Question New midrange build

[strep3241]

Sorry if this has been asked many times over and over. My dad is looking to get a new desktop pc, looking to spend around $500, can stretch the budget a bit but not by much and of course cheaper is a good thing too. Not sure if it would be better to buy a prebuilt or build him one(I will be doing that). He does typical office stuff, word, excel, surfing the net with multiple tabs open. Does not do any gaming of any sort. Would not need a monitor, keyboard or mouse. He has a full tower now but a midtower would be just fine, probably better because of space. I am guessing this time of year would be a good time to buy it with black friday and all that coming up. Typically buy stuff from newegg but not opposed to buying other places like amazon or microcenter. Don't have a microcenter store near us but wish we did. Currently he is running i5-760, asus p7p55de motherboard, 8gb's of ddr3 ram, 2 WD Black 500gb hdds. I know one thing I would like to have is an ssd drive. As far as intel or amd preference, I have always been a fan of intel, but I realize at this price, amd might be the better choice.

If he was to get a prebuilt, are there certain brands or specific models to stay away from?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

At $500 and not my machine, I’d go pre built. Dell outlet is a good place.

 

[UsandThem]

Keep an eye out over a Slickdeals, and you can find a PC for him at a pretty decent price this time of year.

For example, I just looked over there and saw this for $550: https://slickdeals.net/f/13582342-h...-2gb-win-10-549-99-free-shipping-office-depot

You likely can get one with a lower-priced Ryzen 3600 / i5 as well. But for a system with a 3700X (which goes for around $330 by itself), this is pretty decent for a pre-built, and would being an 8 core / 16 thread CPU, would last for years.

 

[Flayed]

Sorry if this has been asked many times over and over. My dad is looking to get a new desktop pc, looking to spend around $500, can stretch the budget a bit but not by much and of course cheaper is a good thing too. Not sure if it would be better to buy a prebuilt or build him one(I will be doing that). He does typical office stuff, word, excel, surfing the net with multiple tabs open. Does not do any gaming of any sort. Would not need a monitor, keyboard or mouse. He has a full tower now but a midtower would be just fine, probably better because of space. I am guessing this time of year would be a good time to buy it with black friday and all that coming up. Typically buy stuff from newegg but not opposed to buying other places like amazon or microcenter. Don't have a microcenter store near us but wish we did. Currently he is running i5-760, asus p7p55de motherboard, 8gb's of ddr3 ram, 2 WD Black 500gb hdds. I know one thing I would like to have is an ssd drive. As far as intel or amd preference, I have always been a fan of intel, but I realize at this price, amd might be the better choice.

If he was to get a prebuilt, are there certain brands or specific models to stay away from?

If your Dad can reuse his case, powersupply, hard drives, graphics card, monitor , keyboard and mouse then this would be a nice upgrade:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($194.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($64.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sabrent Rocket 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($118.98 @ Amazon)
Total: $492.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-19 16:05 EST-0500

 

[strep3241]

The case is a thermaltake full tower case, it needs some fans replaced. He might be better off with a mid tower case to save on space. PSU is a OCZ 500watt, not sure how good quality it is, graphic card is a fanless card, fine with that, might even have another one laying around, HDD can probably be reused no problem. For the SSD, 1tb is not really needed at all, maybe can save some by going for a smaller size.

I will check out slickdeals and dell outlet. Would 8gb of ram be enough or should I try to get 16gb?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Go 16GB to be more future proof.

 

[strep3241]

Found this one at bestbuy as part of their black friday preview for $500. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-pav...ish-in-natural-silver/6366726.p?skuId=6366726

Looks similar to the one on slickdeals but with an intel cpu instead of amd.

The one thing I worry about buying a prebuilt is the psu. It's known that prebuilts don't always have the best quality psus and that is one thing that you don't want to skimp on. Or is that not as big of a factor when it is just an office machine and not doing any intensive stuff like gaming and editing?

 

[VirtualLarry]

HP M01-F0016 Desktop: Ryzen 5 3400G, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, Vega 11, Win 10 $399.99 + Free Shipping @ Office Depot

Office Depot and OfficeMax Free Shipping or Free Store Pickup HP M01-F0016 Desktop: AMD Ryzen 5 3400G Quad Core, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, Radeon RX Vega 11, DVDRW, Win 10 $399.99 https://www.office ...

slickdeals.net

Not very upgradabler, but probably good for his needs.

I also have a rig that you might be interested in, YGPM.

Also have AM4 2400G rig with similar specs as the HP, could let that go fairly cheap too.

