Build Advice Kids PC

Build for kids, so general use.
Mainly media like youtube, playing minecraft and roadbox (I think thats whats it called.). Homework, for a growing 10 year old.

Budget: £300-£400
Main uses of intended build: Media and Homework
Parts required: Case,CPU,RAM,SSD,PSU,MotherBoard
Previous build information (list details of parts): 2Tb Hard Drive, monitor, KnM.
Monitor resolution: Full HD
Storage requirements: at least 256gb SSD
Will you be overclocking: no
Any motherboard requirements (no. of USB, Xfire/SLI, fan headers): not really
Extra information about desired system: Wifi needed but maybe dongle will suffice

My thoughts are:

SaharaGaming C500B ATX Black Tempered Glasses gaming case - £41.99
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BFVL...olid=2PVPXWCT51QV7&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

AMD Ryzen 3 3200G - £78.98
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07STGH...olid=2PVPXWCT51QV7&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 - £54.53
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MWGK...olid=2PVPXWCT51QV7&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G32C16U4W 3200 MHz - £74.99
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B083TYS...olid=2PVPXWCT51QV7&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Corsair VS550 550 W Active PFC 80 PLUS Certified Power Supply Unit - £44.99
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078XXN...olid=2PVPXWCT51QV7&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Sabrent 512GB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 £72.99 or the 256gb will do at £48
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07KGMB...olid=2PVPXWCT51QV7&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

So about £369 or £344

Any good?
Guess I can add a gpu at a later date?

 

Looks good, although I'm not sure if I'd trust them with a glass case

 

Thanks, it will be on the floor and hopefully ok.

might get a second hand gpu aswell now if I can save some money somewhere, thinking the ram (maybe get 8gb) and ssd can save abit, and maybe get a rx580 for around £100.

 

I'd say stick with what you have for those games then in a few months (or so) when the next gen GPU's release and cause prices to wobble grab something From what I can tell that iGPU is fine for those games.

 

Thanks for the recommendations, I have been reading about the cpu, would anyone consider a second hand ryzen 5 2600x as they are about £100, would the price value ratio be a better option, or would you stick with a Ryzen 3 3200?

 

That setup will run just fine most for most kids though I would consider a few more cores/threads.

If you are going to definitely have a dedicated GPU in a short space of time then wait and look at the 1600af/2600x paired with gpu as mentioned, if it is unlikely to happen for some time consider a 2400g/3400g so the CPU at least has decent number of cores/threads for all games and a stronger iGPU, I built similar machine for my daughter around a 2400g and it can play anything thrown at it (obviously with realistic expectations on settings/res)

The 2400G set me back 70quid secondhand, welll worth it.

On my daughters I use a small ssd with large cheap hdd and storeMI, works really well.

 

Just checking some prices and a benchmark comparing the Ryzen 5 1600, https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-5-1600-vs-AMD-Ryzen-3-3200G/3919vsm824486
Seems to be comparable but around £20-£25 more expensive.

 

Yeah, thats why I first thought about the 3200G because I didnt plan on buying a dedicated GPU. I wanted something really cheap. budget was £300 but then reading and researching and wanting the budget seems to have increased.

What spec RAM, motherboard and power did you end up having with the 2400g?

 

3200g is 2c/4t, so that is proper entry level these days, 3400g is 4c/8t

My daughters machine is essentially what you have listed mobo and ram wise I think, cpu a 2400g, 256Gb ssd + an slow 1tb 2.5inch hdd from ps3/ps4 but you wouldn't know because of amd storemi tech, mine uses a corsair 430w psu and has a pcie wifi/bt card.

Mine is overclocked, mainly because easy to do so and I am a tweaker, no more cpu speed apart from running all cores at boost speed, more so oc'd ram and iGPU core, performance was still plenty capable stock.

 

Also worth baring in mind that as Zen 2 has just launched on mobile platforms its desktop APU can't be too far away so there could be a far stronger 4xxxG series dropping shortly, of course hard to know when or at what cost and spec.

 

APUs confusingly are a gen behind desktop chips for their CPU architecture, so 2xxxG is gen1 14nm, 3xxxG is gen1 + 12nm so 4xxxG is where 7nm chips would be expected to come in to desktop APU as it has done in the mobile space. The zephyrus g14 for example runs a Ryzen 4800 CPU this is 7nm zen 2.

