Recommendation for a simple built for web browsing, ms office, movies and stream

[Nahuy]

Hey all,
I'm thinking of building my parents a simple built for basic web browsing, ms office usage and some movies and tv shows. Might stream some movies from this rig to the living room telly through one of those media streamers.

What do you think of the following,

1) Proc: i5 - 3470 or an i3 is suffice
2) Mobo: gigabyte h61m - s1
3) HDD: WD Black 1TB
4) Ram: Kingston 1600Mhz 4gb x 2

And am going to recycle a psu, optical drive and chassis from an old computer.




Cheers.

 

[jay2tall]

My first question would be what is your budget? Below are just some comments on each of your numbers.

1) I think for longitivity an i5 may last longer, however an i3 would do just fine. Actually the AMD FX-6300 is a six core AMD chip that has performance similar to the i3 in single threaded apps, but performs between the i3 and i5 on multi-threaded apps. It actually fills a void that Intel doesn't really fill. It is also priced well. Just an idea.

2) The H61 should be a nice cheap board for a modest build. For a few extra bucks you could go with an H77 motherboard that supports SRT, if you ever wanted to use an SSD for a cache drive, and a few other items. I also do not think the H61 has any SATA III (6 Gbps) ports. If you go AMD you'd be looking at a 9xx series board.

3) Solid drive. The Samsung F3 1TB is actually a good alternative to this if you want to save a few bucks. It performs a hair under the WD Black and is one of the most reliable HDDs out there. I own one and did a lot of research on it because it's my data drive.

4) 8Gb of DDR3 1600 should be fine from any reliable brand. Maybe choose one that has CAS 8, but really 9 should be fine for your cause.

Also something to consided if you are doing alot of multimedia stuff. A lowend graphics card would help a bit. Maybe an AMD 6670

Also something to consider is an AMD APU. The AMD A8 and A10 Trinity APU's are pretty nice and have really good onboard graphics. If you went with an i3 , i5 , or AMD FX with the addition of a dedicated card, it would be a much better option though. The APU's are nice if you want a nice budget machine without a dedicated card. It maybe another option for you depending on budget.

 

[g-unit1111]

1) I think for longitivity an i5 may last longer, however an i3 would do just fine. Actually the AMD FX-6300 is a six core AMD chip that has performance similar to the i3 in single threaded apps, but performs between the i3 and i5 on multi-threaded apps. It actually fills a void that Intel doesn't really fill. It is also priced well. Just an idea.

The FX-6300 is a very nice CPU for the price but even that's not really necessary if the highest task being performed on this PC is Microsoft Office. I'd maybe go for the AMD A10-5800K for an inexpensive build.

Maybe try this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-5800K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75 Pro4 ATX FM2 Motherboard ($86.97 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($37.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($70.17 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $503.09
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-11 19:07 EST-0500)

 

[jmsellars1]

Yeah I think the AMD A series would be the best bet. The A10 would be ideal but even an A6 would be completely fine. The i3-3225 would be a decent choice but it is pretty much the same price as the A10-5800k which I think is more preferable.

 

[Nahuy]

Thanks for all your replies, much appreciated.

Jay: Don't intend to spend much, so around $350. I'm only after 4 things, proc, mobo, ram, and hdd.

Currently I think I'm leaning towards the A10-5800k, would all fm2 motherboards be able to support the built in graphics capabilities of the a10?

 

[ScrewySqrl]

heres a $350 build then:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-5800K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75M-DGS Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard ($60.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($31.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Silverstone PS08B (Black) MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($34.90 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS324-98 DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $353.83
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-12 06:54 EST-0500)

 

[jay2tall]

Thanks for all your replies, much appreciated.

Jay: Don't intend to spend much, so around $350. I'm only after 4 things, proc, mobo, ram, and hdd.

Currently I think I'm leaning towards the A10-5800k, would all fm2 motherboards be able to support the built in graphics capabilities of the a10?

You never really specified a budget before. But for $350 the AMD APU's will be your best bet. If you can stick with an A8 or A10 Trinity core, that would most likely be your best bet over all.


They require an FM2 chipset motherboard. They will all support this chip. Watch for deals on Newegg. They now has some boards with free 8GB or RAM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Depa=0&Description=PPSSMBPROMO1211