Cousin has asked for some help with his build

[PowerPigeon]

As the title says, I got a text from my 13 y/o cousin yesterday with a PCPartPicker list and an ask for my opinion. It's been years since I did any PC building, and I've never had much knowledge on it anyways so I told him I'd come post here. For context this is the parts list he sent me, it's in USD but we're Canadian so if you have any thoughts/other suggestions CAD is best.

 

Budget (including currency): $1200 CAD

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

He mentioned a few specific things: Minecraft, Valorant, CS:GO, Warzone, but also that he "wants to play VR on it". He doesn't own a headset or anything so that's something he's planning for in the future I guess. I'm not really sure how feasible building something to run a current/next-gen VR setup on his budget is.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

He will need a copy of Windows (looks like he forgot that in the list he put together) but should be good for peripherals. He's picked a 1080p monitor, but as I mentioned he seems to want to do some VR in the future as well.

 

Thanks very much!!

 

[Xaring]

Pretty decent build overall tbh, for a low budget system. 
If he wants to but the PC right now I guess its the best he can aim for right now - If he could wait 2-3(?) months then he'd have a chance to grab a 3050 or the sort - but that's not even assured, so he should jump the gun right now or wait who knows how much for the new ones to pop up.

He can get a Win10 code from Ebay for $10, i've been using those for years and there's never an issue with them.

VR is manageable, but you definitely want a more powerful system for it.

PS. He could probably get a cheaper RAM and try to fit a better GPU.

[boggy77]

not a bad list, but you can do better

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$279.99 @ Staples
Motherboard	ASRock B550M Phantom Gaming 4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$102.92 @ Vuugo
Memory	Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$69.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage	Crucial P2 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$64.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage	Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$54.99 @ Newegg Canada
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon RX 5600 XT 6 GB PULSE BE Video Card	$371.99 @ Newegg Canada
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox MB311L ARGB MicroATX Mid Tower Case	$75.99 @ Newegg Canada
Power Supply	Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	$89.99 @ Canada Computers
Case Fan	be quiet! Pure Wings 2 87 CFM 120 mm Fan	$14.99 @ Canada Computers
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1165.84
	Mail-in rebates	-$40.00
	Total	$1125.84
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-11-25 11:54 EST-0500

 

[Xaring]

2 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

not a bad list, but you can do better

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	$279.99 @ Staples
Motherboard	ASRock B550M Phantom Gaming 4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$102.92 @ Vuugo
Memory	Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory	$69.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage	Crucial P2 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$64.99 @ Newegg Canada
Storage	Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$54.99 @ Newegg Canada
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon RX 5600 XT 6 GB PULSE BE Video Card	$371.99 @ Newegg Canada
Case	Cooler Master MasterBox MB311L ARGB MicroATX Mid Tower Case	$75.99 @ Newegg Canada
Power Supply	Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply	$89.99 @ Canada Computers
Case Fan	be quiet! Pure Wings 2 87 CFM 120 mm Fan	$14.99 @ Canada Computers
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$1165.84
	Mail-in rebates	-$40.00
	Total	$1125.84
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-11-25 11:54 EST-0500

 

Missing a monitor for the kid

[dizmo]

This is my suggestion:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($179.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Motherboard: MSI B450 Gaming Plus MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($114.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Team MS30 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($109.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 5600 XT 6 GB PULSE Video Card  ($457.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P300 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($64.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Canada Computers)
Monitor: Asus TUF Gaming VG24VQ 23.6" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor  ($249.99 @ Staples)
Total: $1337.92
 

 

It's a little over budget, but check out Black Friday sales and you should be able to squeak in just under.

Basically the same build @boggy77 came up with, with some slight changes and pure SSD storage and a 144hz VA monitor.

You could add the video card he picked, I'm not sure how much of a performance hit you'd take, or if your cousin is willing to OC the difference. It'd save about $75.

 

Wait for Black Friday though, and go through the sales on Memory Express. I've always shaved a couple to a few hundred dollars on builds that way.

 

You can download Windows and use it for free. You just have the small watermark in the corner.

Just tell him that's how KSi rocks his.

[PowerPigeon]

3 hours ago, Xaring said:

Pretty decent build overall tbh, for a low budget system. 
If he wants to but the PC right now I guess its the best he can aim for right now - If he could wait 2-3(?) months then he'd have a chance to grab a 3050 or the sort - but that's not even assured, so he should jump the gun right now or wait who knows how much for the new ones to pop up.

He can get a Win10 code from Ebay for $10, i've been using those for years and there's never an issue with them.

VR is manageable, but you definitely want a more powerful system for it.

PS. He could probably get a cheaper RAM and try to fit a better GPU.

Thanks! I'll let him know about the RAM/GPU idea, don't really want to throw an entire new system at him if this is almost there.

 

Regarding VR, would you say this is a decent spot to start out with and upgrade down the road for a better experience? I have no idea when he's planning on buying a headset, I assume not for at least a year or so.

[Xaring]

10 hours ago, PowerPigeon said:

Thanks! I'll let him know about the RAM/GPU idea, don't really want to throw an entire new system at him if this is almost there.

 

Regarding VR, would you say this is a decent spot to start out with and upgrade down the road for a better experience? I have no idea when he's planning on buying a headset, I assume not for at least a year or so.

He's only 13, so it's definitelly a good place to start on. He's got the chance to upgrade to a better CPU in the future as it doesn't seem like AM4 is going anywhere (he could grab a 5600X and it'd work, unsure about the ryzen 6000 in 1-2 years time):

He'll be able to play VR, but the experience would not be too good, in my opinion. VR is probably one of the most demanding gaming workloads, as you need both high resolution and high framerates to avoid getting motion sickness AND everything not looking like shit