Comments

Thanks for the comments. I will certainly post benchmarks and frame rates once we get the computer running.

Let the build begin!

The build you made looks good to me for a "first gaming PC", I don't know if it will handle VR tho since I don't interest myself a lot on this subject.

For the GTX 1060 GTX to GTX 1660, I trust my fellow TWHLers.

If you are going with the Gigabyte motherboard you posted, 2600 MHz is the max. frequency supported for the RAM so the 3200 MHz in your original build won't work.

I highly recommend a SSD as well, Windows 10 seems to be known to give HDD a hard time if the OS is installed in there. Trust me, it's always painful to see "Disk usage" at "100%" in the task manager when your laptop has a 5400 tr/m HDD because of Windows's core processes.

As Crollo mentioned for Windows 10: grab an USB stick or HDD with at least 8 Gb of space, download the Media Creation Tool from Microsoft's website, pickup your poison (edition, language...), let the tool do the job, boot on it, install and profit. If you are in dire need of a DVD-ROM burner/reader, a cheap one (and external one mentioned by Alberto) will do the trick. Or if you have another PC/laptop that could read/burn them, keep your precious money.

As for the license (product key), you have 2 choices: the first one is to use Windows 10 without a license. In this case, you won't have Microsoft's support, the "Activate Windows" watermark will always be there and your son will be limited in terms of customization (wallpaper, colors, sleep screen...). The second choice is to buy/grab/use a license which seems to be cheap nowadays.

I'm joining Crollo's opinion about AMD: unless you have a "strict budget" or "non-gaming" policy, stay away from it.

The old AMD Duron I had died, the old AMD Sempron I had died as well, the ATI Radeon 9550SE had tons of problems with it's drivers towards legacy OpenGL. Old drivers would let me create GoldSrc maps but wouldn't allow me to change brightness/contrast in some games, new drivers is the entire opposite (even the "atioglx.dll" hack wouldn't work).

My dad's laptop has an AMD GPU and last time I tried to upgrade the drivers it would BSOD Windows 7. I know some friends and colleagues who also had problems with AMD but I'm surprised that it just works for one of my brothers as well as some people in the HL1 modding community.

I don't know if it's bad luck for those who had issues with AMD and/or good luck for those who it works. But I'm personally sticking to the Intel/NVIDIA sides since I never had any problem even if it means more money to spend.

When your son will get his shiny new computer for his birthday, would it possible to share some "benchmarks" on how it's performing in games? Because I have some people seeking gaming builds as well and I could reference the build you made for your son if it works well.

@Brollo - Intel is known for fake benchmarks, programs solely optimized for it and reselling/recycling the same old for decades. I know intel will go rev up the world cpu cylinders once it catches up properly onto the new modern technology, but until then I am glad AMD is finally kicking its ass. Soon it will all be much more balanced for AMD.

Also, dont expect proper performance with the lower end chipsets, especially if you do not have a reliable, accurate power supply. The most important thing to properly function in anything is energy. If your computer eats badly it will perform badly. Electricity is its food, if you ate crap too you wouldnt do so well your self either

What I like from all the modern hardware so far is the display of new faster data buses, laptops will become much more faster.

• Edit -

For some interesting reference to proper power supply and top Chipset importance I can present my personal computer I am still using to this day (aside from this laptop). It is an Dell Vostro 220 Intel G45 chipset with Intel Quad Core Q6600 (with tape mod - To fool the motherboard into overcloking it) and an Enermax Liberty power supply (Absolutely stable at 12.032V at all loads , multimeter tests done as well). With out that power supply performance drastically deteriorates. I could not believe how important proper grounding and power supply was before. Ive been running this setup for five years now. I also see the same thing in customer computers with crappy vs performer power supplies .

I downloaded the map, opened in jack, and this is what i got after hitting ALT+P (which is check for problems by default): https://imgur.com/0vXRRtD

1. One unknown texture
2. Some really weird thing such as 0x0x0units func_buyzone solid entity
3. 1 face that is not planar

After removing those problems i compiled the map and it seems totally fine.

About the optical drive, you could get an USB external one since it's versatile. Plug it in when you need it, plug it off when you don't need it.

The death of AMD can be traced back to the birth of Intel's Core 2 Duo back in 2006. AMD never caught up, and acquiring ATI didn't revive the brand either.

Prime A320M-K.

I thought maybe it was the low end mobo holding the cpu back (spent a lot of time trying to figure out how my cpu was performing so badly), but I haven't found anything at all to suggest that performace is in any way linked to the chipset used.
Only thing I did find was identical performance across the chipsets.
My R7 2700x boosted to 4.2ghz across all cores and never thermal throttled with the stock cooler, with ram running at 3200mhz (which is a requirement on Ryzen due to IF being tied to memory speed).

