First build - home office PC - @£600

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Alansmithee

Alansmithee

Honorable
Aug 18, 2013
1
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10,510
Hi,

This is my first build and I'm looking to build a new home office machine for around £600

* Don't need Monitor, keyboard, OS (will run W8 pro)

* I listen to music a lot in the office so sound card rather than on-board?

* I don't need massive amounts of storage - 500gb would more than enough but I do have a Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB internal Hard Drive SATAII 32MB Cache 7200RPM that I could drop in as a storage drive for files and use SSD for boot drive?

* Spend most of my time in productivity apps and on internet

* Don't play games not interested in overclocking

Thanks in advance.

Alan
 
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g-unit1111


1. No need - on board sound has improved vastly from what it was 10 years ago. The sound card is a waste of money.

2. Absolutely you can reuse the existing HD. I always say it's best to use any existing parts that you can to cut down on costs.

This is what I would do for your budget:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-6800K 4.1GHz Quad-Core...
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geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
54,386
4,186
174,240
Here was my entry in the small office category:
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Homebuilt system Masterx . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x . x .
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Geofelt small office pc.
I recently built essentially this same pc for my son's mother-in-law who runs a small business.
Here are the salient reasons:
1. I used a large SSD. It is the critical component for performance. 240gb is sufficient for normal storage.
If necessary, a hard drive can be added for bulk storage.
2. Dual core is sufficient, the i3-3220 is actually more than you need but fits within 64 cents of the budget.
3. The lian li Q07 is a top quality case that is small enough to fit on a desktop without consuming excessive space.
4. I have used ECS before, and found them to be of decent quality. Partpicker warns of possible incompatibility with ivy bridge, but any new shipment since January will have the needed bios already installed.
This pc is capable of using dual monitors which I highly recommend.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core ProcessorP ($118.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ECS H61H2-I3 (v1.0) Mini ITX LGA1155 MotherboardP ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 MemoryP ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State DiskP ($174.70 @ Amazon)
Case: Lian-Li PC-Q07 Mini ITX Tower CaseP ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power SupplyP ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD WriterP ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $500.64
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-07 11:12 EDT-0400)

You can read the rest of the entries here:
Some are good, some are bad:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1757446/bestconfigs-intel-based-office.html?xtor=EPR-8809#11365673
Onboard HD 7.1 sound is quite good. Only if you are attaching a high end set of speakers might a discrete sound card be a bit better.

The cpu is relatively unimportant for your needs; a decent duo is fine.
To mi mind, the most rewarding component will be a ssd large enough for your files. It will make everything feel so much quicker.
And... see if you can't add a second identical monitor; It is wonderful for productivity.

 
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jinayhvora

jinayhvora

Honorable
May 28, 2013
2,400
0
12,460
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£152.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£68.12 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£56.99 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£86.54 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 1GB Video Card (£82.67 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£34.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£76.26 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £558.55
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-18 16:56 BST+0100)
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
Jul 27, 2011
42,549
824
104,940


1. No need - on board sound has improved vastly from what it was 10 years ago. The sound card is a waste of money.

2. Absolutely you can reuse the existing HD. I always say it's best to use any existing parts that you can to cut down on costs.

This is what I would do for your budget:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-6800K 4.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£105.59 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L12 37.8 CFM CPU Cooler (£43.63 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75M-ITX R2.0 Mini ITX FM2 Motherboard (£74.98 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£37.46 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£103.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case (£64.34 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Total: £429.99
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-09-28 01:20 BST+0100)

£200 less than the proposed budget, and the A10 eliminates the need for a central graphics card while the Samsung 840 Pro remains one of the fastest SSDs you can get.
 
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