[SOLVED] Will this old config work for simple / eSports games?

ProgamerIV

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Nov 6, 2011
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Hi!

The little brother of my best friend wants a PC for playing some simple games.
(He stole my friend's rig until now, but he got tired of having his games and everything messed up all the time so it's time to get the little guy his first own one :D )

I've found some random old hardware at home, and realized I only need storage, cooling and a case for it to be a complete PC.
It's fairly weak and very old, but I think it could be fine for the use case - the little guy's only 10.

What he wants to play:
-World of tanks
-StarCraft II (he actually plays quite well)
-LoL
-Some older games (older NFS games)

The most demanding game he wants to play is Cities: Skylines, and maybe The Sims 4.

So this is what I have:
-Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L (rev. 1.0) - OFF, maybe useful for anyone wanting to install Win10 on this board in the future: you need the F9 BIOS update for it to run Win10 64bit, then it's fine
-Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
-4x2GB 800MHz DDR2
-Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 400W PSU (fairly new, never really used)
-300GB WD VelociRaptor HDD (yep, the old one that does 10k rpm) 100% according to hdsentinel
-VTX Radeon HD6850 GPU

And this is what I'd get:
-120GB SSD
-CPU cooler (like the Cooler Master Hyper T20)
-Any cheap ATX computer case
All of these would cost around $30-$40 where I live.

We'd pair a basic 1080p display to it, but I don't think he would really mind if some games ran at 720p.

Would this configuration work for these games? Again, we're not talking high demands here. Just for them to run and be enjoyable.

I'm looking for anyone who has experience with a build like this + modern games. I realize the card does not support DX12 but we don't need it for now anyway. This used to be my second gaming machine back around 2010 I believe, I remember even back then it struggled to run some AAA games like GTA IV.
 
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Solution
Yea that is quite old. I think it would play those particular titles, as it would meet the min requirements. It's a good start, given his age, to see how much he really wants to do PC gaming. If you want to play some more modern titles, faster hardware will be required. Fortunately that has gotten much cheaper, these days.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor ($116.37 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($74.98 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($68.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial P1 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($66.95 @ Adorama)
Video...

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
Yea that is quite old. I think it would play those particular titles, as it would meet the min requirements. It's a good start, given his age, to see how much he really wants to do PC gaming. If you want to play some more modern titles, faster hardware will be required. Fortunately that has gotten much cheaper, these days.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor ($116.37 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($74.98 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($68.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial P1 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($66.95 @ Adorama)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB Twin Fan Video Card ($159.99 @ Amazon)
Case: DIYPC MA01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($26.58 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($69.88 @ Amazon)
Total: $583.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-01-20 09:47 EST-0500
 
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Solution

ProgamerIV

Distinguished
Nov 6, 2011
86
14
18,565
Yea that is quite old. I think it would play those particular titles, as it would meet the min requirements. It's a good start, given his age, to see how much he really wants to do PC gaming. If you want to play some more modern titles, faster hardware will be required. Fortunately that has gotten much cheaper, these days.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (14nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor ($116.37 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($74.98 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($68.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial P1 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($66.95 @ Adorama)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB Twin Fan Video Card ($159.99 @ Amazon)
Case: DIYPC MA01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($26.58 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($69.88 @ Amazon)
Total: $583.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-01-20 09:47 EST-0500

Thanks for the quick reply!

I'll go ahead and get the required few parts then, and see what it's like.
I may post the results here in a reply, in case anyone stumbles into the thread later.

Sure, it's quite cheap to build a basic 1080p gaming rig these days (wish it was like that when I was a little gamer), but as you said, we're not sure he's gonna like it once he has to take care of his own system. For a first build, I wish I had something like this when I was 10. :D