My 12yo son has a $500 scholarship for a desktop, we buy it and the scholarship will reimburse us, we are going to put a bit on top, budget is $600 to $700 I cant buy components its got to be a "desktop computer" I haven't bought a pre-build since the 90's, and I really don't like what I am seeing. I have hand me down monitor and peripherals for him
Obviously with this budget this is going to be a low spec computer, my thought was to get him into a starter that we can upgrade over time as budget or hand me down components allow. problem is most prebuild seem to be completely proprietary formats, motherboard I/O shield cut directly into the case, odd motherboard size formats, non ATX power supplies, tiny cramped cases ETC ETC, pretty much makes them disposable appliances with no upgrade path.
for instance fist we would probably save up for a decent vid card for him, that would surely require upgrading the barely enough stock power supply, if its not standard its going to be very limiting if we cant just grab a standard Seasonic or Corsair ATX power supply, even worse if the motherboard uses a non standard 10 pin power connector instead of standard 24 pin. also his computer would probably benefit from my take-offs if it can accept them, makes upgrading my stuff make more sense.
later we may want to upgrade his CPU, often this means a new motherboard, would be nice to re-use the power supply and graphics card we got previously, if the case wont take another motherboard because the I/O shield is fixed in the case now we need a new case also.
So who makes prebuilds with standard ATX components a roomy case that can take to upgrades down the road?
Obviously with this budget this is going to be a low spec computer, my thought was to get him into a starter that we can upgrade over time as budget or hand me down components allow. problem is most prebuild seem to be completely proprietary formats, motherboard I/O shield cut directly into the case, odd motherboard size formats, non ATX power supplies, tiny cramped cases ETC ETC, pretty much makes them disposable appliances with no upgrade path.
for instance fist we would probably save up for a decent vid card for him, that would surely require upgrading the barely enough stock power supply, if its not standard its going to be very limiting if we cant just grab a standard Seasonic or Corsair ATX power supply, even worse if the motherboard uses a non standard 10 pin power connector instead of standard 24 pin. also his computer would probably benefit from my take-offs if it can accept them, makes upgrading my stuff make more sense.
later we may want to upgrade his CPU, often this means a new motherboard, would be nice to re-use the power supply and graphics card we got previously, if the case wont take another motherboard because the I/O shield is fixed in the case now we need a new case also.
So who makes prebuilds with standard ATX components a roomy case that can take to upgrades down the road?
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