Building a PC with my offspring - Help an old dog learn new tricks!

[Rob_B]

Hi all, long time no see

My 13yr old son is wanting to build a PC and I'm delighted to help him with that so I need a bit of advice. I've been out of the PC space for a few years now (don't even want to know when I last logged in here ) nowadays I only own a laptop and PS4 so haven't been following the trends and I'm trying to catch up!

He is madly into Minecraft on the PS4 and is wanting to build a PC mainly to play it with mods, he thought £200 would be enough and I sadly had to shatter his dreams. The budget is going to be around £400/500 once he's saved up (and I've added some extra because I really want to do this!) I don't want bargain basement "needs upgrading in 3 months time" kit but I'm keenly aware of budget limitations.
I've seen a few pre builts on HUKD etc but they all look pretty poor and I'd rather get my hands dirty like the good old days.

So far I've got the below list and I'd really appreciate any advice from those in the know.

Case - Any shiny thing with LEDs - £30
PSU - Undecided- £50 ?
Mobo - Any A520 based - £60
CPU - Ryzen 3100 or 3300x (£90-£120) (If i can even find the 300x in stock anywhere)
GPU - Undecided
RAM - 16GB DDR4 3600 (£70)
OS - Unsure, is Win10 REALLY £100 ?!
HDD - 512GB SSD for boot, and I think I've an old 1TB lying around.

He has a KB&M & an old monitor which will have to do for now.

Again, I really appreciate the help folks, maybe once built I'll even get him to sign up here

Rob

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A quick spec off CCL Computers. Not sure if Nvidia or AMD is better for minecraft. This website has been mentioned before for Windows 10:
https://store.pcpro.co.uk/p36876-win...0_professional

[Terbinator]

TBF you can get the official W10 ISO from MS and just run it without activation to save on cash.

[jimbouk]

If it is just for Minecraft and homework then would an ex business machine do? HotUKDeals have links to something on itzoo fairly frequently which is reasonable value. I have tried to browse their website directly but failed horribly! Limits GPU upgradability generally mind wouldn't be the best long term solution.

Won't be shiny but you could always take apart the case and crack out some spray paint!

[Rob_B]

Thanks guys

Cat, that looks great, is the B450 worth it over the a520? It's about a tenner difference so I'm assuming yeas!

Terbinator that's awesome, just saved him a fortune!

[Rob_B]

If it is just for Minecraft and homework then would an ex business machine do? HotUKDeals have links to something on itzoo fairly frequently which is reasonable value. I have tried to browse their website directly but failed horribly! Limits GPU upgradability generally mind wouldn't be the best long term solution.

Won't be shiny but you could always take apart the case and crack out some spray paint!

I'd considered that, I've seen a few 'reasonable' machines for a couple of hundred but upgrading after the fact could be difficult and if he's anything like me he'd get the upgrade bug

[Jonj1611]

I posted a link recently for Windows 10 Pro for £40 from a reputable company

This case is a bit above your budget but lights up like a christmas tree - https://www.amazon.co.uk/CiT-Raider-.../dp/B07G4GRTQ4

[kalniel]

When I saw the title: "Building a PC with my offspring" I thought component pricing had gone too far.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks guys

Cat, that looks great, is the B450 worth it over the a520? It's about a tenner difference so I'm assuming yeas!

Terbinator that's awesome, just saved him a fortune!

That B450 motherboard has 4 RAM slots and a VRM heatsink. Also apparently MSI has said they will update BIOSes on their B450 Max series motherboards to be compatible with Zen3 too. You need to spend another £10 to get a similarly specced A520:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/32...board/MBD2926/

But it does have Wifi. BTW,do you mind going secondhand for the GPU?

CEX does have secondhand RX470 and RX570 GPUs for an OK price:
https://uk.webuy.com/search?stext=RX470
https://uk.webuy.com/search?stext=RX570

They have a two year warranty.

[DanceswithUnix]

Just to point out AMD are announcing their new CPUs really soon, so existing prices might drop.

