Help suggest future proof CPU for non gaming use

[logicalxm]

Hi,

I would like to purchase a PC for my dad who currently running an Intel Core Duo E6600 PC, which is becoming awfully slow and non responsive.

I found few stores that sell refurbished PC towers (Dell Optiplex. Lenovo ThinkCentre, HP Tour), that most likely come from businesses and cost around $300 and are in good condition. I have decided to go down that route after discovering that building a PC from zero would not be cost effective since the PC won't be used for gaming. The PC would be used for online video streaming and just general internet browsing, nothing intensive. I would like the PC to be as "futureproof" as possible for those goals, so I don't mind spending more to get a better buy.

I would like to inquire about what kind and generation of CPU I should be aiming for? Will getting an i7 CPU for instance guarantee a stable performance for the next 3-5 years for your average user who doesn't use his PC for gaming?

Also, is getting a refurbished PC tower that has all the hardware preinstalled is a good choice? Some parts such as the Power Supply are generic, so I am still on the fence about buying refurbished. I obviously like the idea of spending $300-400 on a PC tower, considering that I would need to spend another $200 on a 25" monitor and do an SSD upgrade and Windows install as well.

Any advice?

 

[UsandThem]

It depends on what generation the CPUs are. There's a big difference between say a 2nd gen i7 and a 6th gen one. Even a 6th/7th gen i5 would be good for their use, and should last a while as well.

But generally an i7 CPU will last longer for the user's needs before becoming "obsolete". Some prebuilt towers still unfortunately still have proprietary parts, so you'll have to be sure of what you are getting before you buy.

If you add a SSD, and make sure the PC has at least 8GB of RAM, it should last for a while as a browsing and video watching PC. You could also add more RAM down the road if needed.

 

[whm1974]

Look at the specs of what you are buying with very close attention and you can get very good deals without much money by going with refurbished systems. Who are you buying from? Or you could build something like this that should last three to five years:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wQBmxG
Add ~$100 for Windows 10 and you should be able to get a display for less then $200.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824025346

Edit corrected the link for display.

 

[Markfw]

Look at the specs of what you are buying with very close attention and you can get very good deals without much money by going with refurbished systems. Who are you buying from? Or you could build something like this that should last three to five years:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wQBmxG
Add ~$100 for Windows 10 and you should be able to get a display for less then $200.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824025346

Edit corrected the link for display.

For $560, that is probably way better than any boxes he is considering refurbished.

 

[whm1974]

For $560, that is probably way better than any boxes he is considering refurbished.

Yeah and I was thinking that $200 is kind of high for 1080p display as well. Perhaps I highly biased here, but if I'm going to spend that much money then I'm building.

 

[scannall]

Yeah and I was thinking that $200 is kind of high for 1080p display as well. Perhaps I highly biased here, but if I'm going to spend that much money then I'm building.

Pared down a bit, with Windows and a monitor. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4Btp3b

 

[formulav8]

Any advice?

A 6/8 core CPU would obviously be more future resistant than a 4 core or less CPU. If you're wanting a good bang for the buck, look for something like a first gen Ryzen (R5 1600/R7 1700, etc. I have seen good 2nd Gen deals as well though. It's about the right timing). Which setup is also expected to be upgradeable to future gen CPU's like Zen 2.

If you want Intel, look for at least an i5-8400 or higher. Not sure of the socket longevity right now but it is possible that the 9xxx series CPU's coming this fall will work with that socket. (If buying Intel I would at least wait till then to see how everything falls into place).

Bang for the buck wise the R5 1600/2600 series are very strong.

I've also seen decent pre-build deals @ reddit.com/r/buildapcsales before.

 

[logicalxm]

Thank you for the reply guys.
I reside in Canada, so the system quoted here seems above my budget when converted to CAD. Budget is around $300 USD (excluding monitor, SSD and Windows)
I was planning to buy from a local reputable PC store which specializes in selling refurbished PCs and also sales new hardware.
I am attaching a link from the store, if you guys don't mind looking and telling me what you think. (Prices are in CAD $)

http://www.e-tek.biz/categorie-produit/pc-en/?orderby=price-desc&lang=en

 

[whm1974]

Thank you for the reply guys.
I reside in Canada, so the system quoted here seems above my budget when converted to CAD. Budget is around $300 USD (excluding monitor, SSD and Windows)
I was planning to buy from a local reputable PC store which specializes in selling refurbished PCs and also sales new hardware.
I am attaching a link from the store, if you guys don't mind looking and telling me what you think. (Prices are in CAD $)

http://www.e-tek.biz/categorie-produit/pc-en/?orderby=price-desc&lang=en

Bummer, by how much over?

