While most of the computer building community is mostly by gamers, most people also are looking for a decent but budget friendly pc that they can build themselves that can just do the job well. This guide is made for newbie PC builders that need a simple but powerful office or light workstation computer that is easy to build.
This is a long tutorial, so sit back and relax.
Steps we'll cover:
1. Hardware
2. Builds
3. Upgrades & Extras
1. HARDWARE
There are literally dozens of parts that you can choose from which can make it quiet overwhelming when choosing your parts. Ill show you what to look for and what parts are best.
CPUs: In general, a office pc's most expensive part should be the CPU (besides the RAM, we'll get into that later). This is because the CPU is the most important part of the computer, handling all the programs and software you will be using.
Intel: I highly recommend intel cpu's for office/workstation builds since they offer excellent CPU performance, but they also have a excellent amount of energy efficiency and reasonably good graphics for multi monitor configurations. The Intel Pentium and Celeron line's are perfect for this, giving you a good amount of muscle for your money.
"Which one do I choose?
There are a bunch of these CPUs all with different clock speeds. In general getting the fastest (highest Ghz) CPU is not the best for you. Since these clock speeds are very minimal, they will offer you hardly any performance boosts with simple office day tasks. Your best option for your budget is to buy the cheapest.
Here are a few that I recommend:
Celeron G1820: Great performance, for a great price. You can't beat it.
Pentium G3258 (You tech guys knew this was coming.
): This CPU by far is the most popular budget intel CPU on the market, and for good reason...because it's unlocked! This means that you can overclock this CPU beyond it's stock clock speed. This can be extremely helpful if you have future plans for your little and simple office pc. You could turn it into a gaming rig, if you needed to. WARNING: This is a Haswell Refresh CPU. Look at i3-4160 warning.
Pentium G3450: You might be asking, why is this CPU so expensive? Well that's because it has a feature that can actually save you money. It's memory controller natively supports RAM (or memory) beyond 1333mhz and up to 1600mhz. This is very nice if you have 1600mhz ram and you want to take full advantage of it at the flick of a switch in the bios. This will NOT be very important for a office pc since higher speed RAM isn't that beneficiary. But if you are one of those few who needs higher speed RAM then this is the cheapest intel cpu you can do that with.
Last but not least: Core i3-4130: This little monster is very fast for everyday usage and perfect for your light workstation. It has more powerful processing cores and a excellent internal graphics processing unit. Making multi monitor multitasking a breeze.
Core i3-4160: This I3 is a newer model of the i3-4130. It has a slightly faster clock rate for the same price.
WARNING: Beware, this is a Haswell Refresh CPU so make sure you do either 1, make absolutely sure your mobo supports this cpu out of the box. Or 2, update the bios to the latest to support the haswell refresh CPUs. Only problem with this is that you need a Haswell CPU (non haswell refresh) to update the BIOS, so if you don’t have one on hand then just buy the i3-4130 and save yourself a headache. ?
AMD: This company has mastered the budget computer, you get excellent performance from it's APU/CPUs and motherboards for a really good price. However, you do lack a significant amount of upgrade-ability by going with AMD.
What to look for: Look for AMD's quad core A8 and A10 APUs as well as the Athlon X4 line. All these are quad core cpu's giving it a slight advantage over intel pentium processors in cpu heavy tasks. The difference between the A series and the Athlon line is the GPU, APU's have intigrated graphics while Athlon does not (to cut back costs for peeps that use dedicated graphics cards, more on that later).
"So why no dual core from AMD?". AMD's dual core's sound very nice since it is a dual core at half the cost of similar Intel CPUs. The reason why I don't recommend these is because their cores are much weaker than intel's CPUs, making them slow and laggy for any type of multitasking.
Here are a few i recommend:
A10-7700K: While it's older brother the ...7850K packs more graphics horsepower. However the extra graphics is not needed in a kind of build like a office pc. The A10-7700K already has a graphics engine that competes with low end gaming video cards, so it has a LOT of horsepower to drive 3 monitors for daily multitasking.
Athlon X4 760K: This is an identical CPU to the a10-7850K, but has it's IGPU disabled. This processor is good if you are using a discrete graphics card if you want to play games or run 4k movies and videos smoothly.
CPU Coolers: Your stock heatsink that comes with your processor is more than adequate for regular use. However, if you plan on overclocking then that cooler will not be sufficient for cooling. If you don't desire to overclock, then skip this part.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO: One of the most popular CPU coolers on the market. It is incredibly cheap, while offering amazing cooling performance.
