Spec me 3 office machines to run general purpose tasks including SAGE200

Jay85

Jay85

Jay85

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I'm asked by my boss to configure 3 machines for general office use. Our current machines are so slow and ancient, it's beyond upgrading.

Uses and Requirements:

Microsoft office suite
E-mailing
Web browsing
SAGE 200
Networking
Multi-tasking important
Needs a ton of storage
Will be running 24/7


So there you have it, i need something that is cheap, reliable and will last for many many many years to come.

Would prefer intel over AMD at the moment...


I will buy the parts seperately and build the machines myself.


Just need a spec to start with so if someone could muster up something for me that would be great :)


Thanks!
 
Why do they need a ton of storage per rig? Do you not have a small server or anything for your storage requirements? In a business environment I would not be storing data/files locally on individual PCs. Well in my opinion anyway you shouldn't..

Also, yes - what is the budget overall or per rig? Do you need the OS as well (3x)? Do you need monitors, keyboard, mice, speakers, etc? Or just the case and all internals?
 
Ah sorry guys, i forgot about the peripherals!

Yes we need the monitors, keyboards and Mice aswel.

No i haven't had chance to speak to them yet but i may do on monday morning. What can they offer with just 3 machines being ordered?


About storage, the place is very ancient as in there is no network there at all. I dont think it even has internet...

They don't want to think about networking and servers just yet, they just want 3 working machines that they can use daily for now. I did mention to them about having a server up and running with all the storage requirements located on there and then the 3 machines running off it but for costs sake and time sake they just want to do it step by step for now.


Budget wise, no budget as of yet. He basically just said as cheap as possible but it has to last a long time and be very very reliable... i know it doesn't help much so i'm gonna say around £500-£600 per machine including monitor and peripherals?
 
I tried to keep it as cheap as possible while doing my best to select 'quality' parts.. I haven't even used up all of the budget per rig. So if you/the boss decides to spend a few quid extra per rig to get slightly better parts then you could look at the keyboard/mouse maybe for comfort.. But for an office, I think the spec is fine otherwise.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung S23A350H 23" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black £107.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) £59.99
1 x MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £38.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38192M1600HC11DC) £31.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Logitech K120 Keyboard (920-002524) £9.98
1 x Logitech S96 PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse Black - OEM (953688-1600) £5.99
Total : £443.83 (includes shipping : FREE).



- EDIT - Just thought with the spare cash you could look to maybe swap the i3-3220 to a i5-3330 CPU for an extra £40 odd. Or you could even look into adding a small 60GB SSD for the OS which would really help with daily usage for about an extra £40-60 depending which model you choose.
 
Last edited:
Making a 2nd post to make these 2 specs stand out separately.. I have used my same base spec above with the i5 (quad core as opposed to i3's dual core) and a 120GB SSD if you wanted to use up more of the budget for extra performance.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £143.99
1 x Samsung S23A350H 23" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black £107.99
1 x SanDisk Ultra SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA II Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDH-120G-G25) £62.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) £59.99
1 x MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £38.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38192M1600HC11DC) £31.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Logitech K120 Keyboard (920-002524) £9.98
1 x Logitech S96 PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse Black - OEM (953688-1600) £5.99
Total : £550.86 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
Cult_X said:
wouldnt B75 chipset be more appropriate for buisness application?
Click to expand...

Whats the difference, i've not even heard of this.

Sparx said:
I tried to keep it as cheap as possible while doing my best to select 'quality' parts.. I haven't even used up all of the budget per rig. So if you/the boss decides to spend a few quid extra per rig to get slightly better parts then you could look at the keyboard/mouse maybe for comfort.. But for an office, I think the spec is fine otherwise.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung S23A350H 23" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black £107.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) £59.99
1 x MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £38.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38192M1600HC11DC) £31.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Logitech K120 Keyboard (920-002524) £9.98
1 x Logitech S96 PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse Black - OEM (953688-1600) £5.99
Total : £443.83 (includes shipping : FREE).



- EDIT - Just thought with the spare cash you could look to maybe swap the i3-3220 to a i5-3330 CPU for an extra £40 odd. Or you could even look into adding a small 60GB SSD for the OS which would really help with daily usage for about an extra £40-60 depending which model you choose.
Click to expand...

With the reliability of SSD's at the moment, would it be wise to keep away from them for the time being? I just don't feel SSD's are that reliable still.

Also the i5 would be more future proof so i think upgrading to one of those would be better.
 
Sparx said:
Making a 2nd post to make these 2 specs stand out separately.. I have used my same base spec above with the i5 (quad core as opposed to i3's dual core) and a 120GB SSD if you wanted to use up more of the budget for extra performance.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £143.99
1 x Samsung S23A350H 23" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black £107.99
1 x SanDisk Ultra SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA II Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDH-120G-G25) £62.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) £59.99
1 x MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £38.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38192M1600HC11DC) £31.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Logitech K120 Keyboard (920-002524) £9.98
1 x Logitech S96 PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse Black - OEM (953688-1600) £5.99
Total : £550.86 (includes shipping : FREE).

