Above is the link to the planned build for my brother around Christmas time of 2015. He is a very basic PC user (he's 10) and only uses it for things like watching some youtube content which he mostly uses his iPod for, he uses a PC for school as well with Compass learning a couple times a week. The main thing he will use the thing for is for gaming. He told me that he wanted to play COD: waw and garrys mod and minecraft, games like that. He also said he wants to try BO2 and maybe ghosts in the future (we do have the console versions so if this needs an upgrade to play ghosts we can turn to xbox 1 and before you hate on us for having console titles I love the console platform for casual gaming with friends and family). So just let me know what you would suggest for any improvments or places I could save a bit for him, the cheaper the better but not the bottom of the barrel barely running bs either. Thanks for the help!
Also already have a network card and an OS so no worries there and as the build sits right now there is plenty of room to get a better CPU as well as GPU so that is being thought of as well. Maybe in a year or two he will want to follow me onto youtube or something and this PC can be upgraded to a beast as it sits.
If you can increase your budget about 20 bucks I would recommend getting 2 4Gb sticks instead of a single stick of RAM. This should help with overall performance as then you are not on a single channel and if one stick fails you will have the other stick tell it can be replaced. The link below is just an idea but you can really get anything with similar specs as the RAM you selected for about $15+ more.
Thanks for the input. Ill probably go with the 2x4 for the security of it then and I dont think he will ever need more than the 16 that that would allow him in total if I did get him another set later. @Tin_Crow Thanks for recommending the ram too, id not thought about that before.
the power supply isn't good enough. +12v specification should match that of the video card recommendation at minimum. 41.5A sounds low. I would say it's probably between 45-48A recommended.
I would suggest a better CPU. That Pentium is ok if you want to overclock it a ton, but that would require you to spend money on coolers. You'd be best off to get something a little better, and it will last you significantly longer. Unfortunately Intel isn't great on pricing so you'd be at least doubling the money to get something better. That's actually why I prefer AMD for light gaming builds as price to performance is much greater, especially at the lower ends. Also I would get a newer GPU if possible like an R9 280 or 285, but obviously if that doesn't fit the budget then that's how it goes though a 270X would probably be similar in performance to the 6970 and still make use of some newer features, and have better support.
I fixed the build with an AMD based sysem, should this be good to run the games I listed for him? Also now I cannot get him a new monitor and I would like him to be able to use a new monitor instead of the older one I have at hime already, any ideas on a good, cheap monitor to play these games?
For a machine that will be used for gaming I recommend going with the X4 860k with a discrete GPU rather than the A10 7850k.
The reason is that an X4 860k it is a 7850k with the GPU part disabled and is often less than half the price. Then if you can afford an R7 260X, GTX 750ti or R9 270 you will have a much better gaming experience as those cards out perform the internal GPU of the A10 7850k (which is similar to an R7 250 with slower memory).
I would also recommend the X4 860k over the pentiums, whilst they do have 2 fast cores, they only have 2 cores and the internal GPU is weaker than that of the A10 7850k.
I suggest you compile a new part list ~ 1 month before Christmas. By then there will probably have changed quite a few things in hardware world and there may even be better bang for your bucks parts.
Definately will do that, just want to get an idea of what he will need and what it will require money wise for him. Seems like it'll be 600 ish for a nice build but no monitor sadly. He might be able to use a hand me down from me but idk if ill have a spare. Still need to incorporate the monitor.
There's a true statement. I make a newegg cart like once a month over a cup of coffee just to dig and force myself to answer questions I never thought to ask.
Seems to be what the same here lol I end up looking over the parts for a few builds every day thinking if theres anything to change or add or drop. Im on the bus for almost an hour a day so perfect time to browse!