CPU for office pc

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Jennice

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Jan 16, 2015
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Hi all, I am considering a PC build for my dad.

He'll be doing office work / web, and movie watching via TV.
Occasional movie transcode, but it's rare.

In terms of boot time, office apps etc, would I be better off with an i3 (higher clock), or i5 (lower clock, but more cores and turbo boost).
The iGPU will be fine for him, so it'll be a "clean" build: PSU, motherboard, CPU/Cooler, m.2 SSD.
And... yes. I prefer Intel CPU.

Thanks -
Jennice
 
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Tinstaafl
For my "office" rig, I am still running a relatively "ancient" i3-3xxx series @3.4GHz, with the Intel HD 2500 integrated graphics. It powers two displays at HD resolution, and can handle anything 2-D that I throw at it with ease, including Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

The best upgrades I did over the past few years was to add RAM and a SSD. I would say minimum of 8GB RAM, and a 250GB SATA SSD should do it.

The only area where my office build gets dinged on benchmarks is 3-D performance, but since I do not play games on it, that is of no consequence. That is what the PC in the living room is for!

I would say go for the CPU you can afford with the highest clock, rather than core count. My i3 is dual core, 4 thread, so I would...
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ElectrO_90

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Apr 17, 2007
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If you go the Intel route, for absolutely no reason apart from you think they are better, you will also need to buy a graphics card.
If you went Ryzen 5 2400G it does all what Intel does, a lot more and is cheaper.

Ryzen 5 2400G
8GB Ram
250GB SSD
B350 (B450 out end of month) motherboard
Done - sorted and you can get this fitted into a nice itx case
 
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SoggyTissue

SoggyTissue

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i3 and i5 will both have 4 cores these days*. intel and ryzen both have internal gpus and there could be an arguement for ryzen having the better of the 2. - which might save you buying a dedicated gpu if you want to play games (which you should do if you want to play games)

the majority of office work (word excel etc) will only really take up 2 cores of workload, movies and tv will also be similar in cpu requirements. (you can check this by opening task manager and seeing core use when you open said programs - remember to take into account windows will count virtual cores as cores).

transcode maybe a little more cpu intensive. not really an issue if you will only be doing this once a month or something, the 'down time' (time the computer will be useless due to crunching numbers) will not affect your day to day life. if youre going to do this a lot though, like every day, then by all means get a more serious cpu to crunch numbers faster.

what you should be looking for is 8-16GB RAM, and i would sugest 16. RAM is what makes your pc multitask like a beast, and office work normally requires a lot of windows open. - esp if youre hell bent on using chrome. and also look into an SSD so programs load faster.


*subject to change because intel are scared of ryzen
 
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Jennice

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Thanks to all for the input so far.
He won't be gaming, so I'm not concerned about GPU at all.
My main point is, whether the higher clock of i3 (4 cores) is better for boot time and "productivity" than the lower clock'ed 6 core i5. (turbo boost, though)?
 
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profoundnoah

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Boot time is affected primarily by your storage medium. If you want the fastest out there, then yes, the 970 Evo or any other quality m.2 SSD will fit the bill. Personally, I'd just go for the i5. It brings a lot more upgradability to the table down the line, not to mention it is faster when it comes to compressing files in a scenario such as 7-Zip.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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A high end NVMe SSD is absolutely not required here.
A standard SATA III SSD for 1/2 the price per GB will do just fine.

Real world difference in this use case would be zero.
 
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profoundnoah

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That's mea culpa for not mentioning that, USAFRet. Going for a 500 GB standard SATA III SSD vs. a 250 GB NVME SSD would probably be the most advisable here. NVME's DO have higher speeds, but again as you said, the real world effects would more than likely go unnoticed.
 
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RobCrezz

RobCrezz

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Thats interesting. I couldnt notice any difference in boot time comparing a samsung 840 SATA with a samsung 960 evo NVMe.
 
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RobCrezz

RobCrezz

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Oh right, I had windows 10 on both. Maybe the difference in boot was more down the the OS.
 
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mdd1963

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Finally, a use for the i3-8100!
 
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phaelax

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Question is, at what point are your investments in speed becoming diminishing returns? Sure the 970 is faster, but for the same price, you could get basically 512 GB of already fast storage.
Click to expand...
For me, the speed was a bonus. My primary reason for getting one was space in a mini-itx build, as I can just slip this in under the motherboard and out of site. Figured if the M.2 supported nvme, why not. But cost-wise, there's no need for nvme for the average consumer. The OP should stick with a regular SSD.
 
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Jennice

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My main reason for choosing m.2 ssd over sata was the "clean", simple build. Using SATA requires external SATA and power cables. m.2 (on-board) would be the cleanest possible build. I need to make my own enclosure, which would be easier without "external" devices. (DVD isn't needed anyway).
 
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