Picking out parts for PC for parents in NZ

[Loony BoB]

Mum, who does Photoshop work on her PC (editing for art books/wedding albums/etc), is needing a replacement desktop. Something that'll last, be quality for photo editing, but no need for anything super high end. My stepdad is clueless with PCs but I figure if he can build a car, he can build a PC - so while I'm here in Scotland, I'd like to buy them some parts to build it themselves. Parts in NZ are limited, but I've managed to locate retailers for the following which I figure might be somewhat viable. Can you let me know if this seems like it'll work out physically? It passes all tests on ************ except a warning about the BIOS version, which we can work around if we need to.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor
MBD: MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
SSD: Crucial P3 Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
HDD: Western Digital Blue 2 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive
GPU: Asus Phoenix OC GeForce GTX 1650 G5 4 GB Video Card
PSU: Corsair RM750e (2023) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Case: Phanteks XT PRO ATX Mid Tower Case

Any thoughts? I'd prefer to get a lower watt PSU for cheaper but the options for a fully modular gold PSU from a decent manufacturer were limited... at least this will futureproof a bit tho. Will use the stock fan for the CPU, I don't think they're going to need anything spectacular on cooling so long as they don't sit the thing in the sun.

Aiming for reliable part producers because doing tech support from the other end of the world is something I'm trying to minimise. Not wanting to build/buy a PC/parts in UK to ship to NZ because of, well, all kinds of reasons.

 

[Loony BoB]

Are you buying the parts in Scotland
And taking them back?
Or buying from new Zealand?

Buying from NZ stores (using their online shops), the parts arrive at their house and they build under my guidance, then set up something akin to TeamViewer so I can take over their PC and do the software side remotely.

Budget is a bit off because NZ prices are crap, but generally just going for something that will achieve what they need, is available in NZ stores (the major limiter, sadly), and is reliable enough to not die anytime in the near future.

Would on die CPU GPU be ok for photo editting?

Nope. Unless there are massive advancements made that I'm unfamiliar with.

 

[Loony BoB]

Mac mini m4 surely?
Zero faffo, will last a decade and blazing fast.

No chance on a Mac, for various reasons (reliance on MS Office for her work side of things, my lack of knowledge for tech support, high cost for tech support locally, lack of easy upgrading and of course the fact my Mum's very far from a spring chicken and the less teaching I have to do for her the better )

Do you have any photo editting tests to compare? I can run on on my ryzen laptop, that has IGPU.

Not to hand, nope. It's mostly just the fact she runs stuff at super high resolutions from fancy high end cameras that can cause her current PC to struggle a lot, but again, I've not really managed in this end of stuff myself, certainly not at the resolutions she deals with. My reading up on it earlier said that while photo editing can be done on the 5600G, that it's for "basic to moderate" stuff. Honestly, my lack of knowledge here may be showing, as I know old CPUs were absolute trash. Fair play if they're better now, I may indeed just try without the GPU, it's not hard to buy it afterwards if needed.

i agree with this but i feel the 13500 for this sort of a set up is a monster of a CPU, the 8 e cores would het with photo editing.

I was thinking about Intel at first, but the offerings in NZ were limited, way higher priced, and said limited offerings almost always lacked a stock CPU cooler, which in my experience tend to be far easier to install for a PC build newbie. Don't need anything fancy there.

 

[Loony BoB]

with an air cooler this is a very good case but if you want to go AIO its a pain in the ass thats why i got rid of my XT pro

Honestly I'm targeting a stock cooler, they just don't use the PC intensively enough for me to justify anything higher (they use the PC about once a week and the photo editing is about once a month).

 

[Loony BoB]

Good to know. Probably reinforces my thinking on the AMD CPU then.

 

[Loony BoB]

the ryzen 5600g would be a good choice if you can find a cheap ryzen 8000 chip that would be very fasat and last a very long time

EDIT: GPU: Asus Phoenix OC GeForce GTX 1650 G5 4 GB Video Card
if you looking at a system with a GPU just buy a 5600 is faster then the 5600g and can be had cheaper surely

For an example of the struggle with finding parts in NZ, here's the 'huge' AMD offering on NZ Parts Picker that actually show a price tag:

 

[Loony BoB]

You can get good cheap coolers like thermalright's assassin line and honestly even a cheap tower cooler is better than the stock cooler.