It's not defective, it's just the truth. Ryzen does not compare with intel for gaming.
Satchmo's link above even further solidifies the fact that average framerates mean absolutely nothing when overall latency, stuttering and framerate drops are as bad as they've always been.
Yes, at certain times you will see moderate to significant fps improvements over older gen hardware, but unlike intel your framerates will also plummet unreasonably at times. This is what is actually important, and this is how AMD suckered in probably 90% of the people who jumped ship from intel... Average framerates.

Ryzen is a good deal at the higher end for productivity purposes, but that's about it.

EDIT: I see what you're asking now.
To say it performed the same as my Phenom II is hyperbolic.
I'm saying it got higher fps at times but the minimums were the same as the Phenom II, which is essentially performing as badly as it.

I also see you were talking about gen 3 Ryzen, not R3. Whoops!
We'll just have to see what AMD has to offer there, I want to be optimistic but AMD still seems to be driving the Ryzen staple of workstation/productivity (more cores and threads) so I don't have high hopes for gaming improvement.

made the mistake of believing the bullshit that Ryzen is only barely worse off than the at the time "equivalent" 7700-8700k, and bought a $500 Ryzen 2700x.
It performed about as badly as my now 10 year old Phenom II 1090t I upgraded from.

Huh, thats interesting. What motherboard did you get at the time of running those tests?

Ohhhhhhhh that's right! Yeah 2400mhz will be fine.
You can buy digital licenses and write your own USB stick using Media Creation Tool, or you can just buy a USB stick from microsoft.

What's the best way to get Windows 10? His new computer does not have a DVD-ROM drive.

Yep, he's turning 12 next month, and this is for his birthday.

He's going to build it himself (with my supervision, of course).

I've swapped out the graphics card as many of you recommended, and I also swapped out the mobo to this Gigabyte one. I think this motherboard does not support 3200 MHz RAM modules.

The long-term plan is to add another EVO 500 GB when it's even cheaper, perhaps in two years (it might be around $25 by then).

He picked out this case himself. His favorite color is green.

The only downside is that this case does not allow a DVD-ROM drive, but that is fast becoming unnecessary in today's computing world.

Can definitely recommend an SSD as well - I don't have one for my games library (though I am eyeing an upgrade) but I have an SSD for my OS drive and it boots lightning fast. If you can afford it I'd recommend getting an additional terabyte one for storage, but at the very least the having a 500GB SSD as your C:/ drive is a must IMO if you're planning on doing just a single drive to start.
Everything else looks like it should be VR ready for the current generation at least, and probably for the next as well.

Also, he's 12 already?! It's only now setting in how long I've been on this site, I remember you posting stories when he was a toddler!

+1 for the Samsung EVO drives. I have 3 in my PC at the moment - 2 of them bought earlier this year (EVO 860) to replace some dying spindle drives, and one I've had Windows installed on for a few years (EVO 850). Loving the price drops of SSDs in the last few years! My Steam/games drive is a 1TB SSD now, if you hate the excessive loading times on modern games, it's a must!

Rightfully so, AMD lags about as far behind in gaming as they always have.

I made the mistake of believing the bullshit that Ryzen is only barely worse off than the at the time "equivalent" 7700-8700k, and bought a $500 Ryzen 2700x.
It performed about as badly as my now 10 year old Phenom II 1090t I upgraded from.
Don't get me wrong, it's amazing for high-throughput productivity purposes, but the latency and stuttering and framerate drops just make it unacceptable for gaming.
Bought an 8700k and will never go AMD for gaming ever again.

EDIT: And Ryzen 3 is about as terrible of a purchase as you can make. Even a modern Pentium would absolutely destroy a Ryzen 3 in gaming.
(My Ryzen 3 1200 actually performed worse than my phenom II 1090t.)

Only thing I would point out for this build is that a 3200mhz kit would only be marginally more expensive than the 2400mhz kit you've selected. It barely makes a difference on intel but why not shell out a little bit more anyways?

Fair enough.

I have this kind of rule though: The more you spend, the less you spend.
Which means that if you spend more now, you'll have to spend less in the future to keep up with the requirements each game and program has (it lasts more basically).
But as of now, wether this will be his first PC or not, it's still a really good piece of equipment and if I was him I would be undoubtedly happy to have it as my first PC.

Oh and, I do agree with Pengiunboy about replacing the GTX 1060 with a GTX 1660 which is almost as good as a GTX 1070 and it has 6GB of VRAM.

Thanks for the great advice.

I am unfortunately prejudiced against AMD. I did have an AMD CPU in the past, but I am afflicted with blind brand loyalty. Intel has treated me so well for decades, and I own Intel stocks too.

I'll let you know about its capacity to run VR. I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on his first PC.

As for the SSD, we're thinking about getting the Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB. It's only $83 now, which is an incredible deal compared to how much it cost a few years ago.

He already has a gaming keyboard and mouse, and we're going to use his existing 23" LCD.

Looks pretty solid. What about hard drives/SSDs, monitor, keyboard and mouse? A good monitor and a fast storage are important nowadays.
Consider Intel Optane and M.2 SSDs since that mobo has two M.2 slots.