 

[strep3241]

One thing I didn't notice is his desktop is only running 4gb of DDR3 ram(2x2), after a fresh install of Win 10, only 2gb is available. Would it be worthwhile to upgrade to 8gb of ddr3(4x4)? Max supported is 16gb of ddr3. Can get 8gb for about 30 bucks. Besides the low ram amount, starting to think there is something wrong. Been real sluggish lately, just reinstalled windows 10 and it does not seem any faster. It used to be pretty quick. The cpu temps was running on the hot side, around 90 celsius, I replaced the thermal paste and now running in mid 40's. He is using stock intel cooler and part of heat problem was it was not seated exactly right, hate those push pin style coolers. Not sure how long it was run at high temps but could that have damaged the cpu or the motherboard?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

One thing I didn't notice is his desktop is only running 4gb of DDR3 ram(2x2), after a fresh install of Win 10, only 2gb is available. Would it be worthwhile to upgrade to 8gb of ddr3(4x4)? Max supported is 16gb of ddr3. Can get 8gb for about 30 bucks. Besides the low ram amount, starting to think there is something wrong. Been real sluggish lately, just reinstalled windows 10 and it does not seem any faster. It used to be pretty quick. The cpu temps was running on the hot side, around 90 celsius, I replaced the thermal paste and now running in mid 40's. He is using stock intel cooler and part of heat problem was it was not seated exactly right, hate those push pin style coolers. Not sure how long it was run at high temps but could that have damaged the cpu or the motherboard?

Yes, I gave 8GB DDR3 memory to a friend with a 2500 Intel cpu. He said that was a huge boost in games.
Like your old machine he went from 4GB to 12GB.

 

[strep3241]

What kind of program is there to test the performance of the pc?

He does not do any gaming at all. He is running an ati rv370 video card right now. Since he doesn't do any gaming, would a better video card help his performance?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

What kind of program is there to test the performance of the pc?

All sorts but I don’t have a recommendation
Never used any.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, yes, 2x2GB DDR3 is going to be a major limitation these days.

Dropping in an additional, compatible, 2x4GB kit would probably do wonder, as would a GPU upgrade.

RV370, I'm not familiar with, because that's a GPU codename, and not the name of a card.

Does that pre-date the HD4850?

That i7 rig that you linked at BestBuy, is now ~$500, not bad if you need CPU power, but not good for gaming, slim tower, probably proprietary PSU without a PCI-E power connector on it. (Probably 180W PSU or something like that.) No room for a proper GPU in that rig.

Honestly, I guess at this point, I would probably suggest the custom route, if he were going to be interested in gaming enough to require a GPU.

Or keep your eyes open (And watch SD) for a iBuyPower or CyberPower PC with what you want, maybe at Costco.

 

[strep3241]

Well, yes, 2x2GB DDR3 is going to be a major limitation these days.

Dropping in an additional, compatible, 2x4GB kit would probably do wonder, as would a GPU upgrade.

RV370, I'm not familiar with, because that's a GPU codename, and not the name of a card.

Does that pre-date the HD4850?

That i7 rig that you linked at BestBuy, is now ~$500, not bad if you need CPU power, but not good for gaming, slim tower, probably proprietary PSU without a PCI-E power connector on it. (Probably 180W PSU or something like that.) No room for a proper GPU in that rig.

Honestly, I guess at this point, I would probably suggest the custom route, if he were going to be interested in gaming enough to require a GPU.

Or keep your eyes open (And watch SD) for a iBuyPower or CyberPower PC with what you want, maybe at Costco.

Then I am not sure what card it is. RV370 is what it shows in the system info page in windows 10. I don't see any name on the card itself, it does have several stickers with different numbers like serial numbers.

After doing a google search on rv370, looks like it could be an x300 or x600. Searched the part # and it shows x600xt 256mb.

Like I said before, he will not be doing any gaming at all. No gaming will be done. Outside of gaming, how much does a better video card really help with performance when just doing basic tasks? I mean does one need a proper gpu when just doing basic tasks?

I have a geforce 6800gs and 8800gts video card laying around, may stick one of those in there and see what happens.

I figured a good i7 system would be out of budget. And really for what he does, an i7 is not really a necessity.

Off topic and maybe better to post it in right place but I am having issues with logging into this site when using chrome. After i enter my info, it still shows I am not logged in and when I click login again, it says I am already logged in.

It's funny, when I go back a page, it will show logged in but when I go to where I want to post something, it will show I am not logged in again.

Tried with firefox and it seems to work fine. Not sure if just an issue with chrome or what. Don't think it is pc related as I tried using chrome on a fresh install of windows 10.

 

[VirtualLarry]

After doing a google search on rv370, looks like it could be an x300 or x600. Searched the part # and it shows x600xt 256mb.

Like I said before, he will not be doing any gaming at all. No gaming will be done. Outside of gaming, how much does a better video card really help with performance when just doing basic tasks? I mean does one need a proper gpu when just doing basic tasks?

I have a geforce 6800gs and 8800gts video card laying around, may stick one of those in there and see what happens.

I figured a good i7 system would be out of budget. And really for what he does, an i7 is not really a necessity.

Is this an OEM system? RV370 sounds like an OEM pack-in card.

GPUs are useful for watching online video streams / files, because of newer codecs. Having to fall back on software, means that your PC runs hotter, and if your CPU isn't adequate, that your videos make skip and stutter and drop frames.

