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[relluf]

One of my lads has requested a "gaming" pc for his Christmas gift, which would be fine ,its gets him off the house pc!
But being a bit thick on that side of things I am not really sure what to look for !
His favorite things seem to be minecraft ,some steam games mostly counter strike go and obviously usual pc email,word docs and the like.
Budget up to about £350.
Any one any recommendations? or what to look for spec wise?

Thanks in advance.

[annihilator]

Hi,have done a few for my nephew and if as I suspect he is like minded £350 isn't going to get you a new one that will cope with the latest games as you can pay £350 and more just for the graphics card.If you can build your own then then it might be possible.
My nephews current spec. is
Z97 motherboard
2x8gb ram
I5 4590 Cpu
HD 7970 3gb graphics card
650w power supply
120gb SSD
2TB storage HDD

This setup although not the latest specs. plays most games at ultra or high graphics settings and I've had no complaints from my nephew.
John.

[tunnie]

£350 is a very low budget, you can easily spend more than that on just a graphics card.

With that budget, I'd look at new generation Xbox or PS4 

[driver115]

Yes agree with Tunnie, assembled and sold pc`s for a number of years before retiring, and pc`s and gamers = moneypit with no upper limit to the spend especially when someone else is paying

[annihilator]

can easily spend more than that on just a graphics card

didn't i just say that 

[Terbs]

I build my own, I am an avid Flight Simulator. Its a cheaper way to go....however, I am always running at least six months behind with the specs. But I can't afford the four figure sums they want for top gaming machines.

[TheBoy]

Poxy stupid oppsing network, my long in-detail post lost. Due to router's inability to route simple bloody packets. PoS.


Anyway, broadly along lines, for budget, get gaystation 4 or sexbox one.

If you up buget to 4 figures, you may get something near top notch. Branded is best for reliability and thermal design, *IF* you can get right spec.

Self build more expensive, a thermal mess, but you get exactly what you want.  If you go this route, as always, avoid components from likes of Asus, MSI etc

[relluf]

Wow!! four figure sums being bandied about!!

Thanks for all the input guys , we do already have Xbox one which gets used avidly for footie and racing games etc but doesn't seem to be whats required for the online interactive things he does, by all accounts its counterstrike or something

so what I am after is something to put in his room ( I have three teenage boys) which he can have just for his own use.
I can and will stretch the budget a bit but essentially its a pc for his room !!so don't really want to spend mega bucks.


When I in my ignorance I google what I think I need I end up at places like pc world and things like this
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pcs/desktop-pcs/pc-specialist-vortex-core-gaming-pc-10146634-pdt.html

I don't generally go for their stuff but is this bad or good or indifferent or just crap??

At the end of the day its a pc for a teenagers bedroom!!

[Terbs]

Have a look at somewhere like ebuyer.com. Probably get a better spec for that money☺

[tunnie]

Wow!! four figure sums being bandied about!!

Thanks for all the input guys , we do already have Xbox one which gets used avidly for footie and racing games etc but doesn't seem to be whats required for the online interactive things he does, by all accounts its counterstrike or something

so what I am after is something to put in his room ( I have three teenage boys) which he can have just for his own use.
I can and will stretch the budget a bit but essentially its a pc for his room !!so don't really want to spend mega bucks.


When I in my ignorance I google what I think I need I end up at places like pc world and things like this
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pcs/desktop-pcs/pc-specialist-vortex-core-gaming-pc-10146634-pdt.html

I don't generally go for their stuff but is this bad or good or indifferent or just crap??

At the end of the day its a pc for a teenagers bedroom!!

You need to find out exactly what they want to do, as there are good deals on XBox 1-S at the moment, can be had for £250 with a game.

This would easily wipe the floor with a custom build £350 PC, you want to add an extra one in front of that for a half decent PC build.

[aaronjb]

If he's really into his CS: GO he's going to want an actual computer with a mouse and keyboard, though.. not to mention CS: GO is a four year old game so anything recent ought to be more than man enough - no need to go spending £1000 on an Nvidia Titan GPU (yep, Franks Dad, if you wanted a top end gaming PC you need to put a zero on the end of your budget and even then you're not at "top flight" price!).

A core i3 with a 'last gen' GPU would be more than enough so look to spend about £500 on the whole rig I'd say.  Something like this will consistently top 100FPS on nearly maximum detail: https://www.cclonline.com/pc/gaming-pcs/elite/GAME-ELITE010000010402/

Something like this will probably run max detail: https://www.cclonline.com/pc/gaming-pcs/elite-pro/GAME-ELITEP010102010102/

For reference, here's a video of some guy playing CS:GO on a Core i3 3.3GHz w/ GTX 1050, so slightly lower spec CPU than the first link there but slightly better graphics card: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4jciyxOzS8

[relluf]

If he's really into his CS: GO he's going to want an actual computer with a mouse and keyboard, though.. not to mention CS: GO is a four year old game so anything recent ought to be more than man enough - no need to go spending £1000 on an Nvidia Titan GPU (yep, Franks Dad, if you wanted a top end gaming PC you need to put a zero on the end of your budget and even then you're not at "top flight" price!).

