Good CPU for my Parents.

[Borgus Bohr]

Budget (including currency): What is needed

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Web Browsing, Word, Excel, Entertainment.

 

Looking for ideas for a realistically good CPU for my parents. Usual work is simple... Word/Excel, web browsing, Youtube, Spotify (no games). Would a 2 core Intel Pentium CPU (Pentium Gold G5500) would be good enough? Good enough for CPU and GPU? I'm just trying not to go overkill on this build, trying to build small and silent. Budget is not really an isue, just trying to build a perfect PC for them and their use case.  

 

They curently run a 4 core cpu from Intel, from 2006. Still, they say it's quick enough but I think a small upgrade could help.

 

 

Thanks!

B

 

[DCCFan]

Hey, that's awesome you're building your parents a PC. Am not too familiar with the Intel Pentium but if it's 2 cores I'd stay away. How about the Ryzen 5 5600G? It's not super expensive and has decent enough graphics if you're not someone who plays the latest games. 

 

Maybe something like this:

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/sssd3Z

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($239.00 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($109.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($50.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($83.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($46.49 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: EVGA BQ 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($35.00 @ Amazon) 
Total: $565.46
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-11-16 21:40 EST-0500

 

Black Friday's coming so you might find better deals  

Edited November 17, 2021 by DCCFan
PCPP

[TheBean]

honestly, anything newer than 2015, at least 2c/4t (preferably something with a decent igpu so the ryzen ones)

12gb ram (its an odd number but I find that 8 is too small and 16 is kinda overkill so 12gb if you do 8+4gb sticks)

128gb ssd

wifi 5

 

thats pretty much all they need imo

honestly some of those NUCs are a decent option to make it small and easy (i think there are intel and amd options available)

 

[Syntaxvgm]

As it is right now, anything. Sandy bridge dual cores with 4 threads still do all that well. 
I know there's a newer i3 right now thats less than 100$ with 4 cores 8 threads. I'd go for whatever your budget can get. 
 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Im guessing that 4 core cpu you are talking about is a q6600, in that case just bsel to 333fsb aka 3ghz (tons of tutorials on yt) which should yeild a noticable performance increase

[brob]

When you get down to it the cpu is actually a small portion of the system cost. Case, PSU, storage, and memory are relatively fixed. So the difference between a 2 and 4 core system is about $50. 

 

Something along the lines of the following would be my suggestion. It is more power than strictly needed, but not really overkill.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-10105 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($129.99 @ Walmart) 
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 CPU Cooler  ($39.90 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI H510I PRO WIFI Mini ITX LGA1200 Motherboard  ($129.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($40.98 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Mushkin Enhanced Helix-L 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox NR200 Mini ITX Desktop Case  ($88.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair SF 450 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular SFX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $609.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-11-16 22:08 EST-0500

[SorryBella]

49 minutes ago, DCCFan said:

but if it's 2 cores I'd stay away

Apparently you think that Excel runs on Vulkan.

 

Anyway to OP: Besides custom build that @brob recommends, i highly recommend looking around for clearance prebuilts for last gen, as theyre also a good place to find deals in this month.

 

[DCCFan]

24 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

Apparently you think that Excel runs on Vulkan.

 

ROFL. We've got a feisty one.

 

You can recommend 2 core CPUs all you want,  it's just not the best idea if they're going to build something from scratch in 2022. 

[jec6613]

tl;dr: the G5500 is fine, though I'd probably get into a 12th Gen i3 if you can wait until it comes out since the P/E is really designed for office tasks and it's a newer more secure platform.

 

Since I'm doing the math on this myself for a bunch of PCs for various family members and in-laws, the important thing isn't the current specs, but how long you want this to last.  Sandy Bridge has more than enough raw power, but given how many vulns it doesn't protect you against compared to newer CPUs, you're going to end up replacing it soon.  The newer the platform with the better long term support, the better off you'll be for office tasks.

