New PC Options

Majic

If you were buying a new PC what would you advise based on the following information:

1) PC is for a child to surf the net and play games
2) Won't need a printer, just PC and monitor.
3) It will be a Christmas/Birthday present, need to keep costs to a minimum so looking for good value.

Thanks

Farway

Roughly how old is child? Junior or secondary school for instance?

EveryWhere

You need to be specific about the games involved. The age of the child has little to do with it...

Majic

Its for a 12 year old, plays Fortnite, Minecraft that sort of thing. Likes watching videos on You Tube and also just surfing the net

EveryWhere

The issue with buying a new 'off the shelf' PC is that you pay a premium for having solid state storage(SSD), when it should be standard.
So there are a lot of PCs with a more than ample specification, but with horribly slow mechanical storage (HDD) that holds it back.
If you cannot fit an SSD for yourself, don't buy a PC without an SSD. On the other hand I would waste money, paying waaay over the top for a PC with an SSD fitted.

So bear that in mind when you look.

Would help to have an overall budget, rather than leaving it as something at which to be guessed.

mluton

So it will need to be a "gaming pc" with dedicated graphics card for fornite.

Do you have a budget in mind ?

Majic

Thanks for your help. Would I get anything for £300-£400?

El_Torro

You're going to struggle getting a new PC for £400. Does that £400 include the monitor, mouse, keyboard and speakers?


Fortnite isn't that demanding, though you're not really going to have a future proofed PC for that price.


This will run Fortnite without too much trouble: https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-fortnite-2300x-quad-core-4.0ghz-rx-570-4gb-desktop-gaming-pc.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0ZLo7qTn5AIVR4XVCh3LnQm9EAQYAyABEgKG8_D_BwE


It only has 240GB of hard drive space, which is very low. It is SSD though, which helps performance a lot. It's already at the top of your budget as well, without including the monitor and other ancillary bits.

EveryWhere

El_Torro wrote: »

You're going to struggle getting a new PC for £400. Does that £400 include the monitor, mouse, keyboard and speakers?


Fortnite isn't that demanding, though you're not really going to have a future proofed PC for that price.


This will run Fortnite without too much trouble: https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-fortnite-2300x-quad-core-4.0ghz-rx-570-4gb-desktop-gaming-pc.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0ZLo7qTn5AIVR4XVCh3LnQm9EAQYAyABEgKG8_D_BwE


It only has 240GB of hard drive space, which is very low. It is SSD though, which helps performance a lot. It's already at the top of your budget as well, without including the monitor and other ancillary bits.

Plus the SSD listed isn't great, so you'd have to upgrade that to the Samsung EVO 860 or a PCIe SSD alternative. Taking the price of that alone, to £432+
Add in a half decent monitor for £100+
Somewhat over budget.

Majic

Some great help here guys, thank you. My son did have a laptop which I bought reconditioned and he has used for the past couple of years. He did want a PC, but if I was to go down the laptop route again would I have better value?

The old Laptop was an ASUS x551ca -SX130h 15.6 inch HD LED Notebook

El_Torro

Majic wrote: »

I was to go down the laptop route again would I have better value?

Probably not. A laptop tends to be more expensive than an equivalently spec'ed PC. The advantage of the laptop is that it's more portable.

Speaking of reconditioned though, you might get more out of a refurbed PC, especially if you want all the peripherals. Ebay has a lot of options for this, though make sure you look at reliable sellers (good feedback, warranty, etc...)