Building 2 office machines

[Dareos]

A couple of friends are looking for new office desktops. It's been a while since I built anything but high end machines and always intel based. However with recent developments I'm considering an AMD build.

Thing is I've never been familiar with AMD stuff.

I have a few bits and pieces lying around but I'll be looking at mobo, cpu/apu etc. No need for peripherals. Will need 1 PSU. And 1 case.

So questions are. Which AMD units are best for office stuff maybe with some video capabilities, no games.

Preferably looking to spend about 300 total per machine.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[scaryjim]

You'd be looking at Bristol Ridge APUs, which are based on the construction cores. I'm kind of torn about recommending them tbh, given how much better Zen is than Construction, but they're very cheap for what they are.

The A8 9600 is probably the go to; it's a quad core with 384 shaders for £55, which is kind of silly money for what you're getting. Pick an A320 motherboard for < £50, and add an 8GB kit of DDR4 2133 or 2400 for ... *sigh* .... £100 *wince*.

That's your base platform coming in at ~ £200, leaving £100 for a HDD, case and PSU - doable if you don't want anything fancy.

EDIT: just noticed that's pre-order at Scan, but ebuyer have them in stock for a quid or so more: https://www.ebuyer.com/807873-amd-a8...-ad9600agabbox

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The other alternative is the Pentium G4560 but the platform is EOL now,whereas AM4 looks to last a few years,so that gives more room for upgrades and also for replacement parts availability down the line IMHO OFC.

[Galant]

I work primarily with "office" machines and my first thought here, if not too late, is to ask what they're intending to do with them. Some office apps these days can be rather heavy on RAM.

We just installed some new, off-the-shelf, HP machines (admittedly, Windows 10, but running new i5 CPU's) expected to be used with the Google Suite and some Excel work. We thought 4GB might be alright but no chance. Had to just bump them to 8GB.

I'm running an older laptop and have to do some Excel work with large sheets from time to time. They can be a real resource killer.

We've found that businesses initially want to cut costs but then find that buying low-spec PC's on the cheap is a false economy.

[Millennium]

^ this

You want to spec for 8gb, SSD or hybrid drives, and probably AMD APU of some sort. If you go Ryzen Zen then try for 4 core 8 thread. EDIT: Raven Ridge would suit you much better but it's been a paper launch, and laptop only at that. I'm waiting for those personally.
Ii know this is well over your budget but the machines will be much more fun to use and will last twice as long.

My mum has had an old APU for like 5 years and just because it has 8gb and an SSD it's still a joy to use, it honestly rivals my main rig.

[Dareos]

I work primarily with "office" machines and my first thought here, if not too late, is to ask what they're intending to do with them. Some office apps these days can be rather heavy on RAM.

We just installed some new, off-the-shelf, HP machines (admittedly, Windows 10, but running new i5 CPU's) expected to be used with the Google Suite and some Excel work. We thought 4GB might be alright but no chance. Had to just bump them to 8GB.

I'm running an older laptop and have to do some Excel work with large sheets from time to time. They can be a real resource killer.

We've found that businesses initially want to cut costs but then find that buying low-spec PC's on the cheap is a false economy.

Definitely 8GB

[Dareos]

Ram is hellishly expensive atm

[Dareos]

Might wait and see if this intel thing gets a proper fix

[DanceswithUnix]

If you need a Windows license, then that is a big chunk of your money gone.
It can sometimes be cheaper to just buy a built machine at that low price point.

[Xlucine]

Is it worth stepping back to FM2, to save on RAM?

[Flibb]

Unless its something very specific they are after I wouldn't bother building an office machine, your unlikely to make much of a saving. If they are running windows the cost that HP etc pay is less than £16. We have been given a quote of £16 a license at work, and that's for 100 at a time.

[EndlessWaves]

Might wait and see if this intel thing gets a proper fix

Meltdown is the easier of the two to patch. Spectre, which affects all CPU manufacturers, will get counter-measure and revised exploit for years. I don't think anything there will affect your buying decision.

It is difficult to recommend AMD's older chips these days. There are some benchmarks here showing the Athlon X4 845 (very similar to the A10-9700) trading blows with a Celeron G3920:
https://uk.hardware.info/reviews/720...toshop-cc-2015

Except the Celeron G3930 costs £34 while the A10-9700 costs £70.

It's got more GPU power, but if you're not playing games and using UVD/Quicksync for video playback you're not going to be using that.

And as others have said, the windows licencing cost disparity is also a real killer for building your own budget systems these days.

[Kumagoro]

I suppose it depends what office means but to me it means Microsoft office and web browsing.

Even a core 2 pc at around 3GHz is more than good enough with an SSD.

I would be looking to pick up cheap refurbs if money was an issue and get SSD's.

I would rather use an older machine with an SSD than a new one with a spinner.

[Dareos]

Windows and office wont be an issue, more about keeping the cost of the build down

[scaryjim]

... There are some benchmarks here showing the Athlon X4 845 (very similar to the A10-9700) trading blows with a Celeron G3920:
https://uk.hardware.info/reviews/720...toshop-cc-2015

Except the Celeron G3930 costs £34 while the A10-9700 costs £70. ...

You do realise that chart also includes the A12-9800, which is architecturaly identical to the A10 9700. And that the A12 is 20% faster than an X4 845? The A10 gives up ~ 10% in clock speed, but that would still put it 10% faster than the Celeron, pretty much in line with an i3 4160.

Besides, no-one suggested the A10. The A8 is only £55, will give much better platform longevity (an important consideration for business machines), has the better IGP for tasks that can be accelerated (like a LOT of web browsing nowadays, and an increasing amount of office software can also accelerate some tasks), and is a more flexible processor if the requirments change (which they always do, to some degree). It will, to be fair, also have similar performance to the X4 845 and Celeron, but that's still MORE than enough performance, and the benefits of the newer platform are worth a little extra spend, IMNSHO.

The A8 9600, plus an A320 motherboard and 8GB of 'slow' DDR4, will give excellent value now, and will have platform support for several years; if the CPU or mobo go south you'll be able to replace just that part, rather than the whole system (which would be the case with any Intel build, as everything BUT Z370 is now effectively EOL). Also if the requirements change dramatically the systems will be more easily upgradable. Sorry, but AMD for this is pretty much a no brainer.

[Dareos]

thats interesting Jim, i'll have a look at how a build using that works out