Recommend me a computer for an 11 year old

[Previous]

Hello all.

Seeking forum wisdom.

My 10 year old lad has got into computing. Starting with consoles and Minecraft he expressed an interest in coding.

Last Christmas he received a raspberry pi, and that's been great. He has a screen and peripherals

He has for a while been learning to save pocket money (and bits of cash from birthdays etc) and now has circa £400.

It'll soon be his 11th Birthday and he decided that before then he wanted to buy a desktop to play Roblox, online games (simple stuff) and the like, and to browse plus keep up his coding.

He also wants something that he can upgrade himself in future.

It's important to him that he feels it's something he's saved for (and actually for us as parents that he learns the value of money - Don't worry, he'll get something else for his birthday from us... He doesn't have to buy his own present!!).

I appreciate that's not a lot of money as far as PCs used for games are concerned, especially with current Ram prices.

We've said well put something towards it (a nice case or something) but it's important it feels like it's his.

So... In or around the £400-500 range, what's out there... If anything?

Thanks!

Edited by Previous on Tuesday 24th February 22:51

[Paddymcc]

Have a look at dell or HP workstations that typically have Xeon Octa or Hexa core processors and the cheaper ECC memory. You should get one with about 32gb of ram for around £100.

They will come with a beefy PSU and plenty of room allowing you to stick in something like a new RTX 5050 and plenty of scope for upgrading in future too.

Stick in an SSD and you're good to go and the whole thing will work out around ££350.

Should be good for gaming at 60fps @ 1080lp

[SwissJonese]

We actually bought my son a gaming laptop (selling it next week). It was a Dell G15 with a 15" screen, 16GB of ram, Intel i5, RTX 3050 and most importantly a decent fast screen (120hz). This is so he could play it in the kitchen area, we could keep an eye and make sure he is safe online. The laptop wasn't more than £500, probably now only worth £300.

What screen do you have?
Really good to have something with fast Hz for quick gaming like Minecraft. I recently purchased a Samsung 36" curved 165Hz gaming monitor for less than £200.

My son is now using my old work HP PC with an 7yr old Intel i7, 32GB ram and we purchased an 2nd hand 2080ti graphic card from Cex for £300. Minecraft doesn't need much to run properly, but the massive screen needed a decent GPU to preform. He plays a lot of Roblox and has started creating games even making Roblox credits due to people playing his games.

[biggiles]

There's a great website called "pcpartpicker" which allows you/him to assemble a "dream machine" and see the budget. My son played with that for MONTHS, and I think it was more enjoyable than the post-build realisation of "oh, it's just another PC... ".

For playing roblox and coding, he could easily pick up a popular "SFF" PC second-hand (e.g. Elitedesk / Optiplex) and then do some "custom upgrades" e.g. GPU, disks, RAM- slightly easier entry than assembling it all from scratch, and a lot cheaper. £500 buys a lot of computer these days (massive over-kill for roblox etc), although current mad RAM prices will smart.

Also, given he is 11: a laptop is within budget, and it's easier to control access (by physically removing it). Controlling access to a PC for a young boy is a full-time policing job.

[CSR Performance]

If he's likely to have a continuing interest in computing then there is not much point in getting a laptop. Future upgradeability is key. Even on a relatively small budget to start with, you can get still get a funky case with some RGB lighting, use base components and run Roblox and Minecraft quite happily, plus it will look cool and he'll be the envy of his mates

My lad has this monitor and it's brilliant for the money, big enough to give an immersive game experience.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-325E1C-00-Widescr...

[grumbledoak]

It's a great idea. An 11 year old can assemble a PC and it will truly be his.

But you are going to struggle at that budget with current RAM and GPU prices. Maybe offer to buy him the graphics card as a present?

This is the current PC part picker entry level to give an idea -
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/6JQzK8/entry-lev...

and it should probably have more fans and LEDs than is sensible.

good luck!

[CSR Performance]

grumbledoak said:

It's a great idea. An 11 year old can assemble a PC and it will truly be his.

But you are going to struggle at that budget with current RAM and GPU prices. Maybe offer to buy him the graphics card as a present?

This is the current PC part picker entry level to give an idea -
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/6JQzK8/entry-lev...

and it should probably have more fans and LEDs than is sensible.

good luck!

Very good points! If self assembly is an option, its a great choice to save money and a real learning experience.

Just looked at that link you posted.... Holy st RAM is expensive now!! I didn't realise it was that bad!

As someone who did this a couple of years ago, I totally echo the points about fans and LED's. Especially in a dusty pre-teen boy's bedroom. My other salient point of advice would be to buy a modular power supply! I didn't find out these existed until after I'd spent hours trying to hide unused wiring in the glass-sided case!

[Jermy Claxon]

Get whatever they use at school.

At home mine use Android tablets and a Windows PC.

At school they have Chromebooks and iPads.

I couldn't have got it more wrong if I tried

[Dave Hedgehog]

i just bought one of these for £175 from ali express with a discount voucher, for the money it has a monster performance, runs hytale (minecraft 2) at 140fps in HD

https://www.gmktec.com/products/gmktec-k12-amd-ryz...