I want to build a computer with my 11 year old. Money is tight but I think the experience is important for him. He does game but mostly Minecraft and BNGdrive, blender 3D. Has anyone come across anything that would be worth building that could be upgraded to last a few years? He is on an old quad core computer I bought 5 years ago for $50! Thanks
Check out the combos at Microcenter if you have one near enough for pickup. A lot of guys will argue against the 12th gen since it's now technically 2 gens ago, but that would be my advice for a budget build. Performance wise it's not that far behind current Intel CPUs and it's a heck of a lot cheaper. Some locations will take the $25 off CPU coupon w/ the combo also (Google it).
The motherboard is a midrange last gen ddr4 lga 1700 board (admittedly the z790 chipset is only a marginal improvement). It does have some nice features, such as a pcie gen 5 x16 primary slot (all other pcie slots are gen 3), four gen 4 m.2 slots, and a high end audio chip. However, other features are somewhat outdated, and you can get a ddr5 z690 motherboard of relatively comparable quality for around $130 on a good sale. Getting a ddr4 board for a new intel build makes absolutely no sense, especially considering how cheap ddr5 has gotten. Overall, the motherboard is worth no more than $130, and that's assuming you're willing to neuter your new build on a dead end platform by using ddr4.
I agree with you on most of your points here, but what mobo of "comparable quality" are you getting for $130? (outside of a CPU/RAM/mobo combo deal)
If they really only care about Excel this is overkill. Add in 32gb of ddr5 ram and storage and they're looking at close to $500. Unless we're talking truly massive datasets I think 16gb would be plenty. If the spreadsheets are hundred of thousands of lines then 32gb might be warranted.
1-2hours for you to inbox and put together it's kind of a wash the quality is a hit underrated as a $200 mobo would likely not yield 1% more performance which is almost margin of error.
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Unless you are heading for a z790 apex or ITX boards, ddr4 is still better for gaming for their latency versus 7200…not justify this as a deal though
https://www.microcenter
The motherboard is a midrange last gen ddr4 lga 1700 board (admittedly the z790 chipset is only a marginal improvement). It does have some nice features, such as a pcie gen 5 x16 primary slot (all other pcie slots are gen 3), four gen 4 m.2 slots, and a high end audio chip. However, other features are somewhat outdated, and you can get a ddr5 z690 motherboard of relatively comparable quality for around $130 on a good sale. Getting a ddr4 board for a new intel build makes absolutely no sense, especially considering how cheap ddr5 has gotten. Overall, the motherboard is worth no more than $130, and that's assuming you're willing to neuter your new build on a dead end platform by using ddr4.
Duh. A Firetab 11 with keyboard can run excel.