 

[Indus]

Personally I wouldn't touch refurbished unless it was given to me.

Reason being those old desktops have been run in a corporate/ educational environment with zero effort given to their care. Most likely cpus are overvolted and run hot.

With a $300 budget, I could still build a ryzen 2200G APU ($100) cpu, $55 motherboard, and use the other $145 for memory, ssd since you don't even need a video card and it can do everything you want it to.

That's what I would do personally. You can also go the intel route if you want intel but either way that's better than risking refurbished.

 

[tamz_msc]

Thank you for the reply guys.
I reside in Canada, so the system quoted here seems above my budget when converted to CAD. Budget is around $300 USD (excluding monitor, SSD and Windows)
I was planning to buy from a local reputable PC store which specializes in selling refurbished PCs and also sales new hardware.
I am attaching a link from the store, if you guys don't mind looking and telling me what you think. (Prices are in CAD $)

http://www.e-tek.biz/categorie-produit/pc-en/?orderby=price-desc&lang=en

The 300$ Dell Optiplex and HP 6200 Pro are identically specced. You'll just have to decide between those two.

 

[Thunder 57]

I reside in Canada, so the system quoted here seems above my budget when converted to CAD. Budget is around $300 USD (excluding monitor, SSD and Windows)http://www.e-tek.biz/categorie-produit/pc-en/?orderby=price-desc&lang=en

I wouldn't touch most/any of those. Pretty much everything there is 2nd or 3rd gen Core series. You are trying to talk about future proof here, well any of those are going to be running DDR3, which will really limit upgrades. I wouldn't count on there being high capacity DDR3 available down the road if you wanted to add memory, for example.

Also, that's getting to the point where you have wear and tear stuff really show up. Power supplies, hard drives, motherboards, they can all go bad. Then you may have to overspend to get a replacement part of sometimes questionable quality.

That's the great thing about having your own build. The initial buy in cost will be higher, but then you upgrade just what you need. Get a 2200G APU now, and maybe in three years you can replace it with a theoretical 6 core APU without spending much. Or you could add more RAM/storage. A case and (quality) PSU seldom need replacing. The AM4 platform will be around for a couple more generations it seems.

You could probably build a 2200G computer and never do anything other than the APU upgrade when you feel it's necessary. Or you may get stuck replacing a failing power supply which is in some BS form factor. Then later when you need a better CPU, you're out of luck and are in the same situation.

EDIT

Just a further thought, that any 2nd gen Core based PC won't even have USB 3, unless it was added elsewhere, as it was not part of the Z68 and similar chipsets.

Personally I wouldn't touch refurbished unless it was given to me.

Some items yes, others, maybe...

Reason being those old desktops have been run in a corporate/ educational environment with zero effort given to their care. Most likely cpus are overvolted and run hot.

You can't be serious? You think OEM's or corporate users go out of their way to overvolt? I'll give you the hot part though.

 

[BSim500]

I would like to purchase a PC for my dad who currently running an Intel Core Duo E6600 PC, which is becoming awfully slow and non responsive.

Any advice?

For a "slow and unresponsive" PC, the very first thing you should be looking at (before getting caught up in the number chasing enthusiast rat-race of $300 for simple Netflix & web browsing) is not the CPU, but to make sure you buy an SSD. That is literally 95% of what makes a modern PC "responsive".

 

[tamz_msc]

A 300$ Dell Optiplex with an i7 2600 and 8GB RAM would easily last 5+ years for general home use including Office, browsing, watching videos, email, occasional image editing etc.There is no need to invest in a new build with current components as the upgrade paths offered by such a build will be a dead-end in 5 or more years(by that time DDR5, PCI-E 4.0/5.0 will be available).

 

[LightningZ71]

From the page you linked above, out of the list there, I'd suggest the IBM Lenovo M83 SFF at $299. For that price, you are getting a Gen 4 i5 with 8GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive. That will be good enough to run windows 10 just fine as I run it on similar systems all the time at work and have good results. Begin to budget for an upgrade for it. Idealy, if you want to future proof it as much as possible, you'll want to max its specs out at some point. To do that, look for a used i7-4770 (they're starting to come down in price), 4 8GB sitcks of DDR3 and a modest sized SSD. All of that should run you under $300 over the next year or so to collect. You can add the processor and RAM (2 sticks at a time) as you collect it. The hard drive can be done with a cloning software package. That should last you a good 5 years or more.

