Business/Home PC Build

mattStoor

mattStoor

mattStoor

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Joined
23 Aug 2011
Posts
167
Location
Kent
Hi all, I want to build a business/home PC for a family member. He runs lots of business applications and enjoys good quality music so I want a good balance.

The budget can range anywhere between £400-£1000 since I want to give him a couple of options to choose from.

I am unsure of which components are considered best at each price point at the moment so I am using one of OcUk's pre-builds as a starting point:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-178-OE&groupid=43&catid=2477&subcat=2496

This PC with:
- 250Gb SSD (OS and all the various apps/programs he could ever want to run)
- No anti virus needed
- A secondary 1Tb HDD for all his data'ing needs
- Standard Warranty
- 8Gb RAM
- Win 7 Pro

I have built my own PC before, so i can build the PC from scratch if I buy individual components (and I assume I can build something better for less money if I do this) however I didn't really know where to start.

All suggestions are welcome at all price levels. Personally I want to go for overkill and really impress him with how good the PC is so some high performance machines around the £800 mark would be great.

Hope you guys can help me out :)
 
Take a look at this for a base spec and change it to your needs

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £145.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £139.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £113.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 650Ti 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P4-3652-KR) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte H87-HD3 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £80.99
1 x Seasonic S12II 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £55.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £49.99
1 x Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D PCI-E Soundcard - OEM (30SB135000000) £44.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 430 Blue LED Windowed Case - Black £39.95
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £863.81 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Included an ok graphics card, sound card (because of the music need) and a better case all of these things can be down graded for cost reasons.

Hope this helps
 
How good is the graphics card that you have recommended? Is the system going to see a significant improvement in performance for having it over the mobo's built in graphics?
 
What do you want the graphics card for? Will he be gaming at all, or will it just be desktop apps, videos, etc?
 
Does he do any photo/video editing/rendering or just basic office use?
If he is not using it for BluRay playback or gaming, then the onboard graphics should suffice.
 
It's looking to me like a good quality APU system would be ideal. Nice high quality case, good sound card, good cooler and PSU to keep it silent, etc.
 
Idleman said:
Does he do any photo/video editing/rendering or just basic office use?
If he is not using it for BluRay playback or gaming, then the onboard graphics should suffice.
Click to expand...

No he doesn't do any video or photo editing, the most graphically taxing thing he will do is most likely viewing camera photos or watching a youtube video.

teppic said:
It's looking to me like a good quality APU system would be ideal. Nice high quality case, good sound card, good cooler and PSU to keep it silent, etc.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Is there a better processor that I can spend the extra money saved on the graphics card? With the SSD and a good processor I want him to have really fast boot times and a nice fast responsive OS.
 
Here you go:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £145.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £113.99
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XN-WIFI AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £86.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy 'Yang' Mini-ITX Cube Case - Black/White £69.95
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit - GREEN £59.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £54.95
1 x Creative Sound Blaster Z High Performance Gaming Sound Card - OEM (30SB150200000) £53.99
1 x Seasonic G series 360w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £48.98
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £26.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £790.75 (includes shipping : £10.00).




CPU can be overclocked somewhat for an extra bump, without any worries about overheating or stability.

Includes SATA 6 for fastest SSD performance, as well as USB 3, wi-fi, etc. The soundcard is superb (I've got this one). The system would be effectively silent, ideal for a work computer.

I've had both APU and 4770K systems and cannot tell the difference between them in general office apps or boot/application load times via an SSD.
 
Last edited:
teppic said:
Here you go:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £145.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £113.99
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XN-WIFI AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £86.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy 'Yang' Mini-ITX Cube Case - Black/White £69.95
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit - GREEN £59.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £54.95
1 x Creative Sound Blaster Z High Performance Gaming Sound Card - OEM (30SB150200000) £53.99
1 x Seasonic G series 360w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £48.98
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £26.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £790.75 (includes shipping : £10.00).




CPU can be overclocked somewhat for an extra bump, without any worries about overheating or stability.

Includes SATA 6 for fastest SSD performance, as well as USB 3, wi-fi, etc. The soundcard is superb (I've got this one). The system would be effectively silent, ideal for a work computer.

I've had both APU and 4770K systems and cannot tell the difference between them in general office apps or boot/application load times via an SSD.
Click to expand...


Why AMD over Intel? The sound card you've recommended looks good.
 
mattStoor said:
Why AMD over Intel? The sound card you've recommended looks good.
Click to expand...

As the included GPU is vastly superior, and the CPU performs better than an i3 for the same money. You could spend extra by getting an i5, but for his needs it's not necessary.
 
teppic said:
As the included GPU is vastly superior, and the CPU performs better than an i3 for the same money. You could spend extra by getting an i5, but for his needs it's not necessary.
Click to expand...

My only concern is that he has had his current PC for over 8 years and he is going to want to keep this one that length of time again. For now an i3 would be sufficient but an i5 now would save having to do an upgrade further down the line.
 
General office apps don't require much CPU power. If you'd prefer an i5 anyway, that's fine. The problem with ITX is that you cannot upgrade the poor Intel integrated graphics unless you get rid of the high quality soundcard.
 
Last edited:
As far as I know there's no difference in the specs between the two. I've got the OEM version and the quality is brilliant, I've never heard any interference. The retail one isn't a huge amount more though.
 
It is a higher spec, but nearly twice the price. If you don't want ITX, my spec isn't much use to you. I don't think that he'll gain anything noticeable from the CPU (and he'd lose out on the GPU considerably), but it's up to you.
 
teppic said:
It is a higher spec, but nearly twice the price. If you don't want ITX, my spec isn't much use to you. I don't think that he'll gain anything noticeable from the CPU (and he'd lose out on the GPU considerably), but it's up to you.
Click to expand...

My dad is very traditional when it comes to his PC's. I think he will prefer one that looks like what he is used to.

I guess if I was going to spend £180 on the processor I may as well pay the extra £10 for the overclockable version.
 
Last edited:
i5 build variation, using integrated graphics.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £191.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £145.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £113.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £104.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit - GREEN £59.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £54.95
1 x Creative Sound Blaster Z High Performance Gaming Sound Card - OEM (30SB150200000) £53.99
1 x Seasonic G series 360w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £48.98
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black £47.95
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £26.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £879.40 (includes shipping : £10.50).

 
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