Is building a pc as a gift for a non enthusiast/gamer/etc a good idea?

[foongusamoonguss]

Hello all, a guy from USA here, I'm hoping this is the right forum to post in lol, sorry if it's not. I am wondering if there's any real advantage to a custom pc for someone who doesn't do any resource intensive tasks.

See I want to save up for christmas and buy a friend who's most resource intensive task is probably netflix on chrome, now their current desktop is nearly 11 years old, the specs on it were probably bad for the time (dual 1.7 cpu, 2 gb 760mhz ddr2, all that cringe inducing stuff) so it's probably better they upgrade this year before they have a paper weight and no pc, looking around at my price range (300 usd before os) i find some desktops from dell, but they seem like they're heavily outdated even as a casual pc; ddr3, no ssd, trashy case and psu.

Now I hopped on pcpp and assembled a build for a cheap pc, it's a bit pricier than I had hoped for after the os but this build would run significantly better than the similarly priced dell desktop i looked at. The ssd would boot the os and browser much faster and from my research would be much easier on the ram, which is ddr4 as opposed to dell's ddr3. I'm also going to assume the budget priced case I selected, while not the best, would probably be better than a dell case for multiple reasons. I also read that Power supply units that come with prebuilt computers are utterly terrible so the bronze psu would probably help too.

So my question, is is the extra effort of assembly and small extra cost going to matter for my friend or is buying them a prebuilt low end from this decade a much more sensible option?

tl;dr; is a shoestring budget computer like this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wmWvtJ better than a prebuilt pc like this: http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/productdetails/inspiron-3252-small-desktop/smi3252w10hs7108p for a person who isn't a very big on things that require high system resources?

 

[Slow Pri]

It's totally up to you. I always strongly encourage anyone that has the time to build a computer themselves. It gets you down to the hardware and in case of any failure your able to replace it, with custom build PC's usually have better warranty's to individual parts.

I don't say that a prebuilt HP computer is terrible you are able to do upgrades and such.

You can build a decent computer with a lower budget to do basic needs. May not want to go skylake processors (new intel CPU's) maybe go a generation behind. It all depends on your budget significantly.

IF you are doing regular things, that dell computer would do the job. Just know that upgrades will be little to none.