SPCR

I'm looking to build a budget PC that is quiet but still fast for low usage programs like surfing the web, streaming music, and streaming video. I have never built a small PC before and the idea of having one of these new mini or micro atx cases seems intriguing. I wondered if there was a consensus on what parts would be good for such a build, or if there's a link to prebuilt systems you'd recommend. If price was different I wouldn't mind buying a prebuilt system, as long as it met the focus of this forum in being quiet. My "budget" is flexible, aslong as it is a bit future proofed, or upgrade able down the line. I know I'm throwing a large net here, but trying to gather information as fast as possible while I continue research on my own and appreciate any feedback.

Depending on what you need lets say for video playback, you might be fine with something like Haswell comes to NUC, it shoudl consume very low power (check the review), it should also be very small, you still need to buy ssd, memory and wifi i believe. If you are worried about the fan being like a laptop, or if you want also a storage 2.5 hdd, there are custom cases for it like Akasa Tesla H Fanless Solid Aluminum NUC Case - VESA Mountable (A-NUC05-A1B). There are options from Gigabyte aswell, BRIX.

There is also options if you want a more standard Pentium/Celeron/i3, like building around Antec 110, just grab your prefer mini itx mobo, memory (standard or low profile) 2.5 SSD and 2.5 hdd and you should be set. There are also options like H3 Plex for fanless setup if you wish, there are other models and manufactures, this is just an example.

Any recent gen dual core CPU (AMD or Intel) can meet your needs. It just doesn't take much oomph to push video (especially with integrated gpu doing most of the work). Heck, if surfing the web, streaming music, and streaming video are the only things you want to do, consider getting an Intel based Chromebook for $200 and hook it up to your monitor.

Future proofing is such a nebulous term: do you expect to change your usage? Is there something you are concerned about?

HawkSight wrote:I know I'm throwing a large net here, but trying to gather information as fast as possible while I continue research on my own and appreciate any feedback.

You ask for some help but don't say either "how much powerful", or "how much expensive": well, can you tell the community something more precise about "how much small" and/or "how much quiet"?