My daughter is turning seven soon and she loves gaming. I want to create a fun gaming space for us to enjoy together, so I'm looking for advice on hardware with a budget of around £600. I'm focusing on games like World of Warcraft, Minecraft, and No Man's Sky. It's also important to have a system that's easy for me to monitor and control until she's older.
I'm leaning towards a docked handheld like the Steam Deck since I'm comfortable with Linux and setting things up myself. However, I'm wondering if a laptop or PC build would provide better value over the years. I also have an old PC build in the garage that just needs a GPU, but it has a 7th gen i5 and an old HDD. On the plus side, it does have some decent DDR4 RAM. Would upgrading that be a good option? Appreciate any advice!
1 Answer
For around £600, your best bet is probably to check the used market for a decent PC setup. New builds are pretty pricey these days! I’d suggest avoiding laptops or handhelds like the Steam Deck, as they often don’t provide the best value for gaming performance. A stationary setup is way easier to manage when it comes to monitoring gaming time at home. Just remember that some games might not run perfectly on Linux, so keep that in mind if you go that route.
That's a good point about the stationary setup. It makes it easier to keep track of how long they’re playing, plus you can upgrade parts more easily later on!