Problem is…I have no clue.

I told him that the $3000 PC we just saw at Costco was waaayyyy out of our price range. And he’s dreaming.

Then he starts sending me links on the benefits of building your own.

I told him I’m if he can learn, and figure out how it’s done. I MIGHT be willing buy one piece by piece as a learning experience for him.

I need a link/website where he can start figuring things out.

We have a 10-yo ASUS that hasn’t worked in several years. No idea why, when I got an IPad, I just quit using it. I never did much on the PC, just paid bills, and occasional internet shopping.  That was just as easy to do on my iPad. Last time I tried to power it up, it just never booted. Screen works, fan comes on, no boot. Figured it was the processor or motherboard. Didn’t really need it so just left it. Maybe the case is salvageable to build off, but at that age I figure it’s likely just scrap.

He’s a good kid, super smart, straight A’s every report card from 1st-4th grade. Well rounded, spends time playing outside with friends, loves to go fishing & camping with Dad.

We have lots of consoles, from original Nintendo I had as a kid, SEGA Genesis, Wii, PlayStation 1, 2, & 4, and now a Meta Quest 2. He plays with them all from time to time, mostly on the Quest since he got it for Christmas. But he wants to get into the PC world. I figure he’d likely be able to learn faster that I could, so I’m tasking him with the job.

If he wants the reward, he’s going to have to do the work.

I have about a 1-year time frame for him to start down that path. Figure that if he can stick with it for that long, and actually teach himself how to do it. Maybe he’ll appreciate it, and might just end up with a good job in the future, and not have to work outside like his poor Dad.

Is this possible or am I the one who’s dreaming?

Newegg.com

From another father, don’t do it. Gaming becomes an addiction for this generation and if you let it in the door it’s hard for their focus to be on anything else.

We don’t have it in our house. My sisters on the other hand bought my nephews gaming PCs snd PS5s. After watching the behavioral changes in them, no way I’d have it in my house.

FWIW I purchased my daughters (13 and 11) this:

https://www.newegg.com/p/3D5-000Z-000A3?Item=9SIA08CHRN2761&utm_medium=email&utm_source=transactional&cm_mmc=TEMC-Shipping-New-Tracking-Notification-Responsive-US-_-9SIA08CHRN2761&utm_campaign=TEMC-Shipping-Tracking-Notification-USA

It's out of stock, was Xmas of 2022.  Right around $1,000 plus something for a monitor.  Good PC for things like Roblox, minecraft, seems to work good for Fortnight and a few others that they play.  One of the things they wanted was a PC that could handle their Oculus goggles so they can play Roblox with them lol.  Had to have a certain spec video card.

Definitely need to moderate their time on devices.  My girls are noticeably different after 3-4 days of being grounded from them lol.

Use PC Part Picker to put their lists together and will give you the overall price f the build as well. It's good if you have a fixed budget that you need to meet for each build.

As far as to what platform to use in the build, I would go with the AM4 if your budget is really tight since you are building two PC's, and if its not that tight, then I would look at the AM5 platform.

Build your own. It's really not that hard and doesn't need to be expensive.

When my son wanted to build one I thought we'd be soldering circuit boards lol. When all the pieces came in the mail it took a couple hours and a screwdriver to build it.

I got my 9yr old a book on cool nature stuff and how to survive in the outdoors.

Do it.

This.

Oh wow so much content, OPs can get the pdf of your kids books on his new PC

I'd be sure you have some way to moderate what he is doing on it OP....the Internet can be a filthy degenerate place.

eh i was exposed to it at a young age and am fine - my life is probably the envy of many arfcommers.

Amazon has had smoking deals on Intel I5 12600K. Gigabyte makes a cheap Z790 mobo. Pair this with a 4060/4070 or a AMD 7700/7800XT. 32gb of ddr5 600, a 750-800w PSU, and a affordable air cooler and you will have a good machine with room to upgrade in the future. The cheap Corsair airflow case is what I would put it in. If you can give me a budget I can try to build ya one on Amazon or PC part picker.

