Cheap and stable computer for a teenager

Fand

Another local kid wants me to help him buy a computer. His family don't have a billion quid, though, so I'd like to get the parts as cheaply as possible - new, though, so he can be thrilled as he takes them out of the box - and yet have the parts stable together, and the computer nice and fast so he can swagger a bit with his pals.

Any suggestions gratefully accepted. I like ASUS boards, and have found them beautifully stable with Intel processors and CB soundcards and so on, but reckon on using an Athlon processor this time - I know ASUS have some Socket A boards, but are they as good as their Intel-processor boards?

What about a hard drive? IBM? Maxtor? Quantum? Size and speed?

He'd certainly like a CD-RW/DVD combination, and maybe a TV card as well - what's good, cheap, and again, stable, in your experience?

Sound and video - I don't want to compromise too much - he likes games - but again, economy must be our watchword. What's the most bang for the least buck?

Should we bother with a floppy?

Even the case - what's the easiest case to build to, nice and sturdy, a little sexy-looking (he's 13 or 14) with lots of room for expansion?

Keyboard and mouse - I'd like to get him something nice-looking, and obviously performing well; any thoughts?

Finally, what would you recommend buying in, say, overclockers.co.uk or Dabs, and what in Ireland - and where in Ireland?

Lump

I recommend getting the stuff from america if at all possible, is tarzan still doing his thing? If not buy from England......... I could possibly get them for you as I'll be heading over at christmas. But Im not promising anything. Get an abit Motherboard and a gig athlon. get a fairly good 64 meg graphics card and a normal sound card. 256 megs of ram and a mouse keyboard and a second hand monitor. The most expensive thing will be the monitor. But you can probally pick up a cheap one on the boards. All in all that should cost including the case about £550 ball park figure.


John

Red Moose

HD:
You are talking aroudn £100 anyway. Most drives are 20GB minimum, say £120 for a 30GB and so on. You could get cheaper but it would be hard to find as tech is replaced pretty fast (so you won't find a 5GB new drive for £30, maybe second hand but you never know about bad sectors then). For this money you'll be looking at 5400rpm drives which are fine. ATA100 is over the top. Looking at MaximumPC.co.uk just showed me a 40GB Maxtor for £86 sterling.

Graphics card:
GF2mx is a good bet. Only around $80 on import and can run every new game well. It's not cutting edge, but it's very slick for the money. You could do a lot worse as you could spend the same amount on a TNT2 m64 in Ireland which is a real POS.

Audio:
Actually maybe look into the new NVidia nForce chipset - it combines graphcs, audio and the basic mobo chipset. As far as I know, it's GF2mx level graphics, with 3D sound and some Athlon chipset. It's due for release very very soon. If you are on a budget you could then get audio video and mobo for under $200.

RAM is cheap, £35 for 256MB of PC133. It would be still £25 for half that so stick with 256MB.

CPU: Athlon's will set you back around $100 or so for a 1.0GHz Thunderbird. Check the latest US prices at http://www.sharkyextreme.com

Don't forget keyboard, mouse, case, which should cost around $80 for basic stuff.

Again, like already mentioned, the monitor is the expensive part, if you shop around there are some deals and a 17" for under £200 should be achievable.

A DVD/CDRW combo costs around $150. Toms' Hardware's Price Grabber section si good to track prices. UK prices are at http://prices.maximumpc.co.uk/, but bear in mind the worthless Irish currency.

Finally and the bit people forget about, is OS, and this is where the Microsoft monopoly can really bite. I recommend absolutely to get the Student discount version for Windows 2000. Go to Dabs.co.uk and check it out - £49 sterling. The guy is a student so it should be okay. If this doesn't work you are talking £200 for a full version of XP Home (assuming no Upgrade is possible).

JustHalf

Getting most of a new PC isn't that expensive at all - here's a list of what could commonly be called "Performance parts" ... the 1.4GHz Athlon XP here is only around 5 pounds more than the regular 1.4GHz Thunderbird.

