Cheap university work desktop

[jeffery7466]

Budget (including currency): Below £300

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Web browsing (loads of tabs). CAD tools e.g. REVIT for Architecture and Design. Photoshop.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

I'm building this for a family member. I've had enough of seeing her raging over how slow her crappy HP slimeline is (just to give you an idea, it has a 5W TDP soldered CPU). She mainly uses it for web browsing, and also to do her architecture 3D design work on it. I just need something cheap to improve her quality of life. She already has peripherals and a 1080p monitor. I'll provide a spare SSD so storage is not included in the list below.

 

I'm not sure what case to choose. I think she'll like something 'light' and simple - minimalist sort of thing. At most a strip of RGB at the front maybe. I'd appreciate some suggestions.

 

Here is what I think I'll get so far:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Athlon 3000G 3.5 GHz Dual-Core Processor	£45.49 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard	Gigabyte B450M S2H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	£58.97 @ Amazon UK
Memory	Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	£69.98 @ Amazon UK
Power Supply	EVGA B3 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	£59.99 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£234.43
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-24 21:37 BST+0100

 

 

 

[Herman Mcpootis]

an athlon 3000G isn't gonna be able to do CAD all that well. go over to ebay and get a used workstation and make a few upgrades instead.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Z420-Xeon-4-core-E5-1620-3-6GHz-16GB-1TB-DVDR-UBUNTU-workstation-tower/333478896901?hash=item4da4e42505:g:S80AAOSwCH9d8l1e 200 pounds

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Xeon-E5-2670-V1-SR0KX-2-60GHz-8-Core-LGA2011-CPU/264736071598?epid=21003304316&hash=item3da37fdfae:g:i0gAAOSwWP1et~X1 33.5 pounds

[jeffery7466]

@Herman Mcpootis
Thanks for the heads up. I haven't really looked into the used market at all. I have no experience in buying second hand things, and don't want to get screwed over.

I just read on the REVIT forum (not sure why hadn't thought of doing that before), and the posts there recommend lower core count with higher clock speed. I guess I really have to go for Intel for those characteristics if I were to stay under £300.