Son wants a new PC for video editing/light gaming for Christmas. Low budget.

Augster

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 21, 2004
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Hello,

I don’t have much time before Christmas, and not much money. I’d normally put a system together, but I’m sure I couldn’t get it done in a week.

I have a micro center 20 minutes away. I also have a Costco membership and multiple Best Buy’s around.

Since I don’t have time to build, and he’d like something under the tree next Saturday, what PC desktop should I get? Max budget of, say, $1000. I’d prefer to stay under $800, but I’d don’t know if that’s doable.

Are there any deals out there on a system he’ll be able to video edit (mostly)? He really only needs the PC. Could go with a laptop also.

Thanks for any help everyone. He just told me that’s what he wanted yesterday when he got back from college so I’m freaking out.

Thanks.
 
Yeah I was also gonna recommend a decent gaming laptop instead of a desktop for that price range. Lot of bang for the buck in them these days especially for light gaming.
 
I’m in 55418. Thanks for any and all help.

The St. Louis Park, MN Microcenter is about 20 minutes.
 
Made a build list of components available at your local microcenter for $1002.00
 

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But when cheap gaming laptop clogs with dust and overheats or something fails, you have an expensive paper weight. Get a desktop for use at a desk, at least it can be upgraded or repaired.
I see often that students get laptops that stay at the dorm/home and never move. So you get bad posture and less reliability at higher price..
 
But when cheap gaming laptop clogs with dust and overheats or something fails, you have an expensive paper weight. Get a desktop for use at a desk, at least it can be upgraded or repaired.
I see often that students get laptops that stay at the dorm/home and never move. So you get bad posture and less reliability at higher price..
that never seemed to happen to my sons laptop but ok
 
Made a build list of components available at your local microcenter for $1002.00
That list is awesome. Thanks. He doesn’t need a monitor or keyboard or mouse. He has those. Would the build change at all knowing he doesn’t need those?

Also, I didn’t see a video card in the build. Maybe I’m looking at the pictures wrong?

Thanks!
 
The 5700G CPU has onboard graphics and the mainboard has a Gen 4 X16 slot as well for later upgrade to dedicated graphics card when prices become more sane.
 
The 5700G CPU has onboard graphics and the mainboard has a Gen 4 X16 slot as well for later upgrade to dedicated graphics card when prices become more sane.
Cool. And the onboard graphics will be able to handle some 4K editing? I guess he’s going to shoot a short movie as a project for one of his classes and his current computer, which I built 9 years ago, apparently can’t handle it.

Thanks very much!
 
That I'm unsure of perhaps others here can speak to that question as I'm an auto tech by trade and mostly game and goof off on my systems.
 
I mean if he's doing some serious editing his school should have a lab he can use that'll have higher end editing gear. But given your budget and the current state of video cards (too damn high) something with an iGPU is probably the play. They've improved a ton in the last 2-3 years.
 
According to this article the best budget graphics card for video editing is Nvidia 1660 super. Cheapest ebay price here. Bidding ends about 11:26 am your time monday morning.
 
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Okay. Thanks for that article.

Since it seems the sticking point on price for a build now is the graphics card, how about this microcenter rig:

https://www.microcenter.com/product/638792/powerspec-g229-gaming-pc

It includes the 1660super. It’s also on budget.

Which would be better? That tower with the 1660, or the MSI Katana laptop at the same price:
https://www.microcenter.com/product...ing-laptop-computer-platinum-collection-black

Or is the rig Learners Permit put together better?

Thanks for all the answers. I need to buy this week. Christmas is Friday for us. :)
 
According to this article the best budget graphics card for video editing is Nvidia 1660 super. Cheapest ebay price here. Bidding ends about 11:26 am your time monday morning.
He has MC near him. He has a lot better choice then a $400+ used 1660. He need to find out what days MC gets GPUs in normally. He can score a 3060 for under $500. My MC generally gets a lot of lower end RTX cards on Wednesday. Many times I walked in the evening and they still had 3060-3070 cards available.
 
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Honestly there are folks here that have far more knowledge about the specifics of a PC that best suit his needs than I do and I was hoping some would chime in on this subject. I'm out of my league here and I can offer little more than I have at this point.
 
Cool. And the onboard graphics will be able to handle some 4K editing? I guess he’s going to shoot a short movie as a project for one of his classes and his current computer, which I built 9 years ago, apparently can’t handle it.

Thanks very much!
11900k vs 5700g, you can look at some


Intel IGPU have that type of workload quite in mind, in term of latest codec support and so on and are good relative to their gaming performance, but AMD has significantly more horsepower.

A 5700g system will have quite the possible future upgrade path (from a gpu and changing the cpu to a 5900x one day).

Depending on the program, not having cuda and other Nvidia exclusive can come at a performance cost.
 
Thanks for all the help. It turns out, I need to buy tomorrow, Wednesday, if I’m going to get anything for Christmas for under the tree.

If you were buying tomorrow, what would you get? I COULD buy the components and just wrap those and put them under the tree, then put the computer together Christmas Day. But I’d prefer not to do that, in this case.

Given all of the above criteria etc. and you could find time to get to MicroCenter tomorrow, what would you buy?
 
In that case get a prebuilt or laptop for sure. If you need it tomorrow I'd walk into MC and tell them your budget and they will hook you up. If they have an affordable dGPU on hand then great, if not I don't think it'll be a dealbreaker for your son. Plus if it's something he doesn't want for some reason he can exchange it.
 
