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Home PC with some grunt - €400-ish

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  • 22-08-2015 7:43pm
    #1
    Rowley Birkin QC
    Registered Users Posts: 6,220 ✭✭✭


    My trusty Dell Vostro 1700 is on its last legs (Screen dead and HDD frequently crashing) so I'm going to take the plunge and build/buy a desktop PC, hopefully with a little help from you friendly people. Thanks in advance.

    1. What is your budget? A soft €400. Can go a little bit more if needed.

    2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Home PC for general use. I work from home a bit using QGIS so a bit of grunt would be good. Haven't done much PC gaming since command and conquer and if I do so again it will probably be retro games like that I would go for.

    3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

    4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Nope

    5. Do you need a monitor? Have a monitor currently but would like to get a dual screen setup going. Not entirely essential if the budget is too tight.

    5a. If yes, what size do you need? Have gotten used to having dual screens at work so yes. I have a 23" LCD widescreen Acer monitor that I'd like to add to. Is it best to replicate the screen size or is there better wisdom/suggestions out there?

    6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Yes; Keyboard & Card Reader

    7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Not really bothered.

    8. How can you pay? Any

    9. When are you purchasing? 6 year old laptop is dying so soon.

    10. If you need help building it, where are you based? D3 but I should be fine if I have a guide to follow.

    Thanks!


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    #2
    Digital Solitude
    Registered Users Posts: 11,397 ✭✭✭✭Digital Solitude


    G3220 €50
    H81M board €50
    4gb RAM €30
    300w PSU €30
    Case €30
    1tb HDD €50
    120gb SSD €60
    Card reader €10
    Keyboard €20
    €70 remaining, not enough for a 1080p monitor, go second hand, a TV or 720p

    Any Questions ask away


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    #3
    Rowley Birkin QC
    Registered Users Posts: 6,220 ✭✭✭Rowley Birkin QC


    Digital Solitude wrote: »
    G3220 €50
    H81M board €50
    4gb RAM €30
    300w PSU €30
    Case €30
    1tb HDD €50
    120gb SSD €60
    Card reader €10
    Keyboard €20
    €70 remaining, not enough for a 1080p monitor, go second hand, a TV or 720p

    Any Questions ask away

    Cool, thanks for that.

    If we were to forget about a monitor and add in an extra €100 (making the budget €500), where would you spend the money?

    Also, is that all from one retailer or guideline pricing?


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    #4
    Digital Solitude
    Registered Users Posts: 11,397 ✭✭✭✭Digital Solitude


    Up the CPU to a Pentium G3258 and add a cooler for €100 total, that'd bring another bit to the table with QGIS

    Maybe stick a few euro into a new case.

    Better keyboard and a €40 GPU perhaps. For your needs the first PC is more that adequate, add a small GPU as I forgot

    They're guideline prices, try Amazon's, mind factory, alternate and computer universe for prices


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    #5
    Rowley Birkin QC
    Registered Users Posts: 6,220 ✭✭✭Rowley Birkin QC


    So, I've gotten lazy and payday has rolled around so I'm thinking of just going with a click and order from Dell, recommended by our IT guy.

    I couldn't resist beefing up the budget so that I'm some degree of future proofed. I did the same with my laptop and it has served me well for years.

    Spec is as follows:
    • i5-4460 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz)
    • 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz (4GBx2)
    • 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive
    • NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 705 2GB DDR3

    Am I throwing money away at €579 delivered for this?


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    #6
    Digital Solitude
    Registered Users Posts: 11,397 ✭✭✭✭Digital Solitude


    That's pretty good value, GPU is pretty weak but for the i5 its excellent.


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    #7
    MRTULES
    Registered Users Posts: 638 ✭✭✭MRTULES


    Sorry to be asking what is probably going to be obvious but is this a PC or laptop? Also, how much better is the GPU than the onboard graphics on the i5. Finally, is there an SSD included? I think it needs to be a minimum requirement these days.
    Just curious as dell never seem to get a recommendation on here, usually due to their lack of upgradability and extortionate prices.


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    #8
    Rowley Birkin QC
    Registered Users Posts: 6,220 ✭✭✭Rowley Birkin QC


    That's a desktop. No monitor included and not an SSD.

    The lack of SSD is the only thing bugging me about it.


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    #9
    Lu Tze
    Registered Users Posts: 3,495 ✭✭✭Lu Tze


    That graphics card is actually worse than the integrated intel graphics on the CPU, so if you have the option to deselect it I would, even if it only saves a fiver! You could always flog it secondhand afterwards if not, or it may be better for multi monitor setups if you are going that way


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    #10
    Rowley Birkin QC
    Registered Users Posts: 6,220 ✭✭✭Rowley Birkin QC


    Lu Tze wrote: »
    That graphics card is actually worse than the integrated intel graphics on the CPU, so if you have the option to deselect it I would, even if it only saves a fiver! You could always flog it secondhand afterwards if not, or it may be better for multi monitor setups if you are going that way

    Probably will be going multi-monitor. I have a 23" widescreen Acer at the moment and will add something similar to this. Too used to dual screens at work to go without at home! :)

    One last option and I'm not entirely sure if the forum allows for this but would anyone be interested in speccing and building something better (if possible) with this budget for a fee?