From IT Direct:
CTX 17inch 0.27 Dot Pitch Monitor IR£175.00
Enlight 4 Bay ATX 300W P4 Midi-Tower Case IR£95.99

From Overclockers.co.uk (prices in Sterling):
Crucial 256MB DDR PC2100 CAS-2.5 (MY-001-CR) £28.00
AMD Athlon XP 1600 (CP-009-AM) £107.00
ThermalRight SK6 (Socket A/FC-PGA) (HS-000-TR) £31.60
Epox EP-8KHA+ DDR (Socket A AMD Thunderbird/Duron) (MB-000-EP) £86.50
Leadtek WinFast GeForce2 Titanium 64MB (AGP) - Retail (GX-000-LT) £95.00
Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 - OEM (SC-004-CL) £24.50
IBM 60GXP 41.2GB UDMA100 (HD-001-IB) £80.90
Teac 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive - OEM (RD-000-TE) £8.40
Pioneer DVD-106S Region Free! - OEM (CD-000-PO) £54.45
Microsoft IntelliMouse PS2 Mouse - OEM (KB-001-MS) £12.50
Microsoft Natural Elite PS2 Keyboard - OEM (KB-000-MS) £29.00
2x Rounded Ultra ATA100/66 IDE Cable (0.9m) - White (CB-000-GE) £15.00
Rounded Floppy Cable (0.5m) (CB-005-GE) £3.00
Subtotal: £575.85
Shipping: (Parcelforce Euro 48) £51.00
VAT: £109.74
Total: £736.59 = 930.589 IEP

Total IEP: 1201.58

Of course, this does not include a modem, speakers or a printer. Places to skimp? That keyboard and mouse combination is a bit pricey... you might also want to cut down to a 1GHz Athlon... but whatever you do, don't skimp on the motherboard and hard drive (because they are so important to the machine) and the RAM (because it's so cheap, there's no excuse not to get good RAM). Still, 1200 pounds is very good for what you're getting.

That said, if you give us an exact figure we can work out an exact package. Is this PC the first one (and therefore is there no old monitor to use?)

You can get the OS on a student licence for around 55 quid Irish... that's for Windows 2000 Professional. The relatively stable Microsoft OS.

Fand

It's his first computer, as far as I know, but I'm sure I can track him down a monitor somewhere.

I'll have to talk to his parents and himself about ballpark figures; he's just asked me if I can talk to him about parts and prices.

America sounds like a good idea; I just ordered from England and the shipping bill (from Overclockers) was £54 - and that's sterling, not real money, so it's going to be even dearer. That was just for a few mingy little things like sound cards and a processor and things, nothing particularly big or heavy. It wouldn't be any dearer than that to ship from the Yus, and probably cheaper for the parts.

Lump

Let me just warn that a lot of US companies will not ship internationally...... also they wont accept international credit cards. It can be a bastard to return things to them which I found out with my mother board. And if you buy OEM you Can't return them


John

Xterminator

Fand,

I personally would not reccomend that route for a new user, teenager, on their 1st pc.

First there is no way I'd go over a grand for a first pc.

Second, if you put 1 together you usually get the odd conflict etc. No big deal for me, but for a newbie ...
So buy 1 put together by somebody who will guarentee it hardware wise, and msy give reasonable

Now I don not work for Jaguar, but I'm using them as an example. I'd prpbably call them , and try to get a better video card, possibly a 17in monitor, and a dvd drive, if the budget goes that far.

www.jaguarcompsys.ie
www.marx-computers.com

And other irish based companies.
Before you worry about saving a tenner here and there, remember the hassle if you have a problem. My mate bought motherboard from dabs, who seem quite a good company, and it took 6 mths to resolve the problem whan he claimied it was DOA!

Example prices in IEP

Jaguar Amd Duron 850MHz
Amd Duron 850MHz Processor
512k Internal Cache / 5xPCI / 1xISA / 1xAGP Slot
128Mb 133MHz Sd Ram
20Gb Ide Hard Disk Drive / 1.44 Floppy Drive
15" Svga Colour Monitor
52x Cd Rom / 8 Meg Agp Graphics Card / Intergrated Sound / Set 200 Watt Speakers
Midi Tower Atx Case
PS/2 Keyboard & PS/2 Mouse
1 Year Guarantee - Back To Base (Including Labour & Parts)
Price: £485.00 (ex VAT)

---

Jaguar Intel Pentium III 1GHz
Intel Pentium III 1GHz Processor
512k Internal Cache / 5xPCI / 1xAGP Slot
128Mb 133MHz Sd Ram
20Gb Ide Hard Disk Drive / 1.44 Floppy Drive / 8Mb Agp Graphics Card
15" Svga Colour Monitor
52x Cd Rom / Sound on Board / Set 200 Watt Speakers
Midi Tower Atx Case
PS/2 Keyboard / PS/2 Mouse
1 Year Guarantee - Back To Base (Including Labour & Parts)
Price: £599.00 (ex VAT)

X

po0k

1st Get more RAM then that.
2nd Get a better mobo and DDR PC2100 at least. No point leaving him with fek-all of an upgrade path.
3rdNothing onboard. Except the nForce which, afaik, has a AGP slot still, so u can physically plug in a AGP card later on, also suports AGP8x i think. You disable the onboard MX graphics first though. Also much better memory technology if you're to use SDRAM
4th Get a bigger Monitor. 17"ers gor for £200 nowadays.
5th A 12x CDR can be picked up for damn all too, just make sure it has soe sort of BURN-Proof thing.
A modem isn't a problem.
A grand would get him a spanking PC, though i agree it's too much for a first PC. Leave the CDR out, cos it can be gotten very easil later on.

