~ $400 Budget Office Micro-ATX PC Build

In this week's episode, I build a budget office pc for my parents! This build is fairly standard for this budget category (I sifted through a lot of similar builds on PCPartPicker and Reddit while putting it together) but it gets the job done for basic web browsing, word processing, etc while also providing some room to do more if necessary.

I chose to get a nicer case and more RAM (since it will be getting my old CPU in the future) but you can definitely do this build cheaper with a less expensive case and less RAM. 8 GB is probably fine for most people.

Here is the full parts list:

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[huri]

DIY is generally cheaper than prebuilds and also a LOT of fun. But It's fair that some people don't want to get into it.

[lumberfoot_jpg]

I dunno why I’m watching this lol but it was very relaxing to watch. PC building in general is just a lot of fun :)

[josecespedes]

Very useful information. Without a doubt it is the sexiest pc built I've seen 😉. Hello from Panama 🇵🇦.

[TonyBurgess]

Wiring seems to be the most daunting task.

[joshbower]

Is that a coaster made out of an old floppy disk? That's a cool idea!

[Splituk]

You didn't really need DDR4-3600. 3200 would have been cheaper, and that's more than fast enough.

[arieltakom]

Hey there! Great job for your 2nd PC build! Just a few comments from me:

1) For the cables, I think it's better to route it from the back of your case. The holes in the case are there for that exact purpose, and judging from the bunched up cables you definitely have enough length for the 24 pin and 8 pin motherboard cables to reach in from the back. I know that the case isn't exactly a tempered glass panel so aesthetically it doesn't really matter, but having that bunched up cable in it's current position would hinder airflow, and might also cause the cables to get stuck in the fan (probably during transport as it's just dangling there). I think Bitwit or JayzTwoCents made excellent videos on how to do cable management, and perhaps you could consider doing this as practice for your future PC builds haha. The videos that I find useful from Bitwit and Jayz are linked below:

2) For the front case fans, you should consider getting a fan splitter. It definitely shouldn't cost that much, probably around $5, and is a much better (or elegant) solution compared to connecting them to Molex. This prevents having the fan at full speed all the time, which also means quieter PC. Wouldn't want your parents to be bothered by fan noise :)

That's it from me! Hope your parents likes their new PC, and all the best to you and yours :)

[boredgrass]

The process of interpreting the specs of the motherboard and finding components that are compatible and suitable for the purpose. "Windows fun" like Windows insisting on its drivers, until you allowed for 3rd party drivers in system.

[MrInsanepotato]

tbh I dont like parts list, I just built a $ 300 pc with and i3 10100, 16 gb and you could probably throw an ssd there. (psu was was very cheap though)