New Office PC for £400

crazymilk

crazymilk

crazymilk

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Joined
21 Jun 2010
Posts
169
Hi
I have been the greenlight from my boss to build my own office/work PC rather than buying a cr4ppy off the shelf, over price tat from a local supplier.

it is just mainly for general office duties, OFFICE, and little bit of very basic photoshop/Gimp.

I have put together this, suggestions, improvements would be good. £500 budget.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4430 3.00GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £137.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-08289) £109.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Desktop Kit - (MZ-7TE120KW) £89.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G1600HC9DC01) £55.99
1 x Asus H81M-PLUS Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
1 x OcUK Value Imp MicroATX Tower Case (500w PSU) £31.99
Total : £480.44 (includes shipping : £11.25).

 
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dvd writer? Always worth a punt especially if a work pc to backup stuff on :)

TBH a good dual core cpu would be fine for an office build. Put the savings to other parts, better PSU and dvd writer for example.
 
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Crucial M550 256GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT256M550SSD1) £119.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-08289) £109.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £83.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G1600HC9DC01) £55.99
1 x Asus H81M-PLUS Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £40.99
1 x Zalman Z1 Midi-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £30.95
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 300W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £29.99
1 x LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99
Total : £501.48 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Don't think you need an i5 either really, so went for a 256GB SSD, better/nicer case and PSU. Quiet DVD drive.

Colour matching RAM to increase system performance by 25%. :p
 
subbytna said:
dvd writer? Always worth a punt especially if a work pc to backup stuff on :)

TBH a good dual core cpu would be fine for an office build. Put the savings to other parts, better PSU and dvd writer for example.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was going to suggest.

The Intel dual cores are fine for most tasks, apart from "serious" gaming and video editing etc.

Never skimp on the PSU.
 
Any customer builds I do always have a DVD writer factored in. Handy for mobo installation software when installing windows, as well as useful for playing dvds or burning dvds. Had a few customers saying that they were glad I included one after all :)
 
Here is a budget quality choice.

Seasonic Gold PSU, Kingston Memory, Western Digital Black HDD, Z87 board.

You use the SSD to enable Intel Smart Response and cache the HDD.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-08289) £109.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-HD3 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £82.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £82.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3B1K2/8GX) £65.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD5003AZEX) HDD £56.99
1 x Seasonic G series 360w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £47.99
1 x Kingston 60GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/60G) £39.95
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £29.99
1 x Samsung SH-118AB/BEBE SATA 18x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM £12.95
Total : £529.82 (includes shipping : ).

 
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I selected the Z87 as I though this chipset was the only one with Intel Smart Response. However I've just checked specs on the board you selected has it, so I stand corrected :)

Selected Kingston as I know that memory is very good and only a few pound more.
 
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Well seeing as you want to do some photo shop, a good alround build of:

Summary
  • i3-4130 (3.4Ghz)
  • GT 640 2GB
  • 8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 Ram
  • 120GB SSD
  • Windows 7 Professional
YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-08289) £109.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £82.99
1 x Gainward GeForce GT640 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £69.95
1 x SanDisk Ultra Plus 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDHP-128G-G25) £69.95
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G1600HC9DC01) £55.99
1 x Asus H81M-E Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £37.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £35.99
1 x Antec VSK4000 Midi-Tower Case - Black £27.95
Total : £500.40 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Now before anyone says anything this build will have aprox win 7 scores of:
CPU = 7.1
Ram = 7.8
Aero = 7.1
3D GFX = 7.1
Hard Drive = 7.9

I know this because I've built 1 minus the i3.

1600mhz ram is 7.6 - 7.8
that hard drive with AHCI is 7.9 score
the GT640 is 7.1
 
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Morfinel said:
Windows 7 64bit OEM for £109 is this a joke?
Click to expand...

I don't follow you?

You want to torrent it instead? MS products are expensive...and it is the pro version woot...

i wouldnt recommend the 8.1 for office use, having made 1 up, you'll have to spend along time setting up shortcuts and you should know the OS before getting it to make it easy to use if you're used to 7 and before...

Win 8 is not a great desktop OS - plus! some older office type software will have more compatibility with 7 than 8
 
Well you could use Win8.1 trial for 3 months?

Svyper1 said:
Well seeing as you want to do some photo shop, a good alround build of:

Summary
  • i3-4130 (3.4Ghz)
  • GT 640 2GB
  • 8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 Ram
  • 120GB SSD
  • Windows 7 Professional
YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-08289) £109.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £82.99
1 x Gainward GeForce GT640 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £69.95
1 x SanDisk Ultra Plus 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDHP-128G-G25) £69.95
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G1600HC9DC01) £55.99
1 x Asus H81M-E Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £37.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £35.99
1 x Antec VSK4000 Midi-Tower Case - Black £27.95
Total : £500.40 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Now before anyone says anything this build will have aprox win 7 scores of:
CPU = 7.1
Ram = 7.8
Aero = 7.1
3D GFX = 7.1
Hard Drive = 7.9

I know this because I've built 1 minus the i3.

1600mhz ram is 7.6 - 7.8
that hard drive with AHCI is 7.9 score
the GT640 is 7.1
Click to expand...

Looks quite nice actually, though WEI index scores are pretty rubbish, not updated and keeping to current tech levels.
 
Adobe has pushed more and more of the CC acceleration to OpenCL,and these run better on AMD cards - the list of certified AMD consumer cards for CS is now longer than Nvidia ones.

However,for light duties an Intel or AMD IGP should be fine.

Does the OP have a monitor - if so what size??

It might be worth putting some of the budget into a reasonably sized monitor.

What keyboard and mouse do they have??

Heck,even a decent keyboard and mouse are just as important if they intend to do a lot of typing.
 
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