My son is turning 9 and has been using his computer more and more. he has my old System76 wild dog from 2010, which is a great computer, but is way past the end of its life. He mostly plays minecraft and browser games, though he is doing more artistic stuff in gimp and even a bit of cad for our 3d printer or in blockbench.

We’re looking at a System76 Meerkat for him. For most things I think it would be a huge upgrade, but it is NOT a gaming computer. That being said, his requirements are slim. He mostly plays Switch or on the tablet for “gaming” and I think if it ever came down to it, we could explore things like external GPU’s. He’s not even on steam yet.

The Meerkat can use Intel UHD graphics, or Iris Xe graphics depending on the CPU. I would like some subjective feedback on if those are workable for a kid’s computer, the specs are here (we’d probably go 12th gen CPU): https://system76.com/desktops/meerkat#specs

  • @ComeHereOrIHookYouEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    I had a chance to use UHD 630 for mild Linux gaming for a couple of months 5 years ago. So far it was good. Was able to Minecraft (No shaders though) with decent fps and a couple of 3d browser games such as Forward Assault (Some Counter strike like game), Tetr.io and Bemuse.

    For Steam games… it was able to play 2d games great. Majority of newly released 3d games (Indie, triple A is out of the question) that time, the iGPU struggleds however.

    Well I only wanted to play Skyrim at 1080p and it was able to deliver.

    Also was able to play Dota and Counter Strike Global Offensive too.

    I don’t think the newer intel iGPUs are any better, I mean it can play 3d games fine but usually performs OK on games a generation behind or older.