Click to expand...

With MS Office and Wndows that's going to be over £800!
 
You never said if the OS was needed or you had to buy additional MS Office licenses, it was one of my original questions! :p

Stick with my 1st spec then and swap the i3 for the i5.. ;)
 
Hmm lol


Office suite im pretty sure they have transferrable licences so we can skip that but OS wise im pretty sure they need that... would we need 1 licence per machine??
 
You should be eligible for tax return since it is for a business. Each one comes to £570.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £119.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
2 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £84.98 (£169.96)
1 x BenQ GL2055 20" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £79.99
1 x ASRock Z77 Pro4-M Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £77.99
1 x Seasonic G series 350w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £46.99
1 x Fractal Design Core 1000 Midi Tower Case - Black £32.99
1 x OcUK Value 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £26.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
1 x Logitech K120 Keyboard (920-002524) £9.98
1 x OcUK USB Optical Mouse - Black £4.99
Total : £698.82 (includes shipping : £12.50).



First off case, PSU, HDD and CPU.

The PSU is fairly expensive but I chose it since it is the latest Seasonic PSU so very reliable. Its also got a 5 year warranty with OcUK so if anything goes wrong no fancy RMA'ing has to be organized to the Netherlands.

The case is M-ATX. I can understand as a business no one wants large towers getting in the way.

The CPU is the latest Ivy i3. It has better clock for clock speed than the Sandy's (about 10% performance increase) and has hyper-threading. Useful if your software utilises it.

2 x 2TB HDD's are there for lots of data storage that can be backed upped.

If you have any questions I am happy to help.

Also can be upgraded to an i5 processor down the line if he wants.
 
Last edited:
Hi guys, sorry not been keeping track with this thread.

There are no plans for a server machine as of yet, so we're going to stick with 3 individual machines running standalone for the time being until we can figure out the rest.


I have a question though:

Would an ivy i5 be better for business applications or ivy i5? I'm not looking at K series cpu's, just mainly the higher end non K series.


I'm also thinking maybe an even smaller case would be suitable because the office area is rather small. The case needs to be upgradable though as in be able to fit more HDD's if needed and network cards if needed in the future.


I've confirmed with the boss and VAT can be claimed back so we can ignore VAT for this thread for now.


windows 7 is a necessity however i am waiting on the boss to get back to me about the other software packages that might be needed i.e. microsoft office suites.
 
Hey Jay are the programs you want to run heavy on the cpu? The ivy i3 should be good for most applictions as it does have HT if your programs use it.

Also are you looking for smaller than M-ATX?
 
bremen1874 said:
Too many i5s in your question. Are you asking i3 vs i5 or i5 vs i7?

Network is a standard port on modern boards.
Click to expand...

Sorry i meant ivy i5 and ivy i3, thanks for clearing that up.

Bacon? said:
Hey Jay are the programs you want to run heavy on the cpu? The ivy i3 should be good for most applictions as it does have HT if your programs use it.

Also are you looking for smaller than M-ATX?
Click to expand...

It will be running SAGE200 aswel as polling programs in the future which will be left running to update the HQ servers when it comes round to implementing it. HT i guess would be a must for this application.

M-ATX or smaller yes, reliability is the key though and long lasting.
 
For the listed applications you should be able to run on anything above an Etch-a-Sketch.

For a business with those requirements just buy an off the shelf basic computer, and if your boss wants reliability and gauranteed support pick one of the usual suspects, HP, Dell etc.

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/vostro-260/fs Dell Vostro or similar.

Anything else is a false economy when you take your build time into account, and proper support is invaluable for a business.

You listed email and web browsing so it seems likely they do in fact have a network, however in the unlikely event they don't, unless the machines are seriously far apart installing a simple network with simple server or NAS is easy and could be achieved with the money you save on the individual machines.

A server, with central backup, central email, central file storage, central AV/Spam might seem complicated and daunting if you don't have one, but for a business it's madness not to include it in a new install, when something fails believe me it's a major relief, and significant money saver.

I enjoy building kit myself, and even specialist machines for my business, but for bog standard kit save yourself a headache and be smart and take advantage of the big players production lines.
 
Running Sage 200 on three separate none networked machines makes no sense. Have they really got a separate database running on each PC?

Any reason you aren't just buying built PCs with a proper onsite warranty?
 
You guys do make a lot of sense and the reason behind all of this is because currently the new place is pretty ancient. It has no internet yet and the current machine in there is so old it can barely keep itself running. I did think abot Dell and other major players but i thought i'd have a stab at looking at a custom built machine to see if costs can be saved.

Because it has no connectivity at the moment, the new machines will eventually be hooked up to the HQ servers and will be integrated into the companies system. However i also have a feeling that he wants a few standalone machines in the time being to run a few office things while everything else gets sorted out.

But like i said there will be servers available once the internet is sorted out and hopefully it will be integrated into the companies servers.


So lets start this again, how about 3 machines which will be for standalone everyday office work for now without server connectivity. E-mail, web browsing, account working etc.
 
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