12 - Office Computers

prospect

Okay folks,

After getting wonderful help spec'ing an Engineering PC (which is working beautifully), I'm back!


I need to build 12 computers for the office, all will be running Office 365 and then other fairly basic stuff, Sage accounts, Sage HR and so on.

Here is a build I have put together, can I have your thoughts.
(Remember, I am getting 12 of these, so every Euro saved is actually €12 saved !)


CASE:
Article No. HV203CTJDE
Cooltek K3 Evo Midi Tower, ATX, schwarz, ohne Netzteil
30,99 €

CPU:
Article No. HV20A654DE
AMD A6 5400K Black Edition mit AMD Radeon HD 7540D Grafikeinheit, Box, FM2
52,77 €

MAINBOARD:
Article No. HV1139IVDE
Gigabyte GA-F2A55-DS3, AMD A55, FM2, ATX
65,51 €

PSU:
Article No. HVR301SBDE
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 300W
30,85 €

RAM:
Article No. HV20CO41DE
4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9
27,79 €

HARD DRIVE
Article No. HV13SHD5DE
Seagate Spinpoint HD502HJ 500GB SATA II
44,25 €

Article No. HV33E8W6DE
MS Windows 8 64bit (SB-Version) Englisch
84,92 €

TOTAL €337.08 - Less VAT = €283.26

12 PC's = €3399.12

Gumbi

How important is HDD space? How about networking ~1TB or so and grabbing a 60GB SSD for each system. That way you'd have fantastic performance on such a cheap syste for office work.

Also, since you won't be doing anything graphically intensive, grab a third gen celeriac for ~€50 instead of the AMD, it'll be fast per core and you likely won't be doing anything heavily multi-threaded.

Btw, props for building so many systems, the amount of money you're saving is insane. Dell would prob charge to the same or more for ****tier systems. An SSD would be amazing for office systems. 20GB of the 60 will be for OS btw. But like I said, set up a networked location shared HDD if you need the space and stick cheap SSDs in the individual comps.

prospect

PC's will be networked.
In fact, users are asked to save nothing on their HDD as they are not backed-up nightly.


Will investigate the SSD option, good call.

Also, some of these will run a DWG viewer package, but it is not particularly graphic intensive.

Gumbi

prospect wrote: »

PC's will be networked.
In fact, users are asked to save nothing on their HDD as they are not backed-up nightly.


Will investigate the SSD option, good call.

Also, some of these will run a DWG viewer package, but it is not particularly graphic intensive.

Don't bother with a 500GB one so. SSD the way to go, you'll be amazed. Office PCs don't do any intensive processes, the biggest perf boost to be seen will no doubt be from a faster drive.

I would not advise building 12 machines for a business.

You are much better off getting prebuilt systems from dell or similiar which can come with up to 5 years next business day servicing.

If anything goes wrong with a system you build yourself you could be waiting weeks to get replacement parts.

It will cost alot more than building yourself but you will get a significant discount when buying 12 machines from dell et al. Maybe something like an optiplex 3010.

Gumbi

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I would not advise building 12 machines for a business.

You are much better off getting prebuilt systems from dell or similiar which can come with up to 5 years next business day servicing.

If anything goes wrong with a system you build yourself you could be waiting weeks to get replacement parts.

It will cost alot more than building yourself but you will get a significant discount when buying 12 machines from dell et al. Maybe something like an optiplex 3010.

Getting 12 equivalent systems will cost more from Dell, no doubt.

You have legitimate concerns, but I think if the OP is willing to put the time in, it's a worthwhile investment.

prospect

Hi Songok,

I am here in the office all the time so I'll deal with any issues that arise, I have been doing so for a long time (a lot of old machines here with long expired warranties).

Also, over the last few years I have built about 6 or 7 Design office PC's and supported them.


This is the first time I have attempted to spec a standard PC. Also the first time I have done multiple PC's at one time.

prospect

Hi Folks,

I am back on this mission and the number has now increased to 18 computers!!


This is the build I am looking at now, which includes a 60Gb SSD as suggested (thanks for that Gumbi).

CPU: AMD A4-5300 with Radeon HD7480D @ 42.37
Mainboard: ASRock FM2A75M-DGS @ 49.90
HDD: SanDisk SSD 64Gb @ 50.69
RAM: Corsair ValueSelect PC3-1280007U @ 31.38
DVD: LiteOn iHAAS124-04 @ 15.90
Case: Cooler Master Elite 342 @ 25.00
PSU: Super-Flower SF400Atlas 400w @ 24.89
FAN: Artic Cooling F12 120mm @ 3.16
O/S: Windows 8 32bit SB Version @ 88.03

That comes to €278.42 per PC Ex-VAT

Can anyone pick any major issues with that selection, would be a PITA to receive 18 systems and then discover that the Mainboards wont fit into the Cases !!! :eek:

srsly78

I would buy Dell for office pcs, just for the support. You can get bulk discounts and vat knocked off etc. Dell also sell excellent monitors - you will probably end up buying off them anyway. I got bulk discount on 6x 23" 1080 monitors, they ended up costing about e100 each.

