Question Budget streaming/surfing machine. help me pick parts.

[Math Geek]

Looking for a simple system for streaming and basic web surfing. no gaming at all. this is an older gentlemen who wants to watch youtube/news videos and look at the grandkids' pics on facebook. he'll also stream netflix to his tv. only piece i already have is a GB B450 ATX mobo i'd like to use to save money there and a 1 tb m.2 i got spare for some reason. basically means AM4 "g" series so can save not needing a gpu. otherwise it pretty much wide open.

need ram, psu, case, and a monitor/KB/mouse. got the OS covered. don't really care where parts come from so long as it's in the US.

i am curious what folks can come up with to keep it as budget as possible without junk parts. plenty of pre-builts out there that would do the job, but curious how a custom build would compare in price. obviously the quality of parts suffers with pre-built, but exploring all options at the moment.

i could easily pick parts but i am always amazed at what others find that i missed while looking around.

 

[USAFRet]

You could find a little Beelink for $200-$300.
https://www.bee-link.com/collections/mini-pc?sort_by=price-ascending

Add monitor/kbd/mouse....done.

 

[Math Geek]

You could find a little Beelink for $200-$300.
https://www.bee-link.com/collections/mini-pc?sort_by=price-ascending

Add monitor/kbd/mouse....done.

see that's why i ask not seen those before. thought of a raspberry pi as an option, but thought the NUC type things were more costly.

wonder what others can come up with....

 

[USAFRet]

see that's why i ask not seen those before. thought of a raspberry pi as an option, but thought the NUC type things were more costly

I, and a couple of others around here, have one.

Mine is a bit more robust, but it serves almost exactly that same function....HTPC, output to the TV.
VERY solid little thing.

I initially bought it to be the innards of a custom casemod.
But it is so well built, I couldn't bring myself to take it apart.

 

[Math Geek]

well they didn't like the beeline idea, so back to just building a full size pc.

so my b450 board with a 5600GT. got free 16 gb ram right now on newegg with it. can't beat that

just got to pick a psu, case and an ssd and it'll be good to go. doesn't seem like they make low wattage psu's anymore for decent price. so guess a 550w or so one is in the works.

edit: trying to stay on the budget end of psu's and i don't see anything under $100 that's even marginally decent. anyone got any thoughts on a lower cost psu??

5600GT cpu, ssd and pretty much nothing else, so even a 500W psu is overkill...

 

[logainofhades]

For a rig of this caliber, I would say this would be ok enough. It's not a fire starter, and it's not going to ever see much of a load.

PCPartPicker Part List

Power Supply: Thermaltake Smart BM3 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $59.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-10 21:04 EST-0500

 

[Math Geek]

could not find much on this unit but for a few bucks more and gold rated seems ok. toughpower GX2 also from thermaltake.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/pG...ertified-atx-power-supply-ps-tpd-0600nnfagu-2

but i did consider the one you suggested at first. being a very low power budget build and all. that and it is semi modular 🤔

 

[Math Geek]

at the moment this is what i have come up with. newegg has the case for less than it's listed and i used some parts i have sitting around like the cpu cooler just to get em out of my house. throw in the free ram and for ~$300 looks good to me

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($129.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 CPU Cooler ($0.00)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0) ATX AM4 Motherboard ($0.00)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($0.00)
Storage: Silicon Power P34A60 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($47.99 @ Newegg Sellers)
Case: Zalman Z3 Iceberg ATX Mid Tower Case ($50.00)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GX2 600 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($63.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $290.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-10 21:25 EST-0500

 

[logainofhades]

For the use case, that should be just fine.

 

[Math Geek]

appreciate the feedback

gonna go ahead and order today and get it together. it's this guy's christmas gift so it'll sit in the box until then, but i don't wanna wait as i don't really expect any massive sales on these type parts. usually the better stuff gets sales and not the already low end stuff. other than the cpu maybe, but the free ram is already a good discount that i don't see it getting any better for that part.

 

[Math Geek]

started looking at a different psu before buying and triggered a $20 off combo deal by adding $15 extra bucks for

https://www.newegg.com/thermaltake-...0-plus-gold-at-115vac-input/p/N82E16817153453

so got bit better psu and actually dropped the price a few bucks. just waiting on the case to come in then i can build it and set it aside so it can wait for christmas.