Lyconix

Originally posted by Xterminator
Fand,

I personally would not reccomend that route for a new user, teenager, on their 1st pc.

I disagree - you should buy the most powerful components you can afford so as to ensure a long life for the PC, since its unlikely to be upgraded for quite a while. Going over a grand is fine, but make sure you get what you pay for. I'm not sure who gives the cheapest high-quality components but I've heard that www.scan.co.uk do good deals - have a look there Fand.

As for a monitor, no way should you go under 17", since a monitor is not something you can upgrade and should be bought with future needs in mind since they are expensive to replace later. A 17" monitor is perfectly reasonable but do *NOT* go for anything smaller than that in size, since that will make higher resolutions un-readable and DVDs a lot less pleasurable to watch.

When you're buying the motherboard, ensure that you grab something that doesn't have useless features you're never going to use. For example, some motherboards have an additional feature that adds to the price tag but is only useful to those people who have two hard drives. Don't worry too much about future needs (such as a second hard drive!) since you can get a top-quality AMD motherboard for cheap these days.

While we're on the subject of AMD, you'd be better off to buy an AMD motherboard and processor - very cheap, yet very powerful, and unlike Intel, whose Pentium 4 insists on utilising RDRAM only, AMD processors get along fine without that over-priced RAM.

As for a video card, be sure to grab something that can handle the latest games - GeForce3 Ultra on the cutting edge would obviously be far too expensive, but good performance can be obtained from cheaper cards such as the ATi Radeon, and 32mb of video memory would be MORE than adequate to handle 3D games.

Keyboard and mouse - I wouldn't worry too much about those, since in my experience pretty much every keyboard is the same - just don't pay extra for a fancy keyboard with volume buttons and that on it since they're un-necessary and can develop bad computing habits (since such keyboards are rare) and don't grab a Microsoft Natural keyboard either, for the same reason. As for the mouse, a Microsoft IntelliMouse or a cheaper, similiar mouse with two buttons and a wheel from a different brand should be fine. If you're REALLY pressed for cash, just go into Electronics Boutique and grab a two buttoned mouse for a fiver there.

TV card - I'd consider that a bit of an un-necessary luxury, since they can be pricey and setting them up might mean a bit of hassle, and I'm sure the guy already has a television in the house anyway

DVD/CD-RW combo sounds good - the guy ought to really like the CD-RW and the DVD support is a necessity nowadays.

Since RAM is cheap nowadays, 256mb would be a safe bet, but drop to 128mb if you're extremely pressed for cash since that won't hurt anything but the most cutting edge applications.

Hope that helps, good luck. Email me if you have any doubts or questions.

irishguy

you should try Dabs.com the only charge £20 for shiping so if you are buying alot it will realy save u a lot on shipping

Red Moose

It's not even a matter of being pressed for cash and RAM. Even Jaguar Computers.ie sell 256MB Pc133 stuff for £28, or £17 or so fore 128.

So if you are spending a grand on a PC and are strapped for 10 quid to double the RAM I suggest spending the grand on psychotherapy instead

phaxx

Ditto that, order from dabs, the shipping charges are definately in your favour, ordering a monitor too - £25 irish no matter what.

Gerry

I think you should spend as much as you can reasonably afford on your first pc, but not less than 800 quid if possible. The jaguar machines you mention exterminator, have serious corners cut. Onboard sound, a graphics card that will be rubbish for games, no dvd drive, only 128 megs of ram, more than likely a 5400 rpm hard drive, 15" monitor etc. Yes, I know you acknowledge some of these things, but there was no point in posting those specs, as they are rubbish machines that are not suitable for home use. Its sad to see that jaguar can't be bothered to correctly state how much l2 cache is on the cpu, a rather typical couldn't care less attitude.

Lyconix, you can now get motherboards which take sdram and ddr ram for the pentium 4. Sdram has found its way into pentium 4's in pc world and even dell fairly fast, despite the fact that it slows the machine down a lot.

