Nephew wants me to build him a gaming PC

[thall320578]

So my nephew is coming to the dark side, and he wants me to lead him there! He's been a console gamer for the last 16 years of his life. Now that he's working a steady job at 16 years old, he's wanting to put together his own rig instead of buying a prebuilt. I'm glad I was able to make that impression on him  

 

He wants to keep it in a $1000 budget, which I told him that for $1000 he will have a VERY capable PC! But he also doesn't have ANY peripherals to go with it; no monitor, keyboard, mouse, headset, etc. So with that in mind, I'm willing to throw in a little more to help him get a complete setup. His birthday is right around the corner after all

 

I know he's into FPS games, not really sure which ones exactly... I have him as a friend on Steam, and the only thing he has right now PC wise is a laptop, and I see him get on Garry's Mod every once in a while, but I know that's not a very demanding game at all... But for the budget in mind, I don't see where there would be a problem building a rig that can take anything he can throw at it.

 

I've talked to him already about it and have gotten out of him that he wants a case with a side window, does not need an optical drive, wants a little RGB lighting but keeping it minimal and tasteful ("classy" as he said), but other than that, that's all the details I've gotten.

 

So he's sort of left it up to me to decide on the components. Was thinking of keeping it compact with at least a micro ATX setup, at least a Ryzen 5, 16gb RAM, 1tb of SSD storage, but I haven't decided on a GPU yet. I like the 1060 in my wife's rig, it performs great for her, but I also like the RX 5700 in my rig, and the 2060's are priced around the same, so I'm up in the air with GPU choice at the moment...

 

 

 

So what's some thoughts on a parts list?

 

 

[YT_DomDaBomb20]

1 minute ago, BlueScope819 said:

You can save some money with a cheaper cooler,

First off, that’s an expensive cooler that is sold out, so it’s price doesn’t even count toward a build already 200 $ over budget

[YT_DomDaBomb20]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VQRRWb

Before mail-in rebates, 980ish

after, 960ish

 

Edit, also don’t tell me the 3600x is factory oc 3600, I chose it for the upgraded cooler

[MrBrightSyde]

Something like this?

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($171.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($94.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($62.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($104.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB PULSE Video Card  ($399.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P300A Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case  ($68.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec NeoECO Gold ZEN 500 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  ($75.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $979.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-07-09 19:44 EDT-0400

 

[thall320578]

If the plan is to leave it at stock speeds, no overclocking, is there any harm sticking with the stock Wraith Stealth cooler that comes with the 3600?

[thall320578]

So to update this, I ended up throwing the system together last weekend

 

Ryzen 5 3600

AMD Wraith Prism cooler

Asrock B450M Steel Legend

16GB (2x8GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200

WD Black NVME 1TB

MSI Gaming Z RTX 2060

Corsair CX550M

Fractal Design 120mm Prisma fans

Phantek RGB strips

Cooler Master Masterbox Q300L

 

 

Turned out really well. Although I'm not a HUGE fan of the RGB rainbow vomit lol, I asked if he wanted a specific color scheme set up and he said no, just multicolor cycling, so that's how he's getting it. He can play with the settings at any time and set the colors the way he wants if he chooses to change it up.

 

Seems to perform great! He'll be getting it next weekend (he lives 3 hours away), so I'm excited to see his reaction.

 

He's already purchased the rest of the peripherals himself based on some of my suggestions to him, a 244htz monitor, keyboard and mouse, etc, so all I had to put together was the tower. All in, with Windows 10 Pro and an Office 2019 license (you know for "school work") it came to just over $1300, so he get's $300 on the house

 

I have a video on my YouTube channel documenting it, but it's scheduled to go live AFTER he gets it, since he's a subscriber and he wanted to be surprised by the end result. Pretty sure he's not an LTT forum member, so I think it's safe posting pictures here lol.

 

 

There's still room to grow with it. If the R5 isn't enough, he could step up to an R7. There's still 2 empty DIMM slots if 16GB isn't enough for him. It also bother's my OCD a little with the gap of nothingness in the front on the inside... an AIO cooler would fill some of the void and give things a little more depth in there I think, but that probably wouldn't happen UNLESS he stepped up to an R7. And with the RTX 30 series about to hit the shelves, I'm sure it won't be long before he will be wanting one of those. Hell I already want one and I JUST bought my 5700 lmao. I can't say I'm super impressed with the build quality of the Q300L... It's on par with the quality of the DIYPC case I put my wife's rig in, and it was CHEAP... But I guess I'm just use to dealing with my older Antec battle ship of a case...