I agree that it's a bit early to look for potential parts, but depending on what graphical quality your friend wants to play games (as well as what games he'll be playing), he'll probably need a fairly strong graphics card, probably a flagship tier card or maybe even crossfire/SLI with midrange or high end graphics cards to get 90+ FPS at 1440p for some especially demanding games.
There's not really a way to future proof a PC, there's always something new on the horizon. Late 2015 wouldn't be too bad of a time to buy, though. The best thing you could do is buy into a new platform so you're not stuck with older generation parts and support. Skylake, AMD R9 3XX line, etc will be out by then and there should be a lot of user and professional reviews on them available to research exactly what kind of parts would best fit his needs. In terms of future upgrades, waiting for Skylake would be nice as it'll be coming on a new motherboard platform with a new CPU socket and lineup, plus some newer features like USB 3.1 and USB type C, DDR4 support, etc.
According to the HP support website, the motherboard only supports running RAM at 1600MHz. You won't really notice a difference by replacing it with a 1866MHz stick of RAM that will be forced to run at 1600MHz anyway. It's your choice if you want to replace the RAM, though.
Two of those sticks of Kingston would cost about $115, you can get a
2x8GB kit of G.Skill 2133MHz RAM for $95 including free shipping, that's a better deal. There's also this slightly cheaper
2x8GB kit of Mushkin 1600MHz RAM for $90 after $10 coupon including free shipping.
Yeah, $600~700 is totally doable for a PC build to outperform the $850 Alienware Alpha model, including a decent CPU cooler. You have two options for the OS license, you can get a
normal retail copy for a bit under $90 or buy a cheap Windows license key off reddit. Here's my standard disclaimer for buying from reddit:
Windows 7/8.1 licenses can be bought from
reddit's microsoftsoftwareswap for $20 USD or less. These are most likely legitimate keys that are resold from educational programs like Technet or Dreamspark. However, you are dealing with a person instead of a retailer, and informal Windows keys sales are not approved by Microsoft and probably breaking some licensing agreement, but it's not illegal. The risks involved are that the person could be selling you a fake or used key, or that Microsoft may refuse to give you support and/or deactivate your license and refuse to reactivate it. That's not very likely, usually it only happens if the seller and their list of sold keys was caught. We've had people here using those keys without issues for a long time and others who say Microsoft deactivated their key after several months.
And yeah, it's viable to use a TV as a monitor. Pretty much all video cards come with HDMI output. Oh, and just to make sure, you're in the US?
Here's an example PC build:
PCPartPicker part list /
Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($26.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($79.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($52.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB DUAL-X Video Card ($162.98 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.00 @ Newegg)
Total: $690.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-09 22:20 EDT-0400
I might have jumped the gun a bit, that build does cut very close to your upper budget limit.. but the processor and graphics card is already stronger than the Alienware Alpha $850 model for $690 after discounts and rebates. If you don't mind dropping the CPU cooler for now or going with a cheaper non-overclocking CPU and motherboard, that'd bring down the cost by a bit more. You could also go for a cheaper graphics card, the one in the Alienware Alpha is about equal to a GTX 750 Ti, you could go for that
(the 750 Ti starts as low as $110) or an
AMD R9 270X (starting at $140).
If you prefer to play it safe and buy the $90 retail copy of Windows, then I recommend going with a cheaper non-overclocking i5 processor and motherboard that will still deliver strong performance. This build features the GTX 960 instead which costs a bit more than the R9 280 but is a bit quieter and produces less heat, and the entire build still comes in at around $600. The 212 Evo CPU cooler isn't really needed since the i5 4460 can't be overclocked, but you can still add it back to the parts list or install it later if you feel the stock cooler isn't good enough at cooling or is too loud.
PCPartPicker part list /
Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.98 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-GAMING 3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.45 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($52.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card ($194.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.00 @ Newegg)
Total: $607.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-09 22:36 EDT-0400