DDR motherboards are now available for the p4, they are not exactly common, but if you are shopping in america, it should not be too difficult.

There is plenty to be gained by putting your own pc together. Getting it stable can be a nightmare, but it is valuable experience. You have guarantees on the parts, so all you have to is not physically break them.

To answer fands original question, well if he wants to be able to brag about it to his pals, you are talking about spending at least 1200 quid.

ASUS amd boards are indeed excellent, however I'd wait until they come out with a kt266A based board before buying asus.

The IBM 60GXP hard drive series are excellent, but you really won't go wrong with any major brand of hard drive, so long as it is 7200rpm.

You mention budget with regard to the video card. I wouldn't settle for less than a geforce2 gts, or maybe stretch to a pro, but if the budget pushes you below that, you should scale back on the processor. It would be better to have a 1 ghz athlon with a gts than a 1.4 ghz athlon with a geforce2 mx 400.

The hauppage win-tv cards offer good quality, and are not difficult to install.

You don't need a floppy to boot from to install windows, so you could get away without it.

As for cases, well if you are buying in ireland, there are no major brand names to look out for, just shop around, and you will find something good.

You are looking for a case with a 300watt power supply, with the power supply completely above the motherboard tray (so most mini towers are out) . It should also have at least 1 mounting for an 80mm case fan.

As many others have said, dabs is your best bet for ordering from england, ocuk have nice bundles though, forget scan though as they have high delivery charges and poor service.

Supercell

Second what Gerry says about buying from dabs with a couple of points (based on personal experience)

Ordered parts to be delivered to work addy..

Online form has company name field..so filled that out....and it was in the confirmation of order delivery address.
But was ommitted for some unknown reason.
Called dabs after a couple of weeks of waiting..their records had the company address ..so no panic, asked for the trackng number..called parcel force (the curior they use), the address on the box was name/town/city/country..ie joe bloggs, terenure,dublin...undeliverable anotherwards.

Called dabs customer services..explained what i just learned from parcel force, no arguements no difficulty...my credit card was refunded.

Placed another order, this time ignoring the company field, stuff delivered in 3 working days. Pretty impressive imho, and they keep my custom, and i've recommended them to many others.

So my recommendation, if you are getting the parts delivered to a work addy , as no doubt a lot of us do, leave the company field blank.

Tales from the farside ..

Lyconix

Originally posted by Gerry
Lyconix, you can now get motherboards which take sdram and ddr ram for the pentium 4. Sdram has found its way into pentium 4's in pc world and even dell fairly fast, despite the fact that it slows the machine down a lot

You're absolutely right... I haven't been paying much attention to the magical (but slightly pricey) world of Intel ever since AMD products caught my eye Cheap but top-notch - that would sum up their range of motherboards and processors well.

tarzan

yes, im still ordering for people and shipping parts to ireland if you're interested

astrofool

I'm just putting together a similar deal for someone atm.

for £1200, getting monitor (from jaguar 17") Modem over here, and the rest from dabs, specs:

gef3 titanium 200
KT266A board
256 RAM
Win XP Home
floppy drive
AMD 1600+
IBM 60GXP 40gig
Pionner 16x DVD
Soundblaster Audigy
Speaker w/subwoofer (cambridge soundworks)
CPU Cooler
Midi Tower case

Could probably get a 17" iiyama monitor for the same price as the jaguar one tbh, but thats the way they want it..

shipping is 20 sterling regardless

double the ram for £30, get 5 point surround for an extra tenner, a CD-R/DVD combo costs about 160 irish i think (look for the Ricoh models, 120 sterling ex vat)

getting above tax free tho, but some components can be cut down on, well just the gfx really.

Chip wise u might as well go for a 1600+, the price difference isnt enough to justify getting a lower chip

Overclockers can be good, but all the extra's aren't really needed for a first time computer buyer (rounded cables, copper heatsink etc.)

Fand

I want this computer to be a pleasure to the kid - but I also want him to learn from building it. There's a little enclave of builders living in these few streets anyway, since I've been teaching all the local kids - so it doesn't matter if it occasionally goes interestingly wrong, as long as it isn't unstable and liable to go haywire.

I see you're thinking of Intel rather than Athlon? I would have thought Athlon would be cheaper - am I wrong? - for the same stability?

Should I get a motherboard that'll take Rambus? Or is Rambus still ridiculously dear?

