Is this a decent gaming PC for a 12 year old?

I am looking to buy my nephew a PC for his 12th birthday. My friend has his old pc he wants to sell me for $200. Its complete with a 17" flatscreen CRT monitor, keyboard/laser mouse, 2.1 sound system %26amp; a tower with an AMD 2.13GHz THORTON core CPU, 768MB PC2100 RAM, ATI 9600PRO video card, SOUNDBLASTER LIVE sound card, CD-RW, DVD-ROM %26amp; a 20GB hard drive with a fresh install of WINXP PRO SP2, ZONEALARM firewall, AVG anti virus, NERO, EVEREST 2.0, WINDOWS REGESTRY CLEANER %26amp; a few other programs incuding a GAMPAD %26amp; a couple demo games like FEAR, DOOM 3, HALO %26amp; SWAT 4. Is this a good rig for a 12 year old? I dont have alot of money %26amp; dont think I could build a better PC for $200 complete like it is. Also I know it works fine as its my friends old gaming rig. What do you think is it a good deal? He might take $180 if I show him the cash in $20 bills you know.

Is this a decent gaming PC for a 12 year old?
for $200 for that system is a good deal. but that system cannot play some of the decent games like Lost Planet, Crysis, Bioshock etc... the system is a good start for a 12 years old. i say go for it.
Reply:This computer sounds fine for a twelve year old. But it definitely depends on what other games he'll be playing on it, if that is the extent of what he's going to be doing. You're set. But if he gets something a little more complicated or something thats more graphics or processor intensive, you may have some issues with gameplay speed or quality.For 200$ its a good deal.


Good luck!
Reply:That really is a good PC for $200. The only thing I would recommend is adding a larger Hard Drive later as a secondary drive and pretty soon a new Video card, since most new games won't play at all on the ATI 9600. The RAM is good for gaming on XP and the CPU is good as well. You should also get a good Antivirus, my suggestion is Trend Micro - won't slow down your system like Norton will, and just as powerful, plus Spysweeper for anti Spyware. Without those 2 programs that computer won't last long. Don't let him use Limewire or any of those free song downloading programs. They are virus superhighways!
Reply:For a 12 y/o, I would say that is sufficient. One thing that I am not comfortable with is the HDD space. 20 GB hardly enough for gaming.





WinXP alone prolly will take up about 3 - 5 GB of space. With the system restore feature switched on, that will cost an additional 1 - 2 GB. In total it already munched up 4 - 7 GB of space, leaving only 12GB+ of space.





I suggest getting another 80GB HDD for your nephew. HDD nowadays are pretty cheap. I am sure you don't mind coughing up a little more for your beloved nephew. They will love you for it!!!!!
Reply:I would tend to agree with the other posters - for $200 its not a bad deal for a complete system of such recent vintage. I would look at upgrading the video card, though - the 9600 is pretty lacking for todays games with only four pixel pipelines. I'd suggest something with at leat 12 pixel pipelines or more like a Radeon X1650, or a Geforce 7600 or better. Both of these cards are under $100 and would greatly improve the system performance.
Reply:The graphics card will need an upgrade, and you'll need more RAM. And the hard drive is -TINY- it won't hold more than 2, maybe 3 games. But those are all things you can upgrade later. And for $200? That is pretty nice.

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