A gaming PC for my 15 year old nephew

[Dazzzzz]

Morning all,

I want to get my nephew a new gaming PC for Christmas, I have a £2,000 budget and he will be using it just for gaming as he uses a laptop for his school work etc.
He doesnt really ever ask for anything so I would like this to be a surprise.
I havent been able to ask him what games he plays as I dont want him to figure out what he is getting.
I know he plays Planet Coaster and the new Planet Coaster 2 is out so as long as it can play that at least (preferably with the best settings if possible).

Apart from that I really dont have a clue as I havent built a PC in 15 years at least so I have no idea what works best.
All advice is appreciated, I went with the RGB light kits etc. as he has all the light up keyboards etc. already so he seems to like that stuff.

Case
PCS LUMIN ARGB MID TOWER CASE (PWM)
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16 Core CPU (3.4GHz-4.9GHz/72MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE B550 GAMING X V2 (AM4, DDR4, PCIe 4.0)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
20GB GIGABYTE RADEON™ RX 7900 XT GAMING OC - 2 x HDMI, 2 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW)
2nd M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 360 Series ARGB High Performance Liquid Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
LED Lighting
35cm Corsair LS350 Aurora RGB Light Strip
Extra Case Fans
4 x PCS ARGB LED Fan + Controller Kit
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy™ FX
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (6 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days

 

[TonyCarter]

Do you know what monitor he has? Make & model, or resolution & refresh rate? This will inform the GPU choice - which is a huge part of the cost of a gaming PC.

Do you know if he's doing anything significant other than gaming on the PC, e.g. hours of video editing, 3d rendering, animation, music production, etc. as this will inform the CPU choice.

Also, you've built on the older AM4 platform (and have gone for a productivity CPU rather than a gaming CPU), we're now on the 2nd generation of AM5, and the latest & greatest gaming CPU has just been released (unfortunately the 9800X3D is not on the config to yet).

Does he have a ethernet connection close by, or does he need wifi (as the config above doesn't include wifi).

I'll cobble something together based on a 1440p build (which is where £2000 gets you), and we can go from there once we have more info.

 

[Dazzzzz]

Do you know what monitor he has? Make & model, or resolution & refresh rate? This will inform the GPU choice - which is a huge part of the cost of a gaming PC.

Do you know if he's doing anything significant other than gaming on the PC, e.g. hours of video editing, 3d rendering, animation, music production, etc. as this will inform the CPU choice.

Also, you've built on the older AM4 platform (and have gone for a productivity CPU rather than a gaming CPU), we're now on the 2nd generation of AM5, and the latest & greatest gaming CPU has just been released (unfortunately the 9800X3D is not on the config to yet).

Does he have a ethernet connection close by, or does he need wifi (as the config above doesn't include wifi).

I'll cobble something together based on a 1440p build (which is where £2000 gets you), and we can go from there once we have more info.

I dont know what monitor he has to be honest, his dad will be getting him a new one but hasnt got it yet, do you recommend a particular one? the curved gaming ones look nice (approx £600?)

He will only be using it for gaming, no video editing or anything similar, purely gaming.
Thanks for pointing out the Wifi, i had assumed it was onboard but clearly not!
Really appreciate the reply, as you can see im out of my depth with this

 

[TonyCarter]

Case
CORSAIR iCUE 5000X RGB MID TOWER GAMING CASE - better quality case & fans than the unknown PCS-branded ones (I think the Lumin is a Gamdias Neso P1, but have no experience of that company's quality) - and will use the same control software (Corsair iCUE) as the AIO fans
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-5.5GHz/40MB CACHE/AM5) - placeholder for the 9800X3D (the best gaming GPU) that is due this week
Motherboard
GIGABYTE X870 EAGLE WIFI7 (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7) - newer platform, with wifi7, USB4/Thunderbolt, and PCIe5 (for faster component connections if when it get upgraded)

X870 EAGLE WIFI7 Key Features | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...

www.gigabyte.com

Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 16GB) - sweet spot or price/performance for AM5 platform, but have left off the RGB as it currently adds about £20 (some days RGB version is cheaper than non-RGB)
Graphics Card
16GB GIGABYTE RADEON™ RX 7800 XT GAMING OC - 2 x HDMI, 2 x DP - would like to put the 7900GRE in there, but it's out of stock until Christmas; and the equivalent Nvidia GPU is £250 more
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW) - fast, reliable primary SSD for Windows/apps/games launchers ONLY
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB CORSAIR CORE XT MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 5000 MB/R, 4400 MB/W) - fast, reliable secondary drive for game installs, media, etc. (not gone for Samsung as they had a period of dodgy firmware and unreliability - supposedly fixed, but we've never had these problems with Solidigm or Corsair SSDs)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W RMx SHIFT SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET - may look like it's too powerful, but the 850/1000W offerings from PCS are the old ATX2.4 models which can't always handle the peak transient spike power loads of the current generation GPUs. ATX3.1 / PCIe 5.0 PSU solve this...however PCS only offer them in the too lo 750W or the 'too high' 1200W - so 1200w is it...and give plenty of room for a new, beefier GPU in 2-3 years time
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR iCUE H115i ELITE CAPELLIX XT RGB High Performance CPU Cooler - 2x140mm larger fans are quieter for the same cooling performance than 2x120mm or 3x120mm - and will use the same control software (Corsair iCUE) as the case fans
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
35cm Corsair LS350 Aurora RGB Light Strip - as your own build - and will use the same control software (Corsair iCUE) as the case/AIO fans
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD) - no need for separate sound-card these days, as most motherboards have 5.1/7.1 built in
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £1,997.00 including VAT and Delivery - might have to tweak something if the price for the 9800X3D takes it much higher
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/ZJmUujw50M/

 

[TonyCarter]

I dont know what monitor he has to be honest, his dad will be getting him a new one but hasnt got it yet, do you recommend a particular one? the curved gaming ones look nice (approx £600?)

He will only be using it for gaming, no video editing or anything similar, purely gaming.
Thanks for pointing out the Wifi, i had assumed it was onboard but clearly not!
Really appreciate the reply, as you can see im out of my depth with this

The wide 1440p (3440x1440p) not-too-curved versions are becoming very popular, and even the OLED ones are coming down in price from their £1400 peak when they came out.

I have an older generation Alienware one, but the panel tech has moved on a lot to mitigate some of the issues around burn-in, fan noise, flickering, etc. but I've not had any of those issues on mine in the 2 years I've had it.

I've not kept up with monitors a lot since I got mine (as I'm not looking at replacing it), but for example, here's the MSI MAG 341CQP wide-1400p OLED for £599 - but you'll about 50% of that for a non-OLED equivalent like the MSI MAG 345CQR.

 

[Dazzzzz]

Thank you so much for the replies, I am going to go with the ones you have suggested