Basic $400 budget; no gaming; no rendering

[Vice]

I've been mostly out of touch since I built my own i7 computer 4 years ago, and my dad wants me to help him build one for his own use to replace his laptop. So, I could use the help of some people who are up to date with the current tech.

Here is the best I could find so far: pcpartpicker*DOT*com/p/2Erzr

It is needed only for very basic things, like web browsing, music listening, and watching high-res (1080p) video. No gaming or video rendering or anything heavy like that. We would like it to run at a comfortable, modern speed. A small to medium size case would be best. We do not need an ODD for everyday use; we have an external one for installing the operating system via USB port.

We would like to spend about $300-$400 for everything.

In my opinion, the most money should be spent on the CPU, and optional SSD, with everything else being of minimal monetary consequence. Intel or AMD are fine. Please feel free to make your own informed recommendations. If you can point to specific merchant deals, that would be very welcome, and appreciated.

Questions: Are these prices still good? Can better be done?

Is this a good SSD? I've done a little research and at this price point, there is mixed reception. I was looking at a Kingston drive for around the same price, and it had bad firmware recently. This A-Data drive has had reports of decreased performance over time, and sometimes running slowly out of the box.

Is this a good processor? More money is available to be budgeted towards it or the SSD.

Thanks for your help fellas.

-Cap

[Guest]

Last year, I built a similar rig for much less than $300.00. Of course, the prices have gone up but you can get fairly close to that price-point. My specs:

Processor: G2020 dual core for $49.00 from Microcenter.com.

Motherboard: ASRock B75M-DGS R2.0 for $45.00 from Newegg.com
(Note: this mobo has 1 SATA III port and 5 SATA II ports)

SSD recommendation: This Samsung gives you the best bang for the buck:
840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 120GB SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive
(available at Microcenter.com for $99.99)

Good luck.

[Guest]

(continued post from above):

Case: I didn't use this one but I like it!
V3 Black Edition ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
It has lots of ventilation. Available from Microcenter.com for $24.99 (final price) BTW, I have no fans, other than the stock CPU fan and it runs cool and quiet!

Memory: You only need 4GBs for your purposes. FYI, I bought 8GBs and my memory allocation never goes beyond 1.1GBs (Win 8.1). I bought the generic Microcenter brand. This should work for you at $39.99:
4GB DDR3-1333 (PC3-10666) CL9 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit (Two 2GB Memory Modules)

PSU: A 400w power supply should be more than adequate for your purposes. I bought mine from Microcenter.com for $27.99.
Inland Gold Series ILG-400-2 400 Watt ATX Power Supply
(Note: The fan is very quiet and the cords are nice and long)

Forgot to mention that the CPU/mobo combo will give you Intel HD2500 graphics which will work perfectly for your (no gaming) purposes. Moreover, I do quite a bit of video editing and that combo is very fast.

Good luck (again).

[Guest]

(continued from above post again):

The total for all of my above recommendations is approximately $287.00 so that should keep you well under budget.

Good luck.

[Guest]

So, I looked at you pcpartpicker list and it looks decent if you like AMD; however, the Intel G2020 is a bit faster and runs cooler..

Also, that Samsung recommendation (above) is a proven winner so you might want to consider making that switch if you decide to keep the AMD build.

[Tegranphos]

spam??

[Guest]

Tegranphos,

If you call trying to help someone with great detail "spam", then I am glad I decided not to join this forum and just post as a guest.