Small form-factor Office build

[gradyhawks]

Hey up,

Just looking for some advice for a small build I'm doing for an office, with the potential of getting 3-4 of them built later on if its all good. Now they will be doing just general office work, word, excel etc along side internet browsing but over 2 1080p screens. I don't need to worry about having an OS installed so don't need to factor that into the price.

Looking at cases, I think I want to go with the Li-Lan PC-Q07B Mini-ITX Case, since it looks nice, is very small and has everything I'll need (if anyone can recommend something else, please do). I'd like to go for an AMD processor, since they are cheaper but am worried about 2 things. 1st, how hot the inside of the case will get. I don't want to save money on AMD and have to spend it again on extra fans. 2nd is how loud the stock coolers are on the AMD cpus, I've heard they get really loud. Since this will be in a office, with maybe another 4 machines, I don't want it sounding like a server room!

Here is a spec up of what I've got so far:

Case
Li-Lan Mini-ITX Case - £46
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-180-LL&groupid=2362&catid=2279
CPU
AMD A6-5400K Black Edition 3.60GHz- £48
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-329-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967
Motherboard
MSI A75IA-E53 AMD A75 Motherboard - £70
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-226-MS&tool=3
PSU
Corsair Builder Series XC 430w PSU - £38
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-115-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2462
RAM
Kingston HyoperX 4gb (2x2GB) Ram - £38
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-095-KS&groupid=701&catid=8
HDD
Seagate 2Tb HDD - £66
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-255-SE
Optical
Asus DVD Drive - £20
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-056-AS&groupid=701&catid=10

Total Cost: £331

If I can, in terms of upgrades, spend a little more I was thinking of upgrading the ram to 8gb for an extra £22 or maybe getting an aftermarket fan for the CPU instead of the one that comes stock. I'd have loved to be able to throw in an SSD to make boot times nice and quick, but I don't think I have the budget for it. Max I can go is £350 I would have thought.

What is peoples opinions? Is there an intel build that can be done for the same price? Is the A6 to much for simple office work? Should I spend £20 more here and get a quad core?

Another note, will I need a graphics card to be able to duel screen? Or will the motherboard be able to do it for me.

Thanks allot,

Grady

 

[Idleman]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Antec NSK-3480 Black/Silver Micro ATX Case 0.8mm USB3.0 380W 80+ Bronze PSU £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x AMD A6-5400K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD540KOKHJBOX) £47.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £46.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £17.99
1 x LiteOn IHAS124-14 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £344.45 (includes shipping : £17.10).

 

[archer_dan]

Any particular reason you were looking at the MSI board? Swapping to a cheaper FM2 board allows you to upgrade the RAM to 8GB, and put in an A8 for Quad Core (I kept it to a 65W version to try and keep temps reasonable).

I don't know what the stock coolers are like on these, but should be enough room in your budget to swap them out if you need it.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A8-5500 3.20GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD5500OKHJBOX) £76.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Lian Li PC-Q07B Mini-ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x Asus A55BM-E AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £37.99
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 300W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £26.99
1 x LiteOn IHAS124-14 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £338.81 (includes shipping : £16.60).



This ASUS board has DVI and VGA outputs, but might be a case of finding one that matches your display inputs if they need anything fancy.

 

[Idleman]

Any particular reason you were looking at the MSI board? Swapping to a cheaper FM2 board allows you to upgrade the RAM to 8GB, and put in an A8 for Quad Core (I kept it to a 65W version to try and keep temps reasonable).

I don't know what the stock coolers are like on these, but should be enough room in your budget to swap them out if you need it.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A8-5500 3.20GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD5500OKHJBOX) £76.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Lian Li PC-Q07B Mini-ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x Asus A55BM-E AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £37.99
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 300W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £26.99
1 x LiteOn IHAS124-14 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £338.81 (includes shipping : £16.60).



This ASUS board has DVI and VGA outputs, but might be a case of finding one that matches your display inputs if they need anything fancy.

Micro ATX board in a mITX case, I think not.

 

[gradyhawks]

Thanks for the help chaps. Maybe a mix of the above two then. Going with the A6 along side the superflower PSU. Its a shame that the case needs a mini-ITX, as that adds an extra £30 or so onto the cost of a motherboard... but I do want a nice looking case since its going in a rather trendy office.

Comes in at £340 with shipping. Might be able to get a mini-ITX board for cheaper elsewhere as well. If so, I can get the A8 instead with the cash saved.

