$500 office desktop

TheShepherd

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Approximate Purchase Date: Black Friday

Budget Range: $500 with shipping and before rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Office work, surfing the internet

Are you buying a monitor: No

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: None

Location: Chicago, IL

Parts Preferences: None

Overclocking: No

SLI/Crossfire: No

Additional Comments: I'm building an desktop for my uncle this black friday. It's not going to be used for anything that would require a discrete graphics card. That being said, here's what I'm thinking: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mxTf



 
Solution
Micro ATX boards are smaller than ATX boards, so yes, they will fit into the case.

There will be no problem with the PSU. You'll only have problems if your PSU is not enough. I don't know where you heard that from, haha. On the contrary, getting a PSU with more than what you need gives you more room for upgrading in the future, and lower wattage power supplies are not always of the best quality. Seasonic makes good power supplies, but you really don't need a Seasonic PSU at this price point.

I stated that the i5 3570k had the Intel HD 4000, which is why I picked it over the non-overclockable 3470. The 3470 has the HD 2500. There's a $20 difference, so if you really need the integrated graphics, then go for the 3570k. Otherwise, pick...

TheShepherd

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I forgot to mention that he wants the option to run two monitors off the pc. Will the integrated graphics on the 3225 be good enough for that? And can you use the DVI and HDMI ports on the motherboard concurrently?
 

sonicers

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That build seems a little bit overpriced, and you're not getting the most out of that $500. Here's how I would build it:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mzC7
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mzC7/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mzC7/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case ($45.98 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Antec 450W ATX12V Power Supply ($35.83 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $437.76
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

This would save you money and get better performance than your current planned build. The 3570K is an overclockable processor, which I know you won't need, but it DOES have the Intel HD 4000, which will give it decent enough video performance to play back HD video.

The Antec VP-450 is one of the best power supplies for under $40

Asrock motherboards are typically of better quality

If you want USB 3.0, you could go with the Antec One case, which is $5 more and has front USB 3.0 headers.

It should be able to handle dual monitors, but just to be safe, you could go with a cheap, low end graphics card for the dual monitors.
http://www.microcenter.com/product/403020/R6670-MD1GD3_AMD_Radeon_HD_6670_1024MB_GDDR3_PCIe_30_x16_Video_Card

 

TheShepherd

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I'm not very familiar with micro ATX boards. Will that motherboard fit into the Antec 300 case? Also, won't having a 450 watt psu on a system that draws less that 200 watts of power be a problem? I was under the impression that you don't want to get a psu that vastly exceeds that amount of power you need. Finally, the i3 3225 also has Intel HD 4000. I really don't want a K moniker cpu because my uncle will not be overclocking at all. However, I have no qualms with moving up to an i5.
 

sonicers

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Micro ATX boards are smaller than ATX boards, so yes, they will fit into the case.

There will be no problem with the PSU. You'll only have problems if your PSU is not enough. I don't know where you heard that from, haha. On the contrary, getting a PSU with more than what you need gives you more room for upgrading in the future, and lower wattage power supplies are not always of the best quality. Seasonic makes good power supplies, but you really don't need a Seasonic PSU at this price point.

I stated that the i5 3570k had the Intel HD 4000, which is why I picked it over the non-overclockable 3470. The 3470 has the HD 2500. There's a $20 difference, so if you really need the integrated graphics, then go for the 3570k. Otherwise, pick up the cheap-ish GPU and a cheaper i5 3470.
 
Solution

TheShepherd

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Alright, thanks for the help.