15 Year old Wants to Build a Computer, advice on this list of parts

[Microman]

I know he games on the Xbox, and maybe that handheld one. But here is a list of parts that he put together.

LMK, if any ideas one might have, I am sure this is hard to do, unless I ask his father what his goal is for the computer, but I will do that shortly

EDIT: He thinks he is going to use it for gaming. So does that change a lot of things? But father thinks if he starts with this hardware, he could change things later, and or upgrade, but it is a father/son project currently with these items sorta solid, as their choice. Apparently the Sight checks for compatibility between all pieces, which is nice.

[cbelt3]

It's a great goal and a good father/son experience. I would consider a better processor. The M1 Pro .. oh, wait... sorry;... i7 is pretty hot... and Cyber Monday sales are pretty good.

Control expectations...start slow and don't go all led strip and fluid cooling and whatnot. Those are fancy but also have more failure points.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

It is still tough to find video cards at reasonable prices. It would help knowing the budget and if they want to go full on PC Master Race (240Hz/1440p or 120Hz/4K).

I get the impression Apple is still turning it's nose up at working with cutting edge game developers, but an Apple mini Pro 20 core M1 Max that does ray tracing could change my mind.

[C(-)ris]

I would spend the extra for an i5 or i7. I would also go for a name brand M.2 SSD. The rest looks good for a basic build.

[Ombligo]

Like others -- go at least i5 (newegg has them for just $20 more than the i3) or at least check on the AMD Ryzen 5 processor. Also a name brand SSD

[mikebw]

i3 is weak sauce.

Also check that the case can accommodate a larger video card.

[btfc]

“ i3 is weak sauce.

Also check that the case can accommodate a larger video card. “


Micro ATX limits how that box can be upgraded; I’d go ATX for ease of assembly, versatility, and upgradability.

Shouldn’t affect the bottom line much.

I agree with others re: the SSD and i3.

[anonymouse1]

The SSD and the ram are not brand names I recognize. So I have doubts about reliability there. That’s the place I might upgrade.

[Forrest]

The Radeon HD7750 was introduced in 2012 - which is too old to play many AAA games made in the past 5 years. For perspective, Nvidia has recently dropped support for their 600/700 series graphics cards - these were introduced in 2012.

If I was building a gaming computer on a budget, I would buy one with an AMD 3rd generation Ryzen 5700g APU, which has an 8 core CPU AND an 8 core GPU, coupled with a motherboard that has BIOS Flashback BIOS Flashback allows the motherboard to update the BIOS without a processor, memory, or video card. This is useful when you need to update the BIOS to support 3rd gen Ryzen.

Most Micro ATX cases have room for a 3x wide video card which you can add for better gaming performance at a later time.

Lots of stuff on sale and in stock at Microcenter. Microcenter has updated many stores so you can buy everything and build it in the store!

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Forrest wrote:
If I was building a gaming computer on a budget, I would buy one with an AMD 3rd generation Ryzen 5700g APU, which has an 8 core CPU AND an 8 core GPU, coupled with a motherboard that has BIOS Flashback BIOS Flashback allows the motherboard to update the BIOS without a processor, memory, or video card. This is useful when you need to update the BIOS to support 3rd gen Ryzen.

Good alternative suggestions to keep the cost down. Ryzen 5700g with some fast RAM will get a computer to nearly the performance of an older GPU. It does limit the computer to performance close to a PlayStation 5, but a fast GPU in the future would be a big performance upgrade.

Gamers Nexus review: AMD $360 Ryzen 7 5700G APU Review & Benchmarks vs. R5 5600G, R7 5800X, & More https: //youtu.be/V8MG66Es2Hw