For the PC itself, it's got USB 3.0 ports for decent connectivity. It has on board video, but has slots for low profile cards if you eventually need more (be aware of power limitations) but he's not likely to need that. My only caveat is that those small form factor power supplies can sometimes have short lives. You'd be good to hunt down a replacement for it sooner than later to keep around for when it fails.

I'd stay away from anything from Intel I series gen3 or earlier. They took it on the nose with the recent security fixes, they can be connectivity limited as they often don't have USB3, and they are also starting to get rather old in general.

 

[XavierMace]

Personally I wouldn't touch refurbished unless it was given to me.

Reason being those old desktops have been run in a corporate/ educational environment with zero effort given to their care. Most likely cpus are overvolted and run hot.

With a $300 budget, I could still build a ryzen 2200G APU ($100) cpu, $55 motherboard, and use the other $145 for memory, ssd since you don't even need a video card and it can do everything you want it to.

That's what I would do personally. You can also go the intel route if you want intel but either way that's better than risking refurbished.

Case, power supply, and OS are just being pulled from thin air, or what?

 

[cfenton]

Thank you for the reply guys.
I reside in Canada, so the system quoted here seems above my budget when converted to CAD. Budget is around $300 USD (excluding monitor, SSD and Windows)
I was planning to buy from a local reputable PC store which specializes in selling refurbished PCs and also sales new hardware.
I am attaching a link from the store, if you guys don't mind looking and telling me what you think. (Prices are in CAD $)

http://www.e-tek.biz/categorie-produit/pc-en/?orderby=price-desc&lang=en

I bought an HP 8300 SFF a few years ago and after putting an SSD in it I can't tell the difference between it and my Ryzen 7 system for basic tasks. Those little refurbished systems are surprisingly well built and very easy to work on. I'd go a little newer if I were buying today, so I'd recommend the Lenovo M83 or the HP z220. They come with Windows, which is a nice bonus, so you really just need to put an SSD in them and you're good to go. As a fellow Canadian, I can almost guarantee you won't be able to build something for anywhere near that price, especially if you want to run Windows.

 

[amd6502]

Core Duo E6600 PC, which is becoming awfully slow and non responsive.

You don't state how many GB of RAM you have. If you have 4GB or less this is usually the #1 reason for unresponsiveness.

When the system runs out of physical memory it starts swapping to storage/hdd, and that is incredibly unbelievably slow.

Migrating windose to an ssd would also increase responsiveness (though this is limited to mostly boot time and the time that it takes to launch programs).

Doubling the threads with a 2c/4t or 4c (with either 4 or 8 threads) drop in CPU upgrade would likely speed up browser performance. Your dad's C2D likely has drop in alternatives.

The main question is, is the old hardware worth saving or is it better to build something modern, say with ddr4.

Personally I wouldn't touch refurbished unless it was given to me.

Reason being those old desktops have been run in a corporate/ educational environment with zero effort given to their care. Most likely cpus are overvolted and run hot.

With a $300 budget, I could still build a ryzen 2200G APU ($100) cpu, $55 motherboard, and use the other $145 for memory, ssd since you don't even need a video card and it can do everything you want it to.

I'd buy refurb but only at the right price. You can expect the hdd storage to have high hours. This means I'd check the hdd hours (using some program like gsmartctl) and if hi hours put in a new small SSD and probably use the refurb provided hdd for backup entirely or mostly. I doubt overvolting, but high temps in SFF PC's is common. If the era PC is older than 5 years you can expect significant silicon wear, especially on the internal onboard video, and this means I'd probably end putting a low end low profile video card as preventative solution.

 

[CuriousMike]

I would like to purchase a PC for my dad *snip*

The PC would be used for online video streaming and just general internet browsing, nothing intensive.

Any advice?

Chromebook / Chromebox.
Fast enough.
You don't need to provide technical support.
Inexpensive.

For my family, pushing them towards Chromebooks/boxes has been a huge win for them and me.

 

[Indus]

Case, power supply, and OS are just being pulled from thin air, or what?

Most people have a few lying around from older systems and they work just fine. Hell I have an antec 350 watt I purchased back in 2001 that still works but is now a backup.

More than enough to power a parents pc. Same with the case.

As for O/S just transfer license from older pc.

 

[logicalxm]

Thank you all for the multitude of replies. I am actually more confused now since I see a some recommendations to build the PC myself, which I don't mind, but would surely end up paying more. Building the PC myself was my initial idea, but many people are saying that it is cheaper to buy a pre built desktop if it will be used for non intensive tasks.

