Best gaming PC

Welcome to the world of DIY!

Unfortunately this is one of the worst times to build/buy a PC due to several CPU and now GPU supply issues.

What resolution are you targeting with this? And what refresh rate?

Cheapest way is to build your own, but prebuilts are fine if you don’t mind the premium. Building is very easy though.

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Cheapest way is to build your own, but prebuilts are fine if you don’t mind the premium. Building is very easy though.

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Prebuilts are cheaper right now

What constitutes a "Gaming PC" other than speed?

The ability to play games and components geared to it- it is a marketing term and not really anything unique about the computer that would preclude it from business, home theatre, some server, etc use. But you probably wouldn’t have much success using a small-form factor “business” computer to play higher-end games.
When a pc is marketed this way, tends to contain higher-end components than a standard business computer (excluding CAD and intense application workstations).
They will essentially all have a discreet graphics card rather than a cpu with integrated graphics (or at least of the cpu has integrated graphics, they aren’t used). This in itself and which component is included can be pretty important. The game the player has in mind will publish recommended and minimum specs for a good experience, so if you’re looking into these for a kid who wants to “game,” you will probably do well by looking up what is recommended for the game they had in mind. Even very popular games can range from needing very low power systems (IE- any off-the-shelf pc) to having to reduce quality settings to play on middle-end machines.
They tend to not focus on low-power, fanless, silent, and small like you see with a lot of “business” or home machines leaning towards these days. Gamers tend to proudly display their case, so they take many forms that are subjectivity attractive and often contain RGB lighting. The last 10 years have seen broadband and online play supersede the concept of “LAN parties” where folks would carry their PC to their buddy’s house to play, so a handle is becoming more rare but still possible to find on a “gaming” pc.

just buy a decent laptop with a higher-end graphics card

With zero knowledge I bought a higher end Digital Storm.

I had an amazing experience with them. It was extremely easy and the communication from them throughout the process was awesome.

It’s amazing but in hindsight, with some research, I could have built something similar for less.

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DO NOT BUY FROM CYBERPOWER

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I’ve had just the opposite experience. They had a 2070 Super built cheaper than I could have done it myself. It arrived and one of the tempered glass panels was broken, gave them a call and they 2 day shipped the replacement with a massive mouse pad as a sorry. I’ve had the pc for 6 months, not a single issue.

Amazon has an element mini 9300
For 529$

That is around my budget
Is that decent?
Can he use a keyboard & mouse on ps4 and get a similar feel
L
He likes baseball and sport games

You're going to need to specify a price range. An open-ended "best gaming PC" will cost several thousand dollars.

Building your own PC isn't always the cheapest. It just depends on the desired specs and whatnot.