Budget Build - Sub £500

[adamsonm]

Hi guys,

I've recently been asked to build a friend a budget PC, purely for work purposes, so no gaming whatsoever. Now, I've built a few computers over my time however in this past year I've been a bit out of touch with regards to PC parts etc.

He already has an SSD which I will be using for the build, and considering there won't be any need for a GPU, a sub £500 build should be quite easy to achieve. I'm thinking I can use the extra cash on buying a slightly better CPU to furture proof the build.

What sort of CPU/Motherboard is the go to these days for productivity/performance?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Does a copy of Windows need to be included? What software is being used?

[adamsonm]

Yep the latest Windows 10, however, I have a copy ready in install anyway.

Well its a PC thats going to be used for business purposes, so software such as SAGE (accounts basically). Other software like TradeBox, used for order management stock control of accounts, Microsoft Office, and software which run daily backups to the cloud also.

[spacein_vader]

Yep the latest Windows 10, however, I have a copy ready in install anyway.

Well its a PC thats going to be used for business purposes, so software such as SAGE (accounts basically). Other software like TradeBox, used for order management stock control of accounts, Microsoft Office, and software which run daily backups to the cloud also.

Frankly for that even £500 is overkill. A low end i3 or graphics enabled Ryzen, 8gb of RAM, B chipset for Intel or the AMD equivalent and a 400w PSU will do. Could even be change from £300 if storage and windows are already paid for.

[adamsonm]

Those are my exact thoughts. I was thinking of going down the i3 route but obviously wanted a few opinions on it first


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Those are my exact thoughts. I was thinking of going down the i3 route but obviously wanted a few opinions on it first


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would probably get the Ryzen 3 2200G,as AM4 will apparently supported until at least 2020(which also means things like easier motherboard replacements,etc). Its hard to say how long the current Intel socket will last for. It is also cheaper than the Core i3 8100 too.

This is the list of parts I would have a look at:



I went for decent quality parts(the PSU is silver rated for example). The total comes to £468.75 including free delivery.

[johnroe]

^can't get more comprehensive than that as an answer.

I think it should soon be possible to build a gaming PC for about £500, use a few older parts(SSD,case,PSU,etc). Once gaming PC's cost well over a thousand, and consoles were several hundred. But now they have similar specs and cost a similar amount. I think they cancelled giving the XBoxX1 (or what ever) a keyboard and mouse.

[adamsonm]

That's a bloody awesome response CAT, I really appreciate the time you've invested to help me out and the others to!

Just finally, if I was to go for an intel combo, what would be your recommendation? I would imagine it would be the i3 8100 with a compatible mobo?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would look at one of the B360 motherboards with 4 RAM slots:

https://www.ebuyer.com/831876-gigaby...ard-b360m-ds3h
https://www.ebuyer.com/831865-asrock...ard-b360m-pro4

A Core i3 8100 would do the job.

You can go cheaper on the motherboards with both builds but for a £10 to £20 difference,with less RAM slots,less ports,etc I am not sure it is worth it,and the AMD motherboard comes with a free mouse too.

I would use the same RAM,just in case the build is upgraded,but TBH 8GB of 2400MHZ DDR4 would still be fine since you are not gaming on the IGP. The 3000MHZ kit wasn't much more,so I thought it was worth having it.

[DanceswithUnix]

Cat's 2200G build looks solid as ever, but I find office machines don't usually store much on their local storage. I also find USB sticks have generally replaced DVD drives (or "cup holders" I think is the modern term )

So, for £10 more than the 1TB Hard drive you could get a 240GB SSD: https://www.ebuyer.com/811274-wd-gre...ve-wds240g2g0a

That should make the machine quieter, faster and more reliable, and if you ditch the DVD drive you are about £2 cheaper too. I do like how SSDs have dropped in price recently, just need RAM to do the same.

Edit: Hat's off to Cat for doing the legwork once again, it's way easier to pick holes when someone else has done the really hard work!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The OP said they had an SSD already going into the build,and I just kept the DVD drive in case the office still keeps local backups on CD or DVD. If not many drives are being used,the OP could go for a smaller case like this one:

https://www.ebuyer.com/825833-therma...-1j1-00s1nn-01

Another alternative is this cased which is designed to be quieter:

https://www.ebuyer.com/584028-cooler...-sil-352m-kkn1

[Zak33]

I agree with Danceswithunix. Even as the OP has an SSD, I'd spend the extra on a new SSD and use the old one as complimentary fast storage.

SSD'd get faster, with time, at an alarming speed. A new SSD, possibly an M2 is a worthy consideration.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I agree with Danceswithunix. Even as the OP has an SSD, I'd spend the extra on a new SSD and use the old one as complimentary fast storage.

SSD'd get faster, with time, at an alarming speed. A new SSD, possibly an M2 is a worthy consideration.

I see not much of any realworld difference with SSDs for basic stuff - example in case I am still using the Kingston SSD I won in the Hexus competition 6 years ago as my boot drive and general application drive,and it feels no different than the Sandisk Ultra II 480GB I had as a boot drive or the Crucial MX300 275GB I also have. Its because in most cases you are reading off the drive not writing and my main concern is how big these databases are - if they are large,the storage will fill up relatively quickly.

OFC,maybe we need to know what SSD model is being used too,which might help.

Edit!!

I find I tend to much more capacity limited with SSDs TBH.

[DanceswithUnix]

I agree with Danceswithunix. Even as the OP has an SSD, I'd spend the extra on a new SSD and use the old one as complimentary fast storage.

SSD'd get faster, with time, at an alarming speed. A new SSD, possibly an M2 is a worthy consideration.

Depends on the size of the existing SSD, but this is an office machine and I like to keep those *really* simple as it makes support and hence handing over to someone else much easier.

If the existing SSD is a decent size, job done and I would say nothing else should be put in there. If it isn't big enough, get one that is and just stick that in there. Having a boot SSD with applications going elsewhere is fine, but getting another person who doesn't care about such things to segregate their storage is a path to support hell (or at least support heck).

As for performance, I occasionally see Windows just sit and grind on a hard disk for ages doing things like checking compatibility for the next update. It tanks the machine with a hard drive, with an SSD you struggle to notice it. Any SSD can do that, you don't need the latest Optane monster.

Edit: I should learn to type faster

Second edit: I'm guessing if the lot is backed up to the cloud then there isn't that much to back up.

[Pob255]

I'd push the budget £5 and look at the H18 over the H15 or the CM Q300L (there's something about the Q300L that I just love the look of it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6NI0yQXZnw

I'd ditch the optical drive unless you really need it often, if it's just now and again for installing software off cd/dvd just get a usb external drive.

Similar for the HDD, depends on the setup but generally you don't need much drive space, esp if you use network/cloud storage, so it's down to windows + software + user profiles/accounts and that will rarely push 100gb

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I was only going with what Ebuyer had,to simplify on postage.

Edit!!

It seems they stock the H18:

https://www.ebuyer.com/825835-therma...-1j4-00s1wn-02

Having said that a case with reducing noise might be useful in an office environment,hence why I suggested the Coolermaster Silencio 352,as the Fractal ones are now quite expensive!

The external drive would be an option at more cost:

https://www.ebuyer.com/search?q=usb+...rice+ascending

However,again it really depends on what the friend of the OP wants as I have no clue whether they keep any local backups of their data,which I would think would be also prudent,and how much space is required.