Clueless and confused technophobe wants to know if I can get a half decent gaming PC for £500?

[GetAFurqingCompass]

First off, forgive my possibly unrealistic budget, incorrect terminology, lack of knowledge, and general woeful ignorance about PCs

DS will be 16 this summer and currently has a very old PC that came from a relative, which constantly overheats and doesn't run many of the games he wants. He is such a good kid and although I know it really frustrates him he doesn't complain about it, he is just saving up to buy himself a better one. I have a budget of £500 for his birthday (much more than usual for various reasons) and would love to be able to get him one as a surprise.

He mainly plays historical, fantasy, or strategy games through Steam. He is not into racing, shooting, or sports type games, if that makes a difference to what is suitable.

He sent me these spec when I asked him what he was looking for: MINIMUM:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows® 10 Home 64 bit
PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-750 | AMD FX 4300
MEMORY: 8 GB RAM
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | AMD Radeon HD 7870 | Intel Arc A310 | Intel Iris Plus G7 | AMD Radeon Vega 11
STORAGE: 20 GB available space

We did go to the local independent computer shop a few weeks ago to ask them but they were very very discouraging, saying we wouldn't get anything worth having for less than £1k and that even that was a low budget. They were meant to be getting in touch about upgrading some parts of his existing computer but they seemed to think even that would be very expensive and they haven't got back to us anyway.

Is it really not going to be possible to get anything for £500? Am I terribly out of touch with what things cost? I just know so little that I don't even know where to start!

Ds says those games don't require massive processing power.

If you live anywhere near the NE dh says he can give you a computer which would run those games.

You could have a look at pc specialist. They do a lot of gaming PCs.
They currently have one on the site from £550 - no monitor etc though.

I don't know if it would meet your specs but I bought my last two laptops from them and the staff were brilliant at helping with the configuration, even advised me when I added stuff in that I didn't need.

It might be worth giving them a call

If DS is familiar enough with PC hardware, you will get more bang for your buck buying components individually and assembling the PC yourself. It isn't complicated, it's not all that different to assembling a simple Lego kit, but you do need a little bit of tech knowledge to get on top of BIOS options so the machine runs properly, and he'd have to install the OS himself, which is also idiot-proof but does require having a licence to begin with.

£500 is still not going to build anything that will either run anything but the simplest of games, or not require almost immediate and ongoing upgrades. Double that, and you are getting towards being viable, but ideally you'd want around £1500 for something that would be bombproof for the next 3 or 4 years. Then you also have to consider Monitor, peripherals, cabling etc.

Scan and Ebuyer are where I usually source my components, but Amazon can also be worth a look as well for certain items. The key thing is not to commit to buying one specific brand of GPU or Motherboard, because you'll often find much the same thing at a better price by a different manufacturer. You can cheap-out a little bit on a case provided it accommodates adequate cooling, because ultimately flashy looks don't contribute anything to a PC's performance, but the things I would suggest you do buy from reputable manufacturers are the RAM, any storage drives, and the PSU, because these are the areas where cheap tends to lead to short life and set-up/performance issues.

no £500 wont go far. Half decent your looking at £1k. Decent 3-5k.

DS has additional needs and isn't likely to be able to cope with building his own! He did start looking into it but quickly got overwhelmed. Whilst he really enjoys a bit of gaming he isn't a full blown computer geek by any means.

All this advice from everyone has been so helpful, thank you all. Lots to think about and look into!

@smallglassbottle unfortunately we are about as far from you as it gets 😂 but that's a very kind offer.

To give you a point of reference, the Steam machine prices were announced yesterday - this is an entry point PC designed solely for playing games. It has lower capabilities than the PS5 and the cheapest model is £938 with a controller. But it's something to consider.

Like many have said you’re really looking at £1k upward for a reasonable gaming laptop/computer. But! There are some deals if you look!! My gaming laptop came from Very and after some research it was cheaper there than Currys and other places and because I took out there “by now pay later” I got £150 cash back. Acer also offer cashback through places like TopCashBack. I wouldn’t necessarily buy a laptop or computer from Amazon though (just my preference) - always do some research and look around and compare!