A core i3 with a 'last gen' GPU would be more than enough so look to spend about £500 on the whole rig I'd say. Something like this will consistently top 100FPS on nearly maximum detail: https://www.cclonline.com/pc/gaming-pcs/elite/GAME-ELITE010000010402/

Something like this will probably run max detail: https://www.cclonline.com/pc/gaming-pcs/elite-pro/GAME-ELITEP010102010102/

For reference, here's a video of some guy playing CS:GO on a Core i3 3.3GHz w/ GTX 1050, so slightly lower spec CPU than the first link there but slightly better graphics card: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4jciyxOzS8

Thanks Aaron
Looked at the specs on this and been in touch with a local private pc place who say they can do something very similar inc Win10 and a "gaming" keyboard(whatever that is) and a monitor for £570.
 More than we anticipated but looking at all the other comments also a lot less than we could spend!!!

Thanks for the pointers

[TheBoy]

Looked at the specs on this and been in touch with a local private pc place who say they can do something very similar inc Win10 and a "gaming" keyboard(whatever that is) and a monitor for £570.

Before committing, find out exact spec of components - as its every so easy for backstreet shops to use lower quality parts that give good marketing bullshit.  And backstreet shops will usually throw it together with no regard or thought to the thermal requirements, and at best, just shove in more noisy fans (that will often make matters worse) than work out how to do a proper thermal solution - TBH I have concerns about that CCL one thermally, but at these they've had the balls to name the components used (mostly in the OK to Good category).

[relluf]

Looked at the specs on this and been in touch with a local private pc place who say they can do something very similar inc Win10 and a "gaming" keyboard(whatever that is) and a monitor for £570.

Before committing, find out exact spec of components - as its every so easy for backstreet shops to use lower quality parts that give good marketing bullshit.  And backstreet shops will usually throw it together with no regard or thought to the thermal requirements, and at best, just shove in more noisy fans (that will often make matters worse) than work out how to do a proper thermal solution - TBH I have concerns about that CCL one thermally, but at these they've had the balls to name the components used (mostly in the OK to Good category).

Ok So this is whats being suggested ,nothing hard or fast yet so please chip in and make suggestions please either good or bad

Motherboard  Asus (don't tell TB)
Chip   intel dual core 3.1 ghz
memory   hyperx 8gb ram
hard drive  1tb sata 3
cd rom dvdrw dual layer  (don't know make)
23"Hp monitor
Network 10/100/1000 lan
video card asus gt730 2gb
sound card 8ch audio
case 500w atx  ?
optical mouse
cpu fan  Intel   (don't know any specs)
Operating system Win 10 64bit

£480.91 plus Vat
With a choice of keyboards

[Mr Gav]

Poxy stupid oppsing network, my long in-detail post lost. Due to router's inability to route simple bloody packets. PoS.


Anyway, broadly along lines, for budget, get gaystation 4 or sexbox one.

If you up buget to 4 figures, you may get something near top notch. Branded is best for reliability and thermal design, *IF* you can get right spec.

Self build more expensive, a thermal mess, but you get exactly what you want.  If you go this route, as always, avoid components from likes of Asus, MSI etc

I don`t quite agree with that....Asus motherboards are generally well regarded though personally I prefer Gigabyte and i`m using a MSI GPU at the moment and seem solid so far.

If you`re self building then it shouldn`t be a thermal mess either cos you should be researching case, cpu fan, cable routing, and thermal paste application. Get it right and you should have a quick cool gaming pc with everything you want at a price  you can afford.

One of my lads has requested a "gaming" pc for his Christmas gift, which would be fine ,its gets him off the house pc!
But being a bit thick on that side of things I am not really sure what to look for !
His favorite things seem to be minecraft ,some steam games mostly counter strike go and obviously usual pc email,word docs and the like.
Budget up to about £350.
Any one any recommendations? or what to look for spec wise?

Thanks in advance.

At £350 you will struggle to play the latest games at all let alone on high settings, My gpu was £259 and will only play Battlefield 4 on high settings, add in the i5 4690k and you`re already touching the £500 mark.
As others say if £350 is your budget then go down the ps4 route, if you still want to build a pc then don`t cut corners with the PSU, good brand is a must and go with 650w or more.