You haven't included the cost of business software (only windows) - you can get bulk discount on this as well.

Building your own in this situation is a false economy imo.

Are you afraid that your support position would become redundant if buying Dell? Surely you more important things to do in work?

Are you using the hwvs assembly service or will you do it yourself? Are you including your own labour costs in the total? Your time is a real cost to the business.

gctest50

prospect wrote: »

Can anyone pick any major issues with that selection, would be a PITA to receive 18 systems and then discover that the Mainboards wont fit into the Cases !!! :eek:

Would you get "bundles" cheaper somewhere ?

( i'm sure there would be cheaper,better,faster )

http://www.maplin.co.uk/b-grade-quad-core-amd-fx-4100-asus-board-bundle--8gb-memory-684192

http://www.maplin.co.uk/intel-core-i3-asus-8gb-gaming-bundle-684234


Would Windows 7 do ( e19.90 )

http://www.pcfritz.de/software/betriebssystem/windows-7-professional/10264/windows-7-professional-64-bit


oder this yoke + windows

http://www.pcfritz.de/computer-und-hardware/pc-systeme/komplettsysteme/51353/fritz-office-pc?sCoreId=pfa5mtsjj87d65h9a6vp5k9420

prospect

srsly78 wrote: »

I would buy Dell for office pcs, just for the support. You can get bulk discounts and vat knocked off etc. Dell also sell excellent monitors - you will probably end up buying off them anyway. I got bulk discount on 6x 23" 1080 monitors, they ended up costing about e100 each.

You haven't included the cost of business software (only windows) - you can get bulk discount on this as well.

Building your own in this situation is a false economy imo.

Are you afraid that your support position would become redundant if buying Dell? Surely you more important things to do in work?

Are you using the hwvs assembly service or will you do it yourself? Are you including your own labour costs in the total? Your time is a real cost to the business.

All good points.

I'm not going with Dell, as I don't value their support. Also, they are not as cheap, and their cheap machines are horrid, imo.

I think that build I have listed would be a better machine than a Vostro.

We use Office 365 with desktop licensing, business software is not at play here.

Also, I do not require monitors.

My position is not in question, but that is an 'interesting' assumption you have made.

Not using HWVS build service, I'll build these myself, in my own time (i.e. outside business hours).
In fact, I was planning on using the opportunity to build these along with some of the staff who have shown an interest in learning about the internals of their PC's.
Bit of a group bonding exercise I suppose.

gctest50 wrote: »

Would you get "bundles" cheaper somewhere ?

( i'm sure there would be cheaper,better,faster )

http://www.maplin.co.uk/b-grade-quad-core-amd-fx-4100-asus-board-bundle--8gb-memory-684192

http://www.maplin.co.uk/intel-core-i3-asus-8gb-gaming-bundle-684234


Would Windows 7 do ( e19.90 )

http://www.pcfritz.de/software/betriebssystem/windows-7-professional/10264/windows-7-professional-64-bit


oder this yoke + windows

http://www.pcfritz.de/computer-und-hardware/pc-systeme/komplettsysteme/51353/fritz-office-pc?sCoreId=pfa5mtsjj87d65h9a6vp5k9420

I haven't seen a bundle that matches it. Those you quoted don't seem to include HDD's, Cases, PSU's or optical drives?
Good tip though, I didn;t know Maplins did this kind of stuff.

Is that Windows 7 legit? If so, I'm certainly going for that. Whats the catch?

Genghiz Cohen

Will there be any development done on these machines?
Had problems in last job because we were forced to use 'office spec' machines.

gctest50

prospect wrote: »

Is that Windows 7 legit? If so, I'm certainly going for that. Whats the catch?

I got that from :

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056902414&page=7

prospect

Nope, these are all Accounting and Administration staff.

Word, Excel pdf and the occasional copy of DWG TrueView.


I do appreciate all the comments.
If I found a good value built machine that was very close to the price I'd probably run with it, but that spec I have would be hard to find in a pre-built PC.

But a €50 difference in price needs to be multiplied by 18, so suddenly a small increase jumps to €900.

srsly78

You aren't factoring in the lifetime cost. Also you seem to value your own time at zero, which is madness.

e900 is not a lot of money for a business, that's maybe a weeks wages for someone.

smacl

Could be worth looking at one of the Microsoft bulk licensing schemes rather than individual retail licenses of Windows. I picked up an MSDN subscription for work a few years back, primarily for Visual Studio, but it also comes with 32 licenses of Windows 7 Enterprise, along with an amount of XP license, SQL server, and various other bits and bobs.

As for maintaining your build over time, I'd tend to buy a couple of spares at the same time, so if one computer goes bang, you can swap out the faulty part immediately without waiting for replacements. Certainly a spare PSU, motherboard and set of RAM, which in my experience are the first bits to go. Could also be worth ringing your parts vendor to see if they're willing to haggle, 18 systems is a reasonable purchase.

prospect

srsly78 wrote: »

You aren't factoring in the lifetime cost. Also you seem to value your own time at zero, which is madness.

e900 is not a lot of money for a business, that's maybe a weeks wages for someone.