 

Here's the rubrick I came up with to decide if a desktop system would work (obviously, slightly different for mobile)

1. Does this platform support Windows 11? (the Pentium G5500 does)
2. Will the motherboard board receive updates for at least 2-3 more years?
3. Does the board/CPU support VBS?
4. Does the board support at least 16-32 GB of RAM?
5. Will the board accept a GPU in the future for multi-monitor or improved raster rates?

My reasoning: Windows 10 has 4-5 more years left on it tops, think about Windows 11 support now - and honestly it's way better for productivity anyway.  VBS is super important for security on a web browsing machine, 16 GB of RAM is pretty much the minimum for heavy productivity machines nowadays, it's really easy to fill that with what's on your program list.  It doesn't need to come with more than 8 GB now, but it needs to handle 16+ GB.

 

Lastly and perhaps most controversially, the GPU slot.  I've been doing this for a long time, and adding a Quadro P400 ($150 new) will offload so much of the 2D raster that it's like adding more CPU cores and RAM to your system.  The difference is office tasks is a lot more than most people would think, especially if the user will end up with 15-20 windows open.  Surprisingly, from a user perspective, a dual core with discrete GPU is going to feel faster than an eight core with integrated GPU because the user isn't ever waiting on the display to raster.

 

I figure a system like that will have 5-8 years of life before it needs a replacement, though my crystal ball is broken.

[brob]

4 hours ago, jec6613 said:

...Sandy Bridge has more than enough raw power, but given how many vulns it doesn't protect you against compared to newer CPUs...

 

It seems to me that for a single home system the existing cpu vulnerabilities are of no matter.

[Dedayog]

My i3 10100F 4c/8t runs things very well... $92

 

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-BX8070110100F-i3-10100F-3-6GHz-LGA1200/dp/B08LKJPR5X/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=i3+10100&qid=1637173212&sr=8-6

[jec6613]

23 minutes ago, brob said:

It seems to me that for a single home system the existing cpu vulnerabilities are of no matter.

Sorry, I thought this was clearer

Quote

given how many vulns it doesn't protect you against compared to newer CPUs

 

CPU vulns I'd agree with, but modern CPUs have much more than spectre/meltdown/rowhammer and the ilk going on.

 

fTPM, VBS, SecureBoot and other code signing, and all sorts of other things that help the OS be higher security.  Every few generations the hardware gets more features to make the software more secure.

[TheBean]

damn why are there so many mentors in this thread?

didnt expect so many considering proficient is already top 1%

[tkitch]

17 hours ago, Borgus Bohr said:

Budget (including currency): What is needed

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Web Browsing, Word, Excel, Entertainment.

 

Looking for ideas for a realistically good CPU for my parents. Usual work is simple... Word/Excel, web browsing, Youtube, Spotify (no games). Would a 2 core Intel Pentium CPU (Pentium Gold G5500) would be good enough? Good enough for CPU and GPU? I'm just trying not to go overkill on this build, trying to build small and silent. Budget is not really an isue, just trying to build a perfect PC for them and their use case.  

 

They curently run a 4 core cpu from Intel, from 2006. Still, they say it's quick enough but I think a small upgrade could help.

 

 

Thanks!

B

 

You can buy a 6th gen or 7th gen refurb HP / Lenovo business desktop with 8GB-16GB RAM and an SSD on ebay for 125ish.

 

It won't win any awards?  But for daily web driving and the related, you can't beat it.  (Just stay away from U / T series chips, they're TERRIBLE)

[jec6613]

36 minutes ago, tkitch said:

You can buy a 6th gen or 7th gen refurb HP / Lenovo business desktop with 8GB-16GB RAM and an SSD on ebay for 125ish.

 

It won't win any awards?  But for daily web driving and the related, you can't beat it.  (Just stay away from U / T series chips, they're TERRIBLE)

If OP can stretch to 8th gen, then Windows 11 support comes with it and so this can last longer than the 5 year Windows 10 sunset.  And at 11th gen, VBS comes in which provides so much security that Intel recommends enabling it for 12th gen reviews knowing it'll hurt performance.