New Build Help - PC for MineCraft

[Homerboy]

My soon-to-be 12 year old daughter is an avid MC player (in fact she admins on a fairly prominent creative server). Anyways, she has been using my desktop all along and her birthday is coming up so it's about time she got her own.

My son runs a AMD A8-7600 and plays a ton of MC as well so I guess I'm thinking something like that should suffice. The only problem is my daughter runs A LOT more graphic intensive mods, so not sure if the A8 could handle that.

Anyways, here's the prerequisite:

1) Minecraft (with mods). Youtube. Browsing. School work (ha! Right!)
2) I'd like to hover around $400 max I think. No monitor needed
3) U.S. and A.
4) N/A
5) No brand preference at all. Best bang for the buck and future proofing as possible.
6) I have an old GT8800 laying around. Old junky monitor as well.
7) Not averse to OCing/Unlocking at all. Current PC is a unlocked/OC'ed Phenom X4
8) Screen Res: 1600x900 (max... not exactly sure what the monitor is. Old Dell 16x9)
9) Plan to purchase/build ASAP
10) Will need Windows, but may be able to scrounge a cheap license somewhere as well.


THANKS!!

 

[Homerboy]

Let me point out too that I'm not averse to a discrete GPU solution either. I just figured that the APU would be a cheaper route.

SSD isn't needed either. I mean it'd be nice, but I think she'd prefer storage space over speed.

 

[Ken g6]

I think I'm going to add an overclockable $400 build to my stickied post. Something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-H81M-H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($43.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: *PNY Optima 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($24.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: *Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($26.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: *XFX Radeon R7 265 2GB Video Card ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Case: *Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: *Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: *Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) ($85.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $398.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-30 15:41 EDT-0400

If you find an extra copy of Windows lying around, I'd get an SSD instead.

 

[mfenn]

I think I'm going to add an overclockable $400 build to my stickied post. Something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: *Gigabyte GA-H81M-H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($43.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: *PNY Optima 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($24.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: *Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($26.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: *XFX Radeon R7 265 2GB Video Card ($102.98 @ Newegg)
Case: *Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: *Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: *Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) ($85.75 @ OutletPC)
Total: $398.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-30 15:41 EDT-0400

If you find an extra copy of Windows lying around, I'd get an SSD instead.

:thumbsup: A high-clocked dual is just what Minecraft wants given its not-well-optimized Java heritage.

 

[nsafreak]

:thumbsup: A high-clocked dual is just what Minecraft wants given its not-well-optimized Java heritage.

I agree with mfenn however if she runs a lot of mods you may want to bump it up to 8GB. I know when I play on my FTB server with my DireWolf20 pack plus a few additional mods it takes up its fair share of RAM.

 

[DigDog]

Ken's build is a good one, but i would recommend you save a couple hundred more, you can get a build that will last longer.

 

[WildW]

Minecraft with a lot of mods needs a lot of ram. I just upgraded my machine and my partner's to 16GB because 8GB with 6+GB of it dedicated to Java for Minecraft wasn't cutting it any more - once you hit that memory wall and start caching to disk everything grinds to a halt.

 

[Homerboy]

This is AWESOME. Thanks so much guys. I just really haven't paid attention to PC builds in the past 5+ years so I was flying a little ignorant on bet bang for the buck.

I would probably go 2x4GB on the RAM.

Hell she'll have a better PC then me then!