Being asked to spec my nephew's 1st gaming PC

[Jon-Something]

For the last 40 years I've been a PC gamer, right back to the kings quest series (actually most of sierra games) on a CGA monitor, and working my way forward; to my current i7 7700k. 970gpu and a 1440x res monitor (+ all bells and whistles)

 

With this and the fact i have no other half and pretty much live the 'gamers dream' life, my brother's asked me for advice for his son's 1st gaming pc.

 

He's asked for something called a lynx pc?  i did some google searches and found something however from a strictly gaming standpoint I'm uncertain as to recommend he gets it.  It's a i7-9700k, and I'm fearful in recommending it as a sensible choice.  With most intel cpu's and motherboards you generally only get 2 generations of cpu that a motherboard will actually support. The 9700k being at the end of the motherboard's support...  AMD on the other hand seems the more promising option allowing more growth, and future upgradability.. (the main reason why my next pc upgrade will be to go back to amd).

 

The Lynx also offers a 2070 gpu, (I'm not certain of his current monitor however suspect he'll be on 1080p so cant see any point in the 70 series as they tend to be more tailored towards 1440x resolutions... and the 80's for everything above.  Yes there'll be some graphical plus signs but, by the time the gpu's out of date he'll probably be looking at replacing both the monitor and gpu at the same time.. pending what his pocket money is like... (i wish i got pocket money when i was a kid)   I'm also lost with the other 60 series cards that seem to be coming out. whats the difference with the 2060 and the other simular ranged stuff coming out?

 

He lives in NY county? erm state.. so I'm guessing the general temperatures will be bloody cold to nice and warm.  I'm therefore suspecting a water cooler or even an all in one water doda will be pretty pointless other than bragging and, "i wish it wasn't so loud" nonsense.  If he kicks up a fuss about all in one water cooling i'll advise they fit them 60mm with delta screamer fans and see how long he lasts.

 

I'm therefore hoping to save him money from going intel and perhaps downgrading the gpu to a band below, and win him some peripherals points, with a mechanical kyb, half decent mouse, and things that might actually make him think i'm a good uncle.  And lets face it actually make the gaming experience more fun.

 

I live in the UK and have no idea about what places have half decent pre-built systems on the east coast. So could do with some pointers.   The kid is only 12 ish (i dunno, he's a kid, and mostly plays fortnight, i think) so i doubt i can trust him yet on building a system from scratch,

 

any feedback on pre built systems with perhaps gamer bundles, that offer some upgradability might win me some points would be nice..  ty

[amdorintel]

I dunno if Microcenter builds pc, i assume they do.

Go with a Ryzen build, 2600X with a Tomahawk MAX motherboard, Viper Steel Ram 2x8gb 3400 speed, cheapest case, 1660 gpu

should be good for your kid, dont need to go overboard on a pc for your kid, just something he can do school work on, surf the web, do some office word with openoffice (free), and a few games to blend into the social scene at his school.

[Metallus97]

2 minutes ago, amdorintel said:

I dunno if Microcenter builds pc, i assume they do.

Go with a Ryzen build, 2600X with a Tomahawk MAX motherboard, Viper Steel Ram 2x8gb 3400 speed, cheapest case, 1660 gpu

should be good for your kid, dont need to go overboard on a pc for your kid, just something he can do school work on, surf the web, do some office word with openoffice (free), and a few games to blend into the social scene at his school.

alright i will stop wirting because that’s exactly what i would recommend there.

I haven’t been to the US for some time..but when i lived there microcenter did ofer build to order. Just dont pick a prebuild... do you want us to make you a parts list or are the recommendations from @amdorintelenough to go from?

[Jumballi]

don't leave storage out, I'd recommend a 25ggb ssd without a hard drive. It'll teach your nephew to learn to manage storage, it's cheap, and most importantly, a hdd upgrade is the safest thing to upgrade in a pc, so it gives him a road map on where to start learning from.

[Metallus97]

1 minute ago, Jumballi said:

don't leave storage out, I'd recommend a 25ggb ssd without a hard drive. It'll teach your nephew to learn to manage storage, it's cheap, and most importantly, a hdd upgrade is the safest thing to upgrade in a pc, so it gives him a road map on where to start learning from.

Yep, but go 500gb. Today thats like maybe 10 bucks more and go NVME. SATA SSDs are already outdated.

[Jumballi]

whoops, noticed I typed 25gb instead of 256gb. Metallus97 has a good point with nvme, but it does increase cost of the storage, with no improvement in games where the kid is likely to notice.