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i3,i5 or AMD for a decent office pc?

Phil2008

Phil2008

Phil2008

Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2004
Posts
8,756
Im going to be building a office pc for my mate, and Im thinking a i3 with 8gb of memory? He says he's got £800 to spend on it,, but I think £800 is over the top for a office machine?
 
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A low end Llano or Intel Pentium or Celeron would do the job IMHO. Plonk in an SSD such as a Crucial M4 and it should fly along for most office tasks IMHO!!:D

Perhaps,you should look at a mini-ITX based computer or a Shuttle??
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £46.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £38.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £33.59
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £31.99
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B3ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £20.99
Total : £468.49 (includes shipping : £12.50).



--------------------------------------

Core i3

YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £97.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £76.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £38.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £33.59
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £31.99
1 x Asus 24x DVD±RW DRW-24B3ST SATA ReWriter - Black (Retail) £20.99
Total : £573.49 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
A low end Llano or Intel Pentium or Celeron would do the job IMHO. Plonk in an SSD such as a Crucial M4 and it should fly along for most office tasks IMHO!!:D

Perhaps,you should look at a mini-ITX based computer or a Shuttle??
Click to expand...

You sure a low end intel will be enough?

Yeah was thinking about a ssd, but the problem with ssd and a not to hot user, is they they will put all of there stuff on it, instead of the storage drive. Can you make windows put docs and pics in a different default location?

I never thought about a shuttle, I was thinking about buying a mini case and a m-atx/m-itx board?
 
Phil2008 said:
You sure a low end intel will be enough?

Yeah was thinking about a ssd, but the problem with ssd and a not to hot user, is they they will put all of there stuff on it, instead of the storage drive. Can you make windows put docs and pics in a different default location?

I never thought about a shuttle, I was thinking about buying a mini case and a m-atx/m-itx board?
Click to expand...

You can change the home folder locations to the DATA drive.

Yes a Pentium will be fine for a office machine.
 
Phil2008 said:
You sure a low end intel will be enough?
Click to expand...
Actually you can even go one step lower than the Pentium G620 and go for the £30~32 Celeron G530. According to review it is roughly on par with the good old Core2Duo E8400, but with even lower power consumption. Granted it won't be able to overclock like the E8400 does, but I don't think people would be overclocking the CPU for an office PC anyway.
 
If it's purely just for office work, then even the Pentium with the integrated GPU is enough. Will he be doing anything else on the PC that might be more demanding?
 
Phil2008 said:
Isn't the i3 basically is on the same level as the old Core2Duo, as the i3 is a duel core?
Click to expand...
Actually on gaming performance, the i3 2100 is even faster than the Core2Quad Q6600 overclocked to 3.6GHz, so for general task and application, it would be quite a bit faster as well (especially considering most general applications don't even use more than 2 cores). But if you were to talking about computer responsiveness rather than processing power, then there's no CPU or ram upgrade would make anywhere nearly as much as upgrading to SSD.
 
Orcvader said:
If it's purely just for office work, then even the Pentium with the integrated GPU is enough. Will he be doing anything else on the PC that might be more demanding?
Click to expand...

He says he wont be gaming, so its just for storing photos, internet and general office work.

Marine-RX179 said:
Actually on gaming performance, the i3 2100 is even faster than the Core2Quad Q6600 overclocked to 3.6GHz, so for general task and application, it would be quite a bit faster as well (especially considering most general applications don't even use more than 2 cores). But if you were to talking about computer responsiveness rather than processing power, then there's no CPU or ram upgrade would make anywhere nearly as much as upgrading to SSD.
Click to expand...

Thanks,, I might mention a SSD to him.
 
Phil2008 said:
He says he wont be gaming, so its just for storing photos, internet and general office work.
Click to expand...

If that's the case, then the i3/Pentium with an SSD will be perfect for him. So his £800 budget is a bit too much :p.

EDIT: If he fancies a bit of mini ITX:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Silverstone Sugo SG06B Mini ITX Case - Black (with 300 W PSU) £93.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £76.99
1 x Asus P8H61-I Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £65.15
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £46.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £19.99
Total : £453.07 (includes shipping : £10.00).





Not sure but I think the Sugo case needs a slimline optical?
 
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£800? :) Slight overkill me thinks unless he wants to buy a branded machine with an expensive warranty because its a businesss machine. Seems unlikely given the post is on here and that you are building it for him but you never know :)
 
Maybe AMD Llano ???
Its cheap and good for office work !!!! My mate got cheap pc with 60gb ssd for 250f on that platform !!!!
 
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