Help my poor mother

PhilleH

PhilleH

PhilleH

Associate
Joined
23 Mar 2011
Posts
80
Hi folks,

My Mum has been using a rather old PC that seems to finally be getting past the point of no return.

I'm a few years out of date on info and haven't built a lower end PC before so really trying to figure out the best route for her to get an upgrade. She has a respectable monitor, mouse and keyboard so probably it's just a case of getting a new box, but will need a copy of windows as she is running XP still (pref. not 8!)

As far as cost, it's really as cheap as possible. She could afford to spend more if it meant getting a worthwhile upgrade, but if something that would meet her needs could be achieved for around £200-250 that would be great.

If anyone fancies doing a build that would be great, but also just looking for advice at what to look for in the cheaper components (ie Intel or AMD).

Cheers,

Phil
 
Apologies, I had put that in but must have deleted it by accident.

Nothing intense at all, some web browsing but mostly MS office tasks (already have a copy of office so doesn't need to be factored in).

Laptop is possible, but space is not really a consideration and she wouldn't really benefit from it being portable, so would imagine more bang for buck in a desktop solution?
 
How about something along these lines?

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £197.01
(includes shipping: £11.10)
​

Seems I missed off the SSD / HDD, but with £50 to play with there's plenty of choice. Maybe one of these these :)
 
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Try Fedora with a Cinammon twist or OpenSuse KDE for an OS ,for the average user you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between them and W7.
 
^ What these guys said for an OS. I'm currently using Mint and the latest version is bang on & pretty much older person / non techy proof. Throw in the fact you've got Office / Photoshop / uTorrent / AnythingElseYouCanName replacements all completely free of charge and it makes it a no brainer IMHO, only ever use Window$ on my gaming PC now with Linux on everything else :)
 
Thanks for the replies all.

Just one last question - is there a consensus on the better brand for lower end processors? AMD or Intel?
Last time I checked it was AMD (I think) but the builds posted here have all been intel. Or does it not really make any difference?
 
If it were me, I'd build an i3 machine with an Asus motherboard, 8GB RAM (maybe 4GB) and a 128GB Samsung EVO. That should last a very long time for your mother's needs.
 
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