I think VR needs premium hardware, I wouldn't build a mid-range PC and expect VR to work well on it. But I could be wrong, I don't know much about it.

Why not wait a bit for Ryzen Gen 3 hardware?

Thanks for the suggestion!

One specific question is whether this rig is powerful enough to support most VR hardware.

I think I shall, good sir.

Looking pretty good! The only thing I'd suggest is to consider the GTX 1660 instead of the GTX 1060. For an extra $20 you get a decent boost in performance and double the memory as well.

I am late to the discussion, but I am here--better late than never.

Sorry to hear about your recent plights. Life is never easy, but sometimes it's harder than others. I know things will get better, because that's also how life goes.

I am a behavioral pediatrician who helps kids with ADHD and autism. I just attended an autism convention that specifically addresses adults with autism dealing with depression and anxiety.

The keynote speaker at the convention was Steve Silberman, and I read his book NeuroTribes many years ago. It provides an updated and more nuanced perspective on autism. I highly recommend it.

Your body does the repairs, but it can also do them with out any of those too.

zombiegibs.mdl actually does appear in the game, in the Office Complex freezer.

Not that I would, but Mushrooms actually repair the constricted neurons in the frontal lobe that attribute to anxiety and depression as well as other things. I’d do well with just Medical Cannabis though.

Stojke that might be my long term treatment. I may get a medical cannabis card since it would actually treat three things in one.

You need da medicine for da soul, man

i do doubt it. I think it happens very fast. There's countless stories of small kids being perfectly healthy, able to walk and say a few words who lost all of it after a certain vaccine. And for antidepressants, I think its better to be an alcoholic and a chain smoker than an addict of antidepressants/anxiety drugs. But well you said your stuff and I said mine, i quit here

Ok.

I don’t doubt that people are slowly evolving/mutating.

Potatis, that’s rather uplifting. Just wish there were options for me to improve our situation.

And thank you everyone for the support.

in the modern society, where water is poisoned with fluoride, air and food hardly meets it's definitions, vaccines containing mercury and all kinds of bullshit around us, dont expect to be healthy or your children to be so. You know what to do. Whether it's conscious genocide or stupidity incarnated, its time to think about your function in this machine

Good luck to the both of you.

In my experience (I have an Asperger's AKA Autism Spectrum Syndrome diagnosis and know and have met lots of people with different neuropsychiatric diagnoses) it's common when one is first diagnosed with something like Autism to have some weird feelings about it. Sometimes shame and a fear of inferiority, sometimes pride and a sense of being smarter and better than neurotypicals. If, God forbid, you ever find yourself thinking in those kinds of tracks, it might help to remind yourself that your diagnosis doesn't define you, it just describes a few aspects of you. It can help you and others to understand you better, but it's just some papers and always remember that being one of the many people with the same diagnosis doesn't make you any less of an individual.

Man that's tough... I'm sorry to hear that.

Hope everything goes well for both of you. You deserve it.

Yeah I make less that 2k a year and I have dental work to get done and I’m in pain all the time and I can’t take pain meds because of drug interactions, but I also want to buy food. So. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He did a solid job, though I am a fan of the more phantasy azure blue type of water texture in any form
I started adding bushes and stuff into my maps as of lately as well (Lately as in a few years but also a few made maps only as well).

Thanks man, nabbed it from de_airstrip. Strider made the waterfall texture for the competition we entered on gamebanana a while back and I use it in every map I make that includes a waterfall.

I would have gone into further detail with the foliage work but just wanted to slap a map together in a day for the m3 server I play in.

Sorry to hear all the news Ben. I hope y'all figure all this out. Life is already hard enough as it is amidst health issues. I hope Lyssa pulls through it and y'all figure everything out.

I almost took to the graphic design rout before myself but after doing a few free lancing jobs with it, I realized how picky people can be.

I work in the CAD Drafting industry and have for 5+ years now. It's very tough tedious work but I plan on shifting more towards the 3d side of things.

Currently learning Solidworks and Inventor.

I'll let you know how that goes, I know that's something you could easily do.

I hope you and Lyssa get well. Don´t give up.

It seems that way these days, doesn’t it? But abnormal traits were observed by a peer and a neuropsychologist in the room with me. It was an up-to-date test and it turned out I was on the spectrum. There are simple things I can’t do that I need help with. The depression is so bad it’s chemical. This all happened in October, and I wouldn’t put it on the internet if I wasn’t sure.

He's not a prick. He's just got a no-bullsh** attitude. Some people don't like that, but whatever. (I'm basically the opposite, sugar-coating the hell out of everything)

Screamernail, he just wants to say a Mac isn't optimal for making that kinda content. If you hate PC, then learn to love it.

Wow, you actually did do everything to ensure you´ll fail. Now that´s dedication.

You know, you're a prick and I assume that it's a miracle you've gotten a place here. Here. Here. Here.