My nephew wants to build his own gaming PC so I'm thinking I'll give him a hand. It'll need to be cheap since his parent will probably buy the parts for him. I already gave him an old case and he's got a 1080p monitor. I'd love to center the build around a $200 to $220 480 or even $150 470 if any of them are available soon. I haven't priced CPU's in a while but I think cheap AMD chips and motherboards can be had for less than $140. He'll need Windows 10 so that's $100 right there.
Take advantage of an AMD cpu/mobo/ram combo deal and it should be doable. Another option would be to buy a used/off-lease Lenovo or Dell Optiplex and just pop a video card into it.
FYI, since Windows 7 you can install Windows without a serial with no practical restrictions. It will default to a black wallpaper, watermark the bottom corner, and occasionally show a activation popup that you close. I've been doing this for years and even got the software directly from MS.
hell i even used my win 7 keys after i did my windows 8 upgrade from them. you end up having extra keys available after that.
Yeah paying money for windows on such a cheap PC is a silly idea. Put that money towards a better video card for the kid so he can play some games.
How would you know if it's upgradable? Some of those Dells practically weld those small PSUs into the case. And then the motherboard would need to fit a video card.
The free upgrade registers old Windows serials towards W10. If you're going to reuse an upgraded key, just download the W10 media creation tool. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 Also, Update still live: http://tiny.cc/b0yedy
Ha. Free if you need assistive technologies. Sneaky. I guess MS has some lawsuits against them for forcing the 10 upgrade.
GTX 970s are going for $200 on ebay. Might be something to consider since the $200 4GB RX 480 is out of stock everywhere and has similar performance to the 970.
That's a company? I thought it was the options for old people... they aren't going to come to your house and check sticky keys or on screen keyboard, so it's a free upgrade.
I don't know. Kepler drivers started to suffer soon after Maxwell and today Nvidia moved the 900s into their legacy category. This guy might be exaggerating a bit but plenty of people were upset about Kepler. https://tech4gamers.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-900-series-is-obsolete-say-hello-to-legacy-drivers/
My Bro in law is going to let my nephew have a $700 budget for Christmas. He still knows nothing about PCs but wants an i5 . That's a tough build. This is what I came up with. I should be able to get the i3 6100 close to $700 but the i5 6600K is $150 more with cooler. The i5 6400 is only $70 more than the i3 but then it's a toss up with the i3 being faster sometimes. I also chose the RX480 Red Devil 8GB which is $220. Alternatively the 1060 6GB is $260 and there is a Fury which is a good deal faster than both for $240. Everything else is just random place holders which I didn't spend much time picking out. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/D4pNxY https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rnpNxY
I would find a way to work an SSD into the budget so the PC isn't miserably slow to boot and load stuff. A 250GB 850 EVO would be fine. Also I'd go with a GTX 1060 over an RX 480. AMD's drivers suck balls and they only update them like once or twice a year. Unless you consider beta drivers an update.
Linus just built this last week... you can mix and match from his $500 and $1000 build. Drop down to the 240GB SSD and RX480. Drop the Hyper T2 for stock Intel cooler. Skip optical drive and the price come in right around $700.
I managed to get really close to $700 by donating a few parts. It actually would have been under $700 but I made the mistake of bringing my nephew to the store and he wanted a better case and a more expensive motherboard that said "Gaming " on it. MicroCenter sells the 6600k for $199 + $30 off any motherboard. That's $70 less than Newegg or Amazon. The sales guy says they take a loss at that price and I believe him. Anyway I put together a system that I'd be proud to call my own. $200 Intel 6600k $20 Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO $110 Gigabyte Z170 Gaming 5 $37 GeIL EVO FORZA DC 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4 $50 Seasonic S12II 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply $35 Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-02 Redshift Case $165 PowerColor RED DRAGON Radeon RX 480 4GB $100 Windows 10 $0 free hard drive $0 free Bluray DVD drive Total is $717 but there was also about $50 of tax on some items.