Office PC - Help Appreciated :)

Associate
Joined
1 Jul 2022
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5
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UK
HI,

I as hoping for some help, we have a need to get a new desktop PC in our new office for a small e-commerce company. The PC will be used to make amendments to the website (stock levels, cosmetic changes) as well as for processing orders using Royal Mail's back end Click and Drop system. In the future it may also be required for Skype calls and some video content.

Budget is up to £400 Ex VAT and I configured the below on overclockers and appreciated your advice whether this is good value, or I should consider any alternative parts or look to buy a pre-built elsewhere?

Case - Kolink Midi Tower - Black
CPU - Intel i3 101003.6GHZ
Motherboard - Asus Prime H510M-A Micro ATX motherboard
RAM - Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 16BG (2x8GB) DDR4
Hard Drive - Kingston A400 240GB SATA 6Gb/S 2.5" Solid State Hard Drive
GPU - Palit GeForce GT 730 SILENT 2048MB DDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
PSU - Kolink Core Series 500W 80 Plus Certified Power Supply
WiFi - Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps PCI-E Adapter
Monitor - Using old one
Mouse / Keyboard - Using old ones
OS - Microsoft - have access via work


£381 EX VAT

Appreciate your thoughts and any advice! :)
 
Soldato
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why not use a micro atc case to save space?

Also a 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i3-10105 £110 as it has intergrated gpu.
300-400 watt gold rated psu to save power.

I would also consider getting a bigger ssd. Always better to hav emore storage now than have to add more later.
 
Don
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19 May 2012
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Spalding, Lincolnshire
£400 + vat, and gets you quite a bit better spec

6 Core/12 Thread i5 processor (with integrated graphics, so no need for the GT730)
Much better quality PSU with 10 year warranty
500GB NVME SSD
Better Motherboard, that also has the latest AX standard wifi (rather than an old/slow 300Mbps wifi card)
Micro ATX case with good airflow


My basket at OcUK:

Total: £479.65 (includes delivery: £11.70)​

 
Soldato
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Riding my bike
If it's a business PC, think hard about the benefits of buying from a pre-built manufacture and get some kind of onsite warranty.

Plus don't forget a decent backup solution - vital!
 
Associate
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Associate
OP
Joined
1 Jul 2022
Posts
5
Location
UK
£400 + vat, and gets you quite a bit better spec

6 Core/12 Thread i5 processor (with integrated graphics, so no need for the GT730)
Much better quality PSU with 10 year warranty
500GB NVME SSD
Better Motherboard, that also has the latest AX standard wifi (rather than an old/slow 300Mbps wifi card)
Micro ATX case with good airflow


My basket at OcUK:

Total: £479.65 (includes delivery: £11.70)​

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I am going to go for this build as the £400 EX VAT if s firm limit and I can't seem to incorporate 11th Gen and reasonable make it work.

Other than some thermal paste anything else I will need? will the stock fans on CPU and case be OK? anything I am missing? I will be building this for myself, first one in over a decade but from what I remember was fairly easy.
 
Associate
OP
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5
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UK
Oh the one other question was I plan to run two screens, will that be an issue? I was hoping to make use of the 1x HDMI port and 1 x Display Port - I have monitors that use these

1x HDMI 2.0b with HDR port, supports a maximum resolution of 4K 60Hz
1x DisplayPort 1.4 port, supports a maximum resolution of 4K 60Hz
 
Don
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Spalding, Lincolnshire
Should be fine as the motherboard has both hdmi and displayports.

You won't need thermal paste as the CPU comes with a standard heatsink with preapplied paste.

Further down the line it might be wise to fit an aftermarket CPU cooler, but the stock intel one and supplied case fans should be fine (although might be a bit noisy under full load)
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Sep 2010
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5,696
Why do people still recommend and spec up cpus which are 2 years old is beyond me. @Craig_d1 has it.. If you time it right the h610 boards go as low as 50.

Get a 12100 and a h610/b660 board for the same price or cheaper than what you're looking at with the 10400. Also zero need for 6 cores here and the 4 of the 12100 is far superior.

Even a dell inspiron 12100 pc is £440 including vat which are built for offices and will look nice in an office, feel sorry for poor Barbara from the dispatching team working next to a Kolink Citadel.
 
Don
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Spalding, Lincolnshire
Why do people still recommend and spec up cpus which are 2 years old is beyond me.
Because I'd wrongly assumed that 6 cores were still faster than 4 alderlake cores, whereas having checked it looks like the 12100 is a little quicker than the 10400 in most usage.


That case is frankly horrible with too many compromises for a normal pc, and you're missing a WiFi card.