Gerry's price of 800 quid sounds about right - especially as the kid's pal just built a grand's worth of computer with me, and is the hero of the neighbourhood - if this lad can get a good computer cheaper it'll give him something to swagger about.

Thanks for the help, lads (in which I include all sexes) - keep it coming. I'm getting some good thoughts here.

Lyconix

I'd recommend going for Athlon alright - cheaper but still top-quality...

Villiros

Sorry, if this offtopic, but I think this fits quite nicely in this thread.

So, I'm from Russia and I'm a student at tcd. And I need some kind of machine to keep me going -- something fast enough to run Max Payne and as cheap as around 600-700 quid. A good part is that I brought with me a hd with everything I need on it (win200, apps).
Apperantly, I think I need something like Athlon with 256 mb ddr, relatively cheap graphics card (geforce2 mx?), integrated sound (I see no need in spending on sound card as I use headphones anyway), monitor (surprise, surprise!), cd-rom, and a 250 mb zip.
Now, what would be the cheapest way of getting all this? I wouldn't mind using second-hand components (monitor especially), as long as they're not going to die prematurely.

BKtje

I recently bought a new cpu+mobo and i gotta say for pure ease + power i'd go for the AThlon XP (1700 i got but the 1500 would prob do with bragging rights) and the kt266a Epoch 8KHA+ (DDR).
I just whipped it together and ive had no probs whatsoever with it. I think its crashed twice and both times were my fault (setting the FSB too high ) the mobo will set u back about 150 and the XP 1700 was 177 (sterling now from your friends at overclockers). I aint no wizz at building pc's btw, infact this is my first one tho i knew some basic things.

HDD's as others have said will cost u more or less depending on what u want/need. If its his first tho u wont need a super large HDD. bout 30gigs oughta coevr it easy.

Gfx: Ive heard good things about the budget card 'Kyro II' i believe.

Soundcard: imo u cant go far wrong with a sblive card. Good all rounder. Full duplex etc and can handle more than one thing at once (music + game/bc etc. important for games machines) Sblive is about 36 sterling.

I'm sure some one can giva ya more help that what i've said but i just thought i'd chuck in my 2 (euro)cents.

Gl with your project


(o btw if u wanan really go cheap. Im playing Max Payne all high with the xp1700 with a gefore 256 ddr which im sure u can get very cheap these days. Far from cutting edge but to a new computer user he wouldnt realy notice unless his mates have a great card)

Fand

What about the Athlon XP 1800, which seems to be getting nice reviews?

How do I choose the right motherboard to go with this (or any) processor, please?

JustHalf

Athlon XP 1800... expensive at the moment, and there is a disproportionate increase in performance relative to cost compared with the XP 1600.

Best motherboard for the single-processor Athlon? At the moment I'd put my money on the EPoX 8KHA+. Tweakable as hell, and based on the best performing Athlon chipset, the VIA KT266A.

Cake Fiend

Jesus H Christ, some people here don't know the meaning of the word 'overkill'. I'm sitting here at a PII 300 (yes, you read that right) machine with 64MB RAM and a TNT2, and I can quite comfortably play Quake 3, CS and Red Alert 2 to name a few games. The PC is obviously perfectly adequate for word processing, web surfing, etc at this spec. I see absolutely no need for a 14-year old kid to look for a 1GHz+ PC with so much RAM, HD space, etc for his first PC. Fair enough, he'll want to play games, watch DVDs, etc, but he'll hardly need 10 million FPS and turbo-3D surround sound. Even my p3 750@900 and Voodoo 3 can run anything I throw at it.

Fand

Sico, I quite agree with you - I cycled six miles to school, some of it through the sea when it was up across the road, every day of my schoolgoing life. In those days if you found a pound on the street you gave it up to the Guards because it was a matter of pride - you might be poor but you didn't need to steal by finding. Cocoa and bread and marge was good enough for a treat and none of that fancy wibbly wobbly wonder ****e.

But seriously... if you were building your computer *now* would you want to build a reasonably high spec? It actually won't be any cheaper, or not much, to build the kid a low-spec computer, and he'll get a lot less fun out of doing it.

So far I like JustHalf's list a lot - except I'd like to get a CD-RW/DVD combo if possible.

It's not going to be only the lad's computer - the others in the house will use it too. But as far as pose power is concerned, he'll be able to point to a reasonably powerful computer - which will stay near the top of the range for a year or so, and which will teach him a very basic skill as he builds it with me (sucking up to grownups, I mean).

The TV card is unnecessary, of course, but so are a lot of things in life; it'll give him a blast to show off Malcolm in the Middle playing on his computer.