My msi built laptop with a 4050 and 32 gigs of ram has been covering all my gaming needs.
1k on amazon

If you can assemble an AR lower, you can build a PC. You won’t have detents being sent into orbit at Mach 3 with a PC

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/v3n3BL

Start here to plan the parts.  Then you can purchase from Newegg, Amazon, etc.

This.

As for build advice, I always harp on the same thing. Get a good PSU and good RAM.

You can build a smokin pc for less than half of what you posted.
https://pcpartpicker.com/

That's under YOUR control.  Kids are going to be kids whether it's the TV or heavy metal music (like it was when I was growing up), smart phones or video games. The 3 27-33 yr olds my wife and I raised still play video games, all of them are college graduates and professionals with families of their own EXCEPT my youngest stepdaughter. She's a nurse and just applied for her Masters Degree, and she's single and needs a home.

It would help if you posted your budget.   Like many have said use https://pcpartpicker.com/  Building it over the course of year sounds like setting him up for failure.   He is going to lose interest if all he has sitting on his desk is a power supply and some memory.   A graphics card is most likely going to be 40%+ the cost of the build.  Lastly don't make sure to get more power supply than you need because if you decide to put a much more powerful graphics card in it that is the most power hungry part of the computer.

7800x3d, mobo and ram combo from microcenter
4080super founders edition
2 TB NVMe gen 5
750w PSU
32 inch 1440p IPS 144mhz monitor

Budget?

Thanks for the input. Looks like PCpartspicker is a good place to start.

I’d like to keep things under $1000, but could stretch that by a few hundred if it would make a big difference. He’s more into making/editing videos than actual gaming…for now. He loves Gorilla Tag and Beat Saber on VR (actually works up quite a sweat with those games), and plays Apex Legends on the PS4, but that’s about it. He likes making how-to videos, teaching others how to play and find hacks. That’s what he really wants the PC for…video editing and posting to his YouTube channel.

I’m not going to buy stuff until he really figures out what he wants. His birthday is in August, so that’s really my time frame. I’m making this his task to learn.  He’s really just started to scratch the surface of the PC world in the last few weeks, so he has a lot of info to catch up to. I was pretty good with computers as a kid, but haven’t really kept up to date over the last 20 years. I work in land surveying, so I get limited exposure to work related software, office stuff, excel, auto cad, downloading and processing my field data every day, but that’s about it.

We definitely limit what he is exposed to, and if he starts with the bad attitude, or inappropriate language, his electronics get put on time out with the quickness. He knows we won’t put up with bad attitude, and he doesn’t get private time online. It’s only allowed in the living room where we can keep tabs on what he’s up to.

I struggled with how much technology we would allow our two boys to be exposed to, and eventually realized that they are growing up in a very different world than I did. If we limit too much, we’d actually be hurting their chances to succeed and fit in. They use tablets at their school starting in kindergarten.

They go to a “A” graded charter school, and it was just rated with the highest academic scores in the county. He’s in the gifted program, getting straight “A”s and his standardized testing puts him in the 95-99% range. I’m obviously very proud of him, and work hard to make sure he knows it. I really don’t even push him that hard, he just does it because it’s who he is.

I don’t put up with shit though and if he steps out of line, his game time is the first to go. My biggest focus with both of them is BALANCE. Too much of anything is bad. They get outside time everyday, and we go fishing, camping, and canoeing as much as we can. They help with chores around the house, dishes, vacuuming, feeding/washing the dog, cleaning the cat box, etc. He’s been mowing the lawn since he was six! (I bought him an electric (80v) mower that he could handle and we have a small front yard) My main focus as a dad is to keep them well rounded, with a variety of pastimes, and responsibilities.  

We’re not wealthy though, so this falls into a “very large expense” purchase, and must be taken seriously. If he can’t maintain interest, and do the work to learn what he needs to know, it’s not going to happen. They can just stick to what they have and deal with it.

