Which combo of specs are ideal? Help a mom decide for his son

the first build with a different power supply.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817116023

By different PSU, he means a whole different brand. Not downgrade to the crappy ones they want to sell you.

8GB RAM is fine.
'need' an 8 core? Not really.
Not much price difference between a 500GB drive and a 1TB drive.

I'm looking at the quality ........... not the "watts".

yes, 8gigs is fine. want 16, buy more. I always run ram in pairs........ 2x4 or 2x8 most of the time.

I've been using 500gigger's for years and never filled one up.....it's always been easy to clean up junk and delete old stuff before I ever ran out of room. ....... don't know what the person using it will be doing............ don't buy any 5400rpn drives if you decide to change your mind....

Where are you buying this from?

So this is for a high school student or college freshman?
There are a zillion places to buy a PC.

Does he want/need a desktop or laptop?

Use DigitalStorm. It is a much better site. They are giving you cheap parts. RAM has no brand. the audio and Ethernet are already in the mobo. The case is VERY VERY BAD, WILL FALL APART. PSU is bad. Warranty is OK.

Start with this, and answer all the questions. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/353572-31-build-upgrade-advice
A prebuilt PC may not be the answer. Often there are one or more substandard parts in it.

the audio and ethernet are already on all motherboards.......... OP did not specify ram. how could you assume it's no name.......... thanks for helping the thread along.

with a budget like that.............................
So digital storm's good PC's are 950 and up and are very good. However, I am on Ibuypower, an alternative. I don't like it much, but it is a decent site. This build comes with a free headset and 2 games.
Keep in mind that this does not have a monitor, but has a keyboard/mouse. If you want a monitor, it will become unrealistic at this price point.

Case 1 x ARC 647 Gaming Case - Black
Case Lighting X
iBUYPOWER Labs - Noise Reduction X
iBUYPOWER Labs - Internal Expansion X
Processor 1 x Intel® Core™ i5-4690 Processor (4x 3.50GHz/6MB L3 Cache)
Processor Cooling 1 x Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1150] - Standard 120mm Fan
Memory 1 x 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand
Video Card 1 x AMD Radeon R9 270X - 2GB - Single Card
Free Stuff 1 x [FREE] - Turtle Beach Z1 Headset - FREE with ALL iBUYPOWER Systems ($29 Value)
Free Stuff 1 x [FREE] - McAfee Antivirus PLUS 2014 - FREE with any System ($49 Value)
Free Stuff 1 x [FREE Game Download] - AMD Never Settle Forever Silver Reward - Select 2 Free Games - Free w/ purchase of AMD Radeon R7 260, R9 270 Series Graphics Cards
Motherboard 1 x MSI B85 G41 -- 2x PCIe 3.0 x16, 2x USB 3.0, HDMI
Power Supply 1 x 600 Watt - Standard - Free Upgrade to 600W OCZ ModXStream Pro - 80 PLUS
Primary Hard Drive 1 x 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive
Data Hard Drive X
Optical Drive 1 x 24x Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black
2nd Optical Drive X
Media Card Reader / Writer X
Meter Display X
Sound Card 1 x 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
Network Card 1 x Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
USB Expansion Card X
Operating System 1 x Windows 8.1 + Office 365 Trial [Free 30-Day !!!] 64-bit
Keyboard 1 x iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Keyboard
Mouse 1 x iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Mouse
Monitor X
2nd Monitor X
Speaker System X
Webcam X
Case Engraving Service X
Warranty 1 x 3 Year Standard Warranty Service
Rush Service 1 x No Rush Service (Usually Ships in 5-10 business Days)
Total Price: 863, Customized: 06-22-2014 05:53 PM

There is a problem with these items that I put in bold. You listed an AMD A10 APU, which is a CPU with a built in graphics card. Then you listed a 1GB Radeon R7. Basically, you shouldnt be buying a CPU w/ graphics card if you are just going to end up buying a graphics card to replace it.

Unless of course you were going to crossfire it? Idk if that's even possible.

Yes it is. However, it is not recommended. Why?
Not many games support Crossfire.
It is not reccomended to crossfire two totally different GPU's.
This kind of crossfire would be a waste of time unless you set the APU to desktop and internet and the discrete GPU to games and other programs.

Crossfire or no, this is just one of the many problems with prebuilt PC's. Fancy sounding parts that look good superficially, but in reality don't work well together.

Exactly. Very few companies can build a good pc that will last and is on par with our standards(our as in the hardcore pc building community).

@OP
Where do you live. One of our mods or outstanding members may be able to build you one.
Can your son possibly learn how to o one himself? There are many good videos and tutorials on how to build a PC, as well as information on the parts themselves. Building the PC isn't the hard part. It's getting the cables to look neat and fit inside the case is the hard part.

Personally, I Live near Riverside. I do have a friend who has built his own PC near San Francisco, but he is in high school as well as me. Find some PC shops near you and ask them. Some PC repair shops MIGHT be willing to help you and build the PC, but they may change 50-100 and up just for building it.

cx power supplies blow.

if you want the cx buy it. I like things a little different.

Corsair CX series Power supplies have a tendency to.... explode or die fast. They are exported from company who makes that for cheap using bad parts.

Corsair RM- GOOD
Corsair CS- OK
Cooler Master- Some of these are good. Some explode. Please specify model type.
Thermaltake- Half of these explode. Please specify type model
eVGA supernova- If this is the G2, then it is great. Otherwise, they don't last long.
Fractal-OK
Antec- Most antecs are great, these ones below aren't.
Antec Earthwatts >greater than 700 watt
Antec Basiq
Antec Phantom
Antec TruePower III
Antec TruePower II
Antec TrueControl II
Antec NeoPower 480 watt (Old Model)

This list here is good for choosing PSU's. It is also in my signature.
http://eggxpert.com/eggxpert/computer_hardware/f/135081/t/45344.aspx





This is not a good build for gaming. It will last for a year or so, then you will have to upgrade it.

-The FX-6300 is very under-powered. If you want to go AMD, get a 8350. Intel has much better performance all around, but is more expensive.
-The AMD heatsink is very bad. It will overheat easily and melt the CPU if you push it to hard, say in a CPU intensive game.
-32 MB of cache is OK. 64 mb is much better. I would tell you to put in an SSD, but your budget would make it tough. An SSD is all digital ,and is VERY, VERY FAST. You would have an SSD for the OS(Windows) and a regular mechanical Hard drive(Spinning disks) for pictures and documents.
-The apevia case will fall apart. They have little to no quality control. Your son is likely to make it fall into pieces just by bumping it.
-As in the above post, the CX power supply is not very good.

I am going on this site to find a better alternative. However, I suggest using IbuyPower, Cyberpower, or Digital Storm.

Ibuy and Cyber power are basically the same thing, offering almost the same options.
Origin is also an option as well.
Alienware, if you have heard of it , is way overpriced.(Dell)


EDIT: I have gone through this site to find that is it not very good at all. They are also very overpriced.