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!

Would he be open to try a steam deck? Its a handheld console that lets you play PC games, I got a basic refurbished model a couple of years ago and it still plays everything great. you can buy a dock that lets you wire it up to a monitor and use a mouse and keyboard with it.

There’s better models with better specs than the one I have that you might be able to get that plays the games he likes just fine.

Ignore if it’s not helpful

https://www.steamdeck.com/en/oled

This is a great shout if he doesn't mind playing with controller rather than keyboard.

I have one and it runs quite recent games pretty well.

The stone refurb ones will absolutely do the trick. The smallish hard drive is not a deal breaker. I spent hours and hours researching, comparing bench mark tests etc, before buying. I bought one for my daughter and then another one for myself three months later.

I’m a (not very rich) computer science teacher and it was my present to me. I spent as much as I could afford and I was very impressed for the price. I promise you, as someone with a very similar taste in games (fantasy, rp, 4x strategy games) he will be over the moon.

You can get some decent refurbished laptops on Backmarket for very reasonable prices, although not if you need bigger than a 15" screen. They're primarily business laptops, but some have very good spec that would be great for gaming too... not sure about the graphics cards, though, if they have to be top notch.

I know RAM is expensive, but 8GB is really low by modern standards. I'd suggest 16GB or even 32GB if you can - low RAM is an instant bottleneck and a huge cause of frustration, waiting and tearing your hair out, even on an otherwise decently-specced machine.

Also, when you say 20GB available space for the SSD, I presume that's on top of all the basic operating software, games and any other apps that he will want installed? If that's the total SSD memory, it will get swallowed up instantly. It's the equivalent of putting a tablespoon of petrol in your car. I know a lot is now done 'in the cloud', but you do still need plenty of local storage to stop the thing from constantly telling you to clear space to stop things from grinding to a halt. I'd say an absolute minimum of 250GB, and probably more like 500GB or more.

I agree with PP that, although £500 sounds a lot, it's an absolute false economy - as it's a considerable chunk of money to sink into it, but an additional £300 (absolute minimum) on top will make such a huge difference. You have all the basic costs - chassis, screen and keyboard etc. - covered, so a far higher proportion of the extra money can go straight to boosting performance.

Upgradability depends on the kind of case, motherboard and other components.

I’ve built a lot of machines over the years. For PCs currently you would struggle to build cheaper than you can buy, people mainly do it to get specific configurations. You can pick parts on a number of online builders - PCSpecialist is one I’ve suggested to people as I know quite a few people happy with the service. You can also talk to them and get advice on a gaming PC for Budget X which could be upgraded in future. I think they also have refurbished/end of line models.

Never build to the game’s minimum spec - its never enough. However if he has games he is really mad about is he on the game forums? Most games will have forums (often hosted by the vendor) which will include topics advising on this kind of question for the game.

I’d also recommend looking at Steamdecks. If he knows anyone with one perhaps he could give it a test drive. The games he is mad about now will undoubtedly change in a few months and the Steam catalog is massivev.

Either way - forget the surprise, have a discussion with him about the options. He is old enough to be able to do some of the research himself and then you can balance his wild notions (they will be wild) with sensible budget.

Well this is the thing, when you drill down into reviews and whatnot you get serious enthusiasts pulling stuff apart based on differences that someone like me would literally never even notice.

For some years I had a very good deal on a phone contract and had 3 flagship Samsung Galaxy handsets in a row. Then things changed and I wasn't in a position to get a top end phone again, so I did some research and ended up buying an A55 brand new for £250. To read the reviews you'd think it was a serious step down from an S series handset and would lag and overheat and take terrible photos but I genuinely have never noticed anything lacking in it. And I use my phone a lot for work purposes (including taking a lot of photos that go on social media) as well as the usual stuff like watching TV and doomscrolling. To me, it seems every bit as good as the S series ones I had for the previous few years. So it does make me wonder if the same is likely to be true for PCs...

I'm so grateful to everyone who has taken the time to advise me. I didn't expect anything like this much good advice as I assumed it was a bit of a niche question! I'm going to talk to Stone Refurb and PC Specialist this week.

It is a bit annoying when nerds enthusiasts can't differentiate between what matters to them and what will actually make a difference to the general user.

All of that great knowledge and advice they have to offer, but it's often useless when all they come back with is "You need to be spending ten grand really for the decent spec". It's a bit like whipping out a masters-level biology textbook when your 4yo asks you where babies come from!

Might be worth a look on CEX - they come with 24 month guarantees, or Ebay. Also things like cashback sites, waiting for a 'deal' weekend.

I got a new laptop recently, I did feel I was upsold to a higher spec as they were banging on about the latest tech etc. but to be fair I don't regret it as I know it will last. I got a pretty decent chunk off, like a couple of hundred due to Easter offer.

The lady in Curry's talked me out of 8GB RAM for 16GB. I also had the laptop I use for work changed to 16GB. It's difficult if not impossible to do heavy multitasking on a 8GB.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful that people with that level of knowledge and attention to detail exist and are willing to share it. It just makes reading reviews almost pointless for someone like me! Because I don't know what most of it means or how any of it matters. I get that it does matter and that to some people it really matters.

I just want DS to have a PC that can play the games he wants to play. Tbh compared to what he currently has (over 15 years old, was being chucked away from a relatives workplace, no graphics card) almost anything will represent a significant improvement 😂 Obviously though I want to get the best we can afford, but the bottom line is we can't afford much...

The computer dh suggested will play the games your ds plays without the upgraded graphics card. It will play those games with its current graphics processor, but the graphics processor linked would upgrade it even more. You absolutely don't need to spend £££ on a gaming computer.

I literally have the cheap stone refurb computer and play top end games on it. It’s fine people saying “oh but it won’t play this or that” but I literally have it, and I play them all the time! And it’s not like I’m some casual gamer who plays match 3 games. I like my games! It doesn’t just run the top end games, it runs them smoothly and without issues. Your son will love his new pc.

My DD just bought this and is very pleased with it:
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-lian-li-o11-mini-snow-edition-ryzen-5-5600x-4.6ghz-gigabyte-b550-vison-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-vision-12gb-gaming-pc.html

We had a limited budget and she did extra chores for 2-3 months to earn extra pocket money to put towards it.

It might not be top of the range, but so far so good!

https://www.costco.co.uk/Computers/Desktops-PCs-iMacs/CyberPower-AMD-Ryzen-5-16GB-RAM-1TB-SSD-NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-5060-Gaming-Desktop-PC/p/622900

This is another option that would do the job