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Need some advice. I saw in a thread awhile back someone talked about Blender. I downloaded it for my 10yo and he's doing really well with it so I want to get him his own computer. The wife and I have been using Macbooks for over a decade but I'll probably get him a PC which I feel a little lost with now.

Here is a link to the program requirements and a refurbished computer. Any thoughts or a better suggestion for a computer? We were trying to get one for about $500 or so but this seems pretty good for the price.

Thanks in advance!

https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/

https://www.newegg.com/lenovo-thinkcent ... 6883994527

I'll open with saying I don't know a great deal about blender, other than it's a 3D rendering package so I guess a good GPU is going to be important for this. An integrated GPU is going to be limiting I suspect.
Unless someone here chimes in I'd recommend asking here: https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/
and here (if you don't mind building a pc anyway): https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/

My last two blender machines were specced out with decent mid-range processors that could support a good GPU (check the Blender site for their recommendations when you're ready to build or buy a machine), as much memory as I could afford to stuff in the thing, and a heavy duty power supply to keep the GPU happy.

Oh, and don't forget lots of hard drive space for all the movies you won't finish if you're anything like me.

I'm not a Blender user, but I do 3D production for a living.

Get an i7 or better. Thread Ripper if you can. 16 GB RAM at the very least. Also, I know Blender has an Octane Render plug-in available and it's a game-changer for LookDev to see what you're working on in real-time. You'll want a decent Nvidia GPU. I'm not sure, but I believe RedShift also has a plug-in for Blender. Arnold... also not sure, but I don't think so... which is a shame because Arnold is easily the best renderer out there,

Your best bet without researching the hell out of it getting something custom made is to get a computer made for gaming. You're guaranteed a somewhat decent CPU and a somewhat decent GPU then,