Office vs Gaming PC

[57vroom]

Maybe too simple of a question, but what is the major characteristics or differences between a solid Office PC and one that is for Gaming?

 

[Inferno1217]

A gaming PC will do pretty much anything an Office Computer will do and more. It's more Horsepower ( Like a 4 Cylinder 120hp GEO engine compared to a big block V8 Hot Rod 500HP+) You have more processing power. It also depends on what your uses are and which components are selected.

 

[ikyung]

I guess one of the most significant difference is that Office PCs don't need graphics cards.

 

[gmcizzle]

The main difference is an office PC would be using integrated graphics, where a gaming PC of course would have a dedicated card.

 

[57vroom]

Then help me understand on the Buyer's Guides here the office build at $455 [ http://www.tomshardware.com/system-configuration-recommendation-51.html ] vs. the gaming build at $462 [ http://www.tomshardware.com/system-configuration-recommendation-55.html ]

There must be something that I am missing? Or is AMD just that consistant on what they offer and it is not until you look at the Intel that there is a significant difference in price between and office build/ gaming build?

 

[badtaylorx]

reliability..........enterprise class hard drives smaller gfx card.......and low power consumption are what you aim for in a business machine......

gaming its all about processing power both in the cpu and gpu.....

 

[Outlander_04]

Maybe too simple of a question, but what is the major characteristics or differences between a solid Office PC and one that is for Gaming?

This depends on what the office build is doing . If its just email and a bit of word processing then even a decent smart phone is capable of handling this

if its a workstation for an image editing or video professional its going to need some serious cpu power

a gaming machine uses a graphics card capable of making the huge number of calculations required to draw , and redraw frames of a 3d game many times a second . Generally for a gamer the cpu is not as important as the graphics processor

 

[Petrofsky]

Then help me understand on the Buyer's Guides here the office build at $455 [ http://www.tomshardware.com/system-configuration-recommendation-51.html ] vs. the gaming build at $462 [ http://www.tomshardware.com/system-configuration-recommendation-55.html ]

There must be something that I am missing? Or is AMD just that consistant on what they offer and it is not until you look at the Intel that there is a significant difference in price between and office build/ gaming build?

The office build handles graphics with an APU. This is adequate for HD video and therefore gives good resolution to reduce eyestrain. The gaming build has a faster CPU and lets the dedicated graphics card handle the real-time rendering you need for game graphics. The APU/mobo combo costs a little more than a simple CPU/mobo combo, but the price difference is more than made up in the graphics card. The office PC has twice the memory (8G vs. 4G) because it needs to multitask much more. Games don't need so much memory as a rule because the memory they need is already on the graphics card (1G). The office PC has twice the hard drive space for storage, whereas a gamer just wants to load and play, and he can thin out saved games as needed. These are budget builds, so they're been pared down wherever possible, which does reveal the underlying differences in build philosophy between them.

 

[57vroom]

@ Petrofsky,

Thank you very much, this does help in my understanding better than anything I have read to date.

Out of curiosity, how does one compare the builds on here to what is available on newegg or even this Dell: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dddnjl1&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=inspiron-620&

I am sure the response on the Dell will be that you dont know who is the vendor of the components/ lower quality/ etc. BUT how do I make a similar analysis of what newegg [or any other vendor] has listed as DIY builds?

 

[Petrofsky]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I can't tell what CPU is in the MT you linked to. The "Specs" link lists several. Not that I care. You want complete control of the build, from case to card reader, and the quality of the components is only part of the picture.

Your analysis will be based on the intended purpose of the machine. When someone posts a request for an appraisal of a gaming build in here, the first thing I look at is the graphics card. If they want to do heavy rendering, I look at the CPU. If they want a desktop for Mom, it's the price.

This computer building hobby will take you as deep into Techworld as you care to go. You have to learn all you can about every aspect of computers and make decisions for yourself based on what you've learned. You will make mistakes; you will spend too much and get the wrong stuff and get useless stuff you have to return. It's about fun and knowledge and craftsmanship and fun and pride and aesthetics and power and fun. Mostly fun.

 

[57vroom]

Well given this will be a Mom & Dad PC, you are right that the focus is on price but also with a degree fo performance that will make sure the money we are spending is useful and makes the most of the 8MB we pare pay for on downloads.

 

[etk]

Aside from component quality, another issue with OEM's is that it becomes nigh impossible to upgrade them a few years down the road. Although non-standard connections are becoming less common, they are still an issue, also, you won't see any BIOS updates, finally, you can't carry over your OS onto a new build.