My 13-year-old wants a gaming PC, and he has started putting a lot of wear on my work laptop, so I'd rather help him get a proper system. He's saving money and selling LEGO to contribute, but I'd like to keep the total cost under £800. I've been looking at second-hand parts and wondered whether an AMD RX 6800 XT with 16GB of VRAM would be a sensible choice for a complete build that could last around three or four years. He currently plays games like Zelda and Minecraft, although I expect his tastes to expand. I'm looking for reasonable gaming performance without overspending.
4 Answers
For this budget, I’d seriously consider buying a complete second-hand PC rather than sourcing every component individually. Sellers often price a whole system more competitively than the combined cost of its parts. Test it in person if possible, check temperatures and storage health, and confirm the exact components before paying.
The RX 6800 XT is still a strong graphics card, but don’t buy it before planning the entire build. At current used prices, it could take up most of your £800 budget by itself, especially once you add the processor, motherboard, memory, storage, case and power supply. Make sure the rest of the parts are balanced and that the power supply is a reliable model with enough capacity.
A sensible lower-cost starting point would be a Ryzen 5 5500, B550 motherboard, 32GB of DDR4 memory, a reliable 600W power supply and a used graphics card. You could then adjust the processor or GPU depending on what is available locally. Don’t cut corners on the power supply, and make sure the case has reasonable airflow.
A newer midrange card could also work, but the best option depends heavily on local prices. The 6800 XT has plenty of performance for Minecraft and demanding modern games, though you’ll want at least a decent six-core processor, 16–32GB of RAM and a quality power supply so the rest of the machine doesn’t hold it back.
Exactly. A full system built around a 6800 XT could easily go well beyond £800 if you buy every part separately, so check complete used systems as well.