Need help building a Cheap Workstation PC

$1200 is enough to build two computers for home office and occasional gaming!

I suggest you spend about $800-900 and get an i5 with an SSD and a gtx950 GPU. It is overkill for your requirements, but will be worth the money in the long run. lower budget parts get slow and need replacing sooner. My sons quad core PC is still going strong after 7 years use.

An i5 6500 will be plenty
Motherboards - Gigabyte and Asus are my favourite brands. Get a h170 mATX motherboard. Just check that the mobo has the right connections at the back for your needs.
GPU - just get Gigabyte or Asus gtx950
Don't economize by getting a low cost PSU.
8Gb of DDR4 memory
Samsung Evo 850 SSD
2Tb HDD
Whichever mATX case looks good to you

lieutenantfrost,

In my view, there would be better results buying a used or "new other workstation" and upgrading it than building. For example:

Dell Precision T3600 w/E5-1650, 3.2GHz, 8GB DDR3, 1TB SATA, Quadro 4000 Win7Pro > sold for offer under $700

With a Xeon E5-1650 6-core A 3.2 / 3.8Ghz , a Quadro 4000, and 1TB storage drive, it's actually usable as received. But, with the residual budget, increase the RAM to 16GB, add a Samsung 850 Evo 250GB and if you need higher 3D performance, find a used Quadro K2200 4GB or it's all DisplayPort cousin, the K1200.

Another good one is the HP z420:

HP Z420 Xeon Six Core E5-1650 3.2GHz 16gb 1TB NVS 295 > sold for $700

And there, the system has the 16GB, but a Quadro NVS which is not very useful in 3D.

So, with some patient shopping, it's possible to have a fast Xeon E5 workstation that can be in use while upgraded, which is only plugging in a new components as purchased. The use of one of these can be extended by buying an 8 or 10-core CPU and having up to 64GB RAM, whereas Xeon E3 is limited to 4 cores and 32GB.

I've bought used workstations the last seven years: Dell Precision: 390, T3500, T5400, T5500, and two HP x420's and never had a component failure of any kind even after five years' hard use. The Precision T5500 listed below was purchased for $171 and the upgrades cost $850. The Precision T3500 cost $53 and the upgrades cost $130 so going one generation back makes even a 12-core dual CPU system with 48GB of RAM possible within your budget.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) > 32GB DDR3 1866 ECC RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Revised) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6 -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Logitech z313 > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 / CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3500 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)

3. Dell Precision T3500 (2011) (Rev 2) Xeon X5677 4-core @ 3.46 / 3.73GHz > 12GB (6X 2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC > Quadro 4000 (2GB) > PERC 6/i + Seagate 300GB 15K SAS ST3300657SS + WD Black 500GB > 525W PSU> Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > 2X Dell 19" LCD
[Passmark system rating = 2751, CPU = 7236 / 2D= 658 / 3D=2020 / Mem= 1875 / Disk=1221]

Depends if the OP needs a workstation. He says he needs it for home office tasks and was considering an i3.
The OP may not realize that to us nerds a workstation means an enormously powerful and expensive computer used by professional designers.

G unit has shown you what you can buy for $1164. It is a fairly high end machine for hardcore gamers who want lightning fast response and really good performance in the most demanding modern games.
However, for casual gaming and home office work, it is a waste of money - like buying a Porsche then never driving more than 40mph
You should be able to save $350 off the price of this build, and still have a PC which is more than enough for your needs.

Numerous options that are available to you OP. Depends which way you'd look to go with it.

For example, you could put together a build with a (relatively) new Xeon (Quad + Hyper-threading), 16GB DDR3 and a decent GPU, for less than $900.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($241.73 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($69.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Mushkin ECO2 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($86.75 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($46.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 960 4GB Video Card ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) ($87.95 @ OutletPC)
Total: $886.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-07 14:56 EST-0500

The PSU is totally overkill, but with the rebate, it's too good a price to pass up.


On the other hand, there's used workstations out there that would be a great starting point (for example, I frequently pick up Dell Precision T3500's and similar) that, you increase the RAM and add a GPU (the PSUs tend to be pretty good - considering they were designed for 24/7 useage) and add an SSD (if you wanted to) and you'd have an awesome rig, for significantly less than $900 (usually).

Dell Precision T3500: $250 + shipping (can't see for the US, as I'm in Canada)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T3500-Workstation-W3550-Xeon-3-06GHz-8GB-500GB-Win7-Pro-/171967940360?hash=item280a168708:g:0m4AAOSwPgxVN-uf

Plus:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Memory: Mushkin ECO2 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($86.75 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 960 4GB Video Card ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $324.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-07 14:59 EST-0500

That's a great rig, for under $600.


Of course, if you mean a home office type setup, with some word processing, general browsing etc.
Then an i3 + 750ti or GTX 950 would serve you just as well......but building it new would actually be more expensive than the T3500 option above.

You could buy an "off the shelf" offering too, but they tend to cheap out on Motherboard/PSU and, of course, you pay the premium for the "convenience", although you don't have to pay full retail (well, "system builder") prices for the OS.

Wow - even cheaper than I thought $713
Should last more than 5 years before you need a better processor or more memory.
GPU is fine for playing games, and if you get more serious in future, just put a new $250 GPU in it and you suddenly have a kick ass games machine!

**CPU** | [Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80662i56500) | $199.89 @ OutletPC
**Motherboard** | [Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gah110ma) | $49.99 @ Amazon
**Memory** | [G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f42133c15d16grr) | $65.99 @ Newegg
**Storage** | [Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz75e250bam) | $86.75 @ OutletPC
**Storage** | [Hitachi Ultrastar 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/hitachi-internal-hard-drive-0f10452) | $64.50 @ Amazon
**Video Card** | [Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 2GB Dual WindForce Video Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvn950wf2oc2gd) | $143.98 @ Newegg
**Case** | [Fractal Design Core 1300 MicroATX Mini Tower Case](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/fractal-design-case-fdcacore1300bl) | $34.99 @ NCIX US
**Power Supply** | [EVGA Super Nova 650W ATX Power Supply] $66.99
| *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $743.08
| Mail-in rebates | -$30.00
| **Total** | **$713.08**

If you don't like the case, chose another mATX or ATX one instead
The motherboard I recomended will work fine, but spending up to $30 more might well be worth it - will give you more features and better connectivity - your choice. The Gigabyte or ASUS website will allow you to compare features.

That really depends on what your uses are for. For workstation usage yeah it is overkill. But you or I or anyone can't really make assumptions on what the computer usage is going to be unless the OP specifies programs that they are going to use. The thing is gaming hardware can run workstation hardware but workstation hardware generally has a harder time running games. You can run games on a Skylake Xeon E3, but is it ideal? No. What you have to do is figure out a balance between work and gaming. If you're going to be using Autodesk software like Maya and Revit - which can be very processor and graphics intense then yes it would be needed to know. If you're going to be using software like Photoshop and other CS5/6 software which can be more on the processor intensive side then yeah it would also be needed to know as well.