Help and Advise on build for my son

[CraigShields]

Budget (including currency): 500 - 700 GBP

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Fortnight, Minecraft (potentially modding), Animal Revolt Battle Simulator, Total Accurate Battle Simulator, School work but will most likely be done with Google docs. 

Other details:

Hi all,

 

Can't believe I've never thought to come on the forums before, I discovered LTT on Facebook about 4-6 months back and have been following since, absolutely fantastic content. 

 

So I have a little predicament, my son (9 years old) wants to get into PC gaming. He's always been a console gamer but for some time now he has been saying he wants to play on PC as some of the games he has seen aren't on console. He does also need something to do his homework. This itself isn't the issue, the problem is his mum and I are no longer together and we share custody, he comes here for 2-3 days then back to his mums for 2-3 days, so on, so on, so on. So my problem is what do I do, couple of options:

• Buy him a gaming laptop he can take between both homes. The pro here is that he can take it anywhere but the downside is they cost a fortune and I'm not really sure what to look at when it comes to gaming laptops. Also he wouldn't be able to upgrade it.
• Buy him a gaming PC which would stay here and get him a chromebook or something for his school work for at his mums
• Build him a gaming PC, potentially reusing some components I have already that aren't being used. They are quite old as I bought them a few years back when I built myself a little NAS server. Then I would get hime a chromebook to take between houses.
• Buy a Steam Deck, only issue here is that I want to do this for his Christmas present and no way I'll get one for then.

My question to you all would be

• Is buying a gaming laptop worth it and if so what should I be looking for for my budget?
• I don't really want to buy him a PC, if I go down this root I would rather build one for him. The parts I have are below. I built this about 8 years ago so I might not be able to use any of it)
  • Case: Fractal Design Define micro-ATX Mini Tower Case 
  • RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
  • PSU: 500W Corsair CX500 Builder Series CX, Fully Wired, 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, Single Rail, 38A, 120mm Fan, ATX PSU
  • CPU: AMD CPU FX Series 4100 Black Edition Quad Core Processor Bulldozer
  • MB: Nothing as it's busted.
  • HDD: 2x Western Digital WD20EARX 2TB Caviar Green Quiet SATA 6Gb/s IntelliPower 64Mb Cache 8ms HDD
  • GPU: MSI N750TI-2GB5TLP (never used as I was given it my a friend who upgraded)

My aim here is to make things as seamless as possible for him going between homes, I don't want him to feel that at one home he gets more stuff or less stuff, which is proving difficult with this decision. 

 

Apologies for the huge post and thanks for reading, any advise is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Craig

 

[crakddx]

Linus made a video aabout aa completely upgradeable laaptop on yt. Check it out! It might give some tipss.
Personally, I wouldd get him a refurbished pc, that has been pimped for gaaming. Something I'm doing soonish is getting aa refurbisshed optiplex 9020 (200aud), and crammming aan ssd (140auud), soome ram (90aud) and a gtx 1650 (400aud at msrp). That totals to 830 aud, about 550 usd. I would do soomething like that, and then buy him a laptop.

[ParrotPal]

16 minutes ago, CraigShields said:

Budget (including currency): 500 - 700 GBP

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Fortnight, Minecraft (potentially modding), Animal Revolt Battle Simulator, Total Accurate Battle Simulator, School work but will most likely be done with Google docs. 

Other details:

Hi all,

 

Can't believe I've never thought to come on the forums before, I discovered LTT on Facebook about 4-6 months back and have been following since, absolutely fantastic content. 

 

So I have a little predicament, my son (9 years old) wants to get into PC gaming. He's always been a console gamer but for some time now he has been saying he wants to play on PC as some of the games he has seen aren't on console. He does also need something to do his homework. This itself isn't the issue, the problem is his mum and I are no longer together and we share custody, he comes here for 2-3 days then back to his mums for 2-3 days, so on, so on, so on. So my problem is what do I do, couple of options:

• Buy him a gaming laptop he can take between both homes. The pro here is that he can take it anywhere but the downside is they cost a fortune and I'm not really sure what to look at when it comes to gaming laptops. Also he wouldn't be able to upgrade it.
• Buy him a gaming PC which would stay here and get him a chromebook or something for his school work for at his mums
• Build him a gaming PC, potentially reusing some components I have already that aren't being used. They are quite old as I bought them a few years back when I built myself a little NAS server. Then I would get hime a chromebook to take between houses.
• Buy a Steam Deck, only issue here is that I want to do this for his Christmas present and no way I'll get one for then.

My question to you all would be

• Is buying a gaming laptop worth it and if so what should I be looking for for my budget?
• I don't really want to buy him a PC, if I go down this root I would rather build one for him. The parts I have are below. I built this about 8 years ago so I might not be able to use any of it)
  • Case: Fractal Design Define micro-ATX Mini Tower Case 
  • RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
  • PSU: 500W Corsair CX500 Builder Series CX, Fully Wired, 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, Single Rail, 38A, 120mm Fan, ATX PSU
  • CPU: AMD CPU FX Series 4100 Black Edition Quad Core Processor Bulldozer
  • MB: Nothing as it's busted.
  • HDD: 2x Western Digital WD20EARX 2TB Caviar Green Quiet SATA 6Gb/s IntelliPower 64Mb Cache 8ms HDD
  • GPU: MSI N750TI-2GB5TLP (never used as I was given it my a friend who upgraded)

My aim here is to make things as seamless as possible for him going between homes, I don't want him to feel that at one home he gets more stuff or less stuff, which is proving difficult with this decision. 

