Office PC's

Nossmayo

Nossmayo

Nossmayo

Man of Honour
Joined
1 Nov 2006
Posts
2,605
Hi,

I need to purchase a couple of pc's for general office use. Can anyone recommend one from the shop here or perhaps a list of minimum spec's I should be looking out for elsewhere.

The pc's, as said, are for general office and web browsing. If possible the pc's will also have a webcam permanently linked to each other (i dont know if that makes a difference with regard to graphics card requirements?) They are also likely to be running with dual monitors (2 x 20"-20" inch monitors).

We are currently using XP. Is it worth considering a Vista operating system and if so would a 32 or 64 system be beneficial?

To give you an idea of what we have, one of the pc's will be replacing a Dell Dimension 4550, the other is a much older machine, the spec's of which I dont have to hand at the moment.

Budget is preferably up to £500 per pc.

To clarify we just need the pc, not keyboards, speakers, monitor etc etc.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £41.99
(£49.34) £41.99
(£49.34)
Abit IP43 Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.99
(£18.79) £15.99
(£18.79)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/512M Vcool Silent 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD252HJ) £28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Sub Total : £284.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £51.60
Total : £346.48
rest of budget for case and OS
 
Hi thanks for quick reply. How does your recommendation in terms of performance compare to (say) something like this:

"Primo Pro" AMD Athlon X2 5600+ 2.80GHz SILENT DDR2 System "Primo Pro" AMD Athlon X2 5600+ 2.80GHz SILENT DDR2 System £199.99
(£234.99) £199.99
(£234.99)

Options applied to the above product:
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-Bit - OEM (66I-02059) (£72.84)

OcUK GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
(£46.99)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
(£35.24)

Sub Total : £331.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £59.83

Total : £401.74
 
beats the system you speced in terms of cpu power ,but yours has the better gpu. got 4GB of ram in mine too.

but yours will be fine for what you need
 
I presume the 8600GT 512MB considered a better graphics card than 256MB? If so do you know why its cheaper than the 256MB?

Has the pc in my post not got 4gb of ram?

Also, would you recommend Vista 32 or 64 (or stick with XP)?

Thanks again.
 
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Considering these are Office PC's I don't feel the need for descrete GPU's. I would also buy an AMD2 CPU as well.

An AMD motherboard with the AMD 690G Integrated graphics would power both of those monitors adequately.

"For 690G, the IGP was named as "Radeon X1250" operating at 400MHz IGP clock frequency, with HDMI and dual link DVI-D output with HDCP support and TMDS support for HDMI output. The chipset also support dual VGA and DVI or DVI and HDMI output simultaneously, to achieve a maximum of three monitor output, called "SurroundView", and up to four independent displays with an additional video card."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_690_chipset_series

You can pick these boards up for around £40-£50.

Then I would go for AMD x2 5200 at £50

Corsair 2GB DD2 XMS 800Mhz Ram at £30

Samsung F1 500Gb OEM SATA2 drive at £43

DVD Writer around £20

Total (Without Case or OS) = £193

There is no point in spending £500 per PC to do web browsing and office, nor would you need a discrete GPU. You can buy two very capable machines above for less than £500. Treat yourself to a £100 bonus.

CPU

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...Dual Core 5200+ 2.70GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail

RAM

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...ame=Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB)

HDD

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...nt F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ)

To be quite frank you are on the wrong forum really. The guys on here breed race horses whilst you are looking for a mule. You will end up in an argument about which is the fastest component with them. Truth be told, my old XP1800+ never really broke a sweat on Office XP or browsing the web. Any modern dual core will be more than suffecient for your needs. I would also consider going OEM as you will get after service and at this price range you probably couldn't build one yourself much cheaper.
 
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Just checked;

Pentium Dual Core (E2180) @2.0Ghz (Actually a Core 2 Duo, but don't tell anyone)
XP Pro Installed (Plus the Option to Upgrade to Vista Business - Discs Included)
1GB DDR2 Ram (Enough for XP)
250Gb Sata2 HDD
128Mb ATI 2400 GPU
DVD Drive
Case
PSU
1Yr On Site (next day) warranty
£255 excluding Vat and Delivery.
 
