Gaming Computer for DS (age 16)

[Paperclipp]

Not sure where to post this for traffic but DS has been wanting a gaming computer for years & as GCSEs are nearly over so I am going to relent...he's had about 3 days off revising since December and I want to reward the effort.

I have NO IDEA what to buy. I know he wants a tower rather than a laptop
It does not need to be top of the range but then not entry level either
Any advice most welcome. Other than look at what John Lewis have I don't know where to start..many brands I've never heard of and I know nothing about specs

How much money are you looking to spend? What games is he wanting to play? Do you just need the tower itself, or monitor/keyboard/mouse as well?

Under £2k
Just the tower
and at the moment he is playing Steam Games like Hogwarts, Minecraft on a laptop that can handle those but I suspect once he gets something fast enough he will branch out and play with friends on whatever's hot
He's not too keen on stuff like GTA but that will probably change as he gets older. I've put the brakes on gaming during GCSEs but I am fully expecting him to throw himself at it this summer

I looked at PC Mag's best towers and it mentioned an Asus ROG G22CH (DB978) as the best compact desktop for mainstream gamers

John Lewis has a very discounted Asus ROG Strix G16CH Gaming PC (i7, RTX 4070, 16GB RAM, 2TB) but the one review is terrible saying it 'Do not put any games on the D drive as it is the slowest Sata drive I have ever seen. Lagggggg all the time. But the C M.2 had Limited space so not the performance you would like'.

I am clutching at straws though - no idea which review site is reliable either. It's just not my world

I know it won't be a surprise, but I would consult your son about what specs he is after in the computer. There is such an array of options you need to have a good idea of what he will use it for and the specs he needs. Not just the computer itself but the peripherals.

Have a look at a company called chillblast. I got my ds's first set up from them and they were great, they'll build it for you. Their customer support is excellent. He'll probably need a monitor with a fast refresh rate for gaming.

I already have - he doesn't really know but he likes the ones with all the lights and transparent casings but he's says that's not a deal breaker...he just wants a good one. He's pretty passive compared to your average 16 year old & likes me to choose.

we bought the DC's gaming towers locally from a computer shop who built them for us and are available to help if things go wrong.

We paid about £1,000 each and they can run anything they want to play.

DS1 also does video editing and makes EDM on his

I don't suppose you are in London are you? That sounds ideal...especially the support bit!

My DCs built their own gaming PCs (with a bit of help). It's not very hard and it means you can buy exactly the bits you want.

I know we bought some bits from https://www.novatech.co.uk/

They each bought huge cases with multiple lights that glow and change colour. From what I remember the graphics card was the most expensive bit but this was about 6 years ago now.

Is he capable of building his own?

Not yet sadly - he loves coding but the hardware side of things isn't his forté

We are really looking for an off the shelf product...custom design and build your own is probably a few more years down the line

13 YO says that building your own is much better value and he did it completely on his own in a (long) day. He just used YouTube videos.

OK, if you want a ready built one then the site I linked above also does fully built systems. If nothing else you can compare with other companies. This is the link to their mid-range ones: https://www.novatech.co.uk/reign-gaming/sentry.html

Honestly, I don't work for them!

Thank you everyone for all the advice!

2k is loads, id go to a boutique custom builder for that kind of money.

Graphics card and processor are the most important components, for 2k id be looking at a gtx 4080 and an amd ryzen 7.

Chilliblast
Awd It
Ccl

This is £1699, id definitely spend the extra 64.99 on the 2tb ssd uograde though.

@FixTheBone Those are exactly the specs I want for my DS's next machine. Problem is, I don't want a tower. If it lives in his room, he'll never be off it. With a laptop, we can still make him bring it downstairs at 9.30pm ... Is there anywhere I can get those same specs but on a laptop, without spending £2k?

Long shot I know

Razer laptop

Excellent for gaming, better than a tower and it's portable.

You can connect it to a monitor if you prefer bigger screen graphics.

Except it won't be better than a tower of equivalent price, because laptops never are.

The cheapest razer laptop I could see on their website with a 4080 was £3600 and is 60-70% slower than the 4080 super in the desktop i linked to above.

Msi vector Laptop outlet a smidge under £2k... Bear in mind the mobile 4080 gpu is around 60-70% slower than the desktop 4080 super (but still decent enough to run anything you want on the internal monitor, may struggle on a 4k external display on more graphics intensive games)

No sadly not, we are in Jersey! I'm sure there will be some computer shops near you though

I brought my daughter a Dell Alienware tower Pc mostly for minecraft. The more you spend the better it is but as they are all gaming PCs they should all do the job. we have been happy with it, you get to customise stuff and we have a nice white tower.

Also have a look at www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ 2K is a fairly good budget for a high end PC

Gaming laptops are generally a poor compromise. The high-powered ones are bulky, heavy, have poor battery life and struggle to dump all the heat they generate. You can get some reasonable mid-range laptops that have enough power and GPU to play middle-ranking games but if you want top-end performance then you really need a desktop.