2nd hand gaming PC - what to look for?

[badgerade]

My Son is after a PC, mainly to play Fortnite and do a bit of basic video editing for youtube etc. (Nothing too crazy, he's currently using an app on his phone for editing so anything above that will be an improvement).

I'm thinking second hand as there will be no other way he'll be able to afford it, but I have no idea what sort of stuff to be looking out for, or what is considered value for money. As an example, this is on ebay locally to me for £350:

CPU: FX8350 8 Cores
CPU Cooler: Zalman AIO liquid cooler
GPU: ASUS GTX1060 3GB
PSU: Corsair CX430
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3
RAM: 4x 2GB DDR3 (8GB Total)
Storage:
1.5TB Seagate HDD
128GB Samsung SSD

Alternatively, would I be better off sourcing the parts 2nd hand and building it up myself?

[Jinx]

badgerade said:

My Son is after a PC, mainly to play Fortnite and do a bit of basic video editing for youtube etc. (Nothing too crazy, he's currently using an app on his phone for editing so anything above that will be an improvement).

I'm thinking second hand as there will be no other way he'll be able to afford it, but I have no idea what sort of stuff to be looking out for, or what is considered value for money. As an example, this is on ebay locally to me for £350:

CPU: FX8350 8 Cores
CPU Cooler: Zalman AIO liquid cooler
GPU: ASUS GTX1060 3GB
PSU: Corsair CX430
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3
RAM: 4x 2GB DDR3 (8GB Total)
Storage:
1.5TB Seagate HDD
128GB Samsung SSD

Alternatively, would I be better off sourcing the parts 2nd hand and building it up myself?

Problem with the above is it is the last chip revision on an outdated platform (AM3+) so no real upgrade path - so personally I'd be looking for something with a first gen Ryzen chip (AM4) which will give you upgrade options down the line (preferably on at least a B350 motherboard but even an A320 will allow some of the latest chips - specifically the APUs). Maybe something like - This one on ebay weaker GPU but still good enough for fortnite and further down the line you can drop in a cheap 6 or even 8 core chip.

[bloomen]

badgerade said:

Alternatively, would I be better off sourcing the parts 2nd hand and building it up myself?

People either seem to be wildly optimistic selling complete machines or charge way less than the same in parts. I'll guess it doesn't occur to most people to sell complete. They sell incrementally.

I'd keep an eye out for complete machines but it might be a long wait for the right spec.

[badgerade]

Thanks both - useful advice. Not really looked at anything PC related since I was a teenager (486 DX2 66 was my first PC back then)