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    #11
    Lu Tze
    Registered Users Posts: 3,495 ✭✭✭Lu Tze


    Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »
    Probably will be going multi-monitor. I have a 23" widescreen Acer at the moment and will add something similar to this. Too used to dual screens at work to go without at home! :)

    One last option and I'm not entirely sure if the forum allows for this but would anyone be interested in speccing and building something better (if possible) with this budget for a fee?
    What kind of work are you doing in QGIS? Are you using large datasets?

    I use GIS software (though i still have to give QGIS a go) and find for large basemaps, contours covering large areas or just large dataset benefit from having an SSD. I dont know if QGIS benefits from more cpu threads or not, it may depend on what you are doing and what plugins you are using. If i get a chance later on ill throw together a list of parts and see if it is any better.

    I would recommend anybody to attempt building it themselves, if nothing else it will help if you need to troubleshoot down the line, you will know each part that is in it, and help identify where there may be connection problems etc.


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    #12
    Rowley Birkin QC
    Registered Users Posts: 6,220 ✭✭✭Rowley Birkin QC


    Lu Tze wrote: »
    What kind of work are you doing in QGIS? Are you using large datasets?

    I use GIS software (though i still have to give QGIS a go) and find for large basemaps, contours covering large areas or just large dataset benefit from having an SSD. I dont know if QGIS benefits from more cpu threads or not, it may depend on what you are doing and what plugins you are using. If i get a chance later on ill throw together a list of parts and see if it is any better.

    I would recommend anybody to attempt building it themselves, if nothing else it will help if you need to troubleshoot down the line, you will know each part that is in it, and help identify where there may be connection problems etc.

    Typically nothing too intensive. Shapefile editing, simplification etc. That said, I have an SSD at work and do notice the difference.

    I'll keep thinking on it. Thanks again to all for help so far.


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    #13
    catsbanter
    Closed Accounts Posts: 97 ✭✭catsbanter


    I'd be going with an i3, 8gb ram, ssd, 350w powersupply, 128gb SSD, 1TB hard drive.

    If you ever wanted to go down the gaming route in the future could add a 750 ti for 120 or a r9 270 and would have a decent gaming machine.

    I3- 120
    8gb ram - 55
    1TB HD - 55
    128gb SSD - 60
    350w- 35
    Motherboard h81 - 40
    Case - 30
    Windows - tenner on reddit

    On my phone so can't put exact prices.


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    #14
    Lu Tze
    Registered Users Posts: 3,495 ✭✭✭Lu Tze


    Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »
    Typically nothing too intensive. Shapefile editing, simplification etc. That said, I have an SSD at work and do notice the difference.

    I'll keep thinking on it. Thanks again to all for help so far.

    It may not make that big a difference in that case. I've imported dxfs which were the most of 1GB in size, so read/writes can become a bottleneck. I have occasionally created a ramdisk (as have 16GB, and typically will max out around 8GB used) and used this for the loading/editing large files etc. Software that came with the ASROCK motherboard made it handy to do, and removes that bottleneck.

    Regardless, dont normally do build lists on here, but a quick scan through amazon (there are potentially cheaper options as sterling exchange is cack) here is a sample build (micro-atx) coming out ballpark €540 - included an SSD and a Hard drive and left out a graphics card. Should be able to do dual monitor from the integrated graphics and the motherboard has hdmi and dvi outputs.

    360227.PNG


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    #15
    Rowley Birkin QC
    Registered Users Posts: 6,220 ✭✭✭Rowley Birkin QC


    Again, thanks for all of this, greatly appreciated.


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    #16
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    catsbanter wrote: »
    I'd be going with an i3, 8gb ram, ssd, 350w powersupply, 128gb SSD, 1TB hard drive.

    If you ever wanted to go down the gaming route in the future could add a 750 ti for 120 or a r9 270 and would have a decent gaming machine.

    I3- 120
    8gb ram - 55
    1TB HD - 55
    128gb SSD - 60
    350w- 35
    Motherboard h81 - 40
    Case - 30
    Windows - tenner on reddit

    On my phone so can't put exact prices.

    If you want to future proof a PC, you'd need a better PSU.


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    #17
    catsbanter
    Closed Accounts Posts: 97 ✭✭catsbanter


    beauf wrote: »
    If you want to future proof a PC, you'd need a better PSU.

    Yea probably be better off with 450 w.


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