Motherboard and CPU for my nephew?

[nuke]

Hi Lads
It's been a few years since I've posted here so I'm totally out of the loop. My 15 year old nephew has ask me to help him build a PC. What would be your recommendation for a CPU and Motherboard?
He saved his own money for this and I want him to get the best value he can so he can buy a better GPU. I'd prefer going with intel but would consider AMD. He won't be overclocking.
It will be for all types of games off of steam.
Also he lives in the US, what shops would you recommend over there.

Thanks

 

[WYP]

Really depends on what price you are looking to build the PC for.

Right now you need a minimum of 4 threads, meaning that you will need an Intel i3 (2 cores - 4 threads) or an AMD quad core or higher.

 

[nuke]

His budget is $1000 dollars but I'd like to put a large part of that into a decent GPU.

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/HTszM8
You can actually get a 1070 and an i5 for under a 1000USD, but I suppose your nephew doesn't have a monitor or a tv he can use, right?

 

[nuke]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/HTszM8
You can actually get a 1070 and an i5 for under a 1000USD, but I suppose your nephew doesn't have a monitor or a tv he can use, right?

Thanks for that build but, he would also need a monitor, mouse, keyboard and the OS.

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/GyszM8
I swapped the 1070 -decidedly overkill- for an rx480 added monitor -actually a pretty good one- mouse keyboard headset. Also regarding the power issue of the 480 the motherboard has a molex plug for extra pcie power.
ADD windows 10 from this shop https://www.reddit.com/r/microsofts.../h_windows_10_pro_enterprise_windows_781_pro/

968.19+35=1003 USD

 

[nuke]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/GyszM8
I swapped the 1070 -decidedly overkill- for an rx480 added monitor -actually a pretty good one- mouse keyboard headset. Also regarding the power issue of the 480 the motherboard has a molex plug for extra pcie power.
ADD windows 10 from this shop https://www.reddit.com/r/microsofts.../h_windows_10_pro_enterprise_windows_781_pro/

968.19+35=1003 USD

Thanks for that.
What do mean by power issue?

 

[WYP]

Thanks for that.
What do mean by power issue?

The power issue on the RX 480 has been addressed with a new driver, it should not be a problem anymore.

 

[breakyaneck]

but hardware from 2016 are expensive. How looks a phenom X II from AMD with a mainboard with am3 socket? ?? or what processor with am3+

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

but hardware from 2016 are expensive. How looks a phenom X II from AMD with a mainboard with am3 socket? ?? or what processor with am3+

Absolutely not worth it mate, the phenom chips as well as the FX ones are waaay too old and innefficient, they won't get you the performance you'll need in games and will 'Bottleneck' the card. Only reason someone who is between an i5 and an FX chip should be productivity as still the octacores will edge the i5 in workloads like x264 encoding for videos

 

[Haxorinator]

Hey Nuke!

According to your budget and limitations it seems an Intel build will fare better, although more expensive. Intel will perform much better at stock speeds in most scenarios but especially for gaming.

"Thelosouvlakia"'s build is pretty much as good as you can get without going over budget or overkill. Kudos to him!

If you or you're nephew is cool with it, used parts can easily drive up performance/cost ratio but then again, you don't get warantees, gaurantees, etc. Although keep in mind computer parts are relatively reliable. Used parts such as CPUs or GPUs rarely fail, especially today. Parts that should be new should be hard drives, SSDs (depends), and I generally recommend new power supplies that are at LEAST 80plus rated.