Buying work desktop for my wife

[strumpusplunket]

My wife has some money set aside to buy a desktop PC for our home office to replace her aging and constantly overheating Acer laptop.

She originally wanted an iMac because they look nice and she'd heard they're easy to use. However, as I do all the tech support for her and I know nothing about MacOS I was a bit wary - and also a bit horrified at the price for the specs of what you get.

She has now said she thinks a PC might be a better idea (though I can tell she a little bit disappointed). She does have an iPhone and iPad if that would make the Mac make more sense, but they still seem overpriced to me and I dread having to sort out any computing problems with a Mac.

The budget could potentially go up to £1000, but there are a few other things we'd like to get with that too so if it could come in lower that would be helpful (I was guestimating £500-600 for a system). We have a spare monitor, but would need everything else. Small form factor would be a bonus, and if it's a PC it would also be a plus if it's aesthetically pleasing.

Any opinions here on the best thing to get?

 

[Cyanide]

TBH if it's just for office work and it's replacing a laptop you probably don't need an i5, the H80 or the graphics card. Case is pretty though

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5 - Devil's Canyon i5 4690K CPU & Micro ATX Motherboard Bundle **£10 Saving** £289.98
1 x Zotac GeForce GTX 950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (ZT-90601-10L) £128.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017) £85.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060007-WW) £66.95
1 x BitFenix Phenom MATX Cube Case - Arctic White £64.99
1 x SuperFlower FX 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £44.99
1 x Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003) (1 Year Warranty) £34.99
Total : £766.87 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

 

[Deathjester]

Do you want to build it yourself? or buy something "off the shelf"?

 

[WJA96]

iMac running Windows on Bootcamp - best of all worlds.

Apple is very pricey, but it's lovely kit and it does what it says on the tin.

Plus, it really holds it's value so you can sell it at 3 years old and still get decent money back.

 

[strumpusplunket]

TBH if it's just for office work and it's replacing a laptop you probably don't need an i5, the H80 or the graphics card. Case is pretty though

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5 - Devil's Canyon i5 4690K CPU & Micro ATX Motherboard Bundle **£10 Saving** £289.98
1 x Zotac GeForce GTX 950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (ZT-90601-10L) £128.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017) £85.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060007-WW) £66.95
1 x BitFenix Phenom MATX Cube Case - Arctic White £64.99
1 x SuperFlower FX 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £44.99
1 x Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003) (1 Year Warranty) £34.99
Total : £766.87 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

Looks nice, but probably way overpowered for what we need as you say. Case is pretty, though.

Do you want to build it yourself? or buy something "off the shelf"?

Open to either. I usually build PCs myself, whether for myself or family/friends, but I don't usually consider SFF or have aesthetics as a priority so a bit out of touch on those scores. Also, I'm vaguely there are some nice SFF off-the-shelf PCs - NUCs, those little slim ones (Asus, Acer?), but again don't know this market well.

iMac running Windows on Bootcamp - best of all worlds.

Apple is very pricey, but it's lovely kit and it does what it says on the tin.

Plus, it really holds it's value so you can sell it at 3 years old and still get decent money back.

That's a thought. Is that then like a normal Windows machine? Whilst it would help my tech support concerns, that might counteract the attractions of having MacOS (or whatever it's called these days) and integrating with iPads/phones?

My wife does really like the look of the iMac, but it's like £900 for a low-clock dual-core i5 and 500GB mechanical HDD! Sooo pricey!

 

[WJA96]

Is that then like a normal Windows machine? Whilst it would help my tech support concerns, that might counteract the attractions of having MacOS (or whatever it's called these days) and integrating with iPads/phones?

My wife does really like the look of the iMac, but it's like £900 for a low-clock dual-core i5 and 500GB mechanical HDD! Sooo pricey!

Yes, it just boots straight into Windows and it runs all the drivers natively as any other Intel PC would. The integration with iPads/iPhones is the same in Windows as it is in OSX so no issue there really.

I run all my Apple kit through Bootcamp - it works very well. Possibly not as lightning fast as OSX runs but it's still very good.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Hmm. Interesting. I did not know you could do that. Ta for the info.

 

[Danny75]

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 950 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £128.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £104.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017) £85.99
1 x Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU) £85.99
1 x MSI H97I AC Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM001) £59.99
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Mini-ITX Chassis with Window - White £54.95
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FWK2/8) £43.99
1 x SuperFlower FX 450W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £42.95
1 x Phanteks PH-TC12LS 120mm CPU Cooler £29.99
1 x NZXT HUE RGB LED Controller - Black £24.95
1 x Phanteks PH-F140SP 140mm Fan - Black / White £12.95
1 x Silverstone Cable Extension Value Bundle - White £10.80
- 1 x No Second VGA Cable Required £0.00
- 1 x Silverstone 6-pin 25cm PCIe extension - White £4.26
- 1 x No Molex to SATA Adapter Required £0.00
2 x BitFenix Alchemy SATA 6GB/s braided cable 30cm - White £5.99 (£11.98)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Molex to 3pin x3 Fan adaptor 12V 20cm - White £4.99
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Internal Audio Extension Adaptor 30cm - White £4.49
4 x BitFenix Alchemy 2pin I/O extension 30cm - White £3.95 (£15.80)
Total : £808.02 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).