Olibubble said:
info
Click to expand...

Hi thanks for your reply.

My intention was to buy these PC's as complete units rather than self build. In your opinion what pc (from here) would you recommend that would most suit our requirements.

On a side note (silly question possibly?) what is the main criteria with regard to getting the best performance from webcams. We have Logitech 9000 cams. Is it the camara itself or is it internet connection speed?

EDIT: this was in response to your first (unedited) post btw!
 
Nossmayo said:
On a side note (silly question possibly?) what is the main criteria with regard to getting the best performance from webcams. We have Logitech 9000 cams. Is it the camara itself or is it internet connection speed?
Click to expand...

As with any camera, good lighting is a must, but webcam sensors are not that hot anyway (awful colour renditioning, etc). With regards to actual performance, I imagine you won't have any problems on the LAN (if all you are doing is office work), but you will be affected with regards to WAN links and network congestion.

At present there is no QOS on the internet. Net neutrality and all that.... :rolleyes:
 
Olibubble said:
re: o/s and webcams
Click to expand...


To clarify we currently only have two pc's in the office so with regard to changing o/s you would recommend that we either remain with XP (or change both to Vista).

With regard to the webcams the 2 pc's in question will shortly be in two entirely different buildings so will be connected via the internet.
 
Hi there,

I'd recommend one of the following systems from our site:

This One is a great little Core2Duo PC with great style - and even after adding your OS and Graphics, you're still within your budget. The 8600GT will run your dual screen setup no problem.

I'd always recommend Vista, but some people prefer to stick with what they know. 32bit will be fine with 2GB system memory but choose 64bit for 4GB RAM.

If you can't find exactly what you need with our pre-defined systems, make sure you checkout the PC Builder, which gives you the option to customise your PC. The Primo Pro & Edge would be a great place to start (In Value PC section) here you'll find some great CPU and graphics options, plus you can choose 4GB system memory :)

Click my signature to be taken directly to the PC Builder.
 
Nossmayo said:
To clarify we currently only have two pc's in the office so with regard to changing o/s you would recommend that we either remain with XP (or change both to Vista).

With regard to the webcams the 2 pc's in question will shortly be in two entirely different buildings so will be connected via the internet.
Click to expand...

If you are going with Vista, and there is no need not to if that will be the only platform, then I recommend at least 2Gb of RAM.

With regards to the webcams, it entirely depends on the resolution you want to use and your ISP. Of course even with the best ISP you can still be at the mercey of any internet network congestion. (blame bitorrents and email spam for that...)


Are the buildings within line of sight? If they are you can create a wireless LAN.
 
My work laptop had a 64mb 9250 in there and could power its 17" widescreen display (can't remember res) and a 20" widescreen at 1680x1050

8600gt seems overkill to me...
 
PaulyD said:
My work laptop had a 64mb 9250 in there and could power its 17" widescreen display (can't remember res) and a 20" widescreen at 1680x1050

8600gt seems overkill to me...
Click to expand...

But its the only GFX option on the quoted system. On-board won't be able to run it. You don't want to be prising the system open after buying it to fit a TP GFX card and potentially invalidating your warranty with OcUK on the system.
 
Thanks for the advice here. I need this to work with a Samsung 20" monitor (and for the moment a 15" monitor in dual screen mode) so if we need to pay an extra 30 odd quid im not too worried.

Is there any benefits/performance difference between the amd system http://www.overclockers.co.uk/syscon_int.php?prodid=FS-053-OK and the intel system? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/syscon_int.php?prodid=FS-055-OK

We already have an XP o/s from the machine it will be replacing so I don't need to purchase another. When the pc arrives will i just have to put on the o/s and away we go or are there other things i need to know about?

Thanks again.
 
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