Sources for gaming computer parts

[DoYouKubuntu]

My 10-year-old grandson wants to build a gaming computer. Note that his household is Apple-ONLY. Every device they have--laptops, desktops, tablets, phones--are all Apple.

When my daughter asked me for advice--because, you know, I used to be somebody in the real world, and she still thinks of me that way--I reminded her that I would, of course, only be able to suggest Linux components, but in the gaming world there's a perception that window$ rules. I told her that's not necessarily true--I mean, *I* play great games and always have, and they've all been on Linux.

Yesterday, I reminded her that I'm completely out of the loop when it comes to buying/installing parts, but that when I was my favorite store was Microcenter. I said I don't know if they're still a player, and that I'd ask my Linux buddies for suggestions. I used to shop at the MC in North Dallas, and walking in was like a kid in a gigantic candy store! They had every conceivable cable, converter, plug, drive, cord, card, you name it.

Keeping in mind that the OS is unknown at this point, but will very likely end up being window$, do you have any great sources of computer parts you can recommend? High quality, stands by their products, great reputation, etc.

[Ninetale3]

Generally speaking. If you have a microcenter. That's the best place to get parts outside of online shipping.

As for multi part manufacturers for non CPU.

Msi tends to have high quality components but have pretty much tanked in rep recently after some potential anti consumer practices behind the scenes.
Gigabyte: great products, somewhat budget friendly, terrible cs.
Asus: questionable engineering. They have good performing parts but make baffling decisions on more smaller stuff. I bought a motherboard off them and put loctite in the fan cover screws. Somewhat pricey.
Asrock: a go to budget company. Good price to performance. Sometimes blunders in engineering, little rep due to banning those who review negatively.

As for storage, gold standard is Samsung but I personally use seagate. Seagate isn't as flimsy on linux support.

I hope I was of help a bit.

[bradleypariah]

A couple weeks ago, my gaming/HTPC's nine-year old motherboard died, which meant my CPU and RAM would no longer be compatible with a new board.

I opted to go with NewEgg.

I got an MSI B450 gaming motherboard, an AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT 3.8GHz 6-Core/12-thread CPU, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM.

All that total was about $445 USD, and NewEgg has a special going on right now called "Quad Pay," wherein you only pay for 25% of your total, once every two weeks (for me, the day after payday), for two months, interest free.
They ship you the parts after the first payment, so I've only paid $112 so far, and I've already been gaming away for nearly a week.

[woodsmoke]

Hi DYK

I will offer an opinion that I do not know if the original question was actually answered.

As to "Linux" or "Windblows" or "Bite out of th Apple" parts, again, I do not know if the original question was answered.

An example of that being that, given my information is maybe ... two years old, there is a lot of discussion in "gaming" sites about various things like whether or not a certain item like a video card can support ...oh, don't know... "hyperthreading" for a CERTAIN game or family of games such as ...dunno...MS Halo.

Again, that all gets into what kind of "things" about a particular game, or type of game, is of interest to the person.

I have gone from Nvidia to Intel, and back and forth, and from Seagate to Western Digital or ... whatever...

And, also,

a lot of the "load that must be carried" has moved from not paying "so much" attention to a particular piece of hardware in a physical console ' tower / laptop / Rsapberry Pi as to...

How does a particular piece of hardware interact with "a STREAM" of video on number of MBPS on the cable download or upload.

Simple things like having "voice over" going along with a stream from a company that is being channeled through the hardware upon which fingers are typing, mouses are mousing, joysticks are ...well... joy sticking...

So, again, my original statement was whether the correct question was being asked.

So, it might then boil down to:

a) does the person spend "most" of the time doing "online games" or does the person want to use a thing sitting on a table?

If it is "sitting on a table" then, given that "a game" will probably be played on the particular hardware then choice of a company from which to purchase the hardware becomes important in terms of does the company offer things like "replace the card for free when returned" or does the company NOT have a good reputation for replacing something for free?

Or, is the initial price more important or is the initial price less important than keeping the hardware for a "long time' or is the initial price more important than being able to play the "latest game"...

Is a plugin card that can be replaced more or less important than "onboard" stuff that is use, break and pitch?

This then leads to, again...

b) does the person have to give a lot of consideration to paying a "monthly download" fee, in whatever form such as "cable" fees or to something like a gaming company's "online universe" or does the person install "a game" and play it with maybe a friend or "alone" on the device?

Just some questions, actually asked in several formats and from several directions.

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

It's probably a moot question. Apple stuff is too pricey for them or they'd already be running the latest Apple Mac pro (or what ever their soup de jour is). So, I suspect they'll opt for Win10 because they can get about twice the hardware power for the same money, and in the future they can dual boot or overwrite with Kubuntu.

[Kumann]

SimHQ is a great place to get computer parts. Especially older pc/laptop parts.

https://simhq.com/forum/

[Schwarzer Kater]

Buy an AMD graphics card for his gaming machine, not an Nvidia - and your grandson will be much happier if he ever wanted to use Linux instead of or side by side with Windows.

If the computer does not have to be a new one: try eBay or something similar for last or before last generation second hand parts - you can get 50% more gaming power for two thirds of the money this way sometimes.

[claydoh]

SimHQ is a great place to get computer parts. Especially older pc/laptop parts.

Ummm, a bit of a necro-post, just a wee little bit