Recommendations on a budget desktop for work?

one of my friends wants to build, or buy, a desktop so can be as productive from home as she is at work. i know about gaming and higher grade components, but when it comes to staying on a budget. i don't know crap lol.

what would u guys suggest? the computer will strictly be for office work (spreadsheets, words, typing, etc), web browsing, maybe some Youtube, and general use. the only requirement is a dual monitor setup for productivity and a comfortable keyboard to type on for extended hours. thanks in advance.

 

Get the cheapest i5 variant and get a cheaper Hxxx motherboard. Find some 2133mhz cheap DDR4 ram and get a SSD.

 

Can you give a ballpark budget?

Cause like this is alright, but really isn't that budget... An i3 and hard drive can get those tasks done easily (though I would prioritize an ssd).

 

I built two I3 rigs, one for my HTPC and one for my father, both work very well. I used a small Gigabyte MB for the HTPC and an Asrock for my fathers build. Both were in the 500.00 range

 

You looking for specific components or a general build? I'd go mini itx with an i5, 8GB RAM, and the cheapest video card you can find. Saw a tiny Cooler Master build recently that was being used as a media center that I imagine would work for that.

 

i guess a little bit of both?

i mainly game on my systems, so i don't know what will be enough as a work PC. an SSD will be a must because it just makes the computer, as a whole, feel so much snappier. plus, anyone know of any decent 1080p monitors that come with an adjustable stand? she wants a dual monitor setup for productivity.

she doesn't really know her budget, but just wants to spend as little as possible while having a capable enough desktop for all her work needs. maybe around $500? keep in mind she will need to buy 2 monitors and a KB/mouse setup as well.

 

In that case you will have to determine what monitor and kb/mouse to buy first, and work with the remaining budget.

For pure office work basically everything will do. There's no need to buy a new platform. The only thing you might want to check is how much RAM and storage capacity you friend uses now.

 

I'd go with donor/used kb/mouse/monitors and focus on the system itself. That will get the thing off the ground and then can be upgraded later.

 

let's say that $500 budget is not including the monitors and i would think 8GB of RAM will be enough, right?

a smaller SSD (100GB-250GB) and a 500GB-1TB HDD (that can be added later if needed) would probably be way more than enough.

 

For just basic work? Absolutely 8GB is enough. You can get away with an i3 too, and there are boards that support dual monitors on motherboard graphics too, so you can also somewhat disregard my earlier post.

 

8GB is usually more than enough for common non-intensive office work. However I do recommend staying on the side of caution. Even with light office work there are some potential RAM eaters. If your friend has a habit of leaving many browser tabs open the RAM usage could go up really quickly with modern browsers. Some people also get used to leaving used application windows hidden instead of closing them. RAM capacity limitations are more dangerous in the sense that there's little warning for the user in advance. Once the system starts swapping performance will drop dramatically and an uninformed user will just blame the whole computer for being slow. Since your friend is coming to you for help I don't think she knows much about memory management, therefore a bit of an overkill isn't a bad idea, especial if you go with an older platform using cheap DDR3 RAM (that's the route I'd recommend). Checking her current workflow would be helpful if possible.

On the other side even inexperienced users will usually notice the usage bar in Windows Explorer turning red and realize there's a problem before the point of no return. Assuming that you don't mind supporting your friend with this build later you'll have more response time against storage fulling up. Starting with one small SSD should be acceptable unless she needs to deal with large datasets such as videos.


Formating the entire SSD into just one partition (beside the hidden boot/recovery partitions) for C: will ensure the best usage. Otherwise she could keep throwing data into one partition and not use the other.

It's up to you to make the judgment, but I would put the swap file on the SSD as a final safety net if you go hybrid. Yes, SSDs are more sensitive to writing, but they also offer way better latency. What goes laggy swapping on a SSD might be completely frozen swapping on a HDD.

 

I just threw a few parts together, toss in a copy of windows and you should still have 100 for adjustments.

 

I agree, getting an idea of the current usage will show where corners can be cut in the initial build (with a mind for future expansion) and where it would be better to just get more/better right away. Or just build with as little as possible but in a way that it would be easy to upgrade later if use demands it.

 

so u guys think an i3 will be enough? what about GPU since she will be running dual monitors.

i don't think 8GB of RAM will be an issue because RAM is so cheap to upgrade.

thanks for the suggestions so far. i do need to ask her what case this will be going into as well.

 

More than enough. My father still runs a DDR2 era small form factor Dell box (with a modern SSD) which feels completely out of place connected to an OLED TV . While checking documents and regular websites I couldn't tell any difference compared to my modern system.

