As stated in the title, I am building a new sub-$700 non-gaming desktop PC for my aunt and her kids, who will mainly use it for office/college works, internet surfing and light gaming, light media consumption and probably light media production (think minor video/photo editing?) as well. This budget should include all the essentials, a monitor and other peripherals (speakers, keyboard and mouse). So it's pretty tight. Here are a few points I am debating:
1) Should I go Haswell? We expect the PC to last a very long time (a minimum 5 years lifespan), and will most likely not upgrade the PC in the future. But for the ease of replacement in case something goes amiss, would it make sense to pick a 4th generation CPU rather than one of the 3th generation?
2) Dual-core or quad-core? I have seen i3-3220/i3-4130 being recommended for many budget builds. But how future-proof is either of these CPUs? Or should I get a quad-core CPU, knowing that more and more programmes are getting multi-threaded support? In which case, will I be better off with something like a FX-4130/FX-6300 or i5-4430/i5-4570?
3) iGPU or discrete GPU? I have heard that sub-$150 GPUs do not offer much gaming improvement over the modern iGPUs and struggle against modern titles. Is this true? Will I be better off with an iGPU, and instead invest the money in a better CPU or a SSD for its tangible performance?
4) Are there any decent motherboards that cost less than $100? What are the important features that shouldn't be missed out on?
I have very little experience in building a desktop, with this being my second DIY attempt (my first was a PC I built longer than 7 years ago, which I have been using until now). Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks everyone for your time!
1) Should I go Haswell? We expect the PC to last a very long time (a minimum 5 years lifespan), and will most likely not upgrade the PC in the future. But for the ease of replacement in case something goes amiss, would it make sense to pick a 4th generation CPU rather than one of the 3th generation?
2) Dual-core or quad-core? I have seen i3-3220/i3-4130 being recommended for many budget builds. But how future-proof is either of these CPUs? Or should I get a quad-core CPU, knowing that more and more programmes are getting multi-threaded support? In which case, will I be better off with something like a FX-4130/FX-6300 or i5-4430/i5-4570?
3) iGPU or discrete GPU? I have heard that sub-$150 GPUs do not offer much gaming improvement over the modern iGPUs and struggle against modern titles. Is this true? Will I be better off with an iGPU, and instead invest the money in a better CPU or a SSD for its tangible performance?
4) Are there any decent motherboards that cost less than $100? What are the important features that shouldn't be missed out on?
I have very little experience in building a desktop, with this being my second DIY attempt (my first was a PC I built longer than 7 years ago, which I have been using until now). Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks everyone for your time!
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