Can anyone help talk me through gaming PCs for my 11yr old son please?

[inkycloak]

Hi, I'm a complete novice here so please forgive any errors...

My son has just turned 11 and spends a lot of time playing Minecraft, Minecraft Mods and Fortnite. He currently uses (my) Macbook Air which does the trick (just) but storage is becoming an issue. He'd like to upgrade to a PC with monitor and has been saving up forever. Can anybody please talk me through the specification needed to be able to play the above games at a decent level - he's not an extreme gamer by any means, but he's still young so we'd want to buy a set-up that will grow with him (and which he'll be able to do his homework on!)

Many thanks in advance if someone can please give me a steer.

 

[Oussebon]

It's easiest to start with a budget. Obviously you don't need a £2000 gaming PC for minecraft - but while a £500 PC will run these things, it will involve a lot of compromises and either limit future upgrade options or constitute bad value by buying things that will want to be replaced in very short order.

A PC that has a solid base platform and room for upgrades, without needing to upgrade fundamental parts, would probably be £700+

Some new and cheaper motherboards are expected to come out for Intel 8th Gen CPUs shortly, which may help with affordability, possibly shaving ~£50 off builds (just my guess).

What kind of budget are you working with?

 

[inkycloak]

It's easiest to start with a budget. Obviously you don't need a £2000 gaming PC for minecraft - but while a £500 PC will run these things, it will involve a lot of compromises and either limit future upgrade options or constitute bad value by buying things that will want to be replaced in very short order.

A PC that has a solid base platform and room for upgrades, without needing to upgrade fundamental parts, would probably be £700+

Some new and cheaper motherboards are expected to come out for Intel 8th Gen CPUs shortly, which may help with affordability, possibly shaving ~£50 off builds (just my guess).

What kind of budget are you working with?

Hi Oussebon, thanks so much for responding.

The maximum budget would be £750. Obviously, the lower the better, but having looked around this site I've accepted that it would be shortsighted to get anything much cheaper than that! The whole concept of upgrades fills me with trepidation, to be honest, being fundamentally un-tech-minded.

Could you talk me through what I should be looking for please?

 

[Oussebon]

Perhaps something along these lines:

Case
PCS CYCLONE GAMING CASE (Blue LED Fans)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Six Core Processor i5-8400 (2.8GHz) 9MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z370-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1050 - DVI, HDMI, DP
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 100 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price £764.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-pc/6c8hSHHNRC/

The case and CPU should support a range of GPU upgrades. The mobo would let you add additional HDDs, and has 2 M.2 slots for fast NVMe SSDs. The CPU should support a range of future GPU options without bottlenecking them badly - much more so than a quad core i3 8100.

The system isn't very well balanced as conventional gaming PCs go as you'd expect to see a GTX 1060 or even 1070 paired with a strong CPU like the i5 8400 rather than the entry-level 1050.

I would argue that it's better to invest in a decent CPU that will last years without bottlenecking GPU upgrades than it is to get a system that has high gaming performance today but will need replacing or serious overhauling sooner. You're always going to end up replacing the GPU on a gaming system, whereas the CPU you'll want to last you as long as possible.

Moreover, the 1050 is more than adequate for the games you listed and will run even demanding modern releases above the lowest settings.

There's only so much you can futureproof. There's every reason to think the i5 8400 will meet the needs of future games, but without a crystal ball, nothing's guaranteed. And if your son decides he wants to run a youtube channel or gets seriously into video editing, etc, then a different approach or just simply more money at this stage would have been ideal.

 

[inkycloak]

Perhaps something along these lines:

Case
PCS CYCLONE GAMING CASE (Blue LED Fans)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Six Core Processor i5-8400 (2.8GHz) 9MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z370-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1050 - DVI, HDMI, DP
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 100 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price £764.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-pc/6c8hSHHNRC/

The case and CPU should support a range of GPU upgrades. The mobo would let you add additional HDDs, and has 2 M.2 slots for fast NVMe SSDs. The CPU should support a range of future GPU options without bottlenecking them badly - much more so than a quad core i3 8100.

The system isn't very well balanced as conventional gaming PCs go as you'd expect to see a GTX 1060 or even 1070 paired with a strong CPU like the i5 8400 rather than the entry-level 1050.

I would argue that it's better to invest in a decent CPU that will last years without bottlenecking GPU upgrades than it is to get a system that has high gaming performance today but will need replacing or serious overhauling sooner. You're always going to end up replacing the GPU on a gaming system, whereas the CPU you'll want to last you as long as possible.

Moreover, the 1050 is more than adequate for the games you listed and will run even demanding modern releases above the lowest settings.

There's only so much you can futureproof. There's every reason to think the i5 8400 will meet the needs of future games, but without a crystal ball, nothing's guaranteed. And if your son decides he wants to run a youtube channel or gets seriously into video editing, etc, then a different approach or just simply more money at this stage would have been ideal.

Thanks so much, Oussebon. I'm going to look all this up (and try to work out what it all means!) and may well be back with further questions in the morning. Thanks for taking the time to post all this, it's much appreciated.

 

[Dayve]

I'll let others give you advice on what to buy (I get their advice when it's my turn to buy a new gaming PC as well), I just want to add a couple of things.

First, I'm on my third PCSpecialist PC right now and they're a fully trustworthy site and make excellent products. The first PC I bought from these guys (around 2010-2011) is STILL being used by my little sister. The second PC I bought (around 2014) is still in perfect working order and I keep as an emergency spare. My latest PC had a faulty hard drive (solid state drive) upon arrival, which is absolutely unavoidable as these things just happen sometimes, but for an extra £5 when selecting your build you can get a 1-year warranty, and if you keep the original protective packaging that your PC will arrive in all you need to do is contact them, let them know, package it up and send it back and they'll fix it and send it right back. Or if you're confident enough they'll just send the new part to you and you can fit it yourself, or get someone who knows what they're doing to do it for you.

Second thing you need to keep in mind (just in case you don't already know), if you are including a monitor and peripherals (mouse, keyboard, etc.) in your £750 budget then you're not going to be able to build a very good PC and a monitor/mouse/keyboard will really eat into your budget.

Third, to put your mind at ease, while £750 isn't going to get you a high-end gaming PC, £750 is more than enough to be able to play thousands and thousands of excellent PC games besides the ones your son already wants to play. It'll play all the current games but it'll also play all the games that released... uh... since forever on the PC. Your son downloads something like STEAM which is a digital distribution tool on the PC that allows you to buy and access games all inside one program (very popular) and he'll be able to play all the best games of the last 10 years with a £750 PC, easily.