Economy upgrade inc. Help me out a bit :)

[Deleted]

Hi! So my 6 year old little brothers birthday is coming up and he made a very expensive wish, he wants a "gaming" computer.
My dad gave him a flat out no and wont be buying him one. That gives big bro a chance to shine
I don't see the kid that often (20 years age difference) so might give him something to remember me by. Yes I'm gonna buy his love.

I was thinking of upgrading my old/reserve desktop to something more suitable for today's games.
I'll list the most important parts that I'm willing to replace (Within reason) and write what I think, then you correct me and give me a suggestion on a reasonable upgrade. Remember this is for a 6 year old so he doesn't have to get the newest of the newest, just enough to make BF3 run smoothly on low/mid settings.

CPU: i5-650 3.20 GHz Quadcore <-- I'm thinking this is still acceptable even for the newer games such as BF3, MW3 and so on.

RAM: 4GB-DDR3 667 MHz <--- A bit on the low side maybe?

GPU: GT 320 <-- Complete and utter garbage! Has to be upgraded.

PSU: Sorted
Case: Sorted

I don't really know where to start here, any ideas? I don't wanna give any minimum or maximum price limits , just think budget.

[Kivimetsan]

Sif go cheap on your little bro. Get a GTX690 and an i7 rig for him :P

[Evil Inside]

Well you'd probably need to start by getting a new case, psu and gpu, the cpu should still be good enough.

[vesseblah]

Tiny case has the problem that you probably can't plug in just any off-the-shelf PSU or graphics card inside. You might have to swap the case (if the motherboard has screwholes and expansion slots in right place, it's not guaranteed), then get new PSU and new graphics card. Something like second-hand Radeon 4850 or Nvidia 250GT should do the trick.


Whole another question is that was the answer "no" for parenting reasons or budget reasons. If your parents don't want your brother to sit in front of PC for several hours per day, they might not like your present.

[Deleted]

Sif go cheap on your little bro. Get a GTX690 and an i7 rig for him :P

Haha he wish! Actually, I wish

Well you'd probably need to start by getting a new case, psu and gpu, the cpu should still be good enough.

Yeah the case was pretty much a dead giveaway. But isn't the motherboards costume sized in minitowers as well?
So if I buy a new case will the mobo fit properly or do I have to go full Macgyver mode to make it work? Make new port holes etc?

Whole another question is that was the answer "no" for parenting reasons or budget reasons. If your parents don't want your brother to sit in front of PC for several hours per day, they might not like your present.

It's a neither economical or parenting control. He simply don't want to "waste" that much money on something he'll eventually screw apart and break. But as a gamer I know that's a crucial part of growing up so I'm not afraid of giving him something "pricey" to bash away at.

[Evil Inside]

There are small motherboards, however you'll have a tough timing finding a gpu that fits in that case.

[vesseblah]

So if I buy a new case will the mobo fit properly or do I have to go full Macgyver mode to make it work? Make new port holes etc?

Maybe. You can just pull out the motherboard now and see if it matches the mATX specifications or not. Those are easy to google.

[Deleted]

Maybe. You can just pull out the motherboard now and see if it matches the mATX specifications or not. Those are easy to google.

Mine is 9.0in x 7.5in so that makes it a FlexATX? Oh god, what have I gotten myself into xD

[Lemmiwink]

Most cases has flex-ATX support, especially if you go for the more well regarded brands.

[vesseblah]

Mine is 9.0in x 7.5in so that makes it a FlexATX? Oh god, what have I gotten myself into xD

It's not just the dimensions, but screwholes and rear side connectors and expansion slots.

Some manufacturers (like HP) does mirrored boards which requires mirrored cases also.

[glo]

I realize this has little to do with your request, but I feel you may have overlooked the fact that enabling a 6 year old to play violent war shooters such as MW3 and BF3 may be unwise (especially considering the often obscene nature of voice chat and regular chat). Just my opinion of course.

[Deleted]

I realize this has little to do with your request, but I feel you may have overlooked the fact that enabling a 6 year old to play violent war shooters such as MW3 and BF3 may be unwise (especially considering the often obscene nature of voice chat and regular chat). Just my opinion of course.

He's not playing online and the violence is limited in both MW3 and BF3, he just wants to shoot things Also, he does not speak nor understand 1 English word.

Edit: I'm not enabling him to do so, he already done it for months. I'm simply helping him to do what he liked at a higher frame rate

[Milkshake86]

I realize this has little to do with your request, but I feel you may have overlooked the fact that enabling a 6 year old to play violent war shooters such as MW3 and BF3 may be unwise (especially considering the often obscene nature of voice chat and regular chat). Just my opinion of course.

This is just an opinion and not a fact or anything related to this topic, if 1 of 500,000 kids is traumatized by television and video games then 1 of 500,000 was traumatized by the old nite time radio shows. What you watch does not define you, knowing right and wrong do. This tipper gore shit needs to be kept in your mouth and not spewed ever.

[Deleted]

It's not just the dimensions, but screwholes and rear side connectors and expansion slots.

Some manufacturers (like HP) does mirrored boards which requires mirrored cases also.

Had a great stroke of luck just now. Found an old computer laying around in the recycling room, i'll just salvage that ones chassi and drill new fittings into the backplate, that way it'll line up perfectly. Also a friend of mine is willing to give me his old PSU for free, it's a Corsair VX550.

Only the fun part left off the build now, GPU and RAM

---------- Post added 2012-09-21 at 11:14 AM ----------

Was thinking maybe going for a GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB, but that might be a bit too generous for a low end build. So the other option is GTX 650 1GB , price differs by about 100 euro. Thoughts?

[glo]

This is just an opinion and not a fact or anything related to this topic, if 1 of 500,000 kids is traumatized by television and video games then 1 of 500,000 was traumatized by the old nite time radio shows. What you watch does not define you, knowing right and wrong do. This tipper gore shit needs to be kept in your mouth and not spewed ever.

Oh please, chill out. The main reason why parents dislike subjecting very young children to violence is BECAUSE that's the stage where they're learning right from wrong. Morality doesn't just appear out of thin air, and mowing down people with machine guns isn't going to help.

I put my statement in a very polite way, it's up to parents to do what they have to do. Something may have been overlooked, that's all I was saying.

[noteworthynerd]

Warning: Please keep it civil and on-topic folks. This specific conversation is not helpful to the OP what-so-ever.