Corsair H60: If your looking for liquid cooling on a budget, then the H60 is for you. Reliable, compact, and good esthetics.
Motherboards: Motherboards hold and connect all your computer chips together, and again, there is a sea of motherboards that will work for you.
What to not look for: Don't consider buying intel's Hxx series or Zxx series chipset motherboards, they are designed for high end computers. They have features that will be useless for your needs, look for the H81 and B85 chipset mobos.
As for AMD, make sure you find the newer FM2+ socket motherboards, these are the latest from AMD and you can buy any the chipsets if you wish since all their mobos are incredibly cheap. I suggest the A78 or A88X.
Which form factor?
There are 3 kinds of form factors:
Micro ATX: The most popular for budget builds, the cheapest motherboards you'll find are micro atx. A good form factor for a PC that doesn't need to be very tiny, but also not too big.
Mini ITX: The most optimal for a office pc because they are very tiny, making them ideal for multi office buildings with limited desk space. However, they are the most expensive of them all.
ATX (or Standard ATX): This is the most popular out of all motherboards for all computers, it offers a great amount of expandability and functionality. I only suggest going with ATX if you need a lot of expansion cards like video cards, LAN cards, WIFI/bluetooth cards, audio cards, USB cards etc.
Now for mobo's I recommend:
AMD:
GA-F2A88XM-D3H: Good reviews, and enthusiast grade features for a small price premium.
AA-F2A88XN-WIFI: A bit expensive I know, but you get a premium motherboard in a small package.
GA-F2A88X-D3H: A excellent motherboard with tons of expansion slots.
I choose the more expensive gigabyte mobos because they had the best reviews: And that is a key part of building a system, you always want good parts that have good reviews.
GA-F2A78M-D3H
A78M-E35 FM2+
ASRock FM2A78 PRO3+
ASRock FM2A78M-ITX+
Intel:
GA-B85M-DS3H
ASRock B85 Pro4
ASRock B85M-ITX
ASUS H81M-K
Ill add more as soon as I have time.
RAM (or memory): This is where the CPU stores it's information... The only thing you really need to pay attention to is the ram capacity, everything else is not that necessary since all sticks are pretty reliable and work in 99% of all motherboards. I recommend 4GB for remote desktop or for simple web browsing/multitasking and email checking. If you want to do some serious multitasking then get 8GB, anything beyond that is overkill. Usually dual channel kit's are the cheapest and most popular, but getting a single stick will give you more future proofing. So you can add higher capacity memory sticks without replacing any. I only recommend single stick for 2 memory slot motherboards, the 4 memory slot mobo's you don't have to worry about since 4 is actually a lot for a office pc.
I recommend anything from G.Skill or Corsair Vengeance. And get whatever frequency is cheapest, you'll find that 2133mhz is cheaper than 1600mhz sometimes which i do not know why lol.
PSUs: The PSU is your computer's power plant, it powers your entire system. This part is the hardest to learn since most PSU's are actually garbage but are advertised as good and extremely high quality. Most noticeable, the Corsair CX line, very nice, but they have cheap capacitors. not good for a build with longevity in mind.
The PSU's you'll want to get is any from Seasonic and XFX, they all make great power supplies.
Wattage: You don't need anything beyond 500W, i recommend anything between the 400W and 450W line, since office pc's take hardly any power. Only buy a 500-550W psu if you plan to turn your system into a gaming system.
SeaSonic SSR-360GP 360W & SeaSonic S12II 430B 430W: These PSU’s are some of the best for office/light workstation computers, they are extremely high quality and will last your computer a very long time.
Remember, when choosing a PSU make sure you pick something of quality. Even if it’s more expensive than you would like. You want to do this because your PSU can kill your entire computer if it’s cheaply made and if you do that you’ll spend way more money replacing it than if you just got a $20 more expensive PSU.
STORAGE: Where the computer stores all your documents and programs.
Currently, there are 2 types of storage options dominating the market. The slower, but cheaper and higher capacity HDD (Hard Disk Drive), and the way faster, but more expensive SSD (Solid State Drive). If you have a system that won’t be using up a lot of storage, then a SSD is the perfect choice, it offers high speed storage and makes boot times less than 15 secconds (on most computers). But if you can’t afford a SSD but still need lots of storage, then a HDD is best. If you want the best of both worlds, then buy both.
SAMSUNG 850 EVO 120GB: One of the fastest SSD's on the market at an extremely cheap price. It's pretty much a no brainer not to buy this SSD.
