Gaming pc basics please

[WisestIsShe]

Hi. DD has expressed an interest in saving up for a decent gaming pc. Sadlyi know nothing about them. ATM she plays Minecraft on the Xbox but is keen to expand.
I'd be grateful if anyone could offer advice about spec, price, where to buy etc or anything you wish you'd known before you bought one.
Thanks in advance.

They can be money pits, forever upgrading to keep up with new games.

Do want to buy a complete ready made PC?
Would you or someone else be putting separately purchased bits together to make one?

Id look at www.scan.co.uk and www.overclockers.co.uk both for ready built pcs and if you want to lose hours down a rabbit hole! , separate components.

I think you’re looking at £800 upwards for decent specs , that might not include a screen , keyboard or mouse!

Thanks for the reply @tanstaafl
I'm thinking of buying the complete pc and had in mind £850-1000 so glad to hear I'm not too far from the mark.
I literally have no idea about specs though, what would be considered a solid entry level spec?

www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-gamer-amd-ryzen-5-3600-8gb-ddr4-6gb-evga-gtx-1660-super-1tb-m2-ssd-win-10-see-info

Or if you want keyboard, mouse, screen, headphones and mic with it too then
www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-gamer-bundle-amd-ryzen-5-3600-8gb-ddr4-6gb-evga-gtx-1660-super-1tb-m2-ssd-win-10-see-info

For just over your budget.

Have a look at CCL online and AWD-it, both offer a range of specs and prices and get good reviews, both often come up on hotukdeals with good deals.

Processor - either i5/i7 intel or Ryzen 5/7 AMD - will be solid, there are some very good value i3 processors but you really need to know what your're looking at.

RAM 8GB absolute minimum, 16GB ideally - speed not as important as everyone makes out.

Storage - SSD at least for the operating system - 256/512gb plus a 2-4TB hard disk for storage, or a single large SSD (more expensive)

Grpahics Card currently this is the killer - super expensive at the moment - you could either go foe the absolute minimum - Nividia 1650 Super, good enough for mediocre 1080p gaming, and upgrade later, or, fork out now (bear in mind the latest graphics cards are about £1000 just for the card!)

Yikes @FixTheBone who knew a graphics card could be so expensive? Thanks for the breakdown, it's really helpful.
She currently has a laptop i5/8/256 I think but won't play on it, says it's glitchy. Basically I want to buy the most basic thing that plays well iykwim. Not cheap and rubbish, not gold standard.
Is 2-4tb required or is it better to just go for 1tb SSD? At the moment she really only plays Minecraft and sims but I can see that expanding.

@WisestIsShe

Yikes *@FixTheBone* who knew a graphics card could be so expensive? Thanks for the breakdown, it's really helpful. She currently has a laptop i5/8/256 I think but won't play on it, says it's glitchy. Basically I want to buy the most basic thing that plays well iykwim. Not cheap and rubbish, not gold standard. Is 2-4tb required or is it better to just go for 1tb SSD? At the moment she really only plays Minecraft and sims but I can see that expanding.

Benefit with a Desktop is its pretty easy to upgrade, you must, must must have an ssd for Windows to run off, it's the single biggest performance boost you can make 256gb nvme ssd is around £50, 2tb more like £300. A 4tb hdd can be had for around £60-80, some games can be 50-100gb in size. While an ssd will load games faster, it usually doesn't make a huge performance difference once its running.

Similar query but even the stuff above has blown my mind !

DS13 who plays fortnite, minecraft etc saved his money for pc but I have no idea - thanks to generous birthday gift from GP's he has about £1-1500 for it all - I'm just worried that he will end up with something that won't last - is there anywhere London or SE that anyone can recommend rather than he just blindly buys off Amazon

Thank you

@BeaLola

Similar query but even the stuff above has blown my mind !

DS13 who plays fortnite, minecraft etc saved his money for pc but I have no idea - thanks to generous birthday gift from GP's he has about £1-1500 for it all - I'm just worried that he will end up with something that won't last - is there anywhere London or SE that anyone can recommend rather than he just blindly buys off Amazon

Thank you

Definitely look at AWD-it - great prices and reputation.

The important thing is to understand how the numbering systems work for the specifications.

RAM (memory) and SSD or HDD (storage) are pretty self explanatory - measured in MB < GB < TB each one is a roughly athousand of the previous.

Processors, both intel and AMD use a similar system. intel processors are call i3, i5 or i7, i3 entry level, i5 midrange and i7 high endc(they also have some i9 ultra premium chips) Amd call theirs Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7, similar system. Then within each range there is a number that idetifies the specific chip - generally the higher the number the better. The first digit gives the generation intel are currently on 11th gen, AMD on 5, the first digit of the chip number shows the generation, then the subsequent digits the rank.

So intel i5-9400 is a two-year old (9 vs 11) design i5-11400 is this years version.

Graphics cards are similar, currently nvidia are on 3rd gen GTX cards beginning GTX, or the Higher ranked RTX 30xx. AMD are on Radeon 6 series cards.

www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-cooler-master-h500-argb-intel-i7-10700kf-eight-core-rtx-3070-8gb-windows-10-pc.html looks good if you don't need a monitor, keyboard etc.

With a budget of £1500 you could probably get a PC with monitor and keyboard plus a VR headset, or, a very very decent Gaming PC

I’d say for that sort of money ,this is a slightly better spec, 16gb memory and a 1Tb solid state drive of the M2 stick variety. The Ryzen cpu is faster.

www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-gamer-rtx-amd-ryzen-5-5600x-16gb-ddr4-8gb-asus-rtx-3070-1tb-m2-ssd-win-10-see-info