I would put a voucher in an empty box for custom build PC and make it a father son build project so I could spend some time with my boy. Whenever he was home from college for the holidays he always wanted to catch up with his old friends and teammates from high school so I would bribe him with stuff like that to keep him at home longer. That is sad I know but it works.
 
Thanks for all the help. It turns out, I need to buy tomorrow, Wednesday, if I’m going to get anything for Christmas for under the tree.

If you were buying tomorrow, what would you get? I COULD buy the components and just wrap those and put them under the tree, then put the computer together Christmas Day. But I’d prefer not to do that, in this case.

Given all of the above criteria etc. and you could find time to get to MicroCenter tomorrow, what would you buy?
Your post for the desktop https://www.microcenter.com/product/638792/powerspec-g229-gaming-pc or laptop https://www.microcenter.com/product...ing-laptop-computer-platinum-collection-black you linked earlier was spot on for your best option IMHO.

The desktop is going going to be faster and is upgradable. I would go this route unless your son specifically wants a laptop, in which case the katana is your best bet.

The 5700G prebuilt or custom options may be a bit better deal in the long run, but it results in your kid running a sub optimal build while hoping he finds a reasonable priced GPU in the future and possibly paying out of pocket for it. I personally would prefer the ready to rock 11400f build with the 1660 super if I was opening something on xmas and was excited to use it.
 
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Grrrr. Lol.

I just came from microcenter. They were sold out on the B733 since Pendragon’s post last night.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/640266/powerspec-b733-desktop-computer

So I picked up the refurb HP Omen laptop he suggested.

They did have the G229 in stock.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/638792/powerspec-g229-gaming-pc

I liked the G229 with the 1660 super in it.

I now have the laptop for putting under the tree. But, given all the above, if he absolutely wants a desktop, perhaps he’d like to add a storage drive for projected, and we return and exchange for something on Sunday, what should I get?

If he doesn’t want the laptop, and feels he needs a desktop for whatever reason, AND Christmas has already passed, I could build one from components I suppose. The video card would be the sticking point/budget killer of course.

I guess, at this point, I’ll see what he says on Christmas. Maybe he’ll love it. If he wants it returned and feels he needs a desktop, I’ll start a new build thread as that’s what it’d be.

Thanks for all of the help from everyone!
 
Grrrr. Lol.

I just came from microcenter. They were sold out on the B733 since Pendragon’s post last night.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/640266/powerspec-b733-desktop-computer

So I picked up the refurb HP Omen laptop he suggested.

They did have the G229 in stock.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/638792/powerspec-g229-gaming-pc

I liked the G229 with the 1660 super in it.

I now have the laptop for putting under the tree. But, given all the above, if he absolutely wants a desktop, perhaps he’d like to add a storage drive for projected, and we return and exchange for something on Sunday, what should I get?

If he doesn’t want the laptop, and feels he needs a desktop for whatever reason, AND Christmas has already passed, I could build one from components I suppose. The video card would be the sticking point/budget killer of course.

I guess, at this point, I’ll see what he says on Christmas. Maybe he’ll love it. If he wants it returned and feels he needs a desktop, I’ll start a new build thread as that’s what it’d be.

Thanks for all of the help from everyone!
thats a pretty sweet laptop for 1K. only way he wont be happy is if he indeed wanted a desktop. will watch to see if that thread pops up.
ps: i hope you noticed that it says they are refurbs. only reason i suggested one it that i did refurbing for several years and they get tested waaaaay more than off the line units where its like 1/100. they are far less likely to have any issues out of the box.
 
Our Houston MC has the AMD 6600 for 329 to 500 USD, not bad for a new budget GPU. Had like 30 in stock last week. For video editing you need plentiful cores, HD space and memory.
 
So I picked up the refurb HP Omen laptop he suggested.
The only real downside for me is the 90 day warranty. If he does decide to keep it I would see if HP will let you purchase an extended warranty. Usually the HP software that comes pre loaded will give you the option \ walk you through the process.
 
If he is dead set on a desktop, just buy that monitor and hook it up to the laptop.
 
That laptop is going to throttle the CPU when it's loaded. If he's just editing it will probably be fine. If doing any rendering...not good.
 
Grrrr. Lol.

I just came from microcenter. They were sold out on the B733 since Pendragon’s post last night.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/640266/powerspec-b733-desktop-computer

So I picked up the refurb HP Omen laptop he suggested.

They did have the G229 in stock.
https://www.microcenter.com/product/638792/powerspec-g229-gaming-pc

I liked the G229 with the 1660 super in it.

I now have the laptop for putting under the tree. But, given all the above, if he absolutely wants a desktop, perhaps he’d like to add a storage drive for projected, and we return and exchange for something on Sunday, what should I get?

If he doesn’t want the laptop, and feels he needs a desktop for whatever reason, AND Christmas has already passed, I could build one from components I suppose. The video card would be the sticking point/budget killer of course.

I guess, at this point, I’ll see what he says on Christmas. Maybe he’ll love it. If he wants it returned and feels he needs a desktop, I’ll start a new build thread as that’s what it’d be.

Thanks for all of the help from everyone!
Our Houston MC has the AMD 6600 for 329 to 500 USD, not bad for a new budget GPU. Had like 30 in stock last week. For video editing you need plentiful cores, HD space and memory.
 
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