Gaming PC for my son

sweetgirl2015

johannis said:

Hi, in the past few years i've found MSE really helpful with sourcing laptops and i'm hoping you can help me with this.
My Son is 13 and wants to save up for a gaming PC, he's an avid xboxer but his mates are starting to go into gaming PC's and he doesn't want to get left behind. I've had a root though the previous posts on the subject but there's nothing particularly up to date.
Basically i'm looking for a little guidance on what he really needs, 8 or 16gb, how much storage etc? Is there anything we need to steer clear of? any recommendations of god places to buy and should we be buying new or is it worth looking for reconditioned?
thanks J

The thing I find silly is gaming pc's dont come with built in dvd roms anymore. I know someone bought a gaming desktop but had loads of games on discs he wanted to load on his new gaming pc but was dismayed by the faxt he had to go out and buy an external usb dvd rom for £30 just so he could load the games he already owned onto it.
So you might stumble apon this problem unless you ask for a custom built one complete with dvd rom. 

dan958

sweetgirl2015 said:

The thing I find silly is gaming pc's dont come with built in dvd roms anymore. I know someone bought a gaming desktop but had loads of games on discs he wanted to load on his new gaming pc but was dismayed by the faxt he had to go out and buy an external usb dvd rom for £30 just so he could load the games he already owned onto it.
So you might stumble apon this problem unless you ask for a custom built one complete with dvd rom. 

Why is that silly? Seems much more silly to include the drive and 99% of people wouldn't use it (and have to pay for!). Especially when they customer can see from the listing that it doesn't come with one and can buy an external. Don't think I've used a DVD/CD on my PC in at least 10 years.

Does your friend also get annoyed when their new card doesn't come with a tape deck?

Neil_Jones

sweetgirl2015 said:

johannis said:

Hi, in the past few years i've found MSE really helpful with sourcing laptops and i'm hoping you can help me with this.
My Son is 13 and wants to save up for a gaming PC, he's an avid xboxer but his mates are starting to go into gaming PC's and he doesn't want to get left behind. I've had a root though the previous posts on the subject but there's nothing particularly up to date.
Basically i'm looking for a little guidance on what he really needs, 8 or 16gb, how much storage etc? Is there anything we need to steer clear of? any recommendations of god places to buy and should we be buying new or is it worth looking for reconditioned?
thanks J

The thing I find silly is gaming pc's dont come with built in dvd roms anymore. I know someone bought a gaming desktop but had loads of games on discs he wanted to load on his new gaming pc but was dismayed by the faxt he had to go out and buy an external usb dvd rom for £30 just so he could load the games he already owned onto it.
So you might stumble apon this problem unless you ask for a custom built one complete with dvd rom. 

Gaming is almost certainly done online and through outlets like Steam.  Which has no need for CD media.

And there are other solutions for the problem you've highlighted which don't involve buying a USB drive (which is one solution but far from the only one)

If you need an internal CD unit they're not hard to find, and they're relatively cheap, certainly less than £30.  You'd pay more if you wanted Blu-Ray but DVD/CD support only is dirt cheap.

sweetgirl2015

dan958 said:

sweetgirl2015 said:

The thing I find silly is gaming pc's dont come with built in dvd roms anymore. I know someone bought a gaming desktop but had loads of games on discs he wanted to load on his new gaming pc but was dismayed by the faxt he had to go out and buy an external usb dvd rom for £30 just so he could load the games he already owned onto it.
So you might stumble apon this problem unless you ask for a custom built one complete with dvd rom. 

Why is that silly? Seems much more silly to include the drive and 99% of people wouldn't use it (and have to pay for!). Especially when they customer can see from the listing that it doesn't come with one and can buy an external. Don't think I've used a DVD/CD on my PC in at least 10 years.

Does your friend also get annoyed when their new card doesn't come with a tape deck?

I meant seems silly the fact its a gaming pc and if you got hundreds of games which at the time cost a lot of money if you cant use them its a bit silly to me. They are inexpencive so I think the market is changing prematurely really.  Not everyone has made the change to online. Plus what are you supposed to do with the games you already have? Its just a waste to throw them away. 

dan958

sweetgirl2015 said:

I meant seems silly the fact its a gaming pc and if you got hundreds of games which at the time cost a lot of money if you cant use them its a bit silly to me. They are inexpencive so I think the market is changing prematurely really.  Not everyone has made the change to online. Plus what are you supposed to do with the games you already have? Its just a waste to throw them away. 

