So my office has tasked me with upgrading our machines. They are all P4s and incredibly slow now (surprisingly, a P4 can't handle simple office applications and web browsing/streaming now ???) . Even on my extremely well-maintained work PC which I upgraded to 1.5 GB of RAM is extremely slow and can barely watch a YouTube video. It's a pain in the ass just to change my fantasy football lineups (although that may also be related to being in 6 leagues).
Anyway, it's so hard to stay in the market, and even only a few months of not paying attention has caused me to feel like I have no idea what to get.
I need to build about 3-7 PCs that can handle office applications, web browsing, and the occasional streaming video and distractions from work. What's the cheapest and most efficient way to do this?
I was thinking right now the processor to get for these basic uses would be an i3, some basic cheap motherboard, a regular mid-size chassis, an 80GB hard drive (or less if 80GBs are too expensive), a cd-rw and floppy (we still use them for some archaic tasks here), 4 GB of whatever RAM's on sale at newegg (2x2GB I believe the best for this but correct me if I'm wrong), and Windows 7.
I'm hoping that buying the parts and building these is still the cheapest, because I love to build, rather than just buying a cheap pre-built machine that is so cheap because they order so many parts in bulk... I’m hoping I can stay under $400 and still build a fast PC since it won’t need a lot of power and graphics for gaming. All help is appreciated, thank you!
Approximate Purchase Date: ASAP
Budget Range: I really hope I can do this for under 400 per machine
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Microsoft Office (Word, Outlook, Excel), surfing the web, marking
Are you buying a monitor: No, unless there are some amazing deals out there I'm unaware of (feel free to inform me!)
Parts to Upgrade: New Build
Do you need to buy OS: Yes
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg
Location: Burbank, CA
Parts Preferences: We currently use Intel, and while I'm sure AMD would work fine, I would like to know if there is any advantage to staying and/or disadvantage to switching
Overclocking: No (maybe I will on mine though, haha)
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: Probably won't be upgrading monitors, some are 1024 on CRT others are 1280 on LCD.
Additional Comments:
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Work computers are old and slow, even at Pentium 4
Anyway, it's so hard to stay in the market, and even only a few months of not paying attention has caused me to feel like I have no idea what to get.
I need to build about 3-7 PCs that can handle office applications, web browsing, and the occasional streaming video and distractions from work. What's the cheapest and most efficient way to do this?
I was thinking right now the processor to get for these basic uses would be an i3, some basic cheap motherboard, a regular mid-size chassis, an 80GB hard drive (or less if 80GBs are too expensive), a cd-rw and floppy (we still use them for some archaic tasks here), 4 GB of whatever RAM's on sale at newegg (2x2GB I believe the best for this but correct me if I'm wrong), and Windows 7.
I'm hoping that buying the parts and building these is still the cheapest, because I love to build, rather than just buying a cheap pre-built machine that is so cheap because they order so many parts in bulk... I’m hoping I can stay under $400 and still build a fast PC since it won’t need a lot of power and graphics for gaming. All help is appreciated, thank you!
Approximate Purchase Date: ASAP
Budget Range: I really hope I can do this for under 400 per machine
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Microsoft Office (Word, Outlook, Excel), surfing the web, marking
Are you buying a monitor: No, unless there are some amazing deals out there I'm unaware of (feel free to inform me!)
Parts to Upgrade: New Build
Do you need to buy OS: Yes
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg
Location: Burbank, CA
Parts Preferences: We currently use Intel, and while I'm sure AMD would work fine, I would like to know if there is any advantage to staying and/or disadvantage to switching
Overclocking: No (maybe I will on mine though, haha)
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: Probably won't be upgrading monitors, some are 1024 on CRT others are 1280 on LCD.
Additional Comments:
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Work computers are old and slow, even at Pentium 4