I'm looking to give my 9-year-old daughter an old desktop I've got lying around, but I haven't built a PC in over a decade and I'm not sure what's currently good. The existing setup includes an R9 270 2GB graphics card, an FX-6350 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, and a 1TB HDD, all on a Crosshair V Formula Z motherboard. Currently, she mostly plays Roblox and Minecraft, so the setup might be fine as it is. However, I want to consider some low to mid-tier upgrades in case she eventually wants to play more demanding games. I can reuse the case and hard drives, but I'm looking for some practical suggestions.
3 Answers
Honestly, with how old that system is, you might not find a viable upgrade path. Even a used PC for around $250 would be a significant upgrade compared to that. If you're thinking about a budget build instead, consider going for an AM4 platform with a Ryzen 5600 or an LGA 1700 platform with an i5 12400f. Both CPUs perform similarly, so just choose whichever combo ends up being cheaper. By the way, do you have a budget range in mind?
Upgrading might not be the best route for such an old system. Since you're prepared to spend between $300 and $500, you could potentially build something much better. I checked your list on PCPartPicker, and it looks solid. You can keep the GPU for now and upgrade it later, and it’s great that you have the cooler and power supply already sorted!
You can easily get another 8GB of RAM for super cheap on places like eBay—around $5 to $10. Also, consider bumping up the graphics card to something like a GTX 950 or 1050; those usually go for $40 to $50, and that would give her a decent system without huge expenses.
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