The board I picked also had 2.5Gb Lan which may also be relevant e.g. for faster backup to a nas etc.
 
Soldato
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5,696
Because I'd wrongly assumed that 6 cores were still faster than 4 alderlake cores, whereas having checked it looks like the 12100 is a little quicker than the 10400 in most usage.



That case is frankly horrible with too many compromises for a normal pc, and you're missing a WiFi card.

The board I picked also had 2.5Gb Lan which may also be relevant e.g. for faster backup to a nas etc.
Agree there are far better cases out there, was just the quickest thing I could find :p

No point in doing a custom build imo with pre built office pcs available for this exact purpose, mini pc etc.

Would agree a 2.5gbe would be good for that use case, but with op needing a WiFi card, doesn't sound like there is much is the way of cabling.
 
Associate
Joined
12 Apr 2020
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1,940
What about below...the mobo is best budget board you can get just about. Overkill but has 2.5gbs and wireless and can get for £139.99(saving £10), or if you want to get everything here there's the Gigabyte B660M DS3H AX DDR4 which you can get for £130 here(on order), but available away for £120 (saving £30)

just added a case that didn't look too offensive, had a fan in it and seems to have a bit of airflow

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £484.94 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 
Associate
OP
Joined
1 Jul 2022
Posts
5
Location
UK
Why do people still recommend and spec up cpus which are 2 years old is beyond me. @Craig_d1 has it.. If you time it right the h610 boards go as low as 50.

Get a 12100 and a h610/b660 board for the same price or cheaper than what you're looking at with the 10400. Also zero need for 6 cores here and the 4 of the 12100 is far superior.

Even a dell inspiron 12100 pc is £440 including vat which are built for offices and will look nice in an office, feel sorry for poor Barbara from the dispatching team working next to a Kolink Citadel.
thanks. You got me thinking as hadn't checked ***elsewhere***

I found this costing £415 EX VAT which considering it comes with Windows 11, is built for me and will have some kind of warranty I'm thinking is probably the best bet?

i5-12400
8GB DDR4 RAM
512GB SSD
ntel® Wi-Fi 6 2x2 (Gig+) and Bluetooth
HDMI and Display Port for my two monitors requirement

Seems like a winner??
 
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Soldato
Joined
29 Sep 2010
Posts
5,696
thanks. You got me thinking as hadn't checked ***elsewhere***

I found this costing £415 EX VAT which considering it comes with Windows 11, is built for me and will have some kind of warranty I'm thinking is probably the best bet?

*** link removed ***

i5-12400
8GB DDR4 RAM
512GB SSD
ntel® Wi-Fi 6 2x2 (Gig+) and Bluetooth
HDMI and Display Port for my two monitors requirement

Seems like a winner??
Yep will be a nice machine, no building needed, one point of failure for warranty purposes, 8gb of ram be plenty for what it's being used for, worst case could add another 8gb stick if it was ever needed. (Could also go for the 12100 option to save cost, probably same real world performance for the tasks required, but the 12400 is a really good cpu if you ever needed more power)
 
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Man of Honour
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West Side
thanks. You got me thinking as hadn't checked Dell direct (had looked at Currys, PC Specialist, OCUK, etc)

I found this costing £415 EX VAT which considering it comes with Windows 11, is built for me and will have some kind of warranty I'm thinking is probably the best bet?



i5-12400
8GB DDR4 RAM
512GB SSD
ntel® Wi-Fi 6 2x2 (Gig+) and Bluetooth
HDMI and Display Port for my two monitors requirement

Seems like a winner??
You will need to remove the link to competitors its against the forum rules, tx.
 
Associate
Joined
12 Apr 2020
Posts
1,940
Dell just about ok imo... 1yr hardware warranty only (no software warranty/help but price doesn't include it anyway, so at least you don't get their bloatware), so not exactly much to write home about there. 1stick of ram rather than 2, the psu say bronze 180,240 or 300w so which is it? and who knows on the motherboard..is it a proprietary non conformist one..and what ssd are they using

But it does come prebuilt, is easy, just plug in, load win and off you go.


But, just thought I'd see if could do build for £500 dell price with 12400.
put 2 in, one with a bronze psu (but 3 yrs warranty), so could in theory get a better case if you want or save cash, and then below that same with the phanteks gold 10yrs warranty psu, which is prob overkill but should outlast your pc.

Upside, can actually do for roughly the same, you get 16gb ram(2 sticks, not just 1), and you know all the components. downside, you have to build it. Both require you to load windows though and you'll have longer warranties (3 years on most, ram lifetime, psu depends which one) with the hardware below, but you'll have to send it off



My basket at OcUK:

Total: £481.86 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £511.86 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 
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