u/nods0123

My mum wants a PC, I figured I could upgrade mine and give my mum most of my old parts.

I'd like to know if the parts I have would be good for my mum, and whether the parts I've picked out for myself could be swapped for something better/cheaper.

My mum doesn't need a fancy PC, mostly just for "chores", a place to store her photos/videos, and what she calls "video-editing". Knowing her, "video-editing" doesn't mean anything crazy, just mostly slideshows. That being said, I have no idea how far she will take that. She has a budget of approximately $1,000.

The parts I'm looking at for myself come to approximately $3,500. I'd like to trim that down without compromising much. Typically, I use my current one for playing games, and sometimes heavily modded games such as TES5--with I think the folder is 200GB of mods, and sometimes "All The Mods" Minecraft.

Current PC Build:

- i7-10700K

- MSI Z490-A Pro ATX

- 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3600 CL19*

> Was gonna give partner this and take her 16GB (2x8GB)

- Gigabyte OC RTX 2060 6GB*

- Corsair 4000D ATX Mid-Tower Case

- MasterLiquid ML240L RGB V2

- Some Wifi/Bluetooth card

- Corsair RM1000x*

> Got this about 2 days ago. I'd give my mum a fresh one, probably lower wattage. Old one that just got replaced was a Corsair RM650W (2019)

- Storage:

Western Digital Blue SN550 1TB

8TB 3.5-in Seagate BarraCuda HDD

HP FX700 4TB

I will just carry over these storage drives to my new PC.

New PC Parts List:

Prices are in AUD.

Already Purchased:

- Storage (See Current PC Build)

- ($250) Corsair RM1000x (See Current PC Build)

- ($15/ea) 3x TL-M12-S fans

- ($35) 8x ARGB/Fan Hub

Looking into Purchasing:

- ($159) Antec C8 Curve Wood Full-Tower Case

- ($329) Gigabyte Aurus B850 Elite Wifi7

- CPU Cooler:

($179) Thermalright Stream Vision 360mm AIO

or

($219) Lian Li Hydroshift LCD 360mm S AIO

- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

- Literally any 32GB DDR5 RAM*

- GPU:

($909) PNY Epic-X RTX 5070 12GB

or

($1,399) PNY Epic-X RTX 5070 Ti 16GB

Questions:

1. Advice on CPU Coolers and GPUs that I'm deciding between--if not better alternatives

2. Are there any parts on my "New PC Parts List" that I could swap for anything better.

3. Does my mum need my 2060 GPU with my current PC Parts/is it recommended? If not, would it be recommended that I hold onto it for now with the new parts and grab a GPU down the line a bit more?

4. Would it be recommended to swap my OS onto my 4TB drive? Or is that a lot of effort for little gain?

5. Are there any parts I should replace for my mum, either for performance reasons or age (almost everything listed would be 5+ years old).

6. What storage should I look into for my mum? (NVMe, SATA, SSD, HDD, etc; which for OS)--note that she hates with a burning passion PCs being slow to boot.

7. With the parts I have listed, would they actually last me almost indefinitely (5-10+ years) both performance-wise and quality-wise?

8. Should I just buy 16GB of DDR5 for now? Also, with modern boards do I need x2 sticks or is x1 fine? Or is it motherboard-dependent?

Thanks

I've sorted paragraphs into different sections so it's a bit easier to read, and so if you don't care about certain parts you can just... skip over them.

Origin:

- I have a PC built in 2020-2021 that I originally spent $2,200AUD on. At the time, I compromised on parts here-and-there because of pricing and needing a PC at the time, but wanting one that could run games.

Usage/History:

- Typically, I use it for playing games, and sometimes heavily modded games such as TES5--with I think the folder is 200GB of mods, and sometimes "All The Mods" Minecraft. Over time, these have become slower and I've been needing to start playing on very low settings. I've only upgraded my storage over time, and very recently (past week) my PSU (cuz the old one was dying (PC reboots; haven't had any issues since so)).

