SFF Powerful PC for Developers Home Office. Review my selections /alt recommandations

davidm20

Small, Future proofed, Networked, Fast Powerful PC is the objective.

1. What is your budget? €400 -> 600 ex Vat

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
A Home Office PC to run Visual studio, Delphi, SQL server, Word processing, general browsing etc. Multiple simultaneous open applications/windows

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No, apart from install of Win 7 64 O/S I don't want to flute around too much

5. Do you need a monitor? No

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? N/a

6. Do you need any of these peripherals?
Have all - Printers/Scanner, speakers, keyboard, mouse,

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No

8. How can you pay? Credit Card

9. When are you purchasing? In the next week or two.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? No help needed.

I have a two examples of what I have in mind. 256 SSD + 8 gb RAM was my starting point

https://www.computeruniverse.net/en/products/90624250/hp-prodesk-400-g2-dm-p5k20ea.asp

https://www.computeruniverse.net/en/products/90664170/intel-hyrican-nuc-5178.asp

Opinions & Alternatives would be great

Thanks,
David

minitrue

Small and "fast powerful" are a bit of a contradiction. Those machines you linked use the low power processors so they sacrifice a lot of speed to get squeezed into such a small height, so they are more like laptops then desktops.

Something like https://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90632471/inter-tech-itx-e-m3.asp will let you use a mini-itx board with a full speed cpu (and room for a gpu though I don't think any of your stuff wants a gpu yet).

So perhaps give some more clues to people on how important size is Vs power to try and get good suggestions?

extra-ordinary_

Asrock DeskMini 110 or the 270 when it comes out.

davidm20

Thanks Guys,

I know very little about processors, I thought with the SSD and RAM I'd be flying. From a little research, i5 seemed to be what I needed. That's where I started from. I wasn't aware of the 'low power' part. I thought I'd be nearly getting the same bang for my buck with any processor of that particular generation.

minitrue wrote: »

Small and "fast powerful" are a bit of a contradiction. Those machines you linked use the low power processors so they sacrifice a lot of speed to get squeezed into such a small height, so they are more like laptops then desktops.

So perhaps give some more clues to people on how important size is Vs power to try and get good suggestions?

The pc I'm upgrading from is old, a Dell Precision 390 - (44.7 cm x 17.1 cm x 46.8 cm) . It's big and in a big desk in the spare bedroom, which I also need to get rid of.

I 'liked' the idea of maybe mounting the box on the back of the monitor, but didn't realise I'd sacrifice on processing power.

Task speed is far more important, Neat/small case after that.

Venom

Google ATX and micro ATX cases. Really lots of choice these says.

Lu Tze

The first one you linked to is a desktop processor, much faster than the ultra low voltage chips in the Intel NUCs

minitrue

It's still a T processor so 2.5GHz rather then 3.2GHz, so still cutting back power for the sake of space. "Task speed is far more important, Neat/small case after that." suggest to me forget all the low power stuff.

The Deskmini would be fine and you can do similar things with itx boards to open more options, but with the likes of the 263 x 222 x 220mm case I linked above you can go for very standard parts (board, psu), with no real fear of thermal throttling and have normal expansion options (like a full size pci-e card) in a space about half as high and deep as a normal tower.

TerrorFirmer

The T model is still a desktop processor and although slower than the full regular 6500, is still light years ahead of the dual core mobile processor in the NUC, as Lu Tze pointed out.

The HP prodesk is a very powerful machine in a tiny form factor and a good choice, I'd take it over the NUC is you need a bit of grunt.

davidm20

Thanks all for input

Seems it coming down to 2 opts

1, Very Easy option - Buy the HP ProDesk 400

or

extra-ordinary_ wrote: »

Asrock DeskMini 110 or the 270 when it comes out.

2. Easy option - Build. All parts available on computeruniverse.net

ASRock DeskMini 110/B/BB/EU € 125,97
Intel Core i5-6600 Boxed (with fan) € 205,80
G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB DDR4 SO-DIMM K2 2133 C15 € 98,24
ADATA Premier SP550 240GB € 68,82

Total Product Value excl. VAT € 498,83

I've ripped the ar$e out of this guys video....Looks simple.... nearly too simple.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-u7B5nzAk

I'm thinking opt 2.
pcpartpicker.com doesn't have the ASRock case, so I cant test for compatability. Is there somewhere else, just to confirm?

minitrue

"Supports Standard Intel 65W CPU & Intel Box Fan Cooler" is the main thing so your cpu is fine. Note that you would need to update the motherboard firmware to use a new cpu like an i5-7600.