Again, I appreciate the advice as this is out of my area of expertise and can’t afford to throw money in the wrong direction.

This, looking back. I wish I had never bought my son an Xbox/ gaming system.

I have a 2070 video card that worked when it was removed, PM me your address.


Free

I wouldn't build a kid that young a gaming rig.

Like the other guy said, too easy to create an addiction out of it, and the streaming culture is toxic as fuck.

Get him a console, limit his usage, and make him go outside.

If he wants a rig tell him to start saving up and when he's 16 he can buy and build it himself.

I agree with this but also recognize this is how kids socialize now.  The days of running around out side, riding bikes, and causing havoc seem to have come to an end.

Regardless, do be careful.  Up until adolescent you have a lot more control, after that they sure do seem to get independent quick.

It's really not that hard. Modern parts are basically plug and play.

OP - That's a great deal!
Since you said he is into video editing, I was going to recommend one of the Nvidia RTX GPU's because of the CUDA environment that a lot of image and video processes can take advantage of these days for parallel processing - AMD GPU's can't do that.

Abuse!!

On the flip side of the naysayers, letting your son build a PC could be what sets him on a trajectory for success in a huge number of career fields. He could use it to game, to learn programming, Arduino, design and 3D fabrication, graphics development, etc.

Set your budget, let your kid pick the parts that fall within. You’ll have also taught him a bit about fiscal responsibility. Build it with him and spend time with him while he uses it so you know how he uses it. Set yourself as Windows admin and lock him out of harmful sites. You can set limits for him and take it away if he breaks the limits.

This site is what I used - https://pcbuilder.net/list/

take a look at this YT channel, decent info on setups at different prices.  https://www.youtube.com/@CRATERHQ/videos

Mine ended up being setup pretty much like this one (different colors and such)

I've built a couple of computers over the last year.

You can save a bunch of money going with a 12th gen intel processor, a good DDR5 motherboard, 16gb ram and a 30xx-series graphics card. Go air-cooled, 1tb of memory and you can keep it to $1300-1500 or less depending on where you get the components.

I built my wife's computer in this fashion for $1300 with a used 3060ti that I got for $230.

It’s how some kids pretend to socialize now. My kid does not have a smart phone or video games. He gets enough computer time in our crap school that he is better at running them than me and I’m pretty proficient. I think that using the excuse “the other kids are doing it” is a cop out. I don’t want my kid looking at a bunch of kids and wanting their pretend world, I want those kids whose world is a little box looking at my kid and wanting things you can actually touch and do.

Yes it is! This place never ceases to amaze, and humble, me. (I’ve responded, but am still in a bit of shock about it.)

somewhat inclined to agree with you.
That said...if the kid is smart ...and dad can be disciplined enough to keep his son from getting lost in a digital world...it might be to the kids future advantage to let him start tinkering with building PCs.

Thing is...he doesn't have to go high end.
Start with dated components and just let him tinker.
The kid may like the idea of building and upgrading more than playing.

Key here is to help him focus on the building aspect vs the gaming aspect.
Maybe a retro rig that plays older off line games.

Im more along this line.  My 11 year old tiwns and I assembled a PC over Christmas.  It started out as "gaming PC" but I used that dirve to get them to research the build (youtube is a great help), hel[ me pic the parts, etc.  In the end we spont a few hours together putting it together.  We all use it as our PC, very little gaming happens on it.  My son uses it to copy CD and rip them for his MP3 player (my kids have no phones).  They used it to do thier online hunting course.  We use it to rip DVDs to our Plex server.  This is a chance to intro your son into some tech under the guise of "gaming".  YMMV

I stay away from amazon and new egg.  I use bhphoto.com

This is exactly where I’m coming from. Just because it’s not something that I’m into, doesn’t mean I should limit his chances to succeed. He constantly blows me away with his ability to absorb and process, and I try not to get too much in the way…within reason, there are clear limits.  