Assuming that you're only running 1080p 60Hz, any integrated chip will do. They usually have one port for each display interface so you might need to buy an adapter.

 

ok, so we're looking at: i3, 8GB-16GB of RAM, 400W-500W PSU, a smaller case, and something like a Nvidia 1050 in case the kiddos want to do some light gaming.

what's a decent/good cheap micro ATX MoBo? i gotta find a CPU cooler as well. i wouldn't wish a stock Intel CPU cooler on my worse enemy.

 

For an i3? The stock works.

For the mobo/platform, do you want a Skylake/Kabylake system or an older one?

 

is the extra price for Kabylake even worth it?

i would imagine a Z170 system would work just fine for a pure work PC. another plus is her company should be able to hook her up with Windows and some office programs.

 

It's more efficient, but if it's just something that will get upgraded in the future a Skylake would save costs in the present and you wouldn't really lose anything doing so.

For cheap boards, ASRock usually makes decently priced ones, and I've never had a problem with an ASRock board. .

 

It's not worth it.

The performance difference between older and newer platforms will be small for your purpose, and the power bill isn't a concern. I think VP9 support is the only thing that could make a difference (on the CPU).

 

appreciate all the input so far.

i'm going to find some time tonight to play around on PCpartpicker and try to get a list together for her by tonight/tomorrow. if any of u guys would like to put together a list, that would be cool too.

 

I just finished a build and I had done a bunch of research and I had read that the internal graphics of Kaby Lake are a huge improvement. I think this was the article. http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/605952/10-key-things-know-about-intel-kaby-lake-cpus/

 

This is something I think I've been overlooking, if it's to be a system that runs on integrated grahics and not say a 950 then having a KL CPU may be the best way to go.

 

would it be worth it to just get something like this for $350: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-de...188e54a11e6b34736f61dc8940f0INT&skuId=4819301

 

If it's in stock and you can get it for that price it should be just fine for your purposes.

 

Only has one HDMI port... might be an issue with two screens. Dunno if there is such a thing as a hdmi spliter? never seen one myself.

 

decided to go with a custom build because i'd really want her to have an SSD.

only thing i'm really stuck on right now is a good smaller case that's decently priced.

this will be my first time building a smaller mini-ATX/micro-ATX computer.

 

Fractal makes some good smaller cases and not terribly expensive. I've also done some small builds with coolermaster cases but I think they were all mITX not mATX. Still worth a look.

 

just started building. i'll update with the finished product later.

 

- NZXT Elite S340 case
- EVGA 500W PSU
- Intel i3-7100
- Asus Prime B250-Plus MoBo
- Intel 540 240GB SSD
- Geil 8GB DDR4-2400 RAM
- CableMod RGB light strip
- i threw in an extra NZXT 140mm case fan i had for intake since the case only came with 2 120mm exhaust fans.

i went with pretty decent quality parts so that she can have the option to upgrade if she wanted to let her kids game on it or do a little more than just function as a computer for work. all they would have to do is throw a GPU in there and 1080p gaming shouldn't be too much for the system.

i'm definitely gonna recommend that she upgrade her CPU cooler because that stock Intel unit is a thorn in my eyes.

appreciate all the help/suggestions.

 

Check the actual temperature reading. If correctly mounted, the stock cooler shouldn't have much problem with just 2 cores doing 3.9GHz.

 

it's more of an aesthetics thing to me lol.

i'm sure the stock cooler will be enough -- especially when they're not OC'ing or anything like that. i might consider giving them my Kraken x61 cooler because that new x62 is so damn sexy.

EDIT: also forgot to add that the 7100 was only $5 more than the 6100, so it was basically a no brainer.

 

Congrats on the build, no matter what the scope of the build, they are all awarding. I would be very interested in how that CPU performs.

 

i'm bringing the system over to their house tomorrow and i'll put it through a few tests to see how things are performing.

she ended up getting Windows 365 because she can write off the $100/year cost as a work expense.

thanks again, guys.

 

If you're looking for easy on the eyes, Zalman makes a few with round heatsinks that are very nice looking and not that expensive.

 

their liquid cooling solution looks pretty crazy. i'm interested to see how that thing performs: http://www.zalman.com/contents/products/view.html?no=77

my friend's husband is thinking about throwing a 8GB 480 GPU in there so he can mess around with some games. i told him that if he does that, i'll let him have my Kraken x61 cooler. i'm either going to pick up the new x62 or one of the Swiftech Prestige units.

i really want to do a full custom liquid cooling system, but i don't really use my computer enough to justify that much modding.

 

That's perfect though. If you don't need a lot of up time, you have plenty of room to modify and test.