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Gaming PC recommendations

wadesworld

wadesworld

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My son is looking to buy a desktop PC, for what else? Gaming. He's 17.

He's looking at this one:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberp...Zl9LFLId-ozpzIGb__RoC3PsQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

That looks to be pretty good, looking at the ranking of the GPU. I'd rather it have 16 GB of RAM, but he could probably get by for a little while and add more later.

One of his requirements is that it be "VR-ready" which to my reading means it has a powerful GPU and lots of USB ports. His price range would be in the "near $1,000" area. He's saving up his own money. We have a monitor at home already.

If anyone has additional recommendations I'd love to see them. Note however, I'm only interested in pre-built machines. I know putting them together is not that difficult, but I've passed that stage in my life.
 
I'd build, personally. GPUs are getting better in pricing now, and will probably only improve.

What I built for about 1,400 is worth I bet over 2,500 in a pre-built.
 
Gaming PC recommendations

Canadan said:
I'd build, personally. GPUs are getting better in pricing now, and will probably only improve.

What I built for about 1,400 is worth I bet over 2,500 in a pre-built.
Click to expand...

This! I built mine in high school and everyone since then. It’s not hard, it’s fun, and you can save money!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
VR-capable for $1000? sure
VR-ready? Not without a 1080ti IMO. Those run north of $1000, thanks bitcoin!

At least the prebuilt "battlebox" and the like have gotten better in recent years, with respected brands like iBuyPower being sold in retail stores
 
It would be hard to recommend a pre-built just because you can such better value when you build it yourself, but if you are going to get a pre-built and you want VR-Capable then I would suggest:

GPU: At least a GTX 1070 (I have one and run my rift off of it with no issues whatsoever. Even a 1060 would work but it's kind of late in the game to be getting one of those)

CPU: you are going to want something from the past 2-3 years. Nothing less than an i5 (preferably an i7, I've got an i5-4690k that works fine but could use an upgrade)

RAM: At least 16GB. most every game that is coming out now and in the near future will be pushing more than 8GB and that's not even VR games. If you can swing it don't go less than 16.

and as always an SSD is really worth the price you pay just for the extremely fast load times of your OS and all the apps you throw on it.
 
Another vote for building. My experience is that component quality and reliability are much better than the prebuilts. I built this one for media editing. It's over four years old and no component failures. Not state of the art, but still pretty powerful and more than enough for my needs
 
If you’re wanting one built, check out cyberpowerpc


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That's not a great PC for that price.

Another vote to have one built or build it yourself.

The issue I have with many pre-builts for gaming like big box stores sell are a few fold.

They aren't very upgradeable. The motherboards rarely can take more RAM, have extra slots for adding things like a true sound card or an extra GPU. The worst offender is usually the inadequate power supply included.

If I were to build one, I would get more RAM, like 16GB RAM instead of 8. The other thing would be to get two hard drives. An SSD drive for boot up and then a regular drive for storage.

Ultimately, the one you linked is okay, but will not age well. Within a year, it will need to be upgraded.
 
Another vote for building one yourself... Your problem is gonna run into is Graphics Cards. That is where the majority of the money is spent these days.
 
a component build is the way to go on a budget, but if you can't or don't want to do it, some shops will let you pick the components and assemble them for you, which might still give you a better bang for your buck
 
I have a guy that does custom builds for VR ready computers at a very competitive price for my needs, which is iRacing, with overclocking and all that good stuff. Watch out for the power supplies and cooling units, those are the first things that get neglected on these retail builds and can massively hinder performance. I've read that the CPU is actually more critical than the GPU on VR as far as what can limit performance, so don't cheap out because you don't want to be in VR running low graphics or get screen tearing. If nothing else, make sure that you get a PC that has the ability to upgrade with space as I've found some cases are very restrictive.
 
+1 to build. It's fun to nerd out on that stuff and you can focus your dollars on what's more important to you. Plus, building is a lot easier these days. I use https://pcpartpicker.com/ for all my builds for price tracking AND finding out what's compatible and what's not. Invaluable imo.
 
I echo the sentiments of others and building it yourself. It’s a decent time to do a PC gaming build now. What would be a price point you’d be looking at? Would peripherals (monitor/keyboard/mouse) be needed in budget? What resolution would he be gaming at? What games does he enjoy playing? We could probably piece together a very solid computer if we have that information
 
Given that this thread is over a year old, I'm hoping he already built one. :)

Of course, I'm sure there are many others out there in the same boat.
 
Oh. It came up on my main feed as if there was a recent post. My apologies then if it was a necro bump. :$
 
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