Cases: There are thousands of cases you can buy, but most of the cheaper ones are garbage. They look ok, but they are made cheaply and cable management is usually a nightmare.
Here are a few I recommend:
Cooler Master N200: Great little micro atx case. It's cheap and has decent cable management.
Cooler Master Elite 130: Very cheap mini itx case, very good airflow and a decent amount of storage options.
Corsair Spec-01: Corsair's budget ATX case, well built construction, and a great case overall.
Graphics cards: These will be pretty much unnecessary since almost all CPU's come with adequate integrated graphics chips. However, if you need a workstation computer that runs lots of monitors or runs super high resolution monitor(s), then a graphics card is a must.
A few I recommend:
GeForce GT 730, 740: very low power consumption and can run up to 3 additional monitors.
GeForce GTX 750 & GTX 750 ti: Great for 4k monitors and some gaming with only a 60W TDP.
GeForce GT 640: Can drive up to 4 monitors for only $110!
MSI N750-1GD5/OC: The cheapest GTX 750 on the market, with good performance.
EVGA 01G-P4-2751-KR: Just as good as the MSI model, but a little smaller and has a DisplayPort.
ASUS GTX750-PHOC-1GD5: If you need a single slot video card, nothing beats this for the price to performance ratio.
GIGABYTE GV-N750OC-2GL: Low Profile, in case the computer case you choose cannot support high profile cards.
AMD:
R7 240, 250, 250X, and R7 260X: If you want something from AMD, then these 4 graphics cards are great for multi monitors and the lower end ones are cheaper than most comparable nvidia cards.
MSI R7 240 2GD3 : Cheap, and has both low profile and single slot capability. Great for a small computer case you want to use and still have the flexibility of running 6 monitors (with IGPU) and/or some gaming.
XFX R7-250A-ZLH4: While this card is huge, it has huge advantage in noise. It has no fan, so you will have an extremely quiet system if you choose ultra quiet case fans and this card.
XFX R7-250E-ZNP4: AMD’s newest budget card, and perfect if you can’t afford a GTX 750.
GIGABYTE GV-R726XWF2-2GD REV2: If you want an AMD card over nvidia, or can’t afford a gtx 750 ti but can get more for your money than a gtx 750, then this card fits the bill.
Ok, that's it for part 1. I'm getting close to my bed time here so forgive any run-on sentences and bad grammar. Ill fix that soon.
Ill add parts 2 and 3 tomorrow. So stay tuned.
This is a long tutorial, so sit back and relax.
Steps we'll cover:
1. Hardware
2. Builds
3. Upgrades & Extras
1. HARDWARE
There are literally dozens of parts that you can choose from which can make it quiet overwhelming when choosing your parts. Ill show you what to look for and what parts are best.
CPUs: In general, a office pc's most expensive part should be the CPU (besides the RAM, we'll get into that later). This is because the CPU is the most important part of the computer, handling all the programs and software you will be using.
Intel: I highly recommend intel cpu's for office/workstation builds since they offer excellent CPU performance, but they also have a excellent amount of energy efficiency and reasonably good graphics for multi monitor configurations. The Intel Pentium and Celeron line's are perfect for this, giving you a good amount of muscle for your money.
"Which one do I choose?
There are a bunch of these CPUs all with different clock speeds. In general getting the fastest (highest Ghz) CPU is not the best for you. Since these clock speeds are very minimal, they will offer you hardly any performance boosts with simple office day tasks. Your best option for your budget is to buy the cheapest.Here are a few that I recommend:
Celeron G1820: Great performance, for a great price. You can't beat it.
Pentium G3258 (You tech guys knew this was coming.
): This CPU by far is the most popular budget intel CPU on the market, and for good reason...because it's unlocked! This means that you can overclock this CPU beyond it's stock clock speed. This can be extremely helpful if you have future plans for your little and simple office pc. You could turn it into a gaming rig, if you needed to. WARNING: This is a Haswell Refresh CPU. Look at i3-4160 warning.Pentium G3450: You might be asking, why is this CPU so expensive? Well that's because it has a feature that can actually save you money. It's memory controller natively supports RAM (or memory) beyond 1333mhz and up to 1600mhz. This is very nice if you have 1600mhz ram and you want to take full advantage of it at the flick of a switch in the bios.
This will NOT be very important for a office pc since higher speed RAM isn't that beneficiary. But if you are one of those few who needs higher speed RAM then this is the cheapest intel cpu you can do that with.Last but not least: Core i3-4130: This little monster is very fast for everyday usage and perfect for your light workstation. It has more powerful processing cores and a excellent internal graphics processing unit. Making multi monitor multitasking a breeze.
