Hello all, I am new to the PC Gaming world and looking for something for my son for Xmas. He primarily plays Fortnite, but will also get into other games like Minecraft, GTA, etc.
I’m looking at these 2 PCs, the first is sold out.
Would the 2nd option be good/better than the first?
The on on the bottom has better specs like more ram which would help with future proofing his pc, same with the gpu. The on on the top has a newer cpu but it preforms worse so the only real reason to get the cpu on the top is to help with future proofing. So, if you’re not on too much of a budget get the one on the top, but if you’re on a budget then get the one on the bottom. If you have any more questions then feel free to ask one of us moderators.
either PC will get the job done, very well. The Aqua 2 flux ABS pc is slightly better.
The first (with RTX 5060) would’ve been fine for basic gaming/less demanding titles, but it’s more of a just get by build. You’ll likely need to upgrade sooner if he wants higher graphics quality or 1440p performance.
8 gb GPUs ARE A DEAD END! even 12gb will struggle overe the next few years.
it will be 2 years until new gpu come out…so get a motherboard and psu that will not be outdated for low to mid tier builds, so it can be upgraded to meet standards in 2-4 years from now…gaming moves fast thru generations of hardware…so AMD is way better for this…try to get AM5 socket, tho am4 is great for now. a 9600x cpu b850 motherboard, the 32gb ram, ddr5 ram can at times be got for only 5-600 thru a bundle deals…sometimes it blows my mind on the deals. You have to check for weeks, but you will save big money.
amd is gonna be chosen by 90% of gamers for cpu
nvidia is gonna be more consistent for gpu but you will pay big money, the amd 9060xt 16gb @$359 might be in budget…point is, pick a budget or pick a gpu then other things matter less.
building you pc will be hard at first, but save 100s, maybe 500. If you do it right it should remain stable (until window updates anyhow) and perhaps much better than a cheap prebuilt.
*****You can always have a local shop help pick parts that you can bring in, your parts that you save big money on by buying yourself on sale) and they will built it, custom my guy.*****
physically building is easy (avoiding rgb wiring helps), cable management is a pain, but it doesn’t have to look pro ur first time. “Fixing” windows for ‘gaming’ will plague all windows machines (see youtube for bloatware info), a prebuild often requires 10s-100s of hours trouble shooting if you get a lemon and tons of bloatware slowing the PC!!!, so I see it as even for time spent on the fixing/building a PC.
I just built one PC, 5800xt 9060xt…took 4 hours with windows install, all bios updates and driver updates…the dang motherboard failed the wifi/bluetooth driver and lucky I had another PC to update the wifi with a usb, so I could connect to the update servers. My build, the 5080 9800x3d is still messed up after 2 weeks only in windows but games A++, so its a 50/50 either way.
example:
case 75
750-850w psu 85-115
9600x 204 with currently free air cooler
b850 169
32gb ddr5 325-409 new (ebay) 225-275
1tb m.2 ssd 75-120
4-6 new fans (try to buy case with most fans pre installed for easy mode) 20-35
=675-900
add gpu 9060xt (dont get cheapest gpu, the coolers suc!) it often worth 20-40 extra to get a gpu with good cooling it will last longer since these cheap card run hard to keep up)
$1300 for an AMD am4 socket (the cpu are had to find a good one, aka 5800xt or any 5000x3d) with a 9070xt vs a $1100 prebuild 5060 8gb is a no brainer…an AMD 9600x am5 build with used ram from ebay, would run about 250-300 extra for the much better upgrade path