re: Best gaming PC

Having read the thread, I'll ask a simple question:

What's the most you want to spend, period?

The system you pitched isn't terrible for the price, but you're throwing money at something that is already obsolete now, much less for the future. With a little more budget, you can get something that will last quite a bit longer. But, I appreciate that if you don't have the budget, you just don't have it.

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Can you play games on Macs yet? The mac mini with the M1 chip for $700 is probably a good bang for the buck, if it can play those games.

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Only games that are 5+ years old. Google Stadia is getting a lot of love though for streaming and Cyberpunk was just released on it.

Hardcore gamers will find flaws with it, but as a casual gamer with no console I’m able to play games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and NBA 2K for very little upfront cost on my 2013 iMac.

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The system you pitched isn't terrible for the price, but you're throwing money at something that is already obsolete now, much less for the future. With a little more budget, you can get something that will last quite a bit longer. But, I appreciate that if you don't have the budget, you just don't have it.

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The Ryzen 3 3100 actually isn't a bad CPU at all. Unfortunately due to teh Ryzen CCX/CCD layout of the 3100 vs 3300x, it is a significant downgrade from the 3300x.

But with a $180-220 GPU, it should be able to reasonably handle 1080p 60 FPS just fine on high settings.

The RX550 is a significant bottleneck. with just 2 GB of video memory.

rtx 3090 gaming pc.....2nd to no other if you really wanted to know

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The Ryzen 3 3100 actually isn't a bad CPU at all. Unfortunately due to teh Ryzen CCX/CCD layout of the 3100 vs 3300x, it is a significant downgrade from the 3300x.

But with a $180-220 GPU, it should be able to reasonably handle 1080p 60 FPS just fine on high settings.

The RX550 is a significant bottleneck. with just 2 GB of video memory.

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Costco is currently offering a Lenovo Legion 5 with an i5-10400 + GTX 1660s (6gb) for $700. Rounding out the specs: 16gb RAM, 256gb m.2 ssd + 1tb 7200rpm spinner. W10Home. Case is ok. Has one USB c and 6x type A. No thunderbolt.


This one is tricky. Oddly enough, around 6 weeks ago I purchased a 1660 Super. I paid $250 or so for a new one on Amazon. It’s hard to find a stocked one under $350 today. Some people are advertising them in the low $500s (I doubt they’re actually making sales at those prices, but that’s what’s available today. And I’ve looked daily since seeing this thread pop up out of curiosity).


Problems here:
1) you theoretically could be patient enough to wait for the parts and come in right as cheap as this box (CPU around $150, GPU around $250, and that leaves $300 for RAM, mobo, PSU, case, and OS (which most people just use unactivated Windows straight from Microsoft as an argument for saving money on a build. That’s really it’s own discussion, but whether you value windows at the ~$100 you’ll pay for it directly from Microsoft can influence your opinion of the deal fairly significantly). The premium on this machine (particularly since it’s in stock of you shop elsewhere, the machine is available on Amazon with a modestly worse gpu (1650s) for $1200. If this is what I saw in store, the included keyboard/mouse include RGB and may or may not hold a little value. Point is- the premium on the parts alone (retail, new) isn’t very high.
2) it’s objectively better than the $550 box the OP asked about from a hardware standpoint. Is the difference significant? It comes down pretty heavily dependent, again, on “what games is the kid playing?” If he’s minecrafting alone, probably not. If he wants to play whatever today’s popular FPS is at 4K settings, he’s going to be disappointed in both. If he’s happy with 1080 on very modern games, he probably won’t be disappointed with the 1660 Super.
But can I recommend this is the right thing for him?
Well, I can say that it would be hard to find a better value at that price that ships by Christmas with no assembly required. And I can say that if you allow for assembly and installation of software, it still won’t lose by a whole lot (and honestly, even if you have to spend the money on a Costco membership, I don’t see you beating the value on short notice if this is a Christmas gift without taking a gamble on potentially getting significantly worse value)
Is it “enough?” It is probably enough. If the first one is enough, this one is going to be a better computer for longer. If the first one is more than enough, this is extreme overkill.


OP, sorry for the long and winding post. I think if your ask is “good” this is “better.” I think this one would play almost anything around passably. There are things that are a TON better, but to get a ton better, you are going to start paying drastically more for them.

If the OP can spend $700, and his kid needs a PC right now, then he should go for that.

A i5-10400 + GTX 1660 Super kicks the shite out of a 3100 + RX550.

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700$ isn’t that bad

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LINK this is it

Yup, that’s a much better buy, IMO.

Also, if you had added “chief”, I would have accused of you hanging out on buildapcsales on Reddit :p

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The only upgrade concerns I would have would be the PSU. That 1660 will be fine for a while but for a gaming machine the GPU would be the first upgrade he will want. Right now upgrading a GPU might require a PSU upgrade as well. Not that big of a deal breaker but I didn't see the PSU listed in the specs. Some of these newer GPUs are using 2x or 3x 8 pin connectors!

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For what it’s worth, they sell a 2060 in the same case and claim a 650W psu on their website for the model with it. I would bet they have a single PSU and swap out the GPU only in that model. I think all 2060 will use a dedicated power connector.
This is speculation, but I would bet that you could put a better GPU down the road if it does become a bottleneck. And if it doesn’t, very nice PSU swaps are $100.



ETA product page on Lenovo. All models have 650W PSU, some have a 2060 and some have a 1660 GPU. When you look closer at tech specs, they offer:
PSU: 400w vs 650w (ES gold, both)
GPU: GTX 1660, RTX 2060, RTX 2070

So, I think it is fairly safe to assume that we could upgrade to at least the 2070 (and realistically should be able to get up to a 3070 in there. You would be under the recommended specs for a 3080 (750w recommended), but at that point, we are talking about more than the budget for the machine on the GPU, and I highly doubt:
1) This dad is thinking about that now or for the next 5 years
2) That anyone willing to pay $700 on a GPU would fuss much about an additional $80-120 on a PSU to match it

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I was unaware of this subreddit.
Thanks for ruining my life.

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ilu <3