Core i3-4160: This I3 is a newer model of the i3-4130. It has a slightly faster clock rate for the same price.
WARNING: Beware, this is a Haswell Refresh CPU so make sure you do either 1, make absolutely sure your mobo supports this cpu out of the box. Or 2, update the bios to the latest to support the haswell refresh CPUs. Only problem with this is that you need a Haswell CPU (non haswell refresh) to update the BIOS, so if you don’t have one on hand then just buy the i3-4130 and save yourself a headache. ?
AMD: This company has mastered the budget computer, you get excellent performance from it's APU/CPUs and motherboards for a really good price. However, you do lack a significant amount of upgrade-ability by going with AMD.
What to look for: Look for AMD's quad core A8 and A10 APUs as well as the Athlon X4 line. All these are quad core cpu's giving it a slight advantage over intel pentium processors in cpu heavy tasks. The difference between the A series and the Athlon line is the GPU, APU's have intigrated graphics while Athlon does not (to cut back costs for peeps that use dedicated graphics cards, more on that later).
"So why no dual core from AMD?". AMD's dual core's sound very nice since it is a dual core at half the cost of similar Intel CPUs. The reason why I don't recommend these is because their cores are much weaker than intel's CPUs, making them slow and laggy for any type of multitasking.
Here are a few i recommend:
A10-7700K: While it's older brother the ...7850K packs more graphics horsepower. However the extra graphics is not needed in a kind of build like a office pc. The A10-7700K already has a graphics engine that competes with low end gaming video cards, so it has a LOT of horsepower to drive 3 monitors for daily multitasking.
Athlon X4 760K: This is an identical CPU to the a10-7850K, but has it's IGPU disabled. This processor is good if you are using a discrete graphics card if you want to play games or run 4k movies and videos smoothly.
CPU Coolers: Your stock heatsink that comes with your processor is more than adequate for regular use. However, if you plan on overclocking then that cooler will not be sufficient for cooling. If you don't desire to overclock, then skip this part.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO: One of the most popular CPU coolers on the market. It is incredibly cheap, while offering amazing cooling performance.
Corsair H60: If your looking for liquid cooling on a budget, then the H60 is for you. Reliable, compact, and good esthetics.
Motherboards: Motherboards hold and connect all your computer chips together, and again, there is a sea of motherboards that will work for you.
What to not look for: Don't consider buying intel's Hxx series or Zxx series chipset motherboards, they are designed for high end computers. They have features that will be useless for your needs, look for the H81 and B85 chipset mobos.
As for AMD, make sure you find the newer FM2+ socket motherboards, these are the latest from AMD and you can buy any the chipsets if you wish since all their mobos are incredibly cheap. I suggest the A78 or A88X.
Which form factor?
There are 3 kinds of form factors:
Micro ATX: The most popular for budget builds, the cheapest motherboards you'll find are micro atx. A good form factor for a PC that doesn't need to be very tiny, but also not too big.
Mini ITX: The most optimal for a office pc because they are very tiny, making them ideal for multi office buildings with limited desk space. However, they are the most expensive of them all.
ATX (or Standard ATX): This is the most popular out of all motherboards for all computers, it offers a great amount of expandability and functionality. I only suggest going with ATX if you need a lot of expansion cards like video cards, LAN cards, WIFI/bluetooth cards, audio cards, USB cards etc.
Now for mobo's I recommend:
AMD:
GA-F2A88XM-D3H: Good reviews, and enthusiast grade features for a small price premium.
AA-F2A88XN-WIFI: A bit expensive I know, but you get a premium motherboard in a small package.
GA-F2A88X-D3H: A excellent motherboard with tons of expansion slots.
I choose the more expensive gigabyte mobos because they had the best reviews: And that is a key part of building a system, you always want good parts that have good reviews.
GA-F2A78M-D3H
A78M-E35 FM2+
ASRock FM2A78 PRO3+
ASRock FM2A78M-ITX+
Intel:
GA-B85M-DS3H
ASRock B85 Pro4
ASRock B85M-ITX
ASUS H81M-K
Ill add more as soon as I have time.
RAM (or memory): This is where the CPU stores it's information... The only thing you really need to pay attention to is the ram capacity, everything else is not that necessary since all sticks are pretty reliable and work in 99% of all motherboards. I recommend 4GB for remote desktop or for simple web browsing/multitasking and email checking. If you want to do some serious multitasking then get 8GB, anything beyond that is overkill. Usually dual channel kit's are the cheapest and most popular, but getting a single stick will give you more future proofing. So you can add higher capacity memory sticks without replacing any. I only recommend single stick for 2 memory slot motherboards, the 4 memory slot mobo's you don't have to worry about since 4 is actually a lot for a office pc.