No, you just buy an internal (if your case allows for one) or external DVD drive. The market definitely isn't changing prematurely, you will struggle to even buy new physical PC games that are not just Steam codes in the box (and it has been this way for a few years). It has way WAY gone pass the time for a DVD drive to be a 'default' in a gaming PC build.

Neil_Jones

sweetgirl2015 said:

dan958 said:

sweetgirl2015 said:

The thing I find silly is gaming pc's dont come with built in dvd roms anymore. I know someone bought a gaming desktop but had loads of games on discs he wanted to load on his new gaming pc but was dismayed by the faxt he had to go out and buy an external usb dvd rom for £30 just so he could load the games he already owned onto it.
So you might stumble apon this problem unless you ask for a custom built one complete with dvd rom. 

Why is that silly? Seems much more silly to include the drive and 99% of people wouldn't use it (and have to pay for!). Especially when they customer can see from the listing that it doesn't come with one and can buy an external. Don't think I've used a DVD/CD on my PC in at least 10 years.

Does your friend also get annoyed when their new card doesn't come with a tape deck?

I meant seems silly the fact its a gaming pc and if you got hundreds of games which at the time cost a lot of money if you cant use them its a bit silly to me. They are inexpencive so I think the market is changing prematurely really.  Not everyone has made the change to online. Plus what are you supposed to do with the games you already have? Its just a waste to throw them away. 

Not all older games work on modern operating systems or configurations.  Wipeout 2097 (released in 1997) for example runs too fast on modern hardware to the point where its unplayable.  Third party solutions exist for this. So if you can't get your old games working for technical reasons, its pointless keeping them.  You might as well repurpose them as bird scarers.  After 10/15/20 years you've probably had your moneys worth out of them by then.

A_Lert

sweetgirl2015 said:

The thing I find silly is gaming pc's dont come with built in dvd roms anymore. I know someone bought a gaming desktop but had loads of games on discs he wanted to load on his new gaming pc but was dismayed by the faxt he had to go out and buy an external usb dvd rom for £30 just so he could load the games he already owned onto it.
So you might stumble apon this problem unless you ask for a custom built one complete with dvd rom. 

For PC gaming physical discs are somewhat outdated. Personally I use an external DVD drive when I need it, it means I only need one drive for all my computers. Internal drives are quicker but unless you're working with discs a lot (eg copying a whole stack of CDs onto computer) it doesn't really matter.

getmore4less

I thought the solution for old games on cd was to stick then on a HDD and map them to look like a CD.

sweetgirl2015

dan958 said:

sweetgirl2015 said:

I meant seems silly the fact its a gaming pc and if you got hundreds of games which at the time cost a lot of money if you cant use them its a bit silly to me. They are inexpencive so I think the market is changing prematurely really.  Not everyone has made the change to online. Plus what are you supposed to do with the games you already have? Its just a waste to throw them away. 

No, you just buy an internal (if your case allows for one) or external DVD drive. The market definitely isn't changing prematurely, you will struggle to even buy new physical PC games that are not just Steam codes in the box (and it has been this way for a few years). It has way WAY gone pass the time for a DVD drive to be a 'default' in a gaming PC build.

But what if you have poor or weak broadband or non at all due to an outage? 

Neil_Jones

sweetgirl2015 said:

dan958 said:

sweetgirl2015 said:

I meant seems silly the fact its a gaming pc and if you got hundreds of games which at the time cost a lot of money if you cant use them its a bit silly to me. They are inexpencive so I think the market is changing prematurely really.  Not everyone has made the change to online. Plus what are you supposed to do with the games you already have? Its just a waste to throw them away. 

No, you just buy an internal (if your case allows for one) or external DVD drive. The market definitely isn't changing prematurely, you will struggle to even buy new physical PC games that are not just Steam codes in the box (and it has been this way for a few years). It has way WAY gone pass the time for a DVD drive to be a 'default' in a gaming PC build.

But what if you have poor or weak broadband or non at all due to an outage? 

Then you wouldn't be gaming online in the first place