CUSTOMER BASE OWNED

LINK

Will try to remember to! Won't be anything exciting, though. Using a basic case and there isn't any RGB bling. Also, my cable management is awful lol. Feel free to mock.

@Kjranu:

Thanks for vid. I gave it one last shot and with my wife's help, brute forced that motherfcker into place. Forgot I had this same issue with my last build. Next time, I'm guying a clip-on cooler. Fark those screws.

I went with a Ryzen 5600/Radeon 6600 XT build. Started building yesterday afternoon and ran into a brick wall installing the stock Ryzen cooler--the spring loaded screws are not long enough to reach the standoffs in the backplate. i've read this part is tricky and you just have to do xyz, but there is still a very very large gap between the screws and the backplate standoffs. There is no possible they can reach. I can screw down one corner partially, but that's it. If I try to physically force it I know for certain I will crack my MB in half or it will be bowed like a ship's hull. I even pulled the CPU out of the socket at one point try to get the cooler off, so I guess it'll also be a miracle if I haven't destroyed some pins. Oy.

I feel bad for my kid as I won't have time to get back to this for probably another two weeks. :-(

Is this an mb/cooler incompatibility (MSI B550M Pro micro-ATX) or am I just a moron here?

Thank you.....

My house was built in the early Fifties so.....kinda of old if you're an American, not so old if you live in other countries where things were built pre-Middle Ages. :-)

Regardless, not sure how old the wiring is generally, but my panels are maxed out. Electrical upgrade is on what I and the wife like to call the "Twenty Year Plan" list.

Might go with wifi for now. Hm.

Thanks for info! That gigabyte MB with wifi looks good. I'm going to have to think about the network connection for his room. It's very small and I think he needs a new desk. His current desk isn't located near an outlet, unfortunately. So either need to rearrange his room or just use wifi. Hm.

@04dcarraher:

Thank you! That looks like a solid mid-range rig for him. Will put on list.

I forgot to mention that his bedroom is too far from router to use ethernet, so he'll either need a motherboard with wifi, or guess I'll have to get another mesh network node for his bedroom and connect PC to node via ethernet. Hm.

Parental triumph! Might have another PC gamer in the house soon. Especially sweet because we also have a couple of XBoxes. :-)

SO--now the hard part--what to get. I've built a couple of PCs (last back in 2014 so has been awhile and I'm not really up on all the latest hardware), this is his first, so will be a fun project for both of us.

His 13th bday is in a week, so timing is a little bad, as we seem to be between the next CPU/GPU generations. That said, he'll be gaming on a 24" monitor at 1080p, so he won't need a monster rig or GPU, just something that will play newest titles at med/high settings and last a few years. If he needs to upgrade the GPU down the road, that would be a nice option to have.

I'd like to keep the budget under 1k, but not sure that's possible with recent component cost increases.

Thanks so much in advance for any suggestions.

Photos of my kids (was a father's day gift, awwwww).

All 4xxxx and 5xxxx cards already bought by scalpers and miners.