what gaming pc for £500

wild_tiger

my 11 year old wants a gaming pc for Christmas and I have no idea where to start.

I usually buy from shops ie pc world/currys/argos/ j lewis and my budget is £500 which is to include the monitor.

Any help would be great as I have no idea where to begin and Christmas is in a week :eek:

wild_tiger

oh and he seems to play downloaded games not disks if that matters?

joeblags

gumtree > gaming pcs


youll get nothing good at all for £500 inc a monitor ect. second hand youll get something half decent for £500.

donnajunkie

i'm no expert but i dont think you can get a decent one for £500 and in the future you will need to keep upgrading the graphics card etc.
do they have a game console? if yes try and persuade them to be happy with that. if they dont have one suggest to them that might be a better idea. if they are set on a pc and you dont want to disappoint then you will need to find more cash.

wild_tiger

thanks for taking the time to answer. he has a ps4 but he doesn't like it. he has a tablet and a laptop but he complains of lag when he plays his games on them. I think the games he plays are flash games?? agario and nebulous are his favourites at the moment.

donnajunkie

wild_tiger wrote: »

thanks for taking the time to answer. he has a ps4 but he doesn't like it. he has a tablet and a laptop but he complains of lag when he plays his games on them. I think the games he plays are flash games?? agario and nebulous are his favourites at the moment.

Again I'm no expert but I think lag can be down to your internet connection or the server of the game itself. A good gaming PC will in most cases run games better and look better. However you get a lot of rpg type games on a PC as well as many games you see on consoles. A PC won't get any games that are exclusives to a particular console.
I have played the odd game on our tablet and had no issues. Is the tablet a cheap one? If so a better tablet could be the answer to that issue.

Johnmcl7

wild_tiger wrote: »

thanks for taking the time to answer. he has a ps4 but he doesn't like it. he has a tablet and a laptop but he complains of lag when he plays his games on them. I think the games he plays are flash games?? agario and nebulous are his favourites at the moment.

What spec is the laptop? I've just tried both games on a fairly weedy laptop and it runs both games fine.

John

wazza99

You can certainly build/buy a perfectly good gaming pc for £500, i've been doing it for decades. Just focus on a good processor and decent graphics card (around £100+) and a decent amount of ram.

All depends on what actual games are going to played, i currently play World of Tanks/Warships and Warcraft all at full resolution and well over 30fps.

The two games mentioned are really not cpu or card heavy in anyway i would expect them to play on a low spec laptop easily.

Most games these days like the above are more reliant on ping times and a good internet connection than hardware, so if lag is an issue now, a better pc wont fix that

Most downloaded/flash games wont be anywhere near as demanding.

I fear the £500 gaming pc may well still not solve the issues.

Cisco001

For your budget,

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zoostorm-Core-i3-4170-Dual-Core-Gaming-PC-8GB-RAM-2TB-GTX-950-WiFi-Win-10-/262714795858?hash=item3d2b05a752:g:Ni0AAOSwKOJYJeho

Then add monitor, keyboard & mouse & speaker

Chickabiddybex

Hmm, gaming PCs are only worthwhile when the person who buys it/owns it knows enough about it to keep it up to date etc. Why does your 11 year old not like the PS4? Is it because his friends all play on PC and he wants to join them? Or is it because of the lag? Because that's more likely to be your Internet.

If you do want one though I would suggest one of these: https://www.cclonline.com/category/202/Desktop-PCs/Desktop-PCs/All-CCL-Desktops/pricerange-0-400/attributeslist/1175003/
That will leave you with enough money left for a basic monitor, mouse and keyboard separately. (Perhaps upgrading these bits could be a good birthday present when the time comes)

Don't expect a gaming PC at that price to play the latest games well. Don't expect ANY gaming PC to play the latest games well for very long. Your kid is 11. They have asked you for a gaming PC but haven't picked it out themself (which suggests they aren't especially a "wizz" at computers) so definitely don't expect it to be able to play the latest games for very long - he won't know what to upgrade and how to do it. And you should also probably expect the PC to get clogged with malware over time and become slow and experience lag. I really don't think this is a good investment.

If it were me, I'd tell him that he can have a gaming PC when he's old enough to learn about it and pick out exactly what he wants, understand what the components do and keep it upgraded. This teaches him a useful skill and also teaches him about being responsible. He has a PS4 to keep him going till then. He can play the latest games on that. This way, by the time the PS5 comes out he will have a gaming PC that is new enough to last him and will only need a few parts upgraded to play the latest games.

teddysmum

Medion offer a higher spec than others for the same price, but their cheapest gaming laptop is £669, though you can get a few pounds off via cashback sites.