 Pro RS/D4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: *Silicon Power XPOWER Turbine 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($44.97 @ Amazon)
Storage: *Silicon Power UD90 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($52.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: *Gigabyte GAMING OC Radeon RX 7600 XT 16 GB Video Card ($279.99 @ Newegg)
Case: *Montech X3 Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.90 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: *Corsair RM650 (2023) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $744.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-25 16:43 EST-0500

How to get windows 11 for free (or less than $15)

You don't need to pay Microsoft's $139 retail price for Windows.

www.tomshardware.com

PCPartPicker Part List

Monitor: *MSI G244F E2 23.8" 1920 x 1080 180 Hz Monitor ($84.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $84.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-25 16:45 EST-0500

 

[mjs warlord]

One thing i would suggest before buying anything is have a look at the list of system requirements needed to run the games he intends to buy so that you not wasting money.

EXAMPLE ....If he wanted to use satisfactory this is what to do , first type satisfactory running spec into a browser and you will get something like this come up.

Satisfactory System Requirements: Can You Run It?

Learn in just a minute what kind of PC you need to play Satisfactory.

technical.city

 

[Master_Shifu]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor ($111.34 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING SE-214-XT ARGB 68.2 CFM CPU Cooler ($15.19 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: *ASRock B760 Pro RS/D4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: *Silicon Power XPOWER Turbine 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($44.97 @ Amazon)
Storage: *Silicon Power UD90 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($52.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: *Gigabyte GAMING OC Radeon RX 7600 XT 16 GB Video Card ($279.99 @ Newegg)
Case: *Montech X3 Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.90 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: *Corsair RM650 (2023) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $744.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-25 16:43 EST-0500

How to get windows 11 for free (or less than $15)

You don't need to pay Microsoft's $139 retail price for Windows.

www.tomshardware.com

PCPartPicker Part List

Monitor: *MSI G244F E2 23.8" 1920 x 1080 180 Hz Monitor ($84.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $84.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-25 16:45 EST-0500

That looks like a fantastic starter gaming PC build for 16 year old teen! This build will definitely run CS2 perfectly, a classic choice for any teen gamer. In fact, it's powerful enough to handle many modern titles at high settings

However for the build I would recommend a pre-built gaming PCs from reputable brands like CyberPowerPC or iBUYPOWER. They often offer good value for money and can save you the hassle of building a PC yourself.

 

[mjs warlord]

If you feel confident enough to build your own pc make sure you wear an anti static wrist band , remove the thin film of plastic from the face of the cpu and dont forget the thermal paste.

 

[ZedClampet]

If anyone could give me any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.

My 16-year-old is wanting a gaming PC. I have no clue where to start or what brand would be best. We live in the U.S and I would like to stay around $800 or less if possible.

We would prefer a desktop over a laptop.

If you just want to buy a complete system, go to Amazon and search for RTX 4060 desktop. The 4060 is a graphics card. It's what sets gaming PCs apart from regular PCs.

At a minimum, I would also look for:
16 GB RAM
1 TB NVMe
Any AMD or Intel CPU matched with those should do.

This should get you a good starting PC that will play any game out there. If you want to post a link to something you've picked out and let us look at it, feel free to do so.

A PC like this will run best in 1080p resolution, so I wouldn't bother looking at higher resolution monitors. 1080p is fine for any monitor 27 inches or smaller.

There is at least a small chance that thanks to Black Friday you won't pay too much more for a prebuilt than you would for putting together parts. Honestly, if you don't know anything about PCs, and don't plan to ever build another one, then I'd just buy a prebuilt. Here's a link to a decent one in your price range ($699.99):

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/ibuypower-scale-gaming-desktop-pc-intel-core-i5-14400f-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4060-8gb-16gb-ddr5-ram-1tb-nvme-black/6576685.p?skuId=6576685

If I'm being completely honest, I like the GPU and CPU better in this one than in the parts list above. The PSU may be worse, and you are getting less RAM, but overall this is a good system and a solid deal, and it will run games slightly better. It will also run AI significantly better if your son is interested in artificial intelligence because Nvidia GPUs have a different type of core that AI uses, and most AI software is designed to use these CUDA cores. Without them, the majority of programs default to the CPU, which is miserable.