Honestly I wouldn’t be comfortable spending anything over 1400 on the pc alone. It would be his first one and I do know you can upgrade a few things
You folks are amazing!This one looks pretty good for the price, if you buy it from a 3rd party seller you can save an extra $200 or so, they seem good enough but it's up to you.
If you plan on buying soon, I would also look at this one which is on sale - a slightly better machine, but it maxes out your budget before taxes/shipping (Also a 3rd party seller).
If neither of those fit your tastes - some advice that I would give to help you search on your own:
You want a mesh front panel, not a solid plastic or glass one.
Make sure it has an SSD and not a HDD, both is okay but you want at least one SSD.
Stay away from SFF (Small Form Factor) machines, they're expensive and can be a hassle if you don't know what you're doing/how to maintain them.
2 sticks of ram 2x8 is better than 1 stick, always lean for more sticks when possible.
Finally, depending on how tech savvy your husband is - you might consider getting him the parts to build his own PC, this is usually a better deal than buying one - but you are ultimately your own tech support if you do so.
Newegg is my preferred retailer, hopefully if neither of these machines look good to you you can use them to find the machine you do want with the advice above.
Last notes:
You'll need peripherals, something to keep in mind - I'm sure you have a mouse and keyboard laying around somewhere. And a TV makes a great monitor in the meantime.
Thank you! ????g'day iris and welcome to the forums.
keep in mind, his idea of a gaming PC could be very different from yours.
be prepared for him to love it initially, but for it to maybe have a short honeymoon period!
I mean, he'll love the gesture, but without knowing what games he'll be playing now, let only the ones to come in the future, he may want to upgrade it sooner rather than later.
you don't know what you don't know - so don't take it the wrong way if he wants to change it later.
think of it as giving him his first toe dip in the water, and let him go from there!
awesome birthday pressie by the way.
I think that’s my best bet, he’s never owned a pc but I know he’s into it and is to afraid to dive into the hobby so I think the first one suggested would be killer for his first PC!I have a similar graphics card to the first machine, it'll handle VR just fine for most games.
In the future he'll probably want to add some more storage, but that is easy to do.
I hope some day he does build his own machine, it's way better than a pre-built, but they're a great place to start.
As Bruce was saying - a little bit more now is better down the line, but there's nothing wrong with buying what you can afford and taking some time to learn what you like and dislike about it - that's what I did when I bought my first gaming rig.
A Graphics card is usually by AMD, Intel or NVIDIA. NVIDIA is usually best for gaming &/or video editing.