I recommend getting a Kepler-based GT 710 card (around $40-50), or a GT 1030 2GB GDDR5 (around $90).

Or just going whole-hog, and getting a GTX 1650 Super for $150.

i7 is useful, if he does a lot of number-crunching, financial stuff, or heavy gaming. For basic desktop tasks / web-browsing, an i5 (and if they know how to keep their system lean and trim, possibly an i3) is fine.

That said, make sure that you get him a decent ad-blocker for his web browser, it will cut down the scripts and animated images and little videos that pop up on pages these days that generally just slow them down.

 

[strep3241]

Is this an OEM system? RV370 sounds like an OEM pack-in card.

GPUs are useful for watching online video streams / files, because of newer codecs. Having to fall back on software, means that your PC runs hotter, and if your CPU isn't adequate, that your videos make skip and stutter and drop frames.

I recommend getting a Kepler-based GT 710 card (around $40-50), or a GT 1030 2GB GDDR5 (around $90).

Or just going whole-hog, and getting a GTX 1650 Super for $150.

i7 is useful, if he does a lot of number-crunching, financial stuff, or heavy gaming. For basic desktop tasks / web-browsing, an i5 (and if they know how to keep their system lean and trim, possibly an i3) is fine.

That said, make sure that you get him a decent ad-blocker for his web browser, it will cut down the scripts and animated images and little videos that pop up on pages these days that generally just slow them down.

No this is not an oem system, it is possible the video card came from oem system, can't recall where I got it. This is a system I threw together.

He will watch youtube videos from time to time. I have a 6800gs and 8800gts, not sure how good those will be compared to what you are recommending but would imagine much better than the x600xt, which is what the rv370 is.

He does use an adblocker, even use that on my system. Not sure if there is a best one to use. I think that is pretty much a given nowadays with all the ads we have everywhere, get sick of them.

 

[strep3241]

Trying to decide if I want to get a prebuilt or build one.

If I do build one, I would need all the components. Wouldn't need keyboard, mouse or monitor.

In his current system, could I just add an ssd and see a big difference?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Trying to decide if I want to get a prebuilt or build one.

If I do build one, I would need all the components. Wouldn't need keyboard, mouse or monitor.

In his current system, could I just add an ssd and see a big difference?

ssd’s do add new life to old systems however the i7 960 is getting towards the end of its useful life.
ssd will make the machine start up much faster, it will feel faster doing mundane stuff but it won’t change gaming performance that much.

 

[VirtualLarry]

With only 4GB of RAM, adding an SSD would just speed up swapping, you'd still be running out of physical RAM left and right.

 

[strep3241]

I think I will build one. Have the parts picked out. The only things I wonder about is the speed and quality of both the ssd and hdd.

System Builder

pcpartpicker.com

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's a pretty solid build.

Edit: I don't know much about the Mushkin Helix-L M.2 NVMe SSD. Cost-wise, seems well-priced. But I know nothing about it otherwise. If it's some sort of OEM'ed Phison-controller design, like so many others, then it's probably not too bad a choice.

 

[Steltek]

It is based upon a Silicon Motion SM2263XT controller.

 

[strep3241]

It is based upon a Silicon Motion SM2263XT controller.

Is that a good or bad thing?

 

[Steltek]

Is that a good or bad thing?

I'm actually trying to decide that myself. It is an entry level host memory buffer controller chipset -- ie. a chipset that uses host memory (i.e. computer DRAM allocated by your computer operating system) to hold the SSD translation mapping table instead of an onboard DRAM cache. It used to be that DRAM-less SSDs were the very definition of what was awfully awful, but this controller kind of works around the DRAM cache issue via the PCIe bus and the OS you are running.

It doesn't use a huge amount of host system memory (usually 128MB or so), but it holds at all times at least a section of the updated abstract addresses of the data you are presently most often using on the SSD for faster access. That data, as it changes, is then periodically written back to the much slower NAND permanent translation table on the SSD over the PCIe bus. The one downside I could see with this kind of design is that if you loose power or have memory corruption between NAND map updates you could in theory loose more data (especially the specific data you were working on at the time of the power loss) than you might on an SSD that has an onboard DRAM cache. You probably also couldn't use it with older OSes that don't support the host memory setup either, but that isn't an issue here for what your dad does.

In short, it ain't an EVO 970 (or maybe even a 950), but it is probably a good, entry level SSD for everyday or even gaming use. If I were using one, I would only do so on a system with a UPS (but, then again, I use a UPS on every system I have so it is probably just my mental tic kicking in there).

 

[VirtualLarry]

I agree, that there is some concern for data-loss for HBM-based NVMe SSDs. And somewhat related, Mushkin SSDs in general. (One of the few brands that I've had go belly-up on me personally.) (Edit: It was a SandForce 2nd-Gen SATA SSD, which kind of explains that.)

Can you not afford an AData 8100 model NVMe SSD?