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Help me pick a gaming PC
May 22, 2024 at
06:37 AM
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I'm looking to get my son a somewhat entry level gaming PC that can be upgraded, he mostly plays Steam games, Roblox, and Fortnite.
I'm looking at two options,
This front page deal:
https://slickdeals.net/f/17493177-powerspec-g517-gaming-desktop-pc-ryzen-7-5800x3d-rx7600-8gb-gddr6-16gb-ram-500gb-ssd-700-free-store-pickup-at-microcenter?src
And this build from Costco:
https://www.costco.com/skytech-ch...36292.html
From what i understand, the CPU and GPU from costco is slightly better, and it has 2x ram and SSD, so i'm thinking this makes up for the $200 price difference. But does anyone know if the Costco model is easy to upgrade? One popular thing mentioned about the G517 is it's made from all off the shelf components, and would be easy to upgrade.
Also, I think my Costco had some of these models that were $100 less then the website price, and they ended with the 0.97. So maybe if it's 799, it's a great deal?
I'm looking at two options,
This front page deal:
https://slickdeals.net/f/17493177-powerspec-g517-gaming-desktop-pc-ryzen-7-5800x3d-rx7600-8gb-gddr6-16gb-ram-500gb-ssd-700-free-store-pickup-at-microcenter?src
And this build from Costco:
https://www.costco.com/skytech-ch...36292.html
From what i understand, the CPU and GPU from costco is slightly better, and it has 2x ram and SSD, so i'm thinking this makes up for the $200 price difference. But does anyone know if the Costco model is easy to upgrade? One popular thing mentioned about the G517 is it's made from all off the shelf components, and would be easy to upgrade.
Also, I think my Costco had some of these models that were $100 less then the website price, and they ended with the 0.97. So maybe if it's 799, it's a great deal?
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Conversely, the Costco PC has the better GPU [technical.city].
In my opinion based on the usage you suggested, the differences will not be noticeable in real-world use.
32GB vs 16GB really won't matter unless he is running background tasks while gaming. Furthermore, you can easily upgrade memory. I can't tell whether there are open slots on the 16GB machine or not but even if there aren't you can swap out the existing memory with larger memory if desired.
500GB isn't exactly a huge drive so consider whether using external storage is an option (the more he games, the more games he has).
Since you started out by saying 'entry level gaming PC' I would suggest the cheaper of the two, either one will suffice.
All that said, personally, if he's going to get into PCs and gaming and upgrading, I would build a PC from scratch with him and that's how he learns. Definitely not as easy as just buying a pre-built machine, but really not that hard either.
Edit to add, both machines look as if they are easy to upgrade, it's usually only proprietary cases that cause difficulty in opening and removing / replacing components.