Is it too soon to order a gaming pc for xmas?

debitcardmayhem

roosterbean wrote: »

Hi, my son has asked for a gaming pc for xmas which I could order now, but I was wondering how fast things get upgraded and whether there would be any benefit in waiting until nearer the time. I wouldnt be talking top spec, my budget would be about £800 but would like to get as much as I can for my money. I hope some kind techie can help me out

roosterbean wrote: »

Lol shortchanged! This is the first time he has ever asked for anything this expensive and it has been explained to him that there will only be one gift under the tree this year.

Thanks for the advice folks, I will definitely leave it until later in the year then. I wish I was patient and clever enough to build my own, I think it would stress me out to the max :eek:
I was going to look at customising one from PCSpecialists or somewhere similar, any advice on this would be muchly appreciated also. Good point about the warranty, thanks

Buy him the PC for Easter , tell him he will have to wait till Christmas to get an Easter Egg and stress that is all he will get for Christmas. Let's face it Christmas and Easter are all about the marketing opportunities and not the real reason why we celebrate them.
Edited: Oh and I am agnostic by the way

PenguinJim

roosterbean wrote: »

Thanks for the advice folks, I will definitely leave it until later in the year then. I wish I was patient and clever enough to build my own, I think it would stress me out to the max :eek:

My parents bought our family a PC for Christmas in 1994, and a few months later my father and I braved the internals for the RAM upgrade from 4MB to 8MB. A year later we cautiously replaced the entire motherboard and CPU for a new one (labelling everything we removed with post-its so we knew where it had been!). He had no experience and neither did I, but it let me learn about how PC parts fit together, and I've been a hardware nut ever since.

It's not too difficult, and we didn't even have the benefit of Internet support, so I'd certainly recommend researching and putting it together with your son if you can. It's an educational experience and gives your son a lifelong tick on his MSE list, as he'll be able to put together cheap PCs for the rest of his life.

(And as everyone else says, wait until closer to the time!)

Enterprise_1701C

It really is very easy to build one. PCs are made to be user friendly This is from an over 50 unqualified tech nut

As for if it would go out of date, as soon as you buy a PC it is out of date these days, all you can do is get the best spec you can at the time and just bear in mind that it is very upgradable.

JasX

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

and just bear in mind that it is very upgradable.

.....well, so long as you avoid those horrible 'all in one' things that is basically a laptop built on to the back of a screen, difficult to repair, difficult to upgrade, then we can start to talk about heat issues

Enterprise_1701C

JasX wrote: »

.....well, so long as you avoid those horrible 'all in one' things that is basically a laptop built on to the back of a screen, difficult to repair, difficult to upgrade, then we can start to talk about heat issues

Tell me about it!! We had a friend who wanted us to install a CCTV onto his PC, he had ordered the necessary card (very basic PC) and we had the CCTV, got there and could not put the card on it! I would NEVER buy an all in one :mad: Needless to say he knew nothing about computers.

JasX

roosterbean wrote: »

Thanks for the advice folks, I will definitely leave it until later in the year then. I wish I was patient and clever enough to build my own, I think it would stress me out to the max :eek:

Alternatively depending how old your son is you could get him involved in choosing the parts and building it. He might learn something and be better prepared to fix it if it ever goes wrong.

Just make sure 'anti static precautions' and properly attaching the CPU heat sink are vaguely understood in advance to avoid anything expensive breaking..

x2o

I would suggest you should buy the bits in one go as you may buy a chip and then the motherboard becomes unavailable for example.

Most offer bundle deals just research what you want and look for the relevent deals available.

Their are many different retailers here are a few I know of and have used:

https://www.ebuyer.com (as suggested above)
https://www.scan.co.uk
https://www.dabs.co.uk
https://www.overclockers.co.uk

It was rumored newegg maybe coming to the uk but I'm not sure how true this is and if it did happen it could help bring some more offers but it seems it maybe a dodgy lead at the moment as it was suggested the end of last month which has gone but you never know.

JasX

x2o wrote: »

https://www.ebuyer.com (as suggested above)
[STRIKE]www.scan.co.uk[/STRIKE]
https://www.dabs.co.uk
https://www.overclockers.co.uk

And I'll chip in with my usual health warning to avoid one of them on the back of prior experience.... There are others are out there but usual advice about buying on a credit card for S76 protection applies