Hue lighting module can be set to favourite mode/colour and tucked away in PSU compartment as no optical bays on case.


And without all the fluff:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 950 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £128.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £104.99
1 x Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU) £85.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017) £85.99
1 x MSI H97I AC Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM001) £59.99
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Mini-ITX Chassis with Window - White £54.95
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FWK2/8) £43.99
1 x SuperFlower FX 450W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £42.95
1 x Phanteks PH-F140SP 140mm Fan - Black / White £12.95
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Molex to 3pin x3 Fan adaptor 12V 20cm - White £4.99
Total : £705.77 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).





May not even need a video card if she won't play any games at all and her work won't benefit from one.


i7-K + 16GB RAM + fluff for the full £1000, just for comparison:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £269.99
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 950 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £128.99
1 x Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU) £85.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury White 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C10FWK2/16) £85.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017) £85.99
1 x MSI H97I AC Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM001) £59.99
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Mini-ITX Chassis with Window - White £54.95
1 x SuperFlower FX 450W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £42.95
1 x Phanteks PH-TC12LS 120mm CPU Cooler £29.99
1 x NZXT HUE RGB LED Controller - Black £24.95
1 x Phanteks PH-F140SP 140mm Fan - Black / White £12.95
1 x Silverstone Cable Extension Value Bundle - White £10.80
- 1 x Silverstone 6-pin 25cm PCIe extension - White £4.26
- 1 x No Molex to SATA Adapter Required £0.00
- 1 x No Second VGA Cable Required £0.00
2 x BitFenix Alchemy SATA 6GB/s braided cable 30cm - White £5.99 (£11.98)
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Molex to 3pin x3 Fan adaptor 12V 20cm - White £4.99
1 x BitFenix Alchemy Internal Audio Extension Adaptor 30cm - White £4.49
4 x BitFenix Alchemy 2pin I/O extension 30cm - White £3.95 (£15.80)
Total : £1,015.02 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

 

[UTmaniac]

Intel Stick with a wireless keyboard and mouse, plus a suitable monitor/tv to plus into?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-010-IN

 

[strumpusplunket]

YOUR BASKET
*snip*

No, definitely won't need a video card, or so much storage.

I like the look of these cases I'm seeing linked, but I was hoping for even smaller if possible. Are there any decent flat cases that could sit under a monitor? Again, this is something I've never shopped for so no idea what's actually good quality and value in this bracket.

I was also thinking of trimming the budget by going for something like a mid-range Kaveri. Although that i3 isn't a bad price either.

I want it to be nippy to use for work, but it won't actually be doing anything more than word processing, the odd spreadsheet, web browsing and perhaps a bit of website development further down the line.

Something like 8GB RAM, a £60-70 Kaveri with a 120GB SSD, 1TB mechanical HDD in a nice-looking flat desktop case and a quiet (preferably near-silent) cooler would probably be ideal if we don't end up gong the Mac route. Would that be about right? Any reason to prefer a different CPU for general office tasks? No idea on the case at all.

Intel Stick with a wireless keyboard and mouse, plus a suitable monitor/tv to plus into?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-010-IN

Wow, that is quite a device. I'd forgotten about those. Surely it would be a bit on the slow side in general use though? (Only guessing here, having never used one).

 

[lude1962]

800 G1 Desktop Mini PC

 

[strumpusplunket]

800 G1 Desktop Mini PC

That would be just the thing! Only drawbacks are the price and lack of HDMI, but otherwise that would be great.

Oh, I'd also need a mouse and keyboard. Basic, functional but comfortable ones would be good. Obviously no need for fancy super high DPI, macro keys, etc.

Any recommendations for cheap-ish mice and keyboards that are generally comfortable to use and relatively durable?

After a lot of Googling around, I've finally found a decent flat case (had no idea you had to look at HTPC cases just to find one that lies flat...) in the Silverstone Grandia looks good for around £50. Any better than that?

 

[Danny75]

No, definitely won't need a video card, or so much storage.

I like the look of these cases I'm seeing linked, but I was hoping for even smaller if possible. Are there any decent flat cases that could sit under a monitor? Again, this is something I've never shopped for so no idea what's actually good quality and value in this bracket.

I was also thinking of trimming the budget by going for something like a mid-range Kaveri. Although that i3 isn't a bad price either.

I want it to be nippy to use for work, but it won't actually be doing anything more than word processing, the odd spreadsheet, web browsing and perhaps a bit of website development further down the line.