I’m just a field grunt, but I work for a top-notch civil engineering firm and our IT guy makes good money doing “easy” work, compared to me stomping through the swamps all day.

We do limit what they can do/play online. Tic Tok, YouTube shorts, and Fortnight are expressly forbidden in our house.  They know I’ll throw their tablets straight in the trash if I catch them on those sites!

Don't do it.

He will never leave the house

PC parts picker and new egg. Watch for sales and deals buy pieces as the my become available. My 11 year old wants me to build him one so we can play together and he wants Skyrim, Starfield, Warhammer Darktide and now Helldivers 2.

I’ll probably sell a gun or two, raid the tax refund and build myself something baller and hand mine over to him instead.

It’s really not that difficult. There are plenty of YouTube tutorials

If you do get him a PC then also get him a 3d printer and get him started on some modeling software so he can at least use that processing power for something productive at times.

I'm not an anti gamer or anything, I love games, and I really loved PC gaming when I was into it, but 9 is really young to get them started on something like that, because it does turn into a compulsion for a lot of people.

My youngest is like that. She would game all day if I let her, we have to limit her time. My oldest will play for like an hour then shut it off and go do something more productive, totally different personalities. Those that do get sucked into the PC gaming and streaming life have a hell of a time getting out though, so it is a big point of concern.

None of that stuff was really a thing when I was a big gamer, the streaming part I mean. I would play for hours at a time sure, but it was like once a week with my housemates.

My roommate at the time was an actual addict, and one housemate wasn't far behind. They would start playing WoW on Friday after class and would sleep a little on Saturday night, then finally log out Sunday night and crash hard. It was sad to watch because we would be having a party downstairs and they would be raiding or some nerdy shit instead of actually socializing with everyone.

We would shoot darts and play pool all night, have girls over, whatever, and they would be playing games all weekend.

Building a PC is so much easier than even 10 years ago.  30 years ago when I started, you had so few resources to help and were ordering parts out of a catalog.  There were physical jumpers to be set and you had to read manuals.  Windows used to be hard to configure, drivers were not always perfect or up-to-date. It wasn't uncommon to install a driver and screw up your whole system.  Or plug in a sound card and never figure out how to get it working.

Now, you just go to most any site and use their parts picker and watch a few videos to find out what is the new hot items. Once they arrive in the mail everything works as soon as you set it up.  Windows does a fantastic job of installing and updating everything.

We found the "vegan" of anti-PC, who needs to come into a PC thread and vomit all over it.

I bet your 9 year old would enjoy this even more....

Anyone who says this, nothing is safe with parents like you.

"Video games are the debil!"  So is Football yet here you are, watching it on the regular.

You need to be in charge of your kid, teach them right and they won't turn into "bad kids" because  they play a video game.  "Its addictive!"  So is everything, get over it.  It is YOUR responsibility to teach your kids right from wrong. Playing games is perfectly fine. Teach them why avoiding everything else: hygiene, bills, etc. is wrong.  

TLDR:  If you teach your kid to act properly, you won't have an issue.  Or is it you're too lazy to monitor said kid while they play games?  Much easier to do when they do what *you* enjoy?  "My kids likes to play ball!"  No, YOU like your kid playing ball, does your kid actually like it?

This I the path I’m taking. It’s definitely going to be used as a carrot to take down an educational path. I told him if he wants this, he’s going to have to do some serious research into how all these parts work and will come together to get what he’s looking for.  If he’s willing to do the work, and is able to stay focused and on task, he will eventually get the reward. If it turns out to be just another flash-in-the-pan aspiration, we won’t be making the investment.

I have also made it very clear that this will be a family project/PC that will go in the family office space for us all to use as needed.

Yep, it is so damn easy now. No having to deal with irq adjustments and all that crap.

If you have a microcenter near you.

https://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=&cat=&ntt=Cpu+bundles