I'd look at a 12400 too though, as mickyflinn suggested (or 13400/14400), since they have hardware acceleration that I'm not sure the old Vega architecture used in the 5600G can compete with.

If I were buying for myself building, I'd absolutely get a quality cooler. A large part of it is that I just don't trust my stepdad *that* much with the one tricky part of building a PC the first time - getting the cooler on without leaving air pockets. The stock coolers, like 'em or not, definitely are really well designed for beginner installations. That, and I don't think their usage will justify the need for anything stronger - if they're only using it once a week, would they really need it? Is photo editing really gonna get it that warm? Happy to take advice on this. Keep in mind they somehow managed to keep their old PC going for about five years on a stock cooler, too.

Also, it was mentioned above that the Intel runs hot. Not sure if the AMD does, and if a high end cooler would be needed if it doesn't?

Regarding eBay etc, at that point I could just buy from OcUK and ship to NZ myself in all reality for probably a better price. But I'd prefer that they can have local business support if necessary, and eBay won't give me that sense of reassurance. :/ I'm always a bit weird with used parts, especially for a PC that I want to last a long time (since I won't be local to help them as much).

 

[Loony BoB]

Intel is definitely the way to go in this scenario imo especially with quicksync and may be even able to drop the GPU, but not sure the op is listening.

OP is listening, I wouldn't be replying (or posting a thread at all) if I didn't want to get second opinions all round. I just prefer to discuss rather than taking whichever internet person pops by first - I'm not as familiar with all of your levels of knowledge as you may be with each other, please bare with me.

 

[Loony BoB]

Intel options in NZ (criteria: below double price of the AMD, 6+ cores, 3GHz or more), for anyone curious - everything from the i5-12500 down is more expensive than the AMD, the bottom end almost double.

 

[Loony BoB]

Have you looked at NUC / miniPC options? Check out the ETA Prime and ServeTheHome channels on YouTube. Add RAM and NVME drive and install Windows.

Honestly can't say I've heard of them nor know what they're capable of. What's the warranty like? Do they have NZ local service? If yes on the latter, I'll have a look.

 

[Loony BoB]

in cost how dose the 12600kf match up?
is a second hand CPU out of the question? Ebay is a good option for this.

I'm really wanting to avoid second hand, because I really really really don't want to have to deal with a failure of any of the parts I'm buying while I'm at the other end of the world. They're taking a costly gamble on me helping them put together a new PC at half the cost of a refurb workstation from local businesses, so I want that to pay off in the long term.

12600KF is $343, 5600G is $269. I can work with an intel CPU but might want some help in finding a CPU cooler for it that an old man doing his first PC build without supervision can install without fluffing it up. I know, I should trust him more, but... heh.

 

[Loony BoB]

The 8500G might be a different story, because I believe it uses RDNA3 which would be competitive in terms of hardware acceleration with the 12th-14th gen Intel IGP. Low power usage on the 8500G too, I like them, but would need a cheap board/DDR5 or would push the cost up a lot, I'd imagine.

No shot for the 8500G, it doesn't seem to exist in NZ Can't find any 8000 series in the entire country.

 

[Loony BoB]

Right!? My mate there and everyone on reddit says they use partpicker to find parts in NZ. Honestly, it really feels like what you said. I am certainly not being encouraged by this situation to run back to NZ anytime in the near future... although I still want to return someday (it's my home country and it's goddam beautiful and the lifestyle is fantastic). At least in my case, I can import parts myself and trust myself to have enough backups.

The places that DO stock on partpicker are also really small scale. The country is a literal backwater for online stores, the 'major' electronics company online stores in NZ look like they were built in the 1990s and over half the offerings in major stores are refurb. The place is seriously so far behind with utilising the internet for commercial purposes.