I recommend anything from G.Skill or Corsair Vengeance. And get whatever frequency is cheapest, you'll find that 2133mhz is cheaper than 1600mhz sometimes which i do not know why lol.
PSUs: The PSU is your computer's power plant, it powers your entire system. This part is the hardest to learn since most PSU's are actually garbage but are advertised as good and extremely high quality. Most noticeable, the Corsair CX line, very nice, but they have cheap capacitors. not good for a build with longevity in mind.
The PSU's you'll want to get is any from Seasonic and XFX, they all make great power supplies.
Wattage: You don't need anything beyond 500W, i recommend anything between the 400W and 450W line, since office pc's take hardly any power. Only buy a 500-550W psu if you plan to turn your system into a gaming system.
SeaSonic SSR-360GP 360W & SeaSonic S12II 430B 430W: These PSU’s are some of the best for office/light workstation computers, they are extremely high quality and will last your computer a very long time.
Remember, when choosing a PSU make sure you pick something of quality. Even if it’s more expensive than you would like. You want to do this because your PSU can kill your entire computer if it’s cheaply made and if you do that you’ll spend way more money replacing it than if you just got a $20 more expensive PSU.
STORAGE: Where the computer stores all your documents and programs.
Currently, there are 2 types of storage options dominating the market. The slower, but cheaper and higher capacity HDD (Hard Disk Drive), and the way faster, but more expensive SSD (Solid State Drive). If you have a system that won’t be using up a lot of storage, then a SSD is the perfect choice, it offers high speed storage and makes boot times less than 15 secconds (on most computers). But if you can’t afford a SSD but still need lots of storage, then a HDD is best. If you want the best of both worlds, then buy both.
SAMSUNG 850 EVO 120GB: One of the fastest SSD's on the market at an extremely cheap price. It's pretty much a no brainer not to buy this SSD.
Cases: There are thousands of cases you can buy, but most of the cheaper ones are garbage. They look ok, but they are made cheaply and cable management is usually a nightmare.
Here are a few I recommend:
Cooler Master N200: Great little micro atx case. It's cheap and has decent cable management.
Cooler Master Elite 130: Very cheap mini itx case, very good airflow and a decent amount of storage options.
Corsair Spec-01: Corsair's budget ATX case, well built construction, and a great case overall.
Graphics cards: These will be pretty much unnecessary since almost all CPU's come with adequate integrated graphics chips. However, if you need a workstation computer that runs lots of monitors or runs super high resolution monitor(s), then a graphics card is a must.
A few I recommend:
GeForce GT 730, 740: very low power consumption and can run up to 3 additional monitors.
GeForce GTX 750 & GTX 750 ti: Great for 4k monitors and some gaming with only a 60W TDP.
GeForce GT 640: Can drive up to 4 monitors for only $110!
MSI N750-1GD5/OC: The cheapest GTX 750 on the market, with good performance.
EVGA 01G-P4-2751-KR: Just as good as the MSI model, but a little smaller and has a DisplayPort.
ASUS GTX750-PHOC-1GD5: If you need a single slot video card, nothing beats this for the price to performance ratio.
GIGABYTE GV-N750OC-2GL: Low Profile, in case the computer case you choose cannot support high profile cards.
AMD:
R7 240, 250, 250X, and R7 260X: If you want something from AMD, then these 4 graphics cards are great for multi monitors and the lower end ones are cheaper than most comparable nvidia cards.
MSI R7 240 2GD3 : Cheap, and has both low profile and single slot capability. Great for a small computer case you want to use and still have the flexibility of running 6 monitors (with IGPU) and/or some gaming.
XFX R7-250A-ZLH4: While this card is huge, it has huge advantage in noise. It has no fan, so you will have an extremely quiet system if you choose ultra quiet case fans and this card.
XFX R7-250E-ZNP4: AMD’s newest budget card, and perfect if you can’t afford a GTX 750.
GIGABYTE GV-R726XWF2-2GD REV2: If you want an AMD card over nvidia, or can’t afford a gtx 750 ti but can get more for your money than a gtx 750, then this card fits the bill.
Ok, that's it for part 1. I'm getting close to my bed time here so forgive any run-on sentences and bad grammar. Ill fix that soon.
Ill add parts 2 and 3 tomorrow. So stay tuned.
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