Helping My Nephew Build His First PC

TL;DR
He has a budget of around $1200, he says he knows he wants the rtx 3060 and the i7 core. He wants a PC to continue playing Hollow Knight, Fortnite, and Valorant, and he plans on playing COD if he can with this new PC.

Below is what I got from your PC builder. Taking into account what he intends to use it for and the specs he specified, can someone here give me/him some advice or direction?

CGDirector.com Parts List: https://www.cgdirector.com/pc-builder/?=6Oa3v

CPU: Intel Core i5 12600K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($169.99)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 ($69.90)
Motherboard: ASUS Prime B660-PLUS DDR4 ATX LGA1700 ($179.50)
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB -EVGA XC Gaming ($301.50)
Memory: 32GB (2 x 16GB) G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 C16 ($89.99)
Storage PCIe-SSD: Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive ($69.99)
Power Supply: EVGA 650 B5, 80 Plus Bronze 650W Power Supply ($94.99)
Case: be quiet! Pure Base 600 Black ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.90)
Total: $1065.76


I have built PCs before, but it was before Bitcoin was a thing, I feel like the landscape has changed quite a bit. I'm not sure I will be able to actually build it with him, so if anyone has some videos they can recommend for that I would also appreciate that.

Thank you in advance!

Polymath_88 said:

CPU: Intel Core i5 12600K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor ($169.99)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 ($69.90)
Motherboard: ASUS Prime B660-PLUS DDR4 ATX LGA1700 ($179.50)
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB -EVGA XC Gaming ($301.50)
Memory: 32GB (2 x 16GB) G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 C16 ($89.99)
Storage PCIe-SSD: Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive ($69.99)
Power Supply: EVGA 650 B5, 80 Plus Bronze 650W Power Supply ($94.99)
Case: be quiet! Pure Base 600 Black ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.90)
Total: $1065.76

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That's a decent starting point. I would shuffle around some budget to allocate more towards the GPU if your nephew's primarily gaming, so I'd recommend the AMD AM4 route here because of the cheaper platform.

Switch to an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 CPU, MSI Pro B550-A motherboard, and skip the cooler as you can use the included one. Also switch the memory to a 32GB (2x16GB) G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 CL16 kit.

That should free up around $200 to put towards a GPU. You can use it to upgrade to a much faster AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT at around $440~

Jerry James said:

That's a decent starting point. I would shuffle around some budget to allocate more towards the GPU if your nephew's primarily gaming, so I'd recommend the AMD AM4 route here because of the cheaper platform.

Switch to an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 CPU, MSI Pro B550-A motherboard, and skip the cooler as you can use the included one. Also switch the memory to a 32GB (2x16GB) G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 CL16 kit.

That should free up around $200 to put towards a GPU. You can use it to upgrade to a much faster AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT at around $440~

Click to expand...

Thank you for taking the time to respond! I appreciate your advice!