The old PC has 4gb ram, and a Corsair HX-520W PSU. It was a built from 2008 or so. I could start with an SSD upgrade to check if there is a performance increase, but believe that the CPU and ram need to be updated for faster performance as well, which means I would need a new computer. I have inspected the refurbished PCs from that store and they look to be in an acceptable condition inside and out. My only fear is having generic parts that can become faulty and might be harder to upgrade or replace inside the towers.

On a side note, I am currently running an Intel i5 2500k (stock speed) PC that I built in 2012. Wondering whether it would be more cost effective to just give it to my dad and build myself a PC from scratch with an i7 CPU for example. The i5 2500k is a great CPU and I think it will continue to be stable and perform well into the future if it will not be used for gaming, even if it is a 6 years old build. I am not using my current PC for gaming so might be able to afford myself a nice rig for $700 for instance if I decide to gift my current i5 2500k to my dad.

Need to make some decisions as you guys gave me some stuff to think about.

 

[whm1974]

Building a new system for yourself and then giving the current one to your dad could be the best option.

 

[amd6502]

Building a new system for yourself and then giving the current one to your dad could be the best option.

^^this is good advice.

Thank you all for the multitude of replies. I am actually more confused now since I see a some recommendations to build the PC myself, which I don't mind, but would surely end up paying more. Building the PC myself was my initial idea, but many people are saying that it is cheaper to buy a pre built desktop if it will be used for non intensive tasks.

The old PC has 4gb ram, and a Corsair HX-520W PSU. It was a built from 2008 or so. I could start with an SSD upgrade to check if there is a performance increase, but believe that the CPU and ram need to be updated for faster performance as well, which means I would need a new computer. I have inspected the refurbished PCs from that store and they look to be in an acceptable condition inside and out. My only fear is having generic parts that can become faulty and might be harder to upgrade or replace inside the towers.

On a side note, I am currently running an Intel i5 2500k (stock speed) PC that I built in 2012. Wondering whether it would be more cost effective to just give it to my dad and build myself a PC from scratch with an i7 CPU for example. The i5 2500k is a great CPU and I think it will continue to be stable and perform well into the future if it will not be used for gaming, even if it is a 6 years old build. I am not using my current PC for gaming so might be able to afford myself a nice rig for $700 for instance if I decide to gift my current i5 2500k to my dad.

There's no point in throwing a SSD in it when you're limited by 4gb memory. in fact it will just swap like mad to the SSD and wear it out. (It's a huge speed up over swapping to traditional hard drive, but hardly a good long term solution.) The real solution would be 4gb more ram (even 2gb helps greatly). After you have 6gb or more of ram you can start thinking about SSDs.

The last solution, like whm says, is best advice yet. You can upgrade yourself to something like a 2400g which is modern, has 8 threads, and comes with nice graphics ability.

Some lga 775 board used ddr3 while most used ddr2. If your dad's lucky enough to have ddr3 in it, it can be reused for your 2500k build (assuming there are free ram slots).

 

[frozentundra123456]

Chromebook / Chromebox.
Fast enough.
You don't need to provide technical support.
Inexpensive.

For my family, pushing them towards Chromebooks/boxes has been a huge win for them and me.

Personally, I would not consider a Chromebook, but it is an option if the user is *certain* he will not want to do anything but web browsing and watching videos. I just like the extra functionality of Windows when I occasionally want to do more. That brings up another option though, a relatively cheap laptop. Should be able to get one for 300 to 400 dollars with a core cpu, just make sure to not get an atom celeron or pentium. You would get the advantage of mobility and good enough performance for web browsing and watching videos.

If one lives close to a microcenter, they do have a huge number of off-lease desktops at very reasonable prices. For instance, my local store has a quad core i5-3470 with 8 gig of ram for 280 bucks.

 

[logicalxm]

Ok, I spoke to my dad and he was keen on the idea of me giving him my current i5 2500k PC. It is 6 year old, but I did a RAM upgrade to 8gb and an SSD upgrade as well.

Other specs:
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-Z77x-UD5H
Video Card: ASUS Radeon HD6850 1gb 4.0GHz
PSU: Corsair TX650 650w
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws F3 1066CL9D 2x4gb

I figure this build should be able to function well for Youtube playback and media streaming and of course general internet browsing for the next few years. I currently experience no issues with it at the moment.

Thank you everyone again for all the replies and for helping me figure out the right step to take.
Now I will start figuring out what PC I will build for myself which is exciting