Very cheap pc

[bonalste]

Hi, I'm wondering if anybody here could give some advice. I bought a PC from here a couple of years ago for over £3000. Now I'm looking for my parents who want one at the opposite end of the spectrum. My dad is retired and doesn't have much money. He wanted to spend £500 but I don't think that's very realistic, but basically the cheaper the better without going crazy.

They already have a monitor and a HDD that I can fit for them. A wd caviar blue.

They want to be able to do standard stuff like tax returns, emails and Internet, but my dad also wants to do some light photo editing on photoshop express. We will need to include windows in the build. I am not sure about office but if that needs to be tacked on, never mind.

So the target is £500 but I am not sure that's possible, however I wouldn't want to go near £1000. Probably the £600 or £700 mark would suffice but the closer to £500 without being awful the better.

Can anybody help? Is it even possible?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Frank100]

Hi,

Here is the best I think you can do for a little over £600: -

Case
PCS DOMINATOR 6806B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-7500 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® H110M-R: Micro-ATX, DDR4, LG1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Kingston DUAL DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 850 2.5" EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 2 to 4 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £613.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-home-office-pc/ncdC8BMBwc/

This gives you a proper 4 core CPU which will benefit your dad for photo editing. This PC allows you to add the WD Blue as a second disk but gives you a SSD for the OS, which will make the PC faster and more usable.

The cheaper option is to go with an i3 instead on this same build. The dual core 3.9GHz version gets this build down to £533.

You could opt for the cheapest case but if you do, you'd have to go with the standard Intel fan, which is noisy when compared with the one I've picked. If you wanted to the standard Intel fan and the cheapest case, it gets the cheaper i3 build under £500! I would recommend an aftermarket CPU fan though.

Frank100

 

[Oussebon]

The above build is a good suggestion.

The cheaper option is to go with an i3 instead on this same build. The dual core 3.9GHz version gets this build down to £533.

Thanks to the hyperthreading, the Pentium G4560 is almost as good as an i3 6100 and £40 less. It would take the above build down to £489.

I am not sure about office but if that needs to be tacked on, never mind.

There is Open Office: https://www.openoffice.org/
It'a a free, open source, and fully featured office suite, compatible with MS Office formats such as .doc and .xls. This may save you / your parents a great deal of cash. As it's free, you can download it and check it out before making any decisions on whether to purchase MS Office. You should find you have no need to

 

[ubuysa]

There is Open Office: https://www.openoffice.org/
It'a a free, open source, and fully featured office suite, compatible with MS Office formats such as .doc and .xls. This may save you / your parents a great deal of cash. As it's free, you can download it and check it out before making any decisions on whether to purchase MS Office. You should find you have no need to

Agreed, I've been an OpenOffice user for many years. It can read and write files in MS Office format too so you can still share docs with MS Office users.

 

[Tony1044]

Is a laptop an option?

The Genesis V seems to tick your needs?

Chassis & Display
Genesis Series: 15.6" Matte HD LED 16:9 Widescreen (1366x768)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Celeron® Quad Core Processor N3160 (4 x 1.60GHz, 2.24GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
2GB Kingston SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 2GB)
Graphics Card
Integrated Intel® HD Graphics
Memory - Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
UltraNote Series: 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
AC Adaptor
1 x 40W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0
USB Options
3 x USB 2.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 3.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
UltraNote III Series 32WH Battery (Up to 9.5 Hour Battery Life)
Keyboard Language
GENESIS III SERIES INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £373.00 including VAT and delivery (and Windows license).

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/genesisV-15/ZeZN4k0xaA/

 

[Wozza63]

The above build is a good suggestion.

Thanks to the hyperthreading, the Pentium G4560 is almost as good as an i3 6100 and £40 less. It would take the above build down to £489.

There is Open Office: https://www.openoffice.org/
It'a a free, open source, and fully featured office suite, compatible with MS Office formats such as .doc and .xls. This may save you / your parents a great deal of cash. As it's free, you can download it and check it out before making any decisions on whether to purchase MS Office. You should find you have no need to

OpenOffice or even LibreOffice are just straight up inferior, it's the one area where I do not prefer the free open source alternative. I've had people complain about documents being incorrectly formatted when opened in Word after I'd used it. And for strictly formatted documents like a University assignment, you've got no chance!

 

[Oussebon]

Equally, I've had large mailmerges screw up entirely in MS Word even when the template was created in Word, while Open Office blazed through them.

Since it's free it's worth checking out for one's needs. And if one is worried that printers are too incompetant to be able to open a thesis and print it, it can always be turned to PDF. Indeed it generally should be even if using Word since you never know what version will be used on the receiving end...

 

[Stephen M]

Agree with above, always export as pdf as you have no idea what it is going to be viewed on. I produce a large amount of documents, newsletters and general press releases and have been getting by without any Microsoft stuff for a long time. Like Oussebon I have also seen Word foul up, although had no problems with Libre. Another advantage of making the final version a pdf is if you are editing stuff from a variety of writers it does not matter what format they use as once the pdf is made it is simple to merge into the main document.