Budget Home Office PC

orourkk3

1. What is your budget? €350 - €400

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Home office, occasional gaming eg Football Manager

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? no, I'll use Windows 10

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? No

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No

8. How can you pay? Card

9. When are you purchasing? January sales

I'd like the motherboard to have WiFi as running an Ethernet cable upstairs would be messy.

Hoping to build my first PC. It will be used as a home office computer but I'd like the option to upgrade in the future. Am i right in thinking that I can get a much higher speced PC by building it myself that buying through the usual channels?

minitrue

You can usually get a higher spec for your money by building it yourself. The bigger advantage is often in how much easier it is to upgrade/repair.

Someone else will no doubt appear with a more usual boards style build taking €400 as a pretty hard cap I ended up with

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (€118.43 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€76.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (€49.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (€84.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Zalman ZM-T1 PLUS MicroATX Mini Tower Case (€21.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€54.55 @ Mindfactory)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN781ND PCI-Express x1 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter (€9.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €416.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-29 17:07 CET+0100

Lots of ways you could shave off a few more euro depending just how tight your budget is (and I think the above has over-counted the shipping cost by 7.99 anyway) but the above would be pretty great (imho) for the money. I'd really rather not cut that back any more though if you are that close to it.

My main temptations might be to add a dual band wireless card (though upstairs makes me guess 2.4GHz only is ok) and maybe to go the extra €25 for an i3-6300 for the extra 1M of cache and 0.1GHz of gpu speed (~10% bump) more then the 0.1GHz main speed bump (~3% bump).

tadcan

You can build a office PC for less than that, but the cost goes up a bit to play Football Manager; hence the Pentium instead of a Celeron, along with a basic graphics card. Use Parcel Motel to get around the no shipping to Ireland, but the case would have to be collected at the depot. You can use a powerline to send the internet around the house. Just plug the ethernet cable into the plug thing and the other one in the office and into the PC. I should also get a comparison price from Mindfactory.


Aerocool CS-101 Case £22.85
Asus H110M-K H110 £47.99
Intel Pentium Dual-Core G4400 CPU £52.46
Crucial 8 GB Single Ranked DDR4 Ram £43.82
Corsair CP-9020095-UK VS Series PSU £40.83
Integral V Series 120 GB SSD £39.99
Asus NVIDIA Gt 710 Graphics Card £34.99
PowerLine adapter £19.99

Total £262.93 plus postage.
Around €308 plus postage

For a little bit more you can get a motherboard with HDMI if you want to drop the GPU and have a hdmi monitor.
Gigabyte H110M-S2H £50.99

minitrue

Dropping the wifi for powerline is probably a good idea alright!

I used the question about getting more performance and upgrading to decide to take the path I did.

I knew a more normal boards type build would appear to contrast it with! I honestly wasn't sure if football manager warranted a dedicated gpu and I'm not sure a GT 710 is really any better then this generation of onboard graphics. If so then I'd have thought the cheapest rx460/gtx1050 would be the way to go which puts them about €400 on your build without the networking. I think you would need about a 750 to see a jump worth upgrading for in gpu performance versus the onboard graphics and the 460/1050 would be another step beyond again (and a lot more power efficient).

If there was no mention of gaming/upgrading/performance I'd be going a completely different direction, but this should at least be giving the OP an idea of what sort of things they might get building themselves to contrast with what they might get off the shelf

tadcan

This Youtube video shows benchmarks of the card vs onboard with about a 10fps improvement. He does recommend spending the same money on a second hand GPU, but it works for basic games. For example here is a GTX 480 with an asking price of €50. A GTX 1050 would set you back around €133 with shipping and would be overkill for Football Manager.

Update: I just noticed that motherboard doesn't have a VGA port, just a DVI, will update since more monitors have VGA instead.

minitrue

A GTX480 shouldn't be too far behind an RX460, but the GTX480 can use 250W while a RX460 tops out at 75W. A RX460/GTX1050 is kinda overkill here alright (hence I started without a gpu) but there's just no value or sanity at all buying anything new for less. A second hand 750 or so would probably be fine but even €20 on a new 710 seems too much to me

TerrorFirmer

A GTX480 is a poor buy because it's a power guzzling monster that will require a fairly beefy PSU to run, and it's a hot running, bulky card, not to mention old. There is zero point in a GT710, it's designed for older PC's to add media capability, it's significantly slower than the integrated graphics in the Pentium.

You will be fine with the Intel graphics for stuff like Football Manager, it's not a GPU intensive game by any vague stretch. To get something that's actually better from a performance perspective you would be looking at GT740 level €80 cards, but at their pricing, they don't make sense either due to the incredibly crappy performance per euro compared to a €120 card like GTX1050.

