Work PC, No Gaming but Future Proofed

marathonic

The above was my goal when I came up with this build.

Does anything look really out of place? My thoughts are that I'm more likely to want to use it as a work pc and HTPC as opposed to gaming but, given the case and the number of fans it can accomodate, the option is always there to add a high end graphics card if desired.

I had it delivered to a friend in Northern Ireland at a total cost of €640.

I believe Haswell's onboard graphics are supposed to be sufficient for blu-ray playback without a GPU.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/b/EJo

Slutmonkey57b

depends what you mean by "work" pc. If work is spreadsheets and word, any cheap Dell box or second hand pc from the last 10 years will do.

If work is raytracing, then your requirements are different.

marathonic

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

depends what you mean by "work" pc. If work is spreadsheets and word, any cheap Dell box or second hand pc from the last 10 years will do.

If work is raytracing, then your requirements are different.

Well, to be honest, the above spec is way overboard for my 'work pc' requirements.

It'll be mainly to access my work PC remotely - and my current, Intel Core Duo T6600 2.2GHZ laptop is perfectly capable of handling it. The only reason I even considered upgrading was that the laptop is awkward to use for working from home for 8 hours when compared to using a desktop.

However, I'm a firm believer in the whole 'buy cheap and buy twice' mantra. My requirements may change down the line and I don't want to have to completely replace everything at that point.

The most likely additional requirement is to use it as a HTPC, hence the choice of a case geared towards silence.

I noticed a good deal on Amazon for the CPU and got it for £130.50 (not bad for an i5-4570). I'd read previously that Haswells onboard graphics are a significant improvement over the previous, socket-1155 processors. I decided to go for this deal and then built the rest of the components around the processor.

Basically, the socket-1150 should allow me to upgrade, should I see the need, for a lot longer than using an older type would. If the computer remains solely a HTPC that's used for remote access of my work computer, it should last many years.

I reviewed the difference in costings between the build and buying a Dell computer - the difference appears minimal (about 5% cheaper) but building gives total flexibility in components. For example, the Dell I looked at uses a really cheap GPU - in my opinion, it's too weak for someone who games and the Haswell onboard is sufficient for someone who doesn't.

This is my first venture into building but I think the real benefit in building will come in the knowledge gained and the fact that I'm more likely to upgrade components in years to come as opposed to the complete system like most of Joe-Public would do. Therefore, it should work out significantly cheaper in the long-run.

Slutmonkey57b

For office work only, a cheap Dell box is your best bet but for what you've described, your build is solid.

Regarding "future proofing" remember that there is no such thing in computers. In 5 years time ram, processor, motherboard, gpu sockets and peripheral interfaces will probably all have changed to the point where what's on sale today either won't be compatible at all or won't get the best out of new components.

Jonny7

I would suggest you visit hardwareversand.de and go to the PC configurater

Add in the processor you already have and you can experiment with different builds. The socket 1150 boards start at around 60, and they would be perfect for a very "future-proofed" work build. From there it's up to you to choose 4 gigs (perfectly acceptable for almost everything right now, or 8 gigs which is generally the preference). I would strongly recommend an SSD hard drive which is one of most significant speed upgrades you can make to any PC.

Obviously do not scrimp on the power supply, quality is important - look for the 80+ efficiency

Case is personal preference, add extra fans for ventilation and so on

EDIT just saw link above, yes try hardwareversand - you should be able to knock the price down quite a bit

Monotype

What about getting a bigger screen and keyboard/mouse to plug into the laptop?

Genghiz Cohen

Monotype wrote: »

What about getting a bigger screen and keyboard/mouse to plug into the laptop?

If it's a business Dell you might be able to pick up a dock for it and leave your monitor, KB, mouse and charger plugged into that.