Something like 8GB RAM, a £60-70 Kaveri with a 120GB SSD, 1TB mechanical HDD in a nice-looking flat desktop case and a quiet (preferably near-silent) cooler would probably be ideal if we don't end up gong the Mac route. Would that be about right? Any reason to prefer a different CPU for general office tasks? No idea on the case at all.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-4170 3.70GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £104.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017) £85.99
1 x MSI H97I AC Intel H97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Silverstone SST-RVZ01 Raven Mini-ITX - Black £66.95
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £46.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14400C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX318C9SRK2/8) £41.99
1 x Silverstone Strider SST-ST30SF SFX Series - 300 Watt '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £37.99
1 x Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003) (1 Year Warranty) £34.99
Total : £499.88 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).




YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri A8-7670K 10 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 6 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 32/64-Bit - USB Pen Drive - Retail (KW9-00017) £85.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XN-WIFI AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Silverstone SST-RVZ01 Raven Mini-ITX - Black £66.95
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £46.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £44.99
1 x Silverstone Strider SST-ST30SF SFX Series - 300 Watt '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £37.99
1 x Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003) (1 Year Warranty) £34.99
Total : £487.88 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).




YOUR BASKET
1 x Silverstone Argon SST-AR06 CPU Cooler £25.99
Total : £25.99 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).




Intel more energy efficient and faster at processing tasks. AMD better for graphics stuff.

The RAM may not run at XMP for either. You'd have to enter the frequency, or just leave it at motherboard default.

 

[Armageus]

800 G1 Desktop Mini PC

+1, we have moved to these at work, so much easier especially since they can be vesa mounted, or mounted to the underside of desks with an optional bracket.

That would be just the thing! Only drawbacks are the price and lack of HDMI, but otherwise that would be great.

Displayport to HDMI cables are available (or displayport to DVI adapter, and then DVI to HDMI Cable)

 

[strumpusplunket]

YOUR BASKET
*snip*

Thanks, they look pretty spot on.

Does the i3 actually use less energy and generate less heat than the Kaveri? I would have guessed it the other way around, but to be honest that would have been little more than basic intuition.

Are there any advantages to general computing tasks to having more cores?

And wow... RAM's come down in price since I last bought any!

Displayport to HDMI cables are available (or displayport to DVI adapter, and then DVI to HDMI Cable)

Right, that's good to know. TBH, though, much as I like the look of that form factor and the specs, it's actually more expensive than the Mac we were looking at, and one of the reasons (though not the only one) to move away from the Mac idea was the attraction of saving money.

 

[andicole0]

iMac running Windows on Bootcamp - best of all worlds.

Apple is very pricey, but it's lovely kit and it does what it says on the tin.

Plus, it really holds it's value so you can sell it at 3 years old and still get decent money back.

What Apple?

Andi.

 

[Armageus]

it's actually more expensive than the Mac we were looking at, and one of the reasons (though not the only one) to move away from the Mac idea was the attraction of saving money.

Really? - £520 ex vat or thereabouts, just need to add an SSD, so not that much more than the i3 build, and similar performance (i5-4570T 2.9GHz - Has 2 Cores/4 Threads same as the I3, but also has Turbo up to 3.6Ghz which the I3 has no turbo, so shouldn't be noticeably slower)

EDIT: The HP's also come with 3 Year warranty if that is useful to you

 

[strumpusplunket]

Really? - £520 ex vat or thereabouts, just need to add an SSD, so not that much more than the i3 build, and similar performance (i5-4570T 2.9GHz - Has 2 Cores/4 Threads same as the I3, but also has Turbo up to 3.6Ghz which the I3 has no turbo, so shouldn't be noticeably slower)

EDIT: The HP's also come with 3 Year warranty if that is useful to you

Wow, really?!

My quick search for the G1 brought up prices of £900-1000. Will have to look again. Thanks for the heads-up!

Edit: Ah right. The one I was looking at was higher specced - SSD and 8GB RAM. Seems a huge jump in price though. Would like an SSD if possible, though I guess 4GB RAM should be enough for general office computing?

 

[Idleman]

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri A8-7670K 10 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 6 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £89.99
1 x **B Grade** Lian Li PC-C60A HTPC Case - Silver £69.95
1 x Asus A88XM-PLUS AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £56.99
1 x SK Hynix 128GB SSD SH910A SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (HFS128G32MNB-2201A) £49.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £44.99
1 x SuperFlower FX 450W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £42.95
1 x Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003) £41.99
1 x Raijintek Zelos Low Profile CPU Cooler £15.95
Total : £412.79 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).



Have not included an OS, as you could probably pick up a cheap copy of Win 7/8.1 and then do the Win 10 upgrade. You could most likely save more money sourcing some of these parts from the MM.

 

[Deathjester]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel NUC NUC5i5RYK Core i5-5300U vPro "Rock Canyon" Broadwell Barebones Micro PC £319.99
1 x Samsung SM951 256GB M.2 PCI-e Gen3 8Gbps x 4 AHCI Solid State Drive (MZHPV256HDGL-00000) £139.99
1 x Corsair ValueSelect "Low Voltage" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz 204 Pin SODIMM Kit (CMSO8GX3M2C1600C11) £49.99
Total : £509.98



If you want small, compact and good looking you might as well go NUC...