The wee Simon is considering buying a pre-built, maybe, that can be upgraded later, which to my mind, is a different kettle of fish.
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I thought I should say somthing, as a warning. Pre-builts for that price are even worse than dropping cash on bad parts, as pre-builts in general are pretty unreliable and predatory in general. However, it’s possible to get something good pre-built, if you one knows where to look and how to determine pricing and component viability, but I’ve never seen a good one for $500 or below. Especially not designed for CPU extensive games like simulators or the like.
However, another good option could be to have him put the $500 towards all the parts but the GPU and then save for the GPU next, especially since parts are becoming fairer again. I’m still seeing RX 6600 XT and the like dropping on Newegg and Amazon for $200-300, which is really good all things considering. So if he put the money down on a great board, cpu, psu, case, ram and ssd, he’d have a very, very solid build that would then only need a GPU.
As someone who did the opposite twice in the past, and regretted it heavily, I am just trying to prevent someone from making the same mistakes I made and regretted. It’s far better for him to save than go cheap or cheap pre-builts. 
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Gamers Nexus has done some reviews on prebuilts and most of them are pretty poor.
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Problem with buying pre-builts ( besides 90% of them being completely trash ) is that to buy even a half decent pre-built you need to have full knowledge of pc building,parts etc and at that time you can just build your own PC.
Other than that pre-builts are waste of money.
P.S GNs video @Pylinaer linked here should give a full picture of how awful this whole section of PCs actually are.
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Gamers Nexus is fantastic as a source of knowledge. Truly knowledgeable people work there, who are very honest and upfront about reviews and information (they’ve even been targeted before by companies for being too honest with their products lol).
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I like to see Chronies helping out Chronies new friends. 
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I asked in another forum about prebuilt computers because I don’t really have experience with that. They mentioned two companies.
I checked them out but wow those prices.
I did a quick search for those names on Gamers Nexus videos and they didn’t have any videos on them. 
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Well, I’ve kept him up to date on checking the forums. He’s got a new mic for recording well and a gaming chair. Ugh. Hate those things - arms. Yuck. Useless.
Not sure what exactly he’s planning next. Thanks @GDBringer. Most of those built and pick sites are plenty expensive from what I remember.
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