Starter PC for son

[dannyboy75]

I'm looking to put together a starter gaming PC for my eldest son's 11th birthday next month. I already have a spare 1080p 23" monitor he can use, plus an M.2 256GB SSD and 500GB HDD (+ mouse/keyboard).

So the parts I need to buy are:

Case
Mobo
CPU
GPU
PSU
RAM

My plan was to go with an mATX mobo, 8GB of DDR4 RAM (nothing fancy - 2666MHz max), either a Coffee Lake i3 or comparable 2nd Gen Ryzen, cheap (~ £50) GPU and case/PSU.

I was hoping to keep outlay under £200 if possible, but I realised that's looking unlikely. I'm wondering if a Ryzen APU would be a better bet, to negate most of the separate cost of a GPU? I've always thought of integrated Intel graphics as pretty weak, but don't really know much about AMD APUs. My son mainly plays Roblox, maybe a bit of Fortnite in due course (when he's a bit older), and occasionally Minecraft. He loves playing BeamNG (which is pretty demanding) on my PC, but I think he's going to have to be realistic about the capabilities of a ~ £200 PC

Does anyone have experience of 2nd Gen Ryzen APUs, and would that be a viable (and more cost effective) option than discrete GPU? Really appreciate any advice around that, or any other parts I've mentioned.

cheers
Danny

[Rob_B]

Tricky one considering the GPU needs, even a 3400g is currently around £170 on ebay...I struggled to hit sub £300 for my son's build and that was built before last Christmas.

The rest of the system is probably easy compared to getting the GPU, I've just sold a 6970 for ~£30 which although old is more than enough for what you need, perhaps go with something like that, they range from £40ish+ on eBay

Ryzen prices are a bit mnetal still, you could try picking up an A320 board that has the option of the new BIOS as that will allow your to eventually run the 5x00 series chips, my A320M-k has the option so upgradability isn't an issue if you're happy with the limits of the chipset anyway.

or

A brand new 10100F is less than £70, you can get a brand new mobo/10100f/8gb ram/case for approx £145 (CCL, don't expect top end kit though) leaving a little spare for the PSU/GPU if you don't mind going a bit over £200, Win10 is free if you don't activate and you've got yourself a system.

[[GSV]Trig]

I've just re-cased my rig giving me a spare PSU and case, but given you're in Dorset that's not much use to you, I was in Bovington in December as well....

[Rob_B]

Edited my first post but thought I'd also add this, I had a 3000G for a while and it's not THAT bad, especially if you intend to upgrade down the line. Certainly good enough for Fortnite at reasonable settings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeC6C_K98oM

You're looking at maybe £90ish depending on eBay prices, if you want to get it built quickly then it might be a good short term option, get the previously mentioned A320 board with the newer BIOS and you're laughing when it comes to upgrade choices.

A320 - £30
3000G -£90
RAM - £25
Case/PSU - Whatever your budget stretches to
OS - Free Win10 just don't activate

[DanceswithUnix]

You're looking at maybe £90ish depending on eBay prices,

The Athlon 220GE is 100MHz slower and available £95 new.

I've played Minecraft on an Athlon 3000G and it was playable.

[Rob_B]

300mhz, and you can overclock the 3000G (but not on an A320!) I think that's the only differences (?)
I played quite a few games on it and was quite impressed considering the limitations.
Either would be fine as something just to get the rig up and running

[dannyboy75]

Thanks for the replies, chaps. My £200 budget is definitely looking a bit ambitious

Just reading some reviews and benchmarks on the 3000G that you mentioned, Rob. That sounds like it might be a good shout, with an A320 mobo.

I've got plenty of time as his birthday isn't until the last week of February, so will see how much over budget a discrete HD6950 or similar would put me. But it sounds like that Athlon will probably be the way forward.

[dannyboy75]

I've just re-cased my rig giving me a spare PSU and case, but given you're in Dorset that's not much use to you, I was in Bovington in December as well....

Ah shame, never mind. Tank Museum, I'm guessing?

