New gaming PC build for my son

M

Meteor_of_War

New member
My 13 year old son has been gaming on an old PC for a while now and at the start of the school year I told him to work hard and if he gets straight A's all year I'd build him a new PC. Welp, he's almost to the end of the year and yep he's so far got straight A's and high honors and looking like its going to continue on his last report card.

For the past couple years he's been using an old office PC from my wife's work that has I believe an i3-4330, GT 1030, and 8GB of RAM. Here's what I'm looking to build for him:

CPU - Ryzen 5600 - $176

Motherboard (one of these) -
GB B550 gaming X V2 - $130
ASUS Prime B550-PLUS - $135
MSI B550-A PRO - $140

Memory -
DDR4 16GB (2x 8GB) - $70-$80 (haven't picked brand yet)

Hard drive -
1TB Crucial P2 M.2 - $91

GPU -
EVGA RTX 3060 XC BLACK GAMING 12GB - $400

Power Supply -
EVGA SuperNOVA 750W 80+ Gold - $75

OS -
Windows 10 PRO - $22 (I'll find from some online key site)

Case -
Will likely let him choose one

Other stuff like monitor and peripherals he has already. He'll be using my old DELL 27" 1440p display for now.

Going by current prices looks like it will cost me approximately $1100 or so. Cherry on top of it is I will have him build it himself, with me guiding him of course.
 
Meteor_of_War said:
My 13 year old son has been gaming on an old PC for a while now and at the start of the school year I told him to work hard and if he gets straight A's all year I'd build him a new PC. Welp, he's almost to the end of the year and yep he's so far got straight A's and high honors and looking like its going to continue on his last report card.

For the past couple years he's been using an old office PC from my wife's work that has I believe an i3-4330, GT 1030, and 8GB of RAM. Here's what I'm looking to build for him:

CPU - Ryzen 5600 - $176

Motherboard (one of these) -
GB B550 gaming X V2 - $130
ASUS Prime B550-PLUS - $135
MSI B550-A PRO - $140

Memory -
DDR4 16GB (2x 8GB) - $70-$80 (haven't picked brand yet)

Hard drive -
1TB Crucial P2 M.2 - $91

GPU -
EVGA RTX 3060 XC BLACK GAMING 12GB - $400

Power Supply -
EVGA SuperNOVA 750W 80+ Gold - $75

OS -
Windows 10 PRO - $22 (I'll find from some online key site)

Case -
Will likely let him choose one

Other stuff like monitor and peripherals he has already. He'll be using my old DELL 27" 1440p display for now.

Going by current prices looks like it will cost me approximately $1100 or so. Cherry on top of it is I will have him build it himself, with me guiding him of course.
Click to expand...

That right there is going to mean the most to him, no doubt. A sense of pride that he built it with his Dad.
 
Nice choice. I would try to stretch the 3060 to a 3070. Plenty of deals around and might even be ok to buy used from Hardforum or something. Those $100 would give a ton of longevity to the build and I am sure you will keep it long.
 
KAC said:
Nice choice. I would try to stretch the 3060 to a 3070. Plenty of deals around and might even be ok to buy used from Hardforum or something. Those $100 would give a ton of longevity to the build and I am sure you will keep it long.
Click to expand...

There's always the question of going a little more on the GPU, which I did think of. But honestly my son hardly ever plays resource demanding games so its really not worth it. He plays mostly games like Terraria, Minecraft, Binding of Isaac, Risk of Rain, Counter-Strike, etc. The only game he wants to play at the moment that his PC can't run is Elden Ring. But other than that the 3060 will be overkill for everything he plays. Honestly this is just to get him a modern PC that isn't slow in Windows and to finally have an SSD.

So I placed the order for everything except the case. Will let him go buy one himself once he's finished with school next month so there's at least one thing he personally chose. Here's the final parts and costs:

CPU -
Ryzen 5600X - $208.99

Motherboard -
Gigabyte B550 GAMING X V2 - $129.99

Memory -
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3200 F4-3200C16D-16GVKB - $62.99

Boot/Storage drive -
Crucial P2 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD Up to 2400 MB/s - CT1000P2SSD8 - $99.99

Power Supply -
EVGA SuperNOVA 750 GT, 80 Plus Gold 750W - $67.49 (w/EVGA member discount from acroig)

GPU -
EVGA RTX 3060 XC BLACK GAMING 12GB - $387.99 (w/EVGA member discount from acroig)
 
Wouldn’t have bought a Gigabutt board but that’s just me (I am running one btw and it has been rock solid).

Congrats on the purchase. Hopefully he stays with retro games in the future as well :bleh:. Kids grow older and demand more, hence, my reco. His past behavior may also been a function of what GPU he had.

Hope he likes it and continues to stay motivated for his studies.
 
Thanks guys.
KAC said:
Wouldn’t have bought a Gigabutt board but that’s just me (I am running one btw and it has been rock solid).

Congrats on the purchase. Hopefully he stays with retro games in the future as well :bleh:. Kids grow older and demand more, hence, my reco. His past behavior may also been a function of what GPU he had.

Hope he likes it and continues to stay motivated for his studies.
Click to expand...
I thought that as well but I've showed him higher end games many times and told him he can play on my PC but he just prefers the more minimalistic indie games. I brought him up on true retro games like NES/SNES/PS1 so that likely is why.

He likes rogue-likes a lot. But Elden Ring caught his eye and he started playing that a little. So who knows.
 
Sure thing. Will post pics of the parts and also of the build when its completed.

About the case, I'm thinking maybe we'll take a ride to Microcenter and have him choose one there.
 
Selling that dell and buying a cheaper 1080p monitor might be a good idea, it will add some longevity to that rig.
 
Mangler said:
Selling that dell and buying a cheaper 1080p monitor might be a good idea, it will add some longevity to that rig.
Click to expand...

That is actually a good suggestion. His DELL is 1440p but he's been gaming at 1080p just to get better performance. 1440 would be viable but realistically this new build is kind of specced out for 1080p gaming.

I don't know if I'd get all that much from selling it though. Recent Ebay sold listings have it anywhere from $90-$200, but I'd likely sell it locally and would get much less.

Still I'm going to consider it. Would be nice to get him a higher refresh rate monitor too, since this DELL is still only 60Hz.
 
acroig said:
1080p 144Hz with Freesync is the way to go there.... if you can.

I have this one but I got it for much less at Thanksgiving sale in 2019:

https://www.microcenter.com/product/633304/aoc-24g2-238-full-hd-(1920-x-1080)-144hz-gaming-monitor
Click to expand...

I'll keep it in mind, thanks.

Since he's got the old DELL, I think we'll build the new PC and see how it does with the current monitor. If it gets the job done and he's happy I may just hold off on it and save getting a new one for a later gift giving occasion.
 
Meteor_of_War said:
I'll keep it in mind, thanks.

Since he's got the old DELL, I think we'll build the new PC and see how it does with the current monitor. If it gets the job done and he's happy I may just hold off on it and save getting a new one for a later gift giving occasion.
Click to expand...

Perfect! He should have fun picking out the case at MC.
 
You should gently nudge him towards cases that have proper intakes on the front though, airflow matters.
 
Pretty awesome stuff. Teaching him how to build early is a great idea.. my dad did the same.
 
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