lowspec Building my parents a new PC

[ggPUNX]

Budget (including currency): ~$500-600

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Chrome, maybe some light photo editing

Other details: 

My parents' home PC hard drive recently failed, so instead of just replacing the hard drive (since their PC is an old budget prebuilt Lenovo), I decided to build them a computer myself and see what I can do to restore data from the hard drive. Here's my current parts list I'm looking at:

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/y7RrBj

 

They really only use this PC to pay bills, store and look at photos, watch YouTube videos, and maybe do some light photo editing.

 

So I'm thinking just integrated graphics, SSD boot drive, and a 2TB hard drive for storing photos and such.

This really is a bare minimum PC, it just needs to do very basic things well and be easily repairable in the case of another drive failure.

 

Is there anything crucial I'm missing? Or somewhere I could save them some money?

 

[johnt]

I wouldn't get more thermal paste... just use what's on the stock cooler. I would, however, get a bending correction frame from Amazon made by Thermalright. You can find it for around $14. Meh I would replace both drives with a single 1 TB SSD or NVME. I think I saw B&H photo video is selling the Intel 670p 1 TB for $50. They should really be embracing cloud storage for photos or external storage.

 

Also this PSU is sufficient and half the price: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Wbhj4D/thermaltake-smart-500w-80-certified-atx-power-supply-ps-spd-0500npcwus-w

 

You might be able to find a cheaper price for Windows if you are willing to shop around and take chances. In fact, I would download Windows 11 and install it from a USB drive without a product key. Setup your machine, make sure everything is working right, and then drop the money on an operating system to activate. Never activate before using and testing your machine first.

[Wolly9102]

16 minutes ago, ggPUNX said:

Budget (including currency): ~$500-600

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Chrome, maybe some light photo editing

Other details: 

My parents' home PC hard drive recently failed, so instead of just replacing the hard drive (since their PC is an old budget prebuilt Lenovo), I decided to build them a computer myself and see what I can do to restore data from the hard drive. Here's my current parts list I'm looking at:

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/y7RrBj

 

They really only use this PC to pay bills, store and look at photos, watch YouTube videos, and maybe do some light photo editing.

 

So I'm thinking just integrated graphics, SSD boot drive, and a 2TB hard drive for storing photos and such.

This really is a bare minimum PC, it just needs to do very basic things well and be easily repairable in the case of another drive failure.

 

Is there anything crucial I'm missing? Or somewhere I could save them some money?

 

looks good. Do the need an 2 TB drive though?

[johnt]

Bending correction frame: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B5Q34SZ1/

 

1 TB NVME: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1635039-REG/intel_ssdpeknu010tzx1_1tb_670p_ssd_m_2.html

 

Looks like the 1 TB price is today only for $60.

[TylerD321]

Will the PC be wired with ethernet or will you need a Wifi card? Other than that, I would follow the recommendations above. You probably don't need 16 gb ram for anything you will be doing but never hurts for that price.

[Thomas4]

Save your money and just get a new hard drive and possibly faster memory. If there's nothing else wrong and the system is less than 20 years old, the differences, other than being a few seconds faster probably won't matter to them - mine didn't notice when I went from an 8086 to a 286 on theirs -  as long as their not complaining about the present system.  Also, the simple OS reinstall itself works wonders.