Build for a Christmas Gift for My Mother - Home office use dual monitor/ultrawide

[PsychoticOuija]

I want to build a PC for my mother for Christmas. She doesn't need a whole lot as far as power, she wouldn't use 90% of it anyway so I don't need a top of the line gaming rig. She's very much into genealogy and does a lot of work with that. She's the Registrar in our states DAR chapter, so she does a lot of other peoples Genealogy as well. It will need to have to have at least 2TB of hard drive space for photos and other documents, probably will need more then that but 2TB is plenty for now, as well as an SSD for speed on start up of programs. She would like a dual monitor setup as she does have a lot of windows open at one time and spacing them out would be best instead of getting smaller and smaller or having to ALT Tab every time she works on something.

Anyway that's about all I can think of it needing other then the basics for a home office computer. I appreciate all the help in advance.

Approximate Purchase Date: Around the 1st of November

Budget Range: Under $1200 including monitors, peripherals, as well as Windows

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Basic use, mostly working on documents and surfing the web, slight gaming, photo editing in the future

Are you buying a monitor: Yes, she wants a dual monitor setup. Though I am almost certain an ultra wide, if affordable, would be just as good.

Parts to Upgrade: Need an entire parts list or at least options to point me in the right direction

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Honestly, it doesn't really matter, I will put the components on PC Part Picker and go for the best deal anyway.

Location: Iowa, USA

Parts Preferences: Again, honestly doesn't really matter, I'm not knowledgeable enough on building a regular home office PC to be to picky and it's not for me.

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: No need to go beyond 1080 HD resolution, she can't see the difference and it would be wasted money for some epic 4k monitor anyway considering her use.

Additional Comments: I would love for it to be quiet. No flashy tower, no window, or lights or anything, needs to have good air flow. She will be mostly using it for her Genealogy research using Legacy 8.0, I know it's a small program so not a whole lot needed for it but she will need space to have all her documents as she does Genealogy professionally for other people as well as for the DAR. She will be doing very basic photo editing in the future as well but not overly necessary to build for it quite yet. She plays very since point and click games, such as majong, and seek and find games as well. Will be using it to have multiple programs and files open at the same time, that's why the dual screen/ultra wide monitor is wanted. Also pretty child proof so they can't really mess with a whole lot. The grand kids will be using it from time to time for YouTube, schoolwork, and small flash games. Again don't need anything to crazy powerful for this.

Why Are You Upgrading: She has been using a laptop for the last 7 years that is very quickly getting to be on it's last leg. She was going to go to the box store and buy one but I told her I could probably build her one better that she'd buy at the store and it will be a bit more future proof and ugradeable without costing an arm and a leg

Again, thanks for taking the time to read this, as well as for any help in advance.

 

[Aeacus]

How about this set.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($196.79 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H110M-A/M.2 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($49.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($92.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel 600p Series 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($98.03 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($79.50 @ Amazon)
Case: Zalman ZM-T1 PLUS MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($24.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($85.60 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: AOC E2727SHE 27.0" 60Hz Monitor ($159.01 @ Amazon)
Monitor: AOC E2727SHE 27.0" 60Hz Monitor ($159.01 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Zalman ZM-K380 Combo Wired Standard Keyboard w/Laser Mouse ($26.25 @ Amazon)
Total: $1027.14
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-10-16 05:58 EDT-0400

Few words.

This set is a solid office PC.
Put in an ultra fast M.2 NVMe SSD for OS and a reliable 3TB HDD for storage.
For office work, the dedicated GPU is not needed and PC runs just fine with the onboard graphics that comes with CPU (Intel HD 530).
PSU comes directly from the best PSU OEM (Seasonic) and it has enough juice to support a dedicated GPU if needed.
Added OS alongside with standard KB & mouse set.
And also two 27", 60Hz monitors as requested.

If ever needed, a dedicated GPU can be added to turn this PC into medium-end gaming rig according to the today's standards.
MoBo comes with LGA1151 CPU socket that supports current Skylake and future Kaby Lake and Cannonlake CPUs from Intel.
MoBo itself supports up to 32GB of RAM (so, the RAM amount can be doubled by buying the 2x 16GB set if needed in the future).

