Spec Me a €600 gaming PC for Arma 3

TireeTerror

My sister has just messaged me asking about where is best to buy/build a gaming PC. Her 11 year old son just presented his "Christmas" list and I kid you not these two things were on the same list. A Playmobil Police Van and a Gaming PC to play Arma 3! Playmobil and Arma 3!!! I couldnt stop laughing.

The problem is I know very little about budget PCs. He has no existing components, so its €600 for everything, keyboard, monitor etc etc.

Leaving aside the morality issue of an 11 year old playing Arma 3, what can any of you recommend? They live in England so should be a fraction cheaper there.

Thanks.

TireeTerror

Anyone?

BloodBath

Leaving it a bit late tbh. Can be some serious stock issues with pc parts coming up to Christmas. Is that 600 pound or euro then?

Something like this should do the trick. Who's going to build it? Windows 10 will need to be installed as well. You can just use the trial version for now.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 1200 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£88.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£63.98 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws 4 series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£59.30 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£36.00 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: PNY - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card (£120.08 @ Amazon UK)
Case: BitFenix - Nova ATX Mid Tower Case (£24.50 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: be quiet! - Pure Power 10 500W 80+ Silver Certified ATX Power Supply (£51.97 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: AOC - G2460VQ6 24.0" 1920x1080 75Hz Monitor (£129.50 @ Aria PC)
Keyboard: Zalman - ZM-K300M Wired Gaming Keyboard (£3.98 @ Novatech)
Mouse: Gigabyte - GM-M6800 Wired Optical Mouse (£9.25 @ Novatech)
Total: £587.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-12-06 16:54 GMT+0000

d31b0y

It's for an 11 year old. Arma 3 requirements aren't exactly high. If it was me, I'd start with something more basic that can be upgraded. Unless you (or the kid) specifically wanted to get your feet wet with PC building, I'd buy it pre-built.
Like this, from a boards member;
http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/dell-gaming-pc-i3-6gb-gtx645/14276808

Plenty of spare cash to buy a screen, keyboard and mouse.

BloodBath

A PC is for life, not just for Christmas. You aren't even saving much there when you consider it has no graphics card, no monitor, no keyboard and mouse, is second hand then has to be shipped to England from your own pocket, has no warranty and is nowhere near as upgradeable.

The above PC has an upgrade path that could see it used for the next 10 years. He may only want to play arma now but the PC will open up a whole world of opportunity for him. Who knows what he will be doing in 3-5 years time. He might want to be a streamer, programmer, artist, game developer etc and can get a head start on everyone else his age. If he wanted to he could learn a trade to a higher standard than someone coming out of college with their higher degrees before he's 18.

It's a better buy than an x-box one x which would cost similar money without all the career, software and learning opportunity's that a PC gives.

TerrorFirmer

I would agree that if you have the budget, might as well use it now.

The PC linked above is one of mine incidentally. I have to always set prices higher to avoid the ridiculous crap on adverts. Usually I'd take closer to 200 for that or else tell someone I'd throw in a monitor, mouse and keyboard for the asking. I swear some days you could put up a GTX1080Ti for €200 and the first offer would be "offer 150 and collect". It does have a graphics card though but it is limited in upgrade potential - notwithstanding that it'd make no sense to ship that to UK of course.

But say you got something identical even in the UK. You can upgrade it to an i7-2600 which is still a pretty decent processor now and you could throw in a GTX1050Ti to make it a pretty good gaming machine as of end of 2017, but at the end of that it would still be around €450 in total spend on it and as Bloodbath says it's longevity is very limited compared to a new PC.

If the budget was strictly something lowish like €400 where it gets you nothing half decent new, those sorts of options are viable but I think when you have £600 to play with, it's best to set yourself up for the future. You're fairly set for a decade with a few upgrades along the way, which is not something you can say about an older PC, even if it's still decent by todays standards.

BloodBath

Oh it's your item. Didn't notice the card either. My bad. I know what you mean about the pricing on adverts. It seems everyone wants to haggle regardless of price so you always have to over price it. I do the same thing.

You get my point though. While sure he's only eleven now it won't be long before he's older and wanting more.

The cost is high up front but it won't need upgrading for a while and when he does want to he has an easy modern path with new parts. The price isn't even high for what you are getting compared to an xbox1x for example.

If the budget is lower then the second hand PC market in the UK is definitely the way to go. I'd imagine there would be a lot of good deals there. You could get something with the same power for around 400 but with a much more limited upgrade path.

Balmed Out

I got a hp 8300 mini tower (not the small form factor which was ten cheaper) for 240 delivered with 8gb ram and an I7 3770 from ebay and bought a 1050ti for 140. Just to give you idea of what you can get.

TireeTerror

Thank you very much everyone for the input and help. Ive told my sister about the component build and sent her the links to the parts. So hopefully that is what she will go with.