Recommendations for a first gaming computer for my son please?

ruintooeasy

my 13 year old son would like a gaming computer / laptop. I have looked into upgrading his existing computer but it is too old / slow / not powerful enough. I am on a budget so the most cost effective option would be good!

He is new to computer gaming, loves minecraft but wants to get into more pc gaming now.

TIA

MandyAW92

What is your budget?

ruintooeasy

ideally £250 but not sure if this is possible?!

enkoda

I wouldn't even bother, not for £250.

You'll end up with a machine that in a few months time won't be able to handle any of the new games. Heck, I doubt it would even handle games that are a couple of years old!

My suggestion would be to save up more money (£400 absolute minimum), or check out any local sellers on Gumtree/Ebay.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

£250 is what you want to spend on a graphics card for the graphical prettiness be more than compatable with modern games to run on high graphical settings and future proofing.


IMHO no laptop no desktop for £250 will be good enough to run modern games.


my experience of ebay and gumtree and FB is people who have built these "gaming" machines 2-3 years ago are asking way too much money for them now practically not upgradeable (socket 775 or AM2 or semprons) DDR2 which is hellish expensive these days for some reason and the lifespan of the mobo is nearing.


to get a decent machine, the bulk of your money should always be put into a graphics card and the power supply to power it, your processor next then motherboard, then memory then hard drive then processor cooling then case, then case cooling.


even on a £400 budget to get all that plus monitor plus accessories is cutting the it fine to calling it a gaming machine I would call it more a media center budget.

Knarf44

If he just wants to play games maybe you should consider something like an Xbox 360? I've seen them on Amazon within your budget.

sk240

Im afraid i agree, your looking at least £500 for the bare minium machine to play games on.

CC-Warrior

PC gaming is expensive long term, I would maybe consider a console or tablet instead?

atrixblue.-MFR-.

CC-Warrior wrote: »

PC gaming is expensive long term, I would maybe consider a console or tablet instead?

I wouldn't say so.


I haven't bought control pads, fancy camera's to track motion, and other accessories that console games tend to rely on.


a good mouse and keyboard (the odd steering wheel or joy stick yolk) can last many years (mines currently 6 years old).


a good upto date graphics card could run many games over many years, my old GTX 550 TI GS graphics card will still play BF4 and COD ghosts albeit on medium to low it still plays them with little to no impact in game just visual prettiness affected its only 3 years old.


also my computer don't suffer ring of death or whatever the consoles die of ive never had a dvd/cd drive burn through my discs either or fail.


ive never had to setup complicated HD audio headphone setups either I just plug into the back of my system and off I go.


my wii on the other hand, 12 hand sets 3 motion sensors, 2 power packs in 2 years and now the disk drive is sounding like a old F-12 fighter jet ready to take off.


admittedly im not a fan of consoles last one I owned was a gamecube and probably was the last console I loved in terms of what games I like was derived toward that platform (Capcom games always targeted Nintendo players in those days so resident evil was beast on the cube).

RobTang

CC-Warrior wrote: »

PC gaming is expensive long term, I would maybe consider a console or tablet instead?

Long term is cheaper because the games are cheaper (esp now with things like steam sales) and really it hasn't been the case you really needed upgrade for something for years now (because big studio games were made to run on the xbox and ps3)

The initial hit is a lot more however which is the problem.

jaydeeuk1

Whats the spec of the PC at the moment?