Current Situation:

- Realistically, despite the performance, I've lived with worse, I would be fine with living with this for longer. I don't really mind...

...That being said, my mum wants a PC. Nothing fancy, she wants one for "chores", a place to store her photos/videos, and what she calls "video-editing". Knowing her, "video-editing" doesn't mean anything crazy, just mostly slideshows. That being said, I have no idea how far she will take that. She has a budget of approximately $1,000. I figured if I upgraded my PC, I'd just need to buy her some storage, new PC fans (I think mine are dying), a new PSU, and she could take everything else of mine for idk, $250, if not less, especially with the current market with RAM. Obviously, some feedback on whether my PC would be good for her or not would be great, or where I should upgrade parts for her. She doesn't care for RGBs, or anything of the sorts, nor does she care for seeing the inside of the PC case; which is great, because that's one of the large annoyances of my PC case is it's very heavily tinted.

TL;DR: Mum wants new PC. Could have mine and I upgrade.

Current PC Build

(+ Indicates it's an addition from the original build;

> indicates a note):

- i7-10700K

- MSI Z490-A Pro ATX

- 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3600 CL19

> I don't think my mum would ever use 32GB of RAM, so I was thinking of giving my partner my 32GB and my mum could get her 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4.

- Gigabyte OC RTX 2060 6GB

- Corsair 4000D ATX Mid-Tower Case

+ Corsair RM1000x

> Got this about 2 days ago. I'd probably give my mum a fresh one, probably lower wattage. Old one that just got replaced was a Corsair RM650W (2019)

- Western Digital Blue SN550 1TB

> This has my OS on it + files, I'm taking it

+ 8TB 3.5-in Seagate BarraCuda HDD

> Taking this too

+ HP FX700 4TB

> Also taking this. Also contemplating swapping the OS onto this one, but not too sure if that'd be too difficult/complicated/worthwhile.

- MasterLiquid ML240L RGB V2

- Some Wifi/Bluetooth card

Future Build Background:

I've been shopping/researching around on CentreCom, and upgrading my PC looks like it'll cost about $3,500, which I'm not too fond of. Optimally, I'd like a PC-build that I won't have to upgrade indefinitely (I.e., up until the parts die, nor do I have to worry about things slowing down for 5+ years, if not ever, on at least mid-high loads).

I have parts planned for my upgrade, and I'm likely going to be buying them in chunks just for cost-reasons and product availability. Some parts I've yet to decide on a specific one, and I'm contemplating if I can either use my current GPU until I can afford a newer one, or run without a GPU.

Obviously, there's also some things I'm buying just because I like them aesthetically, though not looking at compromising on performance much. My current PC doesn't have a lot of LEDs/aesthetics, so I'd like to change that in my new PC.

PC Parts List (Sorted by Chunks):

Prices are in AUD.

I'd like to generally know if there are better performance alternatives that are similar/better visually/price-wise, or if there's well-known information about quality of some of what I have planned (good or bad).

Already Purchased:

- Storage (See Current PC Build)

- ($250) Corsair RM1000x

- ($15/ea) 3x TL-M12-S fans

> They look fun, and they were cheap

- ($35) 8x ARGB/Fan Hub

> I don't think I'll need this, but eh.

First Planned Purchase:

- ($159) Antec C8 Curve Wood Full-Tower Case

- ($329) Gigabyte Aurus B850 Elite Wifi7

- CPU Cooler:

($179) Thermalright Stream Vision 360mm AIO

($219) Lian Li Hydroshift LCD 360mm S AIO

Second Planned Purchase:

- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

- Literally any 32GB DDR5 RAM,

> Maybe 16GB for now and then upgrade way later. Also, do I need 2x#GB or would 1x#GB work?