 

Sweet, thanks for the info. Will consider the 3400g or wait a few months for the new gen budget cpu.
I am in no rush yet, however just brought the case as i feel that is a cheap good value case with all the rgb which i think he will love.

 

Also which means the B450 board mentioned wont be compatible.

 

Not necessarily, as Sandys said, the APUs have been a gen behind the regular desktop processors, so as a B450 will happily run a 3000 series CPU, it will probably do the same for a 4000 series APU.

TBH, I expect it will run the regular 4000 series CPUs as well given it’s an enhanced version of the 3000 series

 

BTW, if you wanted to see what the difference between storeMI and non StoreMI enable system with a really slow old console hard drive that I have repurposed for PC, here are before and after vids of my daughters machine getting into Far Cry 5.

She previously ran an AM4 APU system with a small 120Gb SSD and the system was not reinstalled on new build, I just migrated data to the larger HDD, chucked it all in and turned it on, let windows sort it, so still years of data there. but you can see even after a couple of reboots this system is sooo slooow off of this playstation drive.

I installed the SSD as fast tier and let the software do its thing on the data management and honestly I can load so many games ( I have all the big titles on there that are too big for SSD ) and it does a grand job of hiding that slow drive

before, be patient



after



Don't think it was overclocked there as I was testing StoreMI and obviously running a bit of software that moves data around is not cool on an unstable system but I think it was still benchmarking in FC5 1080p high @ just under 30fps, which is respectable, no worse than you would see on a games console but at generally higher image quality and resolution, it smashes minecraft and roblox of course no problem, and yes it is a pink PC.

 

Thanks for this, but i couldn't be patient with the first video, had to skip through lol.

Watched the 2nd video and it was alot better, makes me think it would be good for me to go M.2 NVMe PCIe ssd format as the load times from power on was still abit too slow for me, (Im use to under 10 seconds from power on to be able to click on chrome and use).

Im leading towards building a system with the Ryzen 5 1660AF with a RX580 (However the prices of this card is creeping up to around £120-£150, so waiting for a deal for £100 before buying).
Is it worth me considering RX 570 as that is alot cheaper? What is the performance vs value ratio I would be losing?)

 

Its actually a lot faster now, it gets faster the more that gets transferred to ssd, that was only second boot, if you installed onto ssd and then added slow drive to tier it would boot faster, I did the reverse so data had to move to ssd which it manages the more you use, just means this way you don't have to do disk management the system does it for you.

Also that hard drive is one of the slowest I have ever experienced

Though it is fair to say I don't see the fascination in wasting SSD on a boot drive alone for a fast boot, the PC uses the same power in sleep as it does off, so just sleep its faster than any boot.

 

Never heard of more data on drive it makes it faster? everytime I have more stuff on my hard drives it seems slower?
I agree, I tend to not only use my ssds as boots drives but also as storage.
With kids pc I will just have a ssd drive i think because they will not use much storage as everything is streamed now.
interesting about sleep more using same power, i tend to never put my desktops pc in sleep mode, its always off or hibernation, mainly turn off as doesn't take long to boot up.

 

With tiered disk you set one disk as fast and one as slow, when you use data it is moved to fast tier and software continues to move to fast tier until disk is full at which point it moves data that has not been accessed for a long time back to slow tier to make room for new data on fast tier.

Of course just use SSD is you think you can fit all your data on it but with games taking many 50-100Gb it is easy to fill a small SSD and find yourself having to manage data to put what you want on the quick, this just takes care of that, sure its not perfect, there will be times the slow drive will make itself know but it is rare, having all SSD as I do in my main is the way sure, but this is fine if you want cheap storage solution.

Your 256 SSD and 2TB HDD will give you a nice 2.25Gb accelerated drive, it can also use a bit of RAM as well for cache, so it is really snappy, feels as good a my machine that is completely decked out with NVMe drives.

Does a good job of tricking benchmarking software



My daughters PC also charges her phone, ipad and switch through USB3 rather than a billion chargers so it is never unplugged and setup to sleep because, well , kids man, do they ever switch anything off

 

I know the feeling. Lost count of the amount of times I tell them to switch of the tv after playing with the consoles. Its a OLED so don't want them screen burns