 

[JasonM]

I did a build, but it's over budget by £20 something.

It does have however 2 x digital output for monitors, Gold rated PSU and Hybrid drive. Also Haswell platform is very energy efficient.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Seagate SSHD 7200RPM 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DX001) SSHD Hybrid Drive £95.99
1 x Intel Pentium G3420 3.20GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £59.99
1 x Gigabyte B85M-HD3 Intel B85 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £57.95
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Seasonic G series 360w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Silverstone Precision PS03B Midi Tower Case - Black £37.99
1 x LiteOn IHAS124-14 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £372.89 (includes shipping : FREE).

 

[Bry]

TBH id be going for a i3 or i5 haswelll Nuc

 

[gradyhawks]

Fair enough then, I have found the G3420 Intel CPU for the same price as the A6 anyway, so will be going with that. Bench marks are better and also gives me some more options for the motherboard as well.

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[JasonM]

Just one more thing.

The 2GB drive that was specked, there are some poor reviews on this drive.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-255-SE&tool=3

I know in my spec I did a 2GB Hybrid, but really I would be temped to use a smaller drive for OS drive, in my experience smaller drives tend to be more reliable as OS drives. If it was me I would choose 500GB or 1TB hybrid for OS, then install a green drive later when you need more space for media etc. Just something to consider.

 

[gropingmantis]

TBH id be going for a i3 or i5 haswelll Nuc

Agreed. From now on any office build not using a nuc that is not aiming for total rock bottom prices is doing it wrong. An i3 nuc and 4GB RAM is easily enough for any pure office (word processing, presentation, spreadsheets, emails, web access) application.

 

[gradyhawks]

Can either of you two fine chaps recommend on then? No idea what they are like tbh, so not sure what to look for.

How would something like this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-001-GI&groupid=43&catid=2502&subcat=2625

Compare with the above build (comes in at a similar price when the RAM and Storage are added in), how does it manage? On paper it looks like the only advantage of the thing is the size.

EDIT: I assume when you say NUC, you mean the above thing right?

 

[Bry]

The brix is gigabyte and the nuc is Intel
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-007-IN

Both are very similar just aim for a haswell version.

U do need low voltage ram 1.35v laptop style if I remember correctly.

Advantages is the size so small they can fit behind a monitor.
They are also incredibly low powered so should save on running costs.

 

[JasonM]

The brix make a lot of sense for certain situations, however looking at it's spec it only has 2 USB connections. You will also need a SSD for the mSATA connection, and you can't fit a HDD.

If your going tiny form factor there is this Haswell one here from Intel. This at least has more USB's so you can connect an external HDD for media files etc. I do think these Mini PC's make a lot of sense for offices where desk space is tight and users are only running basic office apps etc.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-007-IN&groupid=43&catid=2502&subcat=2509

Downside with these compact CPU's is they don't run as fast as regular desktop CPU's, the following is the passmark for the above.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-4010U+@+1.70GHz&id=2012


If you can I would build something like I have specked, this gives options in future to upgrade to a better desktop CPU. If budget is tight I would choose a smaller HDD as boot drive, then fit a green drive after as I mentioned in the other post.

 

[gropingmantis]

Yeah thats the one thing to be careful of with them. DDR3L 1.35V SO-DIMM RAM. OcUK dont seem to have any in stock.

regarding Brix vs NUC, the Brix tends to be a little more expensive but has a wider range of processors, including AMD.

Of course youre limited to mSATA HDDs. Not an issue if the business uses cloud or network storage but something to consider. In your price range you might be able to squeeze for a 120GB. If you had a much bigger budget you could go for a 1TB
If you aren't pressed for time you could wait for the new NUCs that have space for a 2.5" drive as well.

Concerning the speed thing mentioned above, it really is a non issue for pure office applications. Although I do run Linux on mine, I use it every day for office/programming/video/web and have noticed literally no difference in speed for those applications between the NUC and my gaming rig.

 

[JasonM]

18 months ago I specked an pre built OCUK machine based around this Antec case below. The case could take 2 x 2.5" HDD's and connected to the rear of the monitor on monitors VESA connections - very neat looking and hidden away. Something like these could be a possible option, but OCUK don't appear to be building these any more and only selling the case separate.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-002-AN

 

[gropingmantis]

^^Agreed. That is the way to go if the NUC is to pricey/not enough storage.

IMO all office computers (workstations not included) should be VESA mounted. Out of the way, less desk clutter and cabling issues. Like an easily upgradeable AIO.