Lifetime cost?

Not madness, this is a small family business, of which I am one of the family. My time goes in regardless, and I have no issue with that.

There is more to this than just bottom line, as outlined already. However, bottom line cannot be ignored either. The €900 was just an example of how a small difference in price is multiplied by a factor of 18, which is something I have to be cognisant of.


This thread isn't really supposed to be about whether or not I should build v's buy, it is supposed to be about the specific build I posted above.

prospect

smacl wrote: »

As for maintaining your build over time, I'd tend to buy a couple of spares at the same time, so if one computer goes bang, you can swap out the faulty part immediately without waiting for replacements. Certainly a spare PSU, motherboard and set of RAM, which in my experience are the first bits to go. Could also be worth ringing your parts vendor to see if they're willing to haggle, 18 systems is a reasonable purchase.

Good idea. Thanks.

smacl

srsly78 wrote: »

You aren't factoring in the lifetime cost.

The lifetime cost of a self build is going to be as good as the parts you put into it and their respective warranties, much the same as a retail buy or something like a Dell. I've been buying Dells for many years now, mostly mid to high-end stuff like Precisions and Optiplexs. Good kit, but like everything else you get failures over time. FWIW, the entry level bargain Dell comes in at 349.33 ex VAT as opposed to 278.42 for the OPs build with a HD rather than the SSD, but still a good enough price. The Dell also includes a keyboard and mouse, which hasn't been factored into this build, and just 1 year back to base warranty. 3 Year on-site would add 138 per unit, and delivery is 35 per unit, but possibly reduced for 18. Dell are also open to a bit of haggling. Been there, done that, and found them good enough to deal with.

For my money, for low end kit like this I'd actually go with Dell. Reason being that assembling 18 units is time consuming, and the possibility of mucking something up is pretty high over that number. That said, I've just finished building a higher end PC, and pricing the equivalent Dell came out at about three times the price. I think they make their money on people picking upgrades to the basic spec.

prospect

Thanks for all your input.

All interesting and valid points.

As it happens, I have two very competitive quotes in for these machines, very little between the options, which would you go for:


i3-3220 3.30 GHz (onboard graphics) and 4Gb RAM

or

A4-3000 2.7GHz, 2Gb GT640 Graphics and 4Gb RAM

smacl

A4-3000 2.7GHz, 2Gb GT640 Graphics and 4Gb RAM for your DWG viewer. It's already a hungry little viewer, and Autodesk aren't shy about looking for more resources with each new release. DWGs are also getting bigger all the time.

justsomebloke

I'm going to second the idea of going with Dell. It will just be less heart ache for you in the long term, especially with an extended NBD warranty.

Other then that if you are building your own, with 18 machines make sure you are ordering spare parts as well as something is bound to go wrong with something.

Also I see you had windows 8 down at one point. Is the staff up to speed with windows 8? If not I would stay WELL clear of it.

And go with i3s even if you have to buy a graphics card as it will better machine and once you factor in energy consumption over the lifetime of the machine there won't actually be as big a price difference

prospect

Yep,

I was looking at running costs there and as you suggest, the i3 with dedicated graphics seems to be an option (thankfully only a handful require the extra graphics).

Yeah, good call on the Win8, I'm not sure what I was thinking there, I have no interest in that for users PC's (although I have it myself and quite like it).

Just waiting for an updated quote (I spec'd up the quote I received on HWVS and can't get close to the price, so it is very competitive), then I'll make a decision on what to do.

gctest50

prospect wrote: »

Thanks for all your input.

All interesting and valid points.

As it happens, I have two very competitive quotes in for these machines, very little between the options, which would you go for:


i3-3220 3.30 GHz (onboard graphics) and 4Gb RAM

or

A4-3000 2.7GHz, 2Gb GT640 Graphics and 4Gb RAM

You'd want to be sure enough the PSUs and mobos are ok - only so many places to cut costs ?

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/dell-tried-to-hide-bad-capacitors-problem

smacl wrote: »

FWIW, the entry level bargain Dell comes in at 349.33 ex VAT as opposed to 278.42 for the OPs build with a HD rather than the SSD, but still a good enough price.

One of them would be good to hold the door open while ya carry in your new computers

Tij da feen

gctest50 wrote: »

You'd want to be sure enough the PSUs and mobos are ok - only so many places to cut costs ?

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/dell-tried-to-hide-bad-capacitors-problem




One of them would be good to hold the door open while ya carry in your new computers

Emm tbf that article you linked goes back to machines they were producing 8-10 years ago. Hardly relevant anymore...


If some of the computers are only being used for office work then a Celeron/Pentium would do the trick. The i3 has hyperthreading which won't make a difference to Office and a web browser. An SSD would make a massive improvement however.

gctest50

Tij da feen wrote: »

Emm tbf that article you linked goes back to machines they were producing 8-10 years ago. Hardly relevant anymore...

Its the way it was handled was the point