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Gaming PC - what to buy?

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Hi hope someone can give me some advice. My son is wanting a gaming pc for Christmas but I have no idea what I should be looking for.
He wants to be able to play Minecraft and I would like this pc to last him a while.
I am looking at spending up to £800 and any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

Comments

  • gonzo127
    gonzo127 Posts: 4,482 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    do you need a monitor, keyboard and mouse or just a base unit?

    are you thinking self build or pre built?
    Drop a brand challenge
    on a £100 shop you might on average get 70 items save
    10p per product = £7 a week ~ £28 a month
    20p per product = £14 a week ~ £56 a month
    30p per product = £21 a week ~ £84 a month (or in other words one weeks shoping at the new price)
  • Hi,

    I need the lot he's moving on from his laptop. i would prefer already built as I'm not sure I would have any idea where to start on a self build but if it was worth it would be willing to go that way.
  • Cisco001
    Cisco001 Posts: 4,130 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=1578

    I would recommend upgrade Video card to 7850 2GB, it will come to £680. It could be slightly over budget as you need to get monitor/ keyboard + mouse and speakers.
  • Just so you are aware MineCraft isn't that PC intensive at all, I presume your expecting him play more main-stream games on it too?
  • For very good value moneysaving refurbished games ready PCs. see:

    http://microdream.co.uk/gaming-pc
  • Cisco001
    Cisco001 Posts: 4,130 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    For very good value moneysaving refurbished games ready PCs. see:

    http://microdream.co.uk/gaming-pc

    Outdated machine...
  • AdamJK_2
    AdamJK_2 Posts: 126 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    Personally I'd be looking at an AMD based system such as this:

    http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-290-OE&groupid=43&catid=2385&subcat=1444

    It's a good all round value for the performance it offers. You just need to add the operating system (Win 7 I'd use) should your son not have retail on the laptop and swap the HDD to the 1TB Seagate.

    As for monitor I have a couple of the below as second & third displays and they're also really good value too.

    http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-055-BQ&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

    Should all come in just under budget with enough spare for basic speakers, keyboard and mouse.
  • Lum
    Lum Posts: 6,460 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Combo Breaker
    edited 12 November 2012 at 6:31PM
    Agree with the above, only I'd choose the 2GB 7870 for the graphics card and I'd also pick Windows 8 rather than 7 as it's slightly cheaper and in my experience has slightly better performance for gaming.

    Also beware that by default that system comes with a 60GB SSD hard drive. Those are very very fast and I love my SSD to bits, but 60GB fills up rapidly, so you would need to consider either swapping that SSD for a slower mechanical drive such as the 1TB Seagate they offer, or adding a mechanical drive as a second hard drive.

    It is possible, and reasonably easy, to add an additional hard drive at a later date, perhaps on his birthday?

    To be honest, remembering my experience of 14 year old me ending up with a PC that was both overpriced and underspecced compared to my preferred option. I would suggest you just ask your son for advice. It's not your fault if you get the wrong one then!

    One thing I wouldn't do is get one of those secondhand Dell PCs suggested in post #6. We used to have a load of those as office PCs where I work, I've had to replace them all over the last few years as they have all suffered hardware failures.
    I can't believe they're trying to flog a GX280 on to some poor unsuspecting customer. The only thing that is surprising me more is the fact that they still have a GX280 that hasn't had the capacitors explode and spew nasty brown goop over the insides.
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