Pre-built suggestions for work

[ijb1989]

Afternoon folks,

My business partner's PC is absolutely knackered (it wasn't much use to begin with in my opinion!) and i've talked him into lumping some money in something a bit better.

He's already got a 49" curved LED monitor (I think it's the electriQ 49" IPS 5K DQHD 144Hz 1ms Super UltraWide Curved Gaming Monitor) and has mouse & keyboard, webcam & headset so just needs the tower (or laptop if someone suggests running a laptop would work better/more cost effective?)

His current tower is an Optiplex 7010 with i5 3570 3.4GHZ (4core) and 8gb of ram.

He has multiple instances of chrome and/or edge open with multiple tabs each (don't ask - drives me mad), and will also use Acrobat, Word, Outlook, Excel & Whatsapp Web all simultaneously. PC gets powered down once per week on a Friday, and we have ESET encryption software running in the background too. His machine is very slow when operating at load now having filled his 180gb SSD drive, and much of what his machine holds requires retention. I've toyed with the idea of installing another drive for him, and maybe some RAM but I think the machine itself is just a bit naff so would be more sense in a complete upgrade. I've only build gaming machines in the past, so am completely out of my depth - any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[Tetras]

Both Intel and AMD 7000/9000 PCs come with integrated graphics (except -F) models and pretty much anything will be an upgrade on the i5-3570.

The minimum I'd go for is a 12400/14400, but better if Intel would be Core Ultra like 245K.

If AMD, there used to be a lot of pre-built 4650 and 5600G PCs, not sure if that's the case now. Since the IGP in those models is very dated, I'd definitely prefer 8500G/8600G, or just the basic IGP in the 7000/9000 CPUs.

There's a review of the 8500G here:

AMD Ryzen 5 8500G Review - Zen 4 + Zen 4c Tested

The AMD Ryzen 5 8500G is a highly affordable Socket AM5 processor. It features the Phoenix 2 core, which combines the Zen 4 and Zen 4c architecture, for improved energy efficiency. In our review we test gaming performance with both integrated graphics and a discrete graphics card.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[ijb1989]

Both Intel and AMD 7000/9000 PCs come with integrated graphics (except -F) models and pretty much anything will be an upgrade on the i5-3570.

The minimum I'd go for is a 12400/14400, but better if Intel would be Core Ultra like 245K.

If AMD, there used to be a lot of pre-built 4650 and 5600G PCs, not sure if that's the case now. Since the IGP in those models is very dated, I'd definitely prefer 8500G/8600G, or just the basic IGP in the 7000/9000 CPUs.

There's a review of the 8500G here:

AMD Ryzen 5 8500G Review - Zen 4 + Zen 4c Tested

The AMD Ryzen 5 8500G is a highly affordable Socket AM5 processor. It features the Phoenix 2 core, which combines the Zen 4 and Zen 4c architecture, for improved energy efficiency. In our review we test gaming performance with both integrated graphics and a discrete graphics card.

www.techpowerup.com

Lovely - thankyou!

I just saw this at £750 - you think that would be a fairly noticeable upgrade?

Windows 11 Home (64-bit Edition)
AMD Ryzen™ 5 8400F
GeForce RTX™ 3050 6GB
32GB DDR5 Kingston Fury Beast
MSI Pro A620M-E mATX Motherboard
1TB WD Green SN3000 NVMe PCIe SSD

 

[Tetras]

I just saw this at £750 - you think that would be a fairly noticeable upgrade?

Yes, but I wouldn't recommend it, because a 3050 6GB is about £150 and they won't get any benefit from having that card over the integrated graphics (though the 8400F doesn't have any).

Edit: also important to note that the integrated graphics on many motherboards don't have a spec that matches the monitor.

 

[Fluffybob]

Just have a look at what Dell, HP, Lenovo etc offer look at 32gb ram and you should be fine.

 

[jigger]

Minisforum have some bonkers deals at the moment. If the machine has a significant amount of up time I’d definitely lean towards something with a reasonably recent AMD APU.