New build for mom

[hawkeye_wx]

I need to build a new several+ year system for my mom. It will be used for browsing the web, email, chatting with family, etc... no gaming. I should have built it a year ago, but didn't get it done. I'm going to need a cpu, mobo, ram, ssd, dvd, psu, and OS. What I need help with is the cpu choice. I expected the skylake i3s and pentiums to be fully stocked by November, but they are still MIA, so that throws a wrench into my build. I was hoping there would be a good black friday sale on the i3 6100, like the $100 i3 4150 deal at both Newegg and Amazon last year, which I could then combine with an H110 mini-ATX mobo and 8gb of ddr4. The other option was a G4400 pentium (or G4500 with the better igp). Should I just take advantage of black friday sales to buy the other parts and then wait for the skylakes, or should I put together a haswell build? If there was another $100 sale on a haswell i3 I'd snatch it up along with an H110-equivalent haswell mobo and some ddr3, but I'm not expecting one.

What about the choice between an i3 and cheaper pentium? Would my mom notice a difference when browsing the web and watching youtube videos? Other than the cpu itself, would the difference in igp (6100's 530 vs g4400's 510, or whatever the haswell pentiums have) make a difference when watching hd video clips through the browser? Her current system is terribly old and beyond sluggish (240p videos are choppy), so I just want her to have a snappy, smooth experience.

Edit: Other components I'm getting

OS: windows 10 64 oem
ssd: bx100 or 850 evo 250 gb (she doesn't need more than 250)
psu: looking at either the Antec Earthwatts 380 or the more expensive but nice Seasonic 360gp

 

[VirtualLarry]

I need to build a new several+ year system for my mom. It will be used for browsing the web, email, chatting with family, etc... no gaming. I should have built it a year ago
Her current system is terribly old and beyond sluggish (240p videos are choppy), so I just want her to have a snappy, smooth experience.

If 240P videos are choppy on her current system, then you should have built her a new PC... several years ago? Even the lowly E-350 embedded mini-ITX boards could play back 1080P YouTube videos. (Ok, only one at a time, but still.)

Anyways, I would wait and get a Skylake i3 NUC, with a 2.5" SSD/HDD slot, and then pick up a cheap 1TB SSD (850 EVO, Sandisk Ultra II, Mushkin Reactor), and put whatever flavor of Windows on there.

Should be nice and petite, while still offering some significant grunt, especially for watching videos.

 

[sm625]

I would recommend against the pentium. After a while, her system is going to end up with what you might call "parasitic threads", which run one core at full load all the time. You or I might know what to do when encountering situations like that, but she is not going to. She will just complain about the computer being "slow". And you will be like whaaa? A used workstation with a 4C8T Xeon would actually be a reliable and cost effective solution.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Why not just a pre built system and toss in an SSD?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Why not just a pre built system and toss in an SSD?

I tried pushing my dad that way. He was like, "nooo..... you can do it."

So I did. *shrug*

People, man.