I can give him a mouse and keyboard ex stock - and a floppy drive too, if I can find one that works in my pile of them.

JustHalf

Originally posted by Sico
Jesus H Christ, some people here don't know the meaning of the word 'overkill'. I'm sitting here at a PII 300 (yes, you read that right) machine with 64MB RAM and a TNT2, and I can quite comfortably play Quake 3, CS and Red Alert 2 to name a few games. The PC is obviously perfectly adequate for word processing, web surfing, etc at this spec. I see absolutely no need for a 14-year old kid to look for a 1GHz+ PC with so much RAM, HD space, etc for his first PC. Fair enough, he'll want to play games, watch DVDs, etc, but he'll hardly need 10 million FPS and turbo-3D surround sound. Even my p3 750@900 and Voodoo 3 can run anything I throw at it.

One of my friends is running a Celeron 333 with a Riva TNT2 Ultra card in it, and says something similar.

The frame rates are dire. You can't run games at high resolution ... they become unplayable. And you can forget about upping detail levels.

One of the requirements was a PC that could give this guy serious respect.

Koopa

ive been on a celeron 850 (100mhz bus) , 128mb ram, geforce 256 (original geforce) for like 18 months or something now, never bothered upgrading, sico is totally right, my first pc was like "go and buy the best pc you can see from gateway" or something, and i can say it didnt make any difference to me at all, i used to use p75's at college, and my pc was a pentium pro 200, of course i never did any work on the college pcs, just played games on them (of course!)
faster pc's and stuff like that only matters after you have been using your pc for a while, and gotten used to it - buy the 500 quid pc for now, minus the monitor (sell it maybe), and spend the rest of your money on a good monitor - like 19 inch, a decent keyboard and a good mouse (and a mousemat), the kid will get a lot more fun out of that (big monitor, mouse which points where its supposed to, keyboard that doesnt break your fingers when you try to type stuff on it)
as for boasting, i dont know anyone who really gives a toss what someone else's pc is, when someone starts telling me about their pc, i listen for the first 30 seconds then tell them to shut up (if they go on about it) cos i couldnt care less, and i dont think anyone else cares either

Typedef

If you are interested in my spec.
Abit kt7a mobo
Athlon 1400 T-Bird ( May get new cpu if kt7a can be flashed for 1700 mhz Athy Xp)
512 mb Ram
Voodoo 3 with composite out
Panasonic 32x Dvd
CDRW
Drone Tulip Linksys nic
Drone floppy drive
ES 1371 audio pci
IBM Pri master 15gb uata 66
Maxtor pri slave 15gb uata 100
200 w atx case
Drone 15" compaq monitor
Internet access via linux box 386dx on 3.8mb of ram which provides access to 3 boxes on lan
I dunno?

Ermm but you could get a mobo & cpu from Maplin @ about 800 or 900 mhz I think...
You could probably put together a system cheap if you use a hardware like the ALS4000 based card from avance etc, hdd, dvd, & monitor will probably cost the most in this equation though dvd drives may have come down in price?

Cake Fiend

He did say 'cheap'. I'm just trying to point out that he needn't go and break the bank for a top-of the range machine when an entry-level spec, or slightly above, will do. Sure, someone who's used to silk-smooth framerates and crisp sound is going to say that games running on a low-end machine are unplayable, but we're talking about a first-time PC owner who more than likely won't notice these things. I remember being perfectly happy playing Quake at under 10 fps at 300+ ping before I knew any better. Considering I'm now a seasoned PC gamer, saying I can still play games on the previously mentioned spec is a fairly significant statement in this discussion.

Fand - it's your money (or whoever's); I'm not telling you what to do with it, I'm just telling it like I see it. If I was getting a free computer at 13-14, I'd count myself lucky if it ran windows... Also - do bother with a floppy drive; it costs bugger all and it could come in very handy some day.

Gerry

I agree with you 100% sico, I'm perfectly happy playing quake in college on a p2 266. However, as has been pointed out, you don't save a whole lot by going for a lower spec machine, unless you get a second hand machine. It is well worth spending on a good monitor, keyboard and mouse as koopa says, as these will last between upgrades.

But if the kid spends say 600 quid on a machine mainly for games, and it doesn't play all the latest games smoothly, he might just reckon that was 600 quid down the drain, especially if he ended up with a crappy motherboard which is not upgradeable. So I think a good plan would be to get a good motherboard, and after that skimp if you want. You can sell the parts, and upgrade to new ones if you feel the machine is too slow.