Home PC as a gift for parent

[hobund]

Hello! My mom is currently doing school online and her current laptop is very old and too slow, so I want to build a "home build" for her. Can I get any feedback on this? She only needs it for watching videos for her classes and light storage usage (resumes, small photo albums, etc). The LED fan is a joke, I'm gonna put it on the front of the case.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Baggo/saved/VtwWZL

[honor]

6 minutes ago, A Bag Of Bodacious Burgers said:

Hello! My mom is currently doing school online and her current laptop is very old and too slow, so I want to build a "home build" for her. Can I get any feedback on this? She only needs it for watching videos for her classes and light storage usage (resumes, small photo albums, etc). The LED fan is a joke, I'm gonna put it on the front of the case.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Baggo/saved/VtwWZL

might as well just get her a new laptop

[Rinsworth]

If the build is just for school and such, you should consider using an SSD rather than, or alongside, the HDD. It makes life a lot easier, and will help considerably more than a better CPU or GPU.

 

Also, if she's running Windows 10, the computer will probably need 8GB of RAM to work well, or it could bottleneck the rest of the components.

[Herman Mcpootis]

try this instead:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($78.89 @ B&H) 
Motherboard: ASRock - H110M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($53.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Silverstone - Sugo SG13WB Mini ITX Tower Case  ($42.00 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($26.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $271.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-13 01:32 EDT-0400

[hobund]

1 minute ago, Rinsworth said:

If the build is just for school and such, you should consider using an SSD rather than, or alongside, the HDD. It makes life a lot easier, and will help considerably more than a better CPU or GPU.

 

Also, if she's running Windows 10, the computer will probably need 8GB of RAM to work well, or it could bottleneck the rest of the components.

It'll be running Windows Vista or 7, I have a copy of both laying around. And thanks for the tip with the SSD!

2 minutes ago, herman mcpootis said:

try this instead:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($78.89 @ B&H) 
Motherboard: ASRock - H110M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($53.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Silverstone - Sugo SG13WB Mini ITX Tower Case  ($42.00 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($26.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $271.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-13 01:32 EDT-0400

I'll definitely use the case and motherboard, but might change the other things around. Thanks!

6 minutes ago, honor said:

might as well just get her a new laptop

Well thats no fun, or help to my post  Besides, a good laptop would cost much more than a desktop of equal power.

[You_are_a_cunt]

Could you not just get her a NUC/Zbox/Brix/whatever instead?

[hobund]

1 minute ago, revsilverspine said:

Could you not just get her a NUC/Zbox/Brix/whatever instead?

Never heard of any of those things

[MVPernula]

4 minutes ago, A Bag Of Bodacious Burgers said:

Never heard of any of those things

Look up "Intel Nuc", they're basically super tiny PC's that run basic tasks and seriously does well as a home PC.

[You_are_a_cunt]

2 minutes ago, A Bag Of Bodacious Burgers said:

Never heard of any of those things

They're barebone PCs. Just add ram and storage

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits.html

My dad uses one at school in the lab and is more than enough for quite the heavy office load. i3-5010u, 16 gigs of ram in it, an old 500 gig HDD I pulled from a laptop and a 240 gig SSD. It's overspec'd for Office and the occasional documentary. Shouldn't cost more than ~$450

[hobund]

1 minute ago, revsilverspine said:

They're barebone PCs. Just add ram and storage

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits.html

My dad uses one at school in the lab and is more than enough for quite the heavy office load. i3-5010u, 16 gigs of ram in it, an old 500 gig HDD I pulled from a laptop and a 240 gig SSD. It's overspec'd for Office and the occasional documentary. Shouldn't cost more than ~$450

I'm looking for around $300. And since its a gift, I want it to reflect what I like to do and how I applied it to doing something special for my mom. I don't have the money for anything more, and anything prebuilt just feels cheap. 

[Arika]

10 minutes ago, A Bag Of Bodacious Burgers said:

Well thats no fun, or help to my post  Besides, a good laptop would cost much more than a desktop of equal power.

well to be fair you also haven't taken into account monitor, keyboard, mouse. unless you already have them?

[hobund]

Just now, Sierra Fox said:

well to be fair you also haven't taken into account monitor, keyboard, mouse. unless you already have them?

Already have them all  Operating system too

[SPARTAN VI]

School work? Chromebook. Watching videos? Chromebook. Word processing? Chromebook. Your mom? Mother-effin Chromebook.

 

And if you don't want the mobility? Chromebox. Just need a cloud print compatible printer if she intends to print anything.

 

I seriously wouldn't over complicate this with an actual dedicated custom build; not only will you overspend, but you're going to be on the hook for technical support anyway, might as well make it easy for yourself. I got my father in law an ASUS Chromebox 2-3 years ago after they chewed through  a WinXP and Win8.1 machine (virus/hijacked). The Chromebox is fool-proof and a perfect $100 fit for his browsing/YouTubing/printing use case.