To not let DD use her savings on a gaming computer?

[edole]

DD has saved over the years from birthdays and christmases and also from grandparent money when she goes and sees them. She enjoys THREE just 3 computer games and she now wants a gaming computer. The one she wants is 2 grand she has about £1500 in the bank and as her birthday is 2 weeks before Christmas she will get around £500 for them both combined (in total from everyone). So she wants it then.

I have so far said absolutely not, it's far far too much and it's better to save it for maybe a car when she's old enough to learn to drive. AIBU

I don't understand your objection. She could have bought a hundred magazines or something spread over the years she's been saving, but she hasnt! She hasn't frittered it away, she's saved it for a big ticket item.

As a compromise maybe you could research with her and encourage a cheaper one?

Same age DC has just bought their own gaming PC and loves it and is now saving again to add higher spec parts and different keyboard and mouse and wants to build another one from scratch.

YAbsolutelyABU!

What on earth was the point in her saving? She must be gutted!

P.S buying a cheaper PC is a false economy, the parts won't be as good and you'll need to upgrade it or buy a new one much sooner because they will be out of date and won't be able to play newer gamers.

You could buy a good second hand one for around £500 and then save again to upgrade a part at a time.

I think a compromise is needed here.

May I hijack his thread slightly and ask what I should be looking for in a gaming laptop? Dd2 is after one for Xmas but I can no way spend ££££s on one, I'm aiming for £600 max

What could I compromise on? Any advice great fully received!

Personally I would not recommend a gaming laptop.

A gaming computer can be used for anything high spec and would be essential if she wanted a serious career in IT.

Personally, I regard a computer as a more positive way to spend money than a console, given how educational they can be. Ultimately, it's her money.

heymammy, gaming laptops are a bit of a waste of money, in my opinion, since you're spending an awful lot for a very small return in computing power compared to a desktop. I don't know your full situation but would a desktop PC be incompatible with your situation?

Fgs just let her buy what she wants.

*You could buy a good second hand one for around £500 and then save again to upgrade a part at a time.

I think a compromise is needed here.*

Why though? She's diligently saved her money, identified something she wants. It's her money. As well as gaming, it'll be useful for homework, TV streaming, music etc.

Why buy cheap, then spend the next two years spending exactly the same (if not more) on upgrading it slowly, instead of buying a top spec to begin with? It's a false economy.

Would it be better to get a pc Reaa? She wanted a laptop so she could take it back and forward between her dad's and mine but maybe that's something we need to compromise on?

Not a chance in hell. At 14 of course you can tell her no.

£600 would get a much better pc than laptop. It would be a waste to spend it on a laptop.

Alienware are overpriced rubbish now.

Check out somewhere like pc specialist where you can configure a pc to your needs which can be much cheaper than buying out of the box from pc world.
Graphics card, RAM and processor are important. Soundcard, huge hard disk not so important.
No need for dvd drive nowadays.

YABU. It's her money and she'll also use it for homework etc.
Dp and Ds are both gamers. They did a lot of research and got independent shops to put the pcs together at the spec they wanted; at least half the price of what you'd pay in PC World etc. Maybe get her to do a bit of research and shop around. They spent about £600 each for high spec.

Thanks Gronky, same advice as Reaa, will need to reconsider and look at desktops instead.

She wants to study Computing Science at Dundee Uni and focus in computer games development so a decent investment would make much more sense.

Thanks all

She's saving her own money. You can't dictate what she spends it on. A decent machine will last year's.

Just be happy you have a saver, money burns holes in my kids pockets.

I've been a gamer for 20+ years.

At the start of last September I bought a bleeding-edge Alienware laptop for £2500 with ALL the trimmings. We're talking way beyond what any game needs in order to run smoothly.

If she's looking at buying a desktop, it should be less than £2000 for a very solid one.

She should be able to get an i7 Processor, GTX1080 GPU, 16GB of RAM and a decent SSD + HDD all for under £1500. Does she have a monitor already?

Pre-built gaming PCs always cost more than components and generally aren't worth it. Putting a PC together is very straightforward these days because a lot of the circuitry is a heck of a lot more robust than it used to be 15 years ago, and thus more forgiving of mistakes.

Encourage her to shop around and consider buying the parts and assembling it herself, rather than ordering a full PC. She would probably save about £300 by doing this. There are hundreds of youtube video tutorials showing how to put a PC together if she wants to learn.

That said, if she's been disciplined enough to save for years and years into the 2 grand territory, I'd say she's earned it. A PC this expensive will also last for a minimum of about 5 years, and even then, a couple of hundred quid in 2022 will let it last another 2-3 beyond that. Considering how many hours she's likely to sink into using it from 14-20, that could be worse.

Ask about what games she plays, and what the recommended specifications are. Point out that she's going to be able to drive in 3-4 years time and might want to think about keeping a little money back for a car, etc etc.

They did a lot of research and got independent shops to put the pcs together at the spec they wanted

This is what I do for my PCs. Get them built the way I want them. I wouldn't just buy one off the shelf, it does work out cheaper.

Yes at 14 you can say no but it’s giving a terrible message about saving for things she really wants. She might as well have blown the money on crap at the time and you’d probably have let her.

YABU you should let her get it. It's her money, and it's a sensible thing to spend on. Might end up being a future career for her.

heymammy

One other option, though it's not going to be nearly as portable as a laptop, would be a mini PC. This is purely an example, there's a lot of options out there but something like this:
www.chillblast.com/chillblast-fusion-mini-mumbo-gaming-pc-1.html?category_id=412
would be 'luggable' (anyone else remember those things?) while still giving competent performance far in excess of any similarly priced laptop.

That's a really nicely laid out set of options, Sethis.

It's her money but agree 2k is a lot. She can get a decent one for half that.

I'm a mum if a game obsessed 14yo DS who also wants a gaming computer. He has told me they are only a grand 🙄

YABU it's her money. If she wastes it it'll be a lesson learned. If she's diligently saved so long she's probably thought it through anyway.