Also, Minecraft is not that hard to run. Is this good enough performance on a £50 Athlon 3000G APU using the integrated graphics?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fOf9wsQ_L0

Unless they are hoping to stream what they are doing, in which case more cores/threads would be needed.

[Rob_B]

This all looks good thanks guys, built in wifi would be handy but the B450 seems more future proofed.

Perhaps a 3400g with a B450 would be a good compromise, I've seen it run some games 'ok' and it allows an upgrade path.

[Rob_B]

So to update, we now have a case/psu, some fans and a GTX 980ti (I think my last ever card was a 5850 so I'm jealous)
We have a while to wait until we can get a CPU/Mobo so I'm considering options.

I'd thought a 3100 and a B450 but it looks like a 9100F might be equivalent? The only downside I see is future proofing if we go with the B450, is there much choice considering the budget for CPU/MOBO/RAM is £200 for the lot?

Cheers as ever folks!

Rob

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So to update, we now have a case/psu, some fans and a GTX 980ti (I think my last ever card was a 5850 so I'm jealous)
We have a while to wait until we can get a CPU/Mobo so I'm considering options.

I'd thought a 3100 and a B450 but it looks like a 9100F might be equivalent? The only downside I see is future proofing if we go with the B450, is there much choice considering the budget for CPU/MOBO/RAM is £200 for the lot?

Cheers as ever folks!

Rob

The Core i3 10100F is the alternative and is £20 cheaper than the Ryzen 3 3100,and faster in games.



The upgrade path might be not as good,but AMD Zen3 pricing isn't so great,and Cometlake is better than Zen2 for games.

Edit!!

You could get this:
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...100f-cpu-boxed
https://www.cclonline.com/product/31...board/MBD2832/
https://www.cclonline.com/product/32...Black/RAM4464/

The MSI motherboard also comes with free Steam credit via a promotion,but cheaper one would suffice too. RAM speed will be locked though.

Also if you don't mind going secondhand:
https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail/...hz%29-lga-1151
https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail/...ghz%29-lga1151

The secondhand Ryzen CPUs cost a lot more sadly. This cooler is cheap and should do the trick:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arctic-Alpi...4686277&sr=8-1

This motherboard should be fine:
https://www.cclonline.com/product/30...board/MBD2730/

Any reasonably priced 3000MHZ/3200MHZ RAM set would do the trick.

Second Edit!!

Amazon WH has some decent deals on 300 series Intel motherboards:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-Z390-GA...e-deals&sr=8-6

That should work fine with a Core i5 8400/9400F,and even higher tier CPUs at a later date.

[Rob_B]

Awesome cat thanks, lots of reading tonight! The one thing I didn't miss is the ridiculous number of sockets with Intel!

[Disputes]

id also suggest looking at used for a first pc, theres things i would advoid getting used but theres still a good amount of things to consider. like CPU, mobo and ram, you might find someone with Gen 1 ryzen looking to sell that off at a good price. theres likely people here, or on reddit or ebay selling off last gen stuff.

Also minecraft is an openGL game i would avoid an AMD GPU due to that reason.

when you got the PC teach him about mods, theres a big modding community for the java version of the game

They commonly use either the Fabric or Forge mod loader.

FTB can be used for modpacks that add more to the game.

if he wants to play vanilla:

For versions below 1.16 add Optifine

for version 1.16 use Fabric modloader with these mods: Sodium, lithium, Phosphor


id suggest

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/CyrH2V (also use this site, its great for planning a new build)

seems amazon have a ram miss price atm, snag that up asap. hopfully a 1660 super is within budget, they are much faster than a 1650 can defo get a cheaper case, not sure of anything that's cheaper and easy for a first time builder tbh.

[Rob_B]

He is more upto speed on Minecraft than I am, he wants java edition as the main reason to get a PC but isn't upto speed on mods and shaders so tha KS for the tips on mods.

We have a 980ti so performance should be fine