Elderly mom needs new pc

She's no Skyrim Grandma but she does play Steam games like Farm Together or Ranch Sim. Her pc is ancient and dying and her monitor has given up the ghost. Unfortunately we've got a supremely limited budget of around $800 which needs to include a new monitor. I chose the Ryzen 5 5600G as the CPU to run with because its current gen and I was hoping its integrated graphics would be sufficient until the GPU market became saner. I've been working with the custom builder and this is what I have come up with so far:


The case said it had two fans installed. The power supply is non-modular and more than what the system needs but the system won't have a dedicated video card until later. I would greatly appreciate some suggestions and advice. I'm not a fan of Intel and the benchmarks I looked at for the Ryzen 5 5600G outdid the i5-10400F except in areas of value/sentiment. I really don't care if Intel has the bigger market share and is more popular. This is not a popularity contest. So, thoughts?

Much appreciated.

Comments

  • Greetings, that budget is tough with a monitor and for the intended use, I'd look at a pre-built in this price range as your build appears to be missing a video card which you would still want, and missing Windows 10 which you would need.

    I'd probably look at this pre-built: https://www.microcenter.com/product/626473/hp-pavilion-gaming-computer

    If desired, you can easily add another 8GB stick of RAM to this (about $50)  https://www.microcenter.com/product/626749/crucial-8gb-ddr4-2666-pc4-21300-cl19-single-channel-desktop-memory-module-green

    I hope this helps, please let us know if you have any other questions.

  • Ian, I have looked at your suggested build already but in my eyes, its inferior to what I'm putting together above. I didn't include Windows because I already have that covered. I didn't include a dedicated GPU because I specifically mentioned that I was hoping to use the dedicated graphics of the 5600G until the market for GPUs is saner than what it is now. I also said I compared benchmarks of the 5 5600G vs the i5-10400F (Which is what is in the build you suggested), the AMD beats it in all areas except value/sentiment and that market share and popularity are not in my consideration list.

    You suggested adding more RAM later but I believe the 16G (2x8) in my build is already sufficient. Other than the dedicated graphics card, what's in the build you linked is less/inferior. I DID remove the monitor from the build because its price went up and jacked my budget. I'll find something somewhere else. So without the monitor, the build is currently sitting at around $700.

    The build I am putting together is more current gen and we wouldn't have to deal with proprietary pieces of equipment that could give you trouble to change out or upgrade or get fixed. I can't even tell what MB is in the HP.

  • I believe Ian was suggesting adding the RAM to the pre-built he suggested, not your build. But I understand the desire to stay away from anything proprietary.

    After looking at your custom build, the only part you could potentially save some money on is the motherboard. Not sure if there is a specific feature you need on this one but you could get a lower end B550 board and save yourself about $50.

    Other than that after removing the monitor, it puts your build down to $700. You could leave it as is considering you already have the windows license key as well.

  • magarity
    magarity ✭✭✭✭
    First Anniversary 5 Up Votes First Comment First Answer

    If the old pc that's "ancient" still works you might consider getting just the monitor now and then for a new system go with the Ryzen 3 5300G that is in prebuilts already and should come to retail any time now.

  • Thanks much for the responses and I appreciate them. I'll take a look at the MOBOs again. I was using the pc building and that was one with good ratings and a 550. It wasn't feature specific, so thanks for the suggestion!

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