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce-now/

Would it be possible to use this service. Its relatively new and is like a netflix for games. Its all streamed and has good reviews

The ultimate plan is £20 per month.

Why not see if his existing pc will let him set it up. If it works out you will both save a lot of money and he can play all his games. Worth a try for £20.

Ask him to look into it and ask chatgpt about his curent setup and how it will work with geforce Now.

I would get anyone and everyone who wants to get him a present to contribute and then see how much all that added together is.

Then take him and the cash to have a look somewhere, have you got an electronics exchange, sell and buy place? They staff are amazing, super geeks, and happy to spend time talking computers. They might have something second hand, but they test, wipe data and get everything sorted for you, which would mean a better machine, just second hand, they might even have additional RAM and would insert it for you.

CeX stores are a national store which does this sort of thing.

And stores will be more amenable to a 16 year old, whose budget isn't the biggest, getting a great machine. Rather than an adult trying to get a bargain.

In that case, you might want to look at PCPartPicker and similar then.

The issue with buying pre-built, off the shelf machines is you are pretty much bound to whatever the seller has decided to install in the machine, and frequently to get the specs you actually need you have to overpay because there will be one or perhaps two parts on the cheaper option which are insufficient.

The sites which let you dictate precise spec and then assemble the machine on your behalf are a bit more flexible, so its kinda a half-way option in terms of cost between buying off the shelf and buying components

If DS knows roughly the specs he wants, this might be the best option assuming you pool all gift monies, savings etc. It still wont be £500, but you'll still get a better machine for less than just buying pre-assembled.

Try Stone Refurb. I got their 399 gaming pc for my birthday in march. I’ve played baldurs gate 3, clair obscur, outer worlds 2, easily. I had a minor technical issue and their techie spent half an hour or so sorting it out for me. I really rate them.

Although the pcs are refurbs, they come in a new case with leds and look the part. They are far, far better at gaming than something that just runs Minecraft and Roblox.

Unfortunately no, you won't get something worth having for that price.

Have a look into GeForce Now. Might be an option for him until he can get what he wants.

Any opinions on this...?

https://www.stonerefurb.co.uk/stone-prime-2025-gaming-pc

Geek H says
processor isn’t best
16RAM is fine
Graphics card Ok
bit you struggle with is hard drive - very small for a gaming machine

ok deal for what it is

but

might be disappointed quite quickly in terms of play etc

Thank you that's helpful!

Can a hard drive be changed or upgraded later? I don't even really know what a hard drive does. Is it just storage?

No do not get a Dell or Acer or any of those. They are not great gaming PCs.

I would agree with this. My 6 yr old laptop has an i5 processor (my gaming laptop has an i9 - for comparison). You want to get something that is a bit better than the spec needed for the games he’s playing now as future games maybe more labour intensive.

Hard drive = long term storage. You can also use an SSD (solid state drive, like a giant permanently fitted memory stick)
RAM = working memory - basically how much stuff it can store in the very short term in order to do complicated stuff in programmes or switching programmes etc.
CPU = computing power, the more "cores" it has the more calculations it can do at once, and the higher the speed. I usually look these up on CPU comparison: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleCompare.php
Graphics card = CPU but specially designed for graphics processing.

Worth noting that I think Windows 10 isn't getting security upgrades any more so I think you need Windows 11.

That’s the one I have. It plays baldurs gate Without any frame rate loss and that’sa reasonably demanding game. Will it be able to play top spec games in three years time? Probably not. But it can play them now, perfectly well. Not in the highest settings, but that’s the difference between 399 and 1999.

Also, if it’s the difference between having a gaming pc or having no gaming pc, then whether it can play games three years in the future is a bit besides the point.

Perhaps Awd-it would be good for you? Although you would be looking at 1k+
I got my dc one from Awd-it in costco, no idea on spec etc but it works for the gaming they do. Also Awd-it were great when I called them because I was confused getting it set up. They were really friendly, and I'm sure would help with finding the right PC

Feel for you OP. And your son has great taste - CKIII is my favourite game! In all honesty, could you and family give him the cash and he can then buy his own - whether that’s right away or he saves up a bit more? I honestly think that would be best than getting something not good enough and spending all that money. I’m sure he would be really overjoyed to do it.