You should get 2400MHz DDR4 ram, like say https://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90653927/crucial-16gb-ddr4-so-dimm-kit-2400mhz.asp or https://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90653919/crucial-ballistix-sport-lt-16gb-so-dimm-kit.asp

If you want ultimate paranoia, pick ram from http://www.asrock.com/support/support.asp?Model=DeskMini%20110%20Series&cat=Memory
e.g. http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/16GB-HyperX-Impact-DDR4-2400-SO-DIMM-CL14-Dual-Kit_1013585.html (it's €24 more from computeruniverse).

mindfactory seems like it might work out slightly cheaper all round.

I'd personally probably go with an M.2 SSD but that's pretty marginal.

As you've figured out your life will be very easy assembling it with a barebones!

davidm20

minitrue wrote: »

"
You should get 2400MHz DDR4 ram, like say https://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90653927/crucial-16gb-ddr4-so-dimm-kit-2400mhz.asp or https://www.computeruniverse.net/products/90653919/crucial-ballistix-sport-lt-16gb-so-dimm-kit.asp

I appreciate all the help and the mhz figure doesn't mean anything to mean.

But just in case anyone else is thinking of going down this route it's worth noting the guy in the YouTube video said 2133mhz was the max to use and there is a note on that ASRock page that's linked "Note 1.DDR4-2400 only Intel Generation 7th CPU supported."

AFAIK my CPU is 6th gen

minitrue

Bah, sorry, I'm an idiot, as you said it was even on the top of that Asrock page!

davidm20

Ok Trigger pulled, bought all on computeruniverse.net.

1 ASRock DeskMini 110/COM/B/BB/EU (Article number: 90677174)
1 Intel Core i5-6600 Boxed (Article number: 90613425)
1 ADATA Premier SP550 240GB (Article number: 90622032)
1 ASRock DeskMini WiFi Kit (Article number: 90677175)
1 ASRock DeskMini 2x USB 2 Kabel (Article number: 90677176)
1 ASRock DeskMini Vesa Mount Kit (Article number: 90677177)
1 G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB DDR4 SO-DIMM K2 2133 C15 (Article number:
Total Product Value Excl VAT € 536,12

Total After shipping & fees € 572,67

Will update when I build

Thanks everyone for input

Xenoronin

Looks good! Just dropping in to link the Asrock page for the DeskMini as I didn't know what it was.
http://www.asrock.com/nettop/intel/deskmini%20110%20Series/#About

Also, the amount of "BETTER!" made me chuckle.

davidm20

Xenoronin wrote: »

Looks good! Just dropping in to link the Asrock page for the DeskMini as I didn't know what it was.
http://www.asrock.com/nettop/intel/deskmini%20110%20Series/#About

Good thinking, The support button on the top right of that page could be handy too. Downloads etc

That + this 8 mins on Youtube and your some of the way there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j-u7B5nzAk

davidm20

I said I'd update when I got up and running

1 ASRock DeskMini 110/COM/B/BB/EU (Article number: 90677174)
1 Intel Core i5-6600 Boxed (Article number: 90613425)
1 Intel Core i5-7600 Boxed "Kaby Lake" Box

1 ADATA Premier SP550 240GB (Article number: 90622032)
Crucial BX200 480GB
1 ASRock DeskMini WiFi Kit (Article number: 90677175)
1 ASRock DeskMini 2x USB 2 Kabel (Article number: 90677176)
1 ASRock DeskMini Vesa Mount Kit (Article number: 90677177)
1 G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB DDR4 SO-DIMM K2 2133 C15 (Article number:

Updated Total €604.04

Had an issue of my making on first order, so above is the actual order that went in a week later, slightly updated spec.

Placed order 17/01, order pick slow, delivered 06/02

No hassles to physically build. It's simple. ASRock DeskMini 2x USB 2 Kabel unnecessary, doubt I'll every use it. Take €10 off final bill

Tried to install WIN7 but had to go with WIN10 because of "Kaby Lake" processor, and lack of USB drivers support link

I've read that it's getaroundable but it would be very awkward with this machine and with WIN7 age, no ps/2 connections or internal DiskDrive , I just went with WIN10.

If WIN7 is what you want go back a Processor generation.