Dad wants £500

[Glassback83]

Ds is 16 this month and we wanted to treat him. We decided to get him a PC and my dad said he could build one (he’s been building them for years), so we agreed. We spent £400 on some hard drives and another £250 on a monitor. Initially, Dad said he had bits lying around he could use but said to give him a couple of hundred pounds for other bits. The PC would be from us and my parents. Got a message from Dad yesterday and he’s asking for £500. He’s explained that he’d added everything up that he’s put in it and divided the cost between us, even though some of the parts were laying around in the back of a cupboard. Says he’s had to buy a couple of things, o e of which I know is less than £10. Too late to change our minds now as it’s already built. AIBU to be really pi**ed off? Feel like I’ve been conned by my own parents.

Lemonswan you don’t want to buy such an old computer for gaming. This is meant to last him throughout uni. It’s not even suitable for Windows 11. Nothing wrong going for 2nd hand but you want the best spec you can.

Its not about performance per se when it comes to motherboards. The problem is motherboards are built to support a certain cpu generation / architecture. They might support multiple generations like with Ryzen (you could use a B450 with a bios upgrade with Ryzen 5xxx) but especially with intel cpus they are generally a one gen thing.

hence why you would need to upgrade that in tandem with the CPU.

GPU wise, I maintain a 1080ti is a beast for almost any game (Cyberpunk excepted), just drop the resolution/settings a little. Sure, it would be nicer to have an RTX 3080 or a Radeon 6800, but then you’re spending 650-700 on that alone.

Can you just take back the hard drives you bought and buy one?

If you can that’s what I’d do.

If not then it’s good he’s climbed down.

Commenting purely in admiration of @SwanBuster ’s beautiful computer!

It is beautiful.😍

Wow, with parents like these who needs in laws?

Thank you! I built the white one for a very good friends son in late 2020.

I gave him the GPU (a GTX 1080) because of the Graphics card shortage, he is still very happy - all in £620 with a Ryzen 3700x and 32gb ram, 2tb ssd etc. Amazon warehouse deals back then were wonderful!

The CPU, GPU and motherboard are quite old, a 3060TI is better and cheaper than a 1080TI for example.

The CPU is a old quad core, he could have got a 11th gen I5 or I7 for around the same money with much better performance or gone to AMD and saved even more money.

Why have you brought 4TB of SSD?

The case is a rip off, AIO is about right.

Honestly you've been conned.

And that his grandfather customized it. If you can afford to pay the 500 without incurring debt it is a sweet thing and there won’t be a next time. Just story to be told some day after your dad is gone.

They looked a bit different when I was upgrading this in 1991 as a 12 year old.

I was a strange child though 😂

‘Do you remember when Dad tried to pass off his old components to us for £500 and then had a crisis of conscience? Happy times!'

I don’t even know why I’m reading this thread, I don’t understand any of it!

Wonderful Child! And just wanted to say props for all the Ryzen love !

😁 You'll be very pleased to know then that even back then, that computer was AMD, not intel - a 386dx @ 40 MHz 😂

Oo adding all that up at prices today from online store it comes ro just over 1500 for those parts pc parts are not cheap atm I am busy buying parts to upgrade my sons pc and its shocking the price increase I think tbh you probably over spent on hard drives never spent 400 quid on them ever and the monitor was also over priced so 650 and you expected your dad to pay over 1000 for his present since you only gave him a few 100 quid gaming pcs are expensive and the parts he has used are made from good brands that last

Lol same!

I have had so many sparkling spec computers die on me I am wondering what I am missing 🤣

Might just have to hijack the thread and ask for recommendations

I jest and don’t jest… if anyone wants to recommend an off shelf RELIABLE workhorse suitable to run Vectorworks Designer & Adobe full suite and that when it dies it dies slowly and doesn’t have a spontaneous kernel death then please do 🤣

I asked my 14 year old son who has just built his own PC and this is what he said .

Both the cpu and motherboard are over 7 year old parts yet your father is charging you current prices.

You should get a ryzen 5 5600 CPU for £150 and a B550 motherboard for £120 for brand new parts.

Also using a £200 liquid cooler aio is massive over kill , he suggests getting a Noctua NH-D15 air cooler for £90 .

The graphics card is much cheaper than it should be, they are about £300 on eBay.

I think he is trying to give you very old parts for current market prices.

The parts are old. You cannot use modern price comparison websites to gauge them.

Your son knows what he's talking about 👍

DS says he can give you an exact part list if you need one. But I’m not sure if that will help you if your dad has already bought the existing components and is not willing to return them.

Its not about performance per se when it comes to motherboards. The problem is motherboards are built to support a certain cpu generation / architecture. They might support multiple generations like with Ryzen (you could use a B450 with a bios upgrade with Ryzen 5xxx) but especially with intel cpus they are generally a one gen thing.

Ah. I already knew this. I just didn't consider it. I assumed Intel was similar to Ryzen in that with a Bios update you could use the same motherboard for a couple of generations.

I don't know why it didn't occur to me as updating a B450 to work with Ryzen 5 is exactly what I did when I built mine. Prior to building this one I had only ever upgraded components.

The build was a passion project rather than any attempt to save money or build the fastest, bestest gaming PC money could buy. I'll probaly just continue to upgrade this one rather than do a complete new build when it starts to become outdated and starts struggling.

That's simple. For the best value/performance option - Mac mini m1 with 16g of RAM and 512 SSD. Attach extra storage via thunderbolt ports.

If you have more money, MacBook Pro 14" with an M1 Pro. You can always connect external peripherals like the monitor/mouse keyboard. I use a Dell 38" monitor with USB-C and a built in kvm and switch between Pc/Mac with a couple of button presses.

The Adobe suite runs better on my Macbook Air M1 with 16gb than on my 64gb ram, RTX 3070, Ryxen 3900x. It's quite dispiriting 😂

@SwanBuster

“Your son knows what he's talking about “

I’m pleased to hear that. Because he’s just spent £570 (CPU , motherboard, power supply, case) plus what he already had ( RAM ,storage and graphics card) to build a new pc. But it’s kept him busy building it for a few days of the school holidays and then another week taking to his friends about it 😬

@1VY Funnily enough, it wasn't any of the actual 'computer' hardware (like memory, processor, graphics card) that gave it away he knew his stuff and knows what represents value for money.

It was the Noctua Fan 😂

I could almost guarantee he watches a lot of Linus tech Tips and gamers nexus on YouTube. If he doesn't watch it - tell him about 'Tech Yes City'.

It's an Australian channel and the guy on there is easily the best YouTuber for talking about price / performance and the economics of PC hardware. He's constantly scouring the second hand market and it's a good laugh to watch.

Ha ha you are right. He likes the integrity of gamers nexus. He’s off to watch Tech Yes City …..