What is a good way to test my son's budget gaming pc?

[SAWYER]

I got it going today and ran the Windows Experience test and everything was a 7.9 except the cpu was a 7.2 but that doesnt really tell me anything, I am looking for a good way to see how it performs

 

[futurefields]

post the specs?

 

[DigDog]

thats a good WE score, the PC should be able to handle most games on high settings or better. i have a 7.7 myself, with 7.9 on graphics from my GTX770.
The WE comes from the lowest component, so he's got to have something in the same range.

 

[SAWYER]

Mushkin Chronos 120 GB
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB
R9 270x
MSI B85M
Intel G3258

The lowest score was either the cpu or ram, I will have to check

 

[bbhaag]

Fire up some of the games he plays and see how they perform. Benchmarks are ok but seeing it irl is something different.
Looks like you guys built a solid system now put it to the test.

 

[SAWYER]

All he has Mincraft so far, oh and some free to play zombie shooter 3rd person shooter game. He is hoping he can use his Xbox One controller on most games. You could move the character in the zombie game but I didnt see a way to do anything else

 

[bbhaag]

Sounds like you guys have a more than adequate setup to tackle his needs. Are you familiar with http://www.roblox.com/? My sons have a good time gaming on their servers. It's targeted at kids ages 5 to 10. Your kid might enjoy it to.

If you're really looking to push your new rig you are kind of limited besides benchmarks. I mean this is your kids computer its not like you're gonna put Metro: Last Light on there.

 

[futurefields]

Some free2play games I recommend

Firefall - MMO 1st/3rd person shooter, gorgeous art style similar to Borderlands
Gotham City Imposters - Call of Duty with Batman "impostor" characters, very fun!
Path of Exile - excellent Diablo-style game, pretty hardcore and challenging at later levels though

 

[SAWYER]

He likes shooters like COD

 

[bbhaag]

Black Ops for pc is only $20 on Amazon.

 

[AFurryReptile]

Here's a really nice benchmark tool/tech demo:

https://unigine.com/products/heaven/

 

[mistersprinkles]

You put a 3258 on a B85? (sigh)
The whole point of the 3258 is that it overclocks to the friggin moon on the stock cooler but you need at least an H97 board that supports the feature. On B85 it's locked up tighter than Alcatraz and performance will suffer. You can get screaming gaming perf out of that thing at 4.5+Ghz but stock it's like tying your GPU to a fridge and throwing it off a boat.

 

[norseamd]

He likes shooters like COD

Planetside 2 is free and will introduce him to fps games with more substance.

Also there is a free version of ARMA 2 that has full multiplayer.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

All he has Mincraft so far, oh and some free to play zombie shooter 3rd person shooter game. He is hoping he can use his Xbox One controller on most games. You could move the character in the zombie game but I didnt see a way to do anything else

keyboard and mouse is by far the better way to go for for 1st and 3rd person games, and the only way for many games, with the controller being better for racing, ball sports and of course side-scrollers. low to mid-range logitech gaming kb and mouse would be a good choice for function, cost and quality. i'm not trying to tell him how to enjoy his toys, but i am telling him how to operate them

 

[rivethead]

He likes shooters like COD

Get him Hard Reset the next time it goes on sale (but it's already an inexpensive game to begin with).

It's an FPS set in the future. But it comes bundled with a pretty good benchmarking tool. The game itself can be pretty taxing on a system (although it's a 2 year old game...so probably not as taxing as it used to be). Lots of graphical settings. But the benchmarking tool is a good way to try out all the settings and see the impact on the frame rate.

Plus, I thought the game itself was fantastic.

 

[darkewaffle]

They're not quite CoD but they are free to play (with pay unlocks/accelerators available) shooters with some decent graphics, he might want to try out Planetside 2/Tribes Ascend/Team Fortress 2.

 

[Red Storm]

"Can it run Crysis?"

 

[norseamd]

They're not quite CoD

Planetside 2 is far more than COD.

 

[davie jambo]

keyboard and mouse is by far the better way to go for for 1st and 3rd person games, and the only way for many games, with the controller being better for racing, ball sports and of course side-scrollers. low to mid-range logitech gaming kb and mouse would be a good choice for function, cost and quality. i'm not trying to tell him how to enjoy his toys, but i am telling him how to operate them

Millions of people in the world prefer using a controller

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Millions of people in the world prefer using a controller

for fps, rts, mmo, et cetera pc games? no, they don't.

millions of console players use controllers because they have no choice, and the games are designed around controllers, with extremely limited options, auto-aim and other compensation.

 

[SAWYER]

I am downloading Planetside 2 now, will probably try TF 2 next

 

[sm625]

Clock speed and IPC is king for minecraft. I built a 4.5GHz G3258 system for my 10yo, and it absolutely crushes minecraft. He was very jealous of his friend who was getting "an $800 gaming PC" for his birthday. He was rubbing it in his face for months before finally getting it. As it turns out, his friend's pc ended up being a total dog, it doesnt even get half the framerate on minecraft, despite having 3 times the cores and costing 3 times as much.

 

[SAWYER]

Will this system be good enough for Oculus Rift consumer version? I really want to try that and so does my son. He is using his 32" lcd tv to play on and so far he seems happy with that, he was wanting a monitor but I think it looks good enough for him as of now.

 

[norseamd]

Will this system be good enough for Oculus Rift consumer version? I really want to try that and so does my son. He is using his 32" lcd tv to play on and so far he seems happy with that, he was wanting a monitor but I think it looks good enough for him as of now.

Probably depends on the video car you buy. You could always upgrade to a more powerful video card when the Oculus Rift comes out.

 

[norseamd]

I am downloading Planetside 2 now, will probably try TF 2 next

You can vary the graphics in Planetside 2 depending on your gpu but otherwise huge battles can often even start to tax even the most powerful cpus. In smaller battles you can often do fine although.