 

Apologies for the huge post and thanks for reading, any advise is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Craig

 

First of all respect for building your son the pc would it be possible for him to bring a small pc with a monitor at either house. You can get Mini ITX pc then carry it by hand. Alternatively you can get him a laptop such as the Dell XPS laptop however it can easily take on Fortnite and Minecraft I will give you some tips for running the game no matter what PC you get your son for Fortnite and Minecraft

For Minecraft 

You can use clients and mods such as optifine and lunar client that help run the game smoother through making the game calculations more efficient. You can also turn down the render distance and other graphical settings. Link below

https://optifine.net/home

https://www.lunarclient.com/

For fortnite 

You can use Performance mode which can increase the fps by 30 

Turning all settings to low will also advised (Even pros do it)

 

For some examples of laptops you can easily get a dell beast on sale 

However I recommend a

Acer Nitro 5

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/AU/content/series/nitro5

Asus TUF Notebook

https://www.jw.com.au/asus-15-6-144hz-r7-3750h-8g-256g-gtx1650-w10-495092

 

If you want an ITX pc please reply 

[jaslion]

The fx4100 is a terrible cpu today (was also just bad when it came out) so don't use that. I'd honestly either go with something used with an older i7 in it that can be taken with or a cheaper gaming laptop like a acer Nitro 5.

 

In todays market building is normally more expensive than just buying one. I can safely recommend the hp pavilion gaming desktop with a ryzen 4600h and a gtx 1650 in it (make sure it's the one with a ssd). It's a good computer and right in your budget.  Better than what you will be able to make + light and small.

 

Monitor wise I'd say look at local used and get him a cheapo 1080p screen for 20 pounds for each house if you go this way. He can upgrade later if he wants.

 

Just a sidenote the xps is NOT a gaming laptop. It's a glorified office laptop. It SUCKS at cooling it's hardware leading to lowered performance, issues in games due to overheating,... it really is just a expensive disappointment.

 

@ParrotPal that TUF has bad cooling and is not a great laptop due to using multiple generations old hardware by now. Do not buy for op.

 

For a laptop the Nirto 5 with a ryzen 4000/5000 or intel 10400h  and both with a 1650 would be great. Of course not good as a desktop but far easier to take with.

 

 

[ParrotPal]

15 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The fx4100 is a terrible cpu today (was also just bad when it came out) so don't use that. I'd honestly either go with something used with an older i7 in it that can be taken with or a cheaper gaming laptop like a acer Nitro 5.

 

In todays market building is normally more expensive than just buying one. I can safely recommend the hp pavilion gaming desktop with a ryzen 4600h and a gtx 1650 in it (make sure it's the one with a ssd). It's a good computer and right in your budget.  Better than what you will be able to make + light and small.

 

Monitor wise I'd say look at local used and get him a cheapo 1080p screen for 20 pounds for each house if you go this way. He can upgrade later if he wants.

 

Just a sidenote the xps is NOT a gaming laptop. It's a glorified office laptop. It SUCKS at cooling it's hardware leading to lowered performance, issues in games due to overheating,... it really is just a expensive disappointment.

 

@ParrotPal that TUF has bad cooling and is not a great laptop due to using multiple generations old hardware by now. Do not buy for op.

 

For a laptop the Nirto 5 with a ryzen 4000/5000 or intel 10400h  and both with a 1650 would be great. Of course not good as a desktop but far easier to take with.

 

 

About the TUF you can get one on ebay cheap and its to run Minecraft and Fortnie so your right any r5 and 1650 could easily ran dat

[Rameares]

I wouldn't get the chrome book my two have them and for use during lockdown they didn't play well with the resource their schools used for remote learning. They probably could with purchasing pdf software and an office suite but you can pay more for a laptop and get free software which results in a lower overall cost.

 

in that budget range I would build a I3-10105F and RX6600xt system based on current price and availability in the uk.

I3-10105f - £80

H410 motherboard - £70

2 x 8GB DDR4 - £60

500GB SSD - ~ £40.00

Case complete with RGB fans - £30 - £40

Psu - £35 (low cost reputable brand, with 2 pci-e cables)

 

That's a total of £300 to £350 before adding a graphics card. I would pair a GTX 1650 super or a GTX 1660 with that system if you can find one for the £200 they should sell for. With them not being readily available I would opt for a RTX 3060 or RX 6600 XT for around £430.

If I was building it my self I would source an old dell or zoostorm pc checking they have standard atx motherboards and move it to your existing case, use the corsair PSU and GTX 750 ti. and give him that to start. should cost you in the region of £80 to £200 depending on what generation of processor you aim for. 

 

 

 

[jaslion]

30 minutes ago, ParrotPal said:

About the TUF you can get one on ebay cheap and its to run Minecraft and Fortnie so your right any r5 and 1650 could easily ran dat

Issue is that the ryzen 3750h kinda just sucks so not a great laptop to last long.

[CraigShields]

Thanks all for the replies, this has been really helpful. I think I'm going to go down the laptop route. I have been looking at the Aser Nitro 5 throughout the day and looks really promising. Linus did a video on the 2018 and 2019 models and they were very positive. I can't find an AMD \ GTX version but have found these specs for £699 

• Intel® Core™ i5-11300H Processor
• RAM: 8 GB / Storage: 512 GB SSD
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB
• 140 FPS when playing Fortnite at 1080p
• Full HD screen / 144 Hz

Is there a huge difference between the i5 and the Ryzen 4000/5000?