Guts upgrade for a low/mid desktop <$500 (no gaming)

[brystmar]

My home desktop began showing video artifacts & tearing this past week, even in BIOS. Booting to Safe Mode is impossible; the screen is entirely artifacts. It's probably the GTX 460 or the PSU, but troubleshooting a build from 2008 with legacy parts & slots probably isn't worth the time/effort. Time for new guts, even though getting rid of a perfectly good Q9550 feels dirty.

Budget: $400-$500. Usage is mostly regular browsing @1920x1200, watching & editing standard videos, and some A/V encoding for my NAS. Light use for older games like Talos, SC2, & Portal, and running those at ~720p is fine.

Important to me:

• Stability, longevity
• Good LAN performance (GbE)
• Power efficiency
• Quietness
• Front panel USB 3.1 connections with at least one Type A and one Type C
• Support for a low-end (~$100) GPU in the next few years, if deemed necessary

Not important to me:

• Most new games
• 3D & VR
• Extensive configuration / tweaking options
• Overclocking, SLI, Crossfire, etc.
• Local storage space
• WiFi
• Analog surround sound outputs
• Legacy connectors like PS/2, DB9 (if those are even still a thing)

Parts to reuse:

• Quiet, spacious Antec P180 case
  • I only use the fan above the mobo
  • Nice to have headers for the USB 2.0 ports on the front
• Dell 2405FPW (1920x1200)
• My trusty HD580s
• 160gb SSD (assuming new mobos support SATA II)
• Optical drive (assuming new mobos support old school SATA)

Unsure:

• Windows 10 Home license -- I did the free upgrade from my OEM copy of Win7 back when that was offered. Will it allow me to transfer that license since I'm changing hardware?

Proposed build was modeled on the 3/25 mid-range recs, replacing that CPU with a Kaby. Makes sense to grab the newest architecture, right?

• CPU: Core i5-7500 Kaby Lake ($205)
• Mobo: ASRock Z170 Pro4S ($89). Does this have the headers I need for front panel connections?
  
• RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 ($115)
  
• PSU: Need suggestions here ($40-50)
• Front panel USB: No idea. Can't imagine these are >$35

Living in / buying from the US. Prefer Intel CPUs. Planning to buy stuff in the next week, preferably this weekend. How's this look?

 

[escrow4]

Ryzen would be a better allrounder, but for Intel I would go for the fastest locked i5 (a 7600 non K), an H270 board as you can't overclock so a Z270 board is redundant (unless you want fancy features you probably won't use), a Seasonic:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151094

will do it (non modular), not sure about the front panel.

 

[Ratman6161]

I know you said you prefer Intel. But the landscape has changed of late, especially since you same gaming isn't important to you.

Just did a rebuild myself. Old was an i7-2600k with 16 th RAM. New is a Ryzen R5 1600 6c/12t, B350 motherboard and 32 GB ram for $520. Of course no onboard graphics. But you could cut the RAM back to 16 GB and spend the $110 you save on a decent video card.

Anyway I'm extremely pleased with the results. Coming from a q9550 you Spiderman amazing difference.