I3-7100 vs R3-1200?

[beany_bot]

I'm building an office build for a staff member. I3 or Ryzen 3? They are about the same price of £100

 

[gavinh87]

For an office build I'd say the quad would be better overall. Are we talking excel and the usual stuff?

 

[beany_bot]

Yes she's an accountant so mainly Excel. Some fairly big Excel.
I just realised that Ryzen is a true 4 core whereas the i3 is a hyperthreaded dual core. So a no brainier I guess.

 

[beany_bot]

Oh, and this might be a total noob question but Ryzen being a "CPU" and not an "APU" I still assume I don't need a GPU for this build to function? Ryzen still has some basic onboard graphics yeah?

 

[Hagar]

No, you would need a basic graphics card £30-40 for the Ryzen.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x MSI GeForce GT 710 SILENT "Low Profile" 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £29.99

Total: £37.38
(includes shipping: £7.39)



​

 

[voidshatter]

Ask her to show some time-consuming operations in Excel, and check task manager how many CPU cores it uses. I bet most of the time it's single-threaded. In such case, go for the i3 with higher frequency, as well as a free integrated GPU.

 

[beany_bot]

Ask her to show some time-consuming operations in Excel, and check task manager how many CPU cores it uses. I bet most of the time it's single-threaded. In such case, go for the i3 with higher frequency, as well as a free integrated GPU.

She hasn't started yet. This will be for her arrival. I think you might be right, what with having to buy a GPU too... Shame, I was slightly excited about buying Ryzen.

 

[gavinh87]

Yeah the GPU might be the winning factor here.

 

[beany_bot]

I posted this in General Hardware but will post here too. How does this look? Can it be made any cheaper?

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Corsair Value Select 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Single Channel Module (CMV8GX4M1A2400C16)= £63.98
• 1 x Aerocool CS-1101 Midi Tower Case - Black= £21.95
• 1 x EVGA 430W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0430-K3)= £38.99
• 1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/= £56.99
• 1 x Intel Core i3-7100 3.90GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £109.99
• 1 x Asus H110M-K Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £47.99

Total: £339.89
(includes shipping: £0.00)



​

 

[voidshatter]

I just made an attempt and ended up more expensive lol

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Asus H110I Plus Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ITX Motherboard= £64.99
• 1 x Lian-Li PC-Q20W Mini-ITX Cube - White= £59.99
• 1 x Kolink KL-SFX250 250W 80 Plus Bronze Efficient SFX Power Supply= £29.99
• 1 x Intel Core i3-7100 3.90GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £109.99
• 1 x Noctua NH-L9i CPU Cooler Low Profile - 92mm= £34.99
• 1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/= £56.99
• 1 x Corsair Value Select 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Single Channel Module (CMV8GX4M1A2400C16)= £63.98

Total: £432.62
(includes shipping: £11.70)



​

 

[beany_bot]

I just made an attempt and ended up more expensive lol

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Asus H110I Plus Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ITX Motherboard= £64.99
• 1 x Lian-Li PC-Q20W Mini-ITX Cube - White= £59.99
• 1 x Kolink KL-SFX250 250W 80 Plus Bronze Efficient SFX Power Supply= £29.99
• 1 x Intel Core i3-7100 3.90GHz (Kaby Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £109.99
• 1 x Noctua NH-L9i CPU Cooler Low Profile - 92mm= £34.99
• 1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/= £56.99
• 1 x Corsair Value Select 8GB (1x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Single Channel Module (CMV8GX4M1A2400C16)= £63.98

Total: £432.62
(includes shipping: £11.70)



​

She defo isnt getting a Noctua cooler and a "fancy" case lol. Also I don't trust non-name PSUs

 

[voidshatter]

Yeah... I built an ITX before (Intel i7-7700T 35W TDP) and was thinking about a similar approach but didn't realise that budget can be exceeded so easily...

 

[eddyr]

You can save ~£23 with a G4600. Still 2c/4t but at 3.6GHz. You lose 300MHz, AVX and 1MB of cache down to 3MB.

 

[DragonQ]

You can save ~£23 with a G4600. Still 2c/4t but at 3.6GHz. You lose 300MHz, AVX and 1MB of cache down to 3MB.

Better yet a G4560 if you can find any stock.

 

[Terrorfirmer]

Yeah I think Intel makes most sense here due to the integrated GPU. Like realistically we're talking about spreadsheets.....even a G4560 could be overkill, but I don't think a Kabylake i3 is needed.

Kolink PSU's are relatively OK for their price.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get a G4560 and be done with it. Also at £100,I would rather get a Ryzen 3 1200 and even a secondhand HD6450 or GT710 for a few quid than a Core i3.

 

[eddyr]

They are still available! Some reason I was under the impression they were EOL. If they are, def go with the G4560. Will bring your build to ~£290.

 

[Little*Freak]

Hiya, for Office work i'd get a very good silent PSU !

The EVGA 430W that my Brother has is super noisy for about 20 minutes after start up, very distracting if you are trying to work.

Suggest asking in PSU section for a good recommendation.

 

[Journey]

Alternatively, buy a 2 year old Dell/HP SFF system from an auction or clearance site for about £120. I just got 3x Dell Optiplex systems with i5 3470, 8GB RAM, 320GB hard drives for £89 each, the HDD's have been replaced with SSD's and they also had legit OS, Windows 7, with upgrades to Windows 10. Oh, they are pretty much silent too, so bonus.

 

[muon]

Seeing how long office PCs get used for (I bet 5+ years), I'd go 4C/8T at a minimum. Also plenty of memory.

Yes it is better to buy cheaper systems more frequently, but it never works out that way.

It's not a major expense in the grand scheme of things compared to salaries and you won't get a frustrated employee.