Lol, you went through all that trouble for nothing... I'm not even sure that Ryzen 7 comes with a stock cooler, last I checked only Ryzen 5's and below come with coolers. If he were to run that Ryzen 7 he would also most likely need a a really high end fan cooler or radiator set up which means more money. Its also overkill, like way overkill. You also didn't include a graphics card which just so happens to be the most important part of a gaming computer unless that MB has on board graphics which by the way means he might as well be playing Xbox or a Nintendo Switch... OP, I did a quick search. If you are going to try and buy him a prebuilt "gaming" pc you honestly probably wont be spending less than $700 for something decent. In all honesty you could buy any desktop with an expandable pci express slot, a Ryzen 5-3 processor and a solid state drive and run pretty much everything with the addition of a low end graphics card which is fairly simple to install. No, he won't be gaming in 1440P with huge frame rate numbers but if he is really into pc gaming he will be able to play nearly everything in lower-medium settings and could be a good intro into the platform. Its also a good opportunity to upgrade said pc together so he can learn components eventually build his own in the future. Good Luck!
By the way Best Buy has an HP Open Box with a Ryzen 5 and 12 GB of ram and a solid state drive for $430.00 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-des...y-512gb-ssd-jet-black/6477682.p?skuId=6477682 Add an Amd RX580 graphics card that thing will smoke any console on the market... Best Buy has one for $150.00 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/xfx-am...ess-3-0-graphics-card/6136515.p?skuId=6136515 That's right below $700.00 but probably the best case scenario for him. Since its HP, he won't have that many options for overclocking the CPU but cmon... Max he will be doing for a while is downloading steam games and playing them...
How about a laptop? https://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-g...1247c0f11ed8f439ee15ae9a4c50INT&skuId=6510326 Open Box for $632 Ryzen 6800H 500gb SSD RTX 3050ti 16 gb Ram 120 hz Screen
The 5700g should have integrated graphics, but it's not gonna be good. The motherboard has expansion slots to upgrade with a GPU but you'll want a bigger power supply. But like I said, OP isn't building a rig. As Salvy mentioned, it's slim pickings for a budget gaming PC. Manufacturers caught on that people are willing to shell out big bucks for the higher end builds. A quick search on best buy, microcenter, and Costco doesn't have good budget rigs.
AMD APUs have integrated Radeon graphics and it comes stock with a cooler. Perfectly fine for an 11 year old.
Yeah I was surprised, I for sure thought there would be some $500 ish gaming pc's . I don't think a build is a realistic option for OP, with the slight exception of him upgrading the basics like graphics card and ram... Even then like you said it has to be a pretty low powered graphics card or he will need a power supply. This one is tough, a Steam Deck maybe?
Honestly, a Steam Deck with a port replicator/docking station, 1080p monitor and keyboard/mouse and cheap headset is a pretty good setup for a ‘low-end’ gaming pc for under $700. The only ‘down side’ is that it’s Linux, not Windows, but that doesn’t matter as much as it once did, especially with Google Docs. Checks all the boxes @JayZ750 : Gaming: can play lots of Steam games and Emudeck for console emulation Videos- can watch Youtube, Netflix, etc via Chrome Schoolwork- Google Docs Coding - it’s Linux The biggest upside is just grabbing it and being able to take it on the go. $399 for the low-end version which you can upgrade the storage on with a micro sd card later. https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck 1-2 week delivery time. I would do this for a 11yo. I love mine. You could give the Steam Deck for xmas and then the desktop setup equipment later for the birthday. 1080p monitor - $100 Docking station/port replicator - $60 Keyboard/mouse - $20 Headset -$20 MicroSD card -$20
The fact that its portable would be great so his son can take it to school, I have a gaming pc and a Switch and I find myself playing the Switch way more than my PC.... And that thing is ancient and super underpowered. He could easily build his steam library with a steam deck and later on get a gaming pc if he decided he even likes the platform. I'm actually surprised an 11 yo old wants a pc instead of an Xbox or PS5...
I have 4 kids. We have 2 switches, a PS5 and an XBox (not latest generation but prior one). so that’s fun. thanks for all your posts. Do I follow it all? Not really but I’m not a complete idiot lol. Sounds like that Costco one is solid?!? appreciated!
Yeah I'd say The Costco one seems to be the best bang for your buck, my only concern is the other non essential stuff to achieve the price. But the really important stuff is all there and worth it, the graphics cards and cpu alone would run you about $450-$500 alone.... Most newer games will run on 16gb of ram and this has 32.... Yeah, if anything was to go bad in the future the essential stuff is all there that repairing or upgrading it would be totally worth it... Good luck!!!
Not really about a gaming computer, but finding deals on refurbished computers for the younger children at a thrift store such as Goodwill Computer Works would help offset some of the spending on the gaming computer for the one that is 11 years old. A while back in the Thinkpad section of Reddit, somebody bragged about the deals that he was able to find sometimes in Austin. We don't know the ages of the younger children, but a child of 6 - 7 is unlikely to need the latest & greatest computer with 16 GB Ram.
maybe just an ipad and a subscription to nord vpn would be sufficient. i also do videos... and occasional coding...
@Salvy what you think of this deal? HP Victus Gaming Desktop - 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700F - GeForce RTX 3060 Ti - Windows 11 | Costco
Solid deal, just know the specs on that is probably overkill for what your son will use it for but as he grows older he could potentially (not that he needs to but he can) change the case for better cooling and motherboard for tunability. Processor, graphics card, ram and ssd are all set for a good rig.... PS. You probably already know this but it does not come with a monitor....
That's a better PC than the $700 one. That $700 PC is still in like, the top 10% computers out there. The CPU and GPU are better by a margin. Your son is lucky to get such a strong system. My kid will get hand me downs.