[[GSV]Trig]

Ah shame, never mind. Tank Museum, I'm guessing?

Extreme-E event..

[DanceswithUnix]

300mhz, and you can overclock the 3000G (but not on an A320!)

The barely cheaper 200GE is 300MHz slower, the 220GE is 3.4GHz compared to the 240GE and 3000G which are 3.5GHz. The 3000G does have slightly higher clocked GPU.

Still, look around and you find bundles like this which makes the 3000G look like a winner...

https://www.awd-it.co.uk/components/...pu-bundle.html

Note that you want dual ram sticks in there.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Honestly I would try and save a bit more,and get a Core i3 10105F and something like a GTX750 or GTX750TI secondhand.

[Rob_B]

Aah I missed that extra 2 in the CPU model!

With good RAM and a board that allows overclocking you can get a good chunk of free performance out of the 3000G, might be worth spending more on a mobo for that reason?

Honestly I would try and save a bit more,and get a Core i3 10105F and something like a GTX750 or GTX750TI secondhand.

I think the 10105F is ~ £5-£10 more than the 10100F and the difference is 100mhz? When I looked at CCL last night that means you can still get everything bar the PSU/GPU for ~£150/£160 with a 105, still a good deal.

EDIT: 10100F is £68.92, 10105F is £74.97

EDIT2: CCL have a 'C' grade MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX for £29.99 (missing m.2 screws), if it doesn't work you still have 14 days to return it & a 6month warranty, that + a 3000G would be a good combination (Does that board support an overclock on the gfx ?!)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You will need to make sure you get a motherboard with a decent SOC VRM,as most motherboards skimp on that(and the cooling for it).

[Saracen999]

I rather think the timing is a bit wrong. If you can hold off a bit, it might be worth it. The next few months just might be interesting.

The last 48 hours or so have seen CES keystone speeches from AMD, vNidia and Intel all of which suggest to me there are some large and hungry cats about to be firmly dropped into their competitor's pidgeon-lofts.

What do I mean? Well sadly (from my perspective) not much at the higher end, at least, not quite yet, but at the lower end there are some entry-level Intel CPUs and both the 3050 and AMD RX6500XT GPU that may well provide some relief for those wanting to get into low/medium setting 1080p gaming and haven't been able to find sweet FA for a year or more, due to even second-hand older cards going for stupid money because higher end cards are rocking horse poop.

While these product announcments aren't going to be much use to you directly, with that budget, my point is that if these entry-level new products start to free up some movement at that level, it might loosen up supply of previous gen (or two) cards from those grabbing the opportunity.

I wouldn't necessarily expect much activity in the course of a few weeks, but over the first half of this year? Maybe.

The caveat, of course, is that there's a lot of if's, but's and maybe's in all that. Even if these products do ship as suggested/implied, the real question is going to be whether it is in sufficient quantities to make a real difference. My feeling is it might. But only a bit of time will tell.

Is it worth waiting? Depends what you're able to lay your hands on right now. If something suitable happens to wander past your nose, grabbing it quick is probably a good idea. But if not, these announcements hint at a bit of light at the end of the product scarcity tunnel .... if you can hold off just a bit longer.

[dannyboy75]

Thanks again for the advice guys. Soz for the late reply, been busy with work and a few other bits.

I'm definitely going to bump up the budget a bit as £200 is definitely looking a bit lean. I'm hoping the ex will be able to contribute a reasonable amount.

Saracen - I'm sure you're right about holding off, if possible. If Xmas was a few months away I probably could postpone it until then instead, but as it stands I'm just going to have to take the plunge unfortunately.

[DanceswithUnix]

Did you see the link for the 3000G + mobo bundle I posted above? £145 gets you APU, motherboard and 8GB of ram.
Add their cheapest case for £30: https://www.awd-it.co.uk/cit-havoc-m...cit-havoc.html
and their scarily cheap £20 psu: https://www.awd-it.co.uk/cit-400w-mi...er-supply.html
and you have your bits, all new and within budget. I would be tempted to get a reputable PSU mind