Budget Media PC(for a touch screen)

Zink · April 11, 2016

Hey all!

So I'm beginning to plan to build a second PC. I have a quality gaming computer however I'm looking to build a second PC that can be connected to an HP touch screen monitor(1920X1080 with 1 VGA and 1 DVI-D single link input) while running windows 10 in tablet mode. I've had the touch screen for years and used to use windows 8 on a second computer that bricked itself recently. My goal isn't to game on this. My focus is high quality smooth video and music playback, 5.1 surround sound capability(something my main computer has a real problem with for some unknown reason), and enough horse power to do some lite multitasking(listening to music or youtube while using programs to control my various home automation gadgets). I don't need any peripherals, speakers or a monitor so I'm really just looking for some input on the tower. As far as budget I'd like to stay below $300 though as long as it's not much over that I can make it work. I also don't need any form of storage as I have an extra SSD and HDD salvaged from the bricked windows 8 PC.

Main Questions

Should I go with a cheap AMD chip to get the extra cores or would one of Intel's dual core Pentiums be a better CPU for the money?

How much ram would a system like this require to run smoothly(I'm assuming 4 or 8 gigs of non performance ram would do the job)?

Will on board graphics be good enough for such an endeavor or should I plan on buying a graphics card as well?

Should I plan on buying a USB amp to enable 5.1 surround sound?

I apologize if any of these seem like rather silly questions. I'm actually a software engineer but due to a physical limitation(I'm legally blind) hardware is the most challenging thing for me to work on so I haven't made it a priority to know in detail.