What is the best "Parents" computer CPU (Cheap web browsing and other things)

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broidk

broidk

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Oct 22, 2015
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What is the best for this for a reasonably low budget I don't really know yet and one that would work in a nice case that I can keep silent and cool without having to crank up the fans. I'd like to stay with Intel but I guess I could venture into AMD if it's the only option to keep prices lower. What are you guy's recommendations for both companies?
 
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"Parents" is a wide category.
I am a parent and grandparent. If any of my adult children presumed to purchase me a PC, I'd have a hard time not laughing.

So...
What is the budget, use, and where on the planet do you reside?

Contrary to popular opinion, building is not always better than buying.
 
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Well I should say parents who use their computer for normal things lol. I live in America and I just recently built my computer and I loved it, also I don't currently have a set budget but don't want to spend a grand on just the Tower (And if I didn't love it I would literally kill myself seeing as it was over $1500 xD and payed for my self out of pocket)
 
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You could probably get away with a $500-$750 box from BestBuy or Walmart.
PC, OS, monitor included.

What, specifically, are they going to use it for?
 
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Internet browsing and other things with like excel and word. I don't really know all the stuff they use their computer for... All I know is they have an 8 year old jet engine that spews dust(Doesn't spew it but damn is it caked in there) which used to be a gaming computer and it's time for something new xD
 
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i just built my dad a new pc for the holiday. he had an old dell xp with 2g of ram (6 year old pc). so anything was faster then his old pc. i used skylake g4400 and a h170 mb. if the g4400 was to slow if he got into gaming i could swap it out with an i3. i did put in a 256g ssd and a 950 gpu. i could save some money and used the onboard gpu. on of the big issue with old folks is changing the os. i used classic shell and made windows 10 look like xp for him. after a few days of the new pc and it speed he cant go back to the old pc. right now he a beach bunny and the old pc in the beach home driving him nuts.
 
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At that end of the performance scale, anything newish will work.
Question is...how far do you personally want to go being the oncall tech support dude?
 
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Haha I won't be that much because my mom is actually in the know about most computer things, she has had to re-image their computer and other family member's. She is more of the tech support than I am haha. She just knows nothing of putting them together
 
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For this kind of requirement it's best to just get a pre-built PC. You really can't do better than a $500 PC with Windows, keyboard + mouse and a monitor included if you decide to build one.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0179ROJ5S/ref=twister_B015EC8J4W?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Add a 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD (And a SATA cable) to that and transfer Windows onto it. Then you have a PC that'll fly for just $570!

EDIT: For reference, here is how much a comparable custom built PC will cost:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($111.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-K Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($33.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($81.61 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Window ATX Mid Tower Case ($31.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($35.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) ($89.88 @ OutletPC)
Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Monitor: Dell E2414HM 60Hz 24.0" Monitor ($99.99 @ Best Buy)
Keyboard: AmazonBasics KU-0833 +MSU0939 Wired Standard Keyboard w/Optical Mouse ($13.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $644.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-24 13:36 EST-0500
 
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Doesn't seem they do anything too CPU or GPU intensive so this should work: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/MrKagouris/saved/c2FV3C

It's an LGA1150 socket so CPU is easily upgradeable and you can add a discrete GPU if they need the extra power. Overall however it should be responsive, silent and have any feature they might need. I know the PSU is kinda overkill but it was the best choice for the price range as far as I can tell. Heck it just adds to the silence as the PSU will barely ever need to spin the fan more than its idle speed.
 
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Supernova NEX? I'd get a much higher quality 300W Seasonic unit for $30. A-Data SSD could be swapped for 850 EVO or a Kingston. CAS latency on the RAM is beat by other similarly-priced memory. And H81 motherboard can be found $20 cheaper. Just my recommendations for both lowering the cost and improving.
 
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Just to explain my choices, although you raise some fair points:

The EVGA unit is quality enough and has a much higher output making it reusable and allowing for further system expansion. For the SSD I was really just aiming for the cheapest decent SSD I could find. CAS latency wouldn't change much and even for a few bucks more not worth it imo. As for the motherboard, I believe the H81 motherboards had some kind of trouble with Haswell Refresh CPUs that required a BIOS update? Not sure about it but 20$ less is not really worth the hassle of a BIOS update and possible future issues, plus this board is fairly decent for that money.
 
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Well if OP can find a reasonable prebuilt sure. I'm just giving him the option of a decent custom one because to my experience prebuilts almost always have very bad component choices, with the PSU and motherboard being sacrificed in favor of more gigahertzes on an ultra-fast Intel Core 2 Duo, and if a cheap PSU causes a problem later on that really offsets the convenience of buying a prebuilt in the first place (speaking from experience here unfortunately).

Ultimately it's just whatever OP finds the better choice. Prebuilt for convenience, custom for quality.
 
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This is VERY true.
However, for that use case, 'more Ghz' is probably not a factor.
Anything will do email and basic web browsing.
 
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True anything can do that, but not anything will do it while being practically unnoticeable sound-wise (glorious Silencio cases) and while being extremely responsive thanks to an SSD.

That's really the main hitch with getting a prebuilt in this case. Prebuilts are usually built around CPU horsepower while I picked the parts (to the best of my abilities) for user convenience.

To be honest if it wasn't for the silence and SSD responsiveness factors I'd say one of Asus' 500$ laptops would be a better investment as it's also portable.
 
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I adjusted the parts list accordingly http://pcpartpicker.com/user/MrKagouris/saved/c2FV3C. Better CPU and some high grade thermal paste to help with cooling and thus make it more silent. It's also right about 500$ now.
 
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And here's the kicker. Your $500 build isn't yet complete. A Walmart APU system is. It includes all the other things like a monitor, keyboard, mouse, basic pc speakers, quite often also coming with some basic usable software like photo creator, office etc all of which will tack on an easy $200. I still stand by my opinion that a $400-$500 all in one box amd a8 APU system is a better deal for an everyday, easy to use, simple usage pc.

And imho AS5 is junk. The only reason it gained popularity was it's price several years ago, in performance it's not that much better than any stock paste. If you really want quality, try Noctua. It's very easy to use, has no cure times or heat cycles and not only outperforms the AS5 easily, but runs the same price
 
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Did you miss the part where OP said he already has all peripherals? I literally quoted it just now. Also that prebuilt will not include an SSD which will either mean sacrificing SSD level responsiveness altogether or doing the upgrade yourself which defeats the cost argument.
 
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All of which are mismatched, require op install etc. Your standard HP etc is covered under HP warranty, if it dies or fails, the 'paremts' have resources like HP support for any questions, queries or needs. An aftermarket build will require op contact for everything. It's easier to have a 3rd party source for wierd calls cuz the pc is slow etc than have op responsible for any upkeep or errors. Here ya go, 1 box, if it breaks, take it back or have op responsible for repairs. No brainer in my book
 
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