The intel graphics will be more than enough for Football Manager, and if you want to play other games down the line you can add a card in any case. I'd probably go with the i3-6100 over the G4400 since your budget allows it, it's also far, far faster in games (though there will be no difference in casual desktop use, or games like Football Manager, it's more a longevity or if/but/when you want to play newer games thing)

tadcan

There will be a new generation of CPU's released in January, dropping the price of current models. Or for a bit more longevity you could get the new gen cpu, which the advertising material says it can plan Overwatch with dedicated graphics.

orourkk3

Thanks for the all the suggestions so far. I think I'll hold off on a graphics card till a later date and spend extra on the CPU. Really gaming is not the priority at the moment. The Ethernet adapters are a great shout too, mother boards with WiFi look that bit more expensive. Would going for a HDD be an idea or are SSds the way to go? I'm looking to keep the price down but I want something that is some way future proofed. I will upgrade but not in the short term.

K.O.Kiki

minitrue wrote: »

A GTX480 shouldn't be too far behind an RX460, but the GTX480 can use 250W while a RX460 tops out at 75W. A RX460/GTX1050 is kinda overkill here alright (hence I started without a gpu) but there's just no value or sanity at all buying anything new for less. A second hand 750 or so would probably be fine but even €20 on a new 710 seems too much to me

A Radeon HD7870 is, was, and always will be a better buy than a GTX 480, and provide RX460 performance on the cheap.

CEX have em for €55
https://ie.webuy.com/product.php?sku=SGRAATIRADHDHD7870

minitrue

For an office PC I _really_ would go SSD all the way if I could, as in I'd take the Pentium with an SSD over the i3 with a hard drive.

Wifi cards start from about €10, but a homeplug is likely to be much better.

tadcan

SSD's are faster for starting the PC and even simple things like web browsers and office software, esp. if you mostly have word files and don't need loads of space for movies/songs/pictures. A much better long term investment. Ethernet if faster/reliable, as some houses can have wifi dead spots depending on size, how thick the walls are, where the router is placed.

ASRock H110M-HDS €52.26
Intel Core i3 6100 €110.44
8GB Crucial €46.85
240GB Crucial BX200 €73.85
350 Watt Corsair VS €33.45
Aerocool CS-101 Case £22.85 approx €35 with postage.

Plus €30 postage from Germany is €351.45

Don't buy the powerline from Germany as they will only have two prongs! They are at powercity or the like for around €50.

minitrue

No power supply in that one tadcan

tadcan

minitrue wrote: »

No power supply in that one tadcan

Mutter mutter mutter, had a feeling I forgot something.

orourkk3

So this is what my shopping cart is looking like now:

Mindfactory
Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H € 75.30
Intel Core i3 6100 2x 3.70GHz So.1151 € 114.85
8GB Crucial CT2K4G4DFS8213 DDR4-2133 DIMM CL15 Dual Kit € 51.85
120GB ADATA Premier SP550 2.5 "(6.4cm) SATA 6Gb € 55.85
+ €30 delivery

Amazon.co.uk
Corsair Builder CX430 PSU €47
Case approx. €40

Total: €414.85

Any compatibility issues that I cant see? Am I overspending on the motherboard? I'm undecided on the case, Thermalake, Aerocool, Cosair? Any brand that stands out in this price range? I hoping to get something with a window so I can see the work I've done.

tadcan

You would save by using my build, and replace the SSD from your build. The system draw is around 126w, so go with the 350W.

minitrue

orourkk3 wrote: »

Any compatibility issues that I cant see?

Looks fine.

orourkk3 wrote: »

Am I overspending on the motherboard?

Yes but it makes it easy to upgrade ram and you can use m.2 ssd's if you want (and if you want a window so it looks nice I'd use one now instead of the 2.5" drive). Most cheap builds here would go with a cheap H110 board and just one stick of ram but I really don't like that option myself in general unless you have to shave out every last cent now. You won't be horribly wrong either way.

orourkk3 wrote: »

I'm undecided on the case, Thermalake, Aerocool, Cosair? Any brand that stands out in this price range? I hoping to get something with a window so I can see the work I've done.

I never care about windows so I'm the wrong person to ask, worry My personal tendency is to go for the "cheap" Antec cases as a good compromise to get something decent enough you could re-use rather then dump but still cheaper then just about any other component. What size psu is another fun question as really it's about how much more you can put in (mainly graphics card but any other cards or drives and usb stuff will all add up) before you need a new psu. You won't be wrong again at 350W or 430W. With the bit more info here all across the thread maybe one of the regular experts would chip in with there preferred calls and make it easy for you?

orourkk3

So I decided to hold off on the build with Intel releasing new processors. I'm now sold on the pentium g4560. I've also recently got my hands on an old desktop circa 2000. I've taken it to bits and was hoping to reuse the case and 200w power supply.

What are the issues I'm going to face if I try to reuse the old hardware? I've already noticed that the connectors on the power supply are not compatible with a few old laptop harddrives I have.

The build I've decided on is:

Pentium g4560
ASRock h110m-hds
8gb of RAM
An 120gb SSD or one of my old laptop hardrives

tadcan

Put the parts through pcpicker which will give you the draw of components. A 2000 era power supply probably wont have sata power connectors for the hard drive. They also tend to be louder than newer power supplies. If a PSU goes bad it can take out the whole pc. I'd much rather spend the €40-€50 for the reliability and performance.

Also if you use a spinning disk drive for that system it will be a bottleneck. Get an SSD to use the full potential of the other parts.