Third Planned Purchase:

- GPU:

($909) PNY Epic-X RTX 5070 12GB

($1,399) PNY Epic-X RTX 5070 Ti 16GB

> I'd also like to know if I could just run my 2060 OC for now and grab a better one down the line. Also does my mum need a GPU? I wouldn't think so, but I also don't know. Any opinions here on the best course of action?

End-Note:

Any advice or opinions, even if it's on one piece of hardware would be great.

I haven't looked into parts for my mum yet, because I'm just getting a headspace of what I am looking at first. Any recommendations there would be great though--also if I should buy her any new parts over my current ones. I was thinking of giving her my fans from my new PC case--provided it comes with any. Also storage recommendations (NVMe, etc).

Technically, her budget includes keyboard/mouse/monitor, but they're generally not too expensive, and she wants a small monitor, which is easy enough.

I built a PC back in about 2020 and have only upgraded its storage. It's been serving me well, but it's starting to slow down with more modern games and I'm pretty sure the PSU is dying. My mother also wants me to build her a PC for just general usage, and is fine with taking some of my older parts--provided they work fine, which they do.

I've not really looked into a bunch of things nowadays and I don't really know what's currently "good" or "bad", nor am I sure on how well-aged my parts are.

My current PC has the following (important) specs:

- i7-10700K CPU

- MSI Z490-A Pro motherboard

- Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 OC GPU

- 32GB DDR4 RAM (2x16GB) (I don't really know much more than that)

And for what it's worth:

- A Mastercooler water cooler (I don't remember which one)

- 2 NVMe? SSDs and 1 HDD

- Corsair case (whatever this is worth)

And the PSU is a Corsair RM650 ?Maybe Gold?

I live in Australia and will probably be ordering from Centrecom if I can't find stuff cheaper elsewhere.

I don't want to give my mother garbage, but she doesn't need anything high-end for gaming or so. She has a budget of about $1,000 but can go over it by maybe $500 (I owe her $1k for rent while I was living at home when I was a young adult, and we agreed that we'd just offset it by me building her a PC). I have no idea what the market is like currently, so I have no idea if $1k would even cover most parts, so we have agreed that she can have some of my current parts to cut costs. I also need to buy her a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc but that's not going to cost a lot.

I would need to buy her (and myself) a new PSU, storage, Wifi-card, storage, PC case, and cooler at a minimum.

At the same time, I am looking at upgrading a few of my own parts while I'm at it (if it's worth it). I'm definitely looking at a new PSU, but am considering a newer CPU/Motherboard and/or GPU. More RAM would be nice, but I can always add that down the line. I don't necessarily have a budget for myself (not over $1,000 total though)--nor do I need the parts now (except the PSU). I've been looking and there's a RM850W Gold ATX Fully Modular PSU for $150 that looks good, but I'm not sure if there's better options for the same price.

TL;DR:

I'm building 1 PC on a $1,000 budget for my mother, but can use parts from my PC to keep costs low--as long as the current parts are upgraded up to another budget of $1,000.

My Mother's PC needs the following at a minimum:

PSU

Storage

Wifi-Card

Storage

PC-Case

CPU-Cooler

Would any of my CPU/Motherboard/GPU/RAM be usable for my mother's PC, or would it be better/easier to just buy newer ones for her?

Also, if I upgraded any of my parts or just bought her new ones, what is the current recommendations? Please keep in mind I'm only really wanting to spend at most $350-$500 for a new CPU or GPU for myself, and my mother just mostly wants to have a running computer. I've heard AMD CPUs are better than Intel currently, but honestly I have no clue how to compare AMD to Intel, and I don't even know what Intel is at either. Either way, I'd be fine with whichever is currently doing well, and I'd assume I'd need a new motherboard with it too, maybe also watercooler? I also don't know if it'd just be better to upgrade my GPU or RAM instead; or just wait longer (it still runs, it's fine). Once I do an upgrade I probably won't want to upgrade that part again until 2030 at a minimum.

Thanks. Let me know if any further information or clarification is needed.