 

[PsychoticOuija]

So far looks pretty solid, I appreciate the help. Had she wanted a gaming rig I could get that figured out no problem, but building a basic system seems to be a challenge and I have no idea why lol. I'll include the list I came up with on PC Parts Picker before I made this post at the bottom of this reply. I plan on spacing out the cost a bit over 2 months rather than all at once in November by buying the PC components here in November, and the monitors and peripherals in December. I figure it won't be such a huge strain on the wallet that way. Plus I already have the monitor an such for my current PC that I can use to get hers all set up after it's built. Being my mother I'm obviously not charging her for it so trying to help out my own wallet a bit haha.

Now on to other comments and questions about the build.

Is 16 gigs of ram necessary for basic home office use? I've been reading around that unless it's for gaming or photo/video editing you really don't need much more then 8 gigs. I could be wrong though. The type of photo editing she'd be doing isn't anything fancy, just brightening up old scanned photos, or sharpening them so nothing super hardcore in that department either. I do like the price of that 3tb hard drive though, definitely cheaper then the 2tb I was looking at. In the future I plan to build her a NAS system as well but that will be farther down the line, one of the main reasons I'm wanting such a large hard drive for the moment. I've always liked the idea of a NAS, more places to back up are always a good thing to have as we all know.

I'm quite surprised with the monitors. From the size of them, and the price, I think I could get her just one for now, and add the second later on, which is nice saves a little bit of money right off the bat. Is that a good idea, or should I just bite the bullet and get them both at once? Should I be looking into a mid tower case or is this the type of system I could make into a small form factor case? I'm kind of on the fence about either option. I mean the mid tower means more room to work in, but small form factor takes up less space. That being said, I do like the case, as you can see, we are on the same page with it. It's one of the few with nice airflow without all the flash.

Anyway, thanks again for all the help, I'm stressing myself out over this for some reason. I think it's because it's my first build that is not for me, so I want it to be perfect for her use, and pretty much set it down and forget it until it needs basic maintenance from time to time. I also want it to be something that she's not going to have to just replace in a couple years like she'd get from the box stores ya know? Figured this was the best place to find a nice helpful community.

PC Parts Picker List Before Making Post

 

[Aeacus]

Building a basic system is actually much easier than building a gaming rig. In the gaming rig, you need to have a decent GPU and also a powerful enough PSU that can power the GPU.
In office PC, just remove the GPU and trim down from PSU wattage. Oh, onboard graphics are needed too. Luckily, all Skylake family CPUs come with onboard graphics.

It's up to you when and which parts to buy. My build suggestion is just for knowing which parts to buy.

About RAM, if you like, you can go with 2x 4GB set and save about $50.
Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133
pcpp: http://pcpartpicker.com/product/kkL7YJ/kingston-memory-hx421c14fbk28
MoBo itself supports up to 32GB of RAM, so there's plenty of room to upgrade RAM later on.

For HDD, picked one the most reliable one that has been tested extensively in the server environment.
Here's an article to read if you're interested,
link: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/
(Hitachi is commonly known as HGST.)

For monitors, you can go with one as a starting point. If 27" monitor is getting small (too many windows open at once), a 2nd monitor can be added later on.

For case, i suggest you go with mATX case. At first, it is harder to build into it but it's size does come in handy in the office area where you don't have plenty of space for a bigger case. Since the PC doesn't have GPU, fitting it into the mATX case is much easier than a build that has GPU.
If you want to go even smaller on the case then that can be done too. Here's one that costs probably too much,
Silverstone LC13B-E-USB3.0 (Black) HTPC Case
specs: http://www.silverstonetek.com/legacy.php?area=en&model=LC13-E
pcpp: http://pcpartpicker.com/product/3WqdnQ/silverstone-case-lc13be
My suggested MoBo is mATX board and it will fit into the Zalman mATX case and also in the Silverstone HTPC case.

Office PC lifetime is much longer than a gaming PC lifetime since you don't have a GPU which you need to keep up to the date with the latest games. Also, a custom build has lots of upgrade paths compared to the prebuilt systems that you can buy from retail store as a set (e.g Dell).
My suggested system can easely do 5 years before an upgrade is needed.