Planning a cheap work from home PC.

[ivanrcks95]

Budget (including currency): 280usd roughly

 

The main purpose of this PC will be Office based programs, chrome browsing, streaming shows, remote connection work. The budget includes money for a monitor too, and any extras. So far i have found a nice deal for a i5-3450 powered machine, has 8gb of DDR3 ram, ASUS P8H61-M board, 3TB HDD, and it comes in a nice compact chassis, its 120usd. My plan is to get it, probably sell the 3TB drive and use the cash for a 120-240gb ssd, maybe add a 50$ GPU, something like a GT 1030, and use the rest on a nice 24-27inch 1080p monitor. What are peoples thoughts? Do i even need a GPU for such work? I just dont want it to feel laggy/stuttery when working, hence the want for a GPU/selling hdd for a ssd. Im waiting for the owner of the PC to tell me what wattage the psu is, to know if it will even support a GPU, it might be those realy weak 150w ones, who knows. There are alternatives, i7-3770 powered rigs, fx-6300 powered rigs, but those are a bit pricier so getting a GPU for them and fitting budget will be harder. But im open to feedback and suggestions thanks!

 

[SupaKomputa]

Don't invest your money on a DDR3 system.

You can build something cheap with Ryzen with that budget, though probably you gotta get it used to get the best bang for the buck.

 

Ryzen 1200 (no gpu) $40-50 or Athlon 240g or 3000ge (with integrated graphic)

A320 Motherboard $40

8gb Ram $30

250gb ssd $40

450w PSU $40

Cheap GPU $50

 

[ivanrcks95]

2 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Don't invest your money on a DDR3 system.

You can build something cheap with Ryzen with that budget, though probably you gotta get it used to get the best bang for the buck.

 

Ryzen 1200 (no gpu) $40-50 or Athlon 240g or 3000ge (with integrated graphic)

A320 Motherboard $40

8gb Ram $30

250gb ssd $40

450w PSU $40

Cheap GPU $50

 

As stated in the post, the budget includes a monitor too, and i wanna spend a good chunk, around 100-110 on a monitor.

[SupaKomputa]

Well you can use your TV for a while, until you can get money for the monitor.

But anyway, if you still want that one, its okay, you don't need a GPU if you're not gaming.

3TB HDD maybe hard to sell, since people don't want used HDD.

I woudl just use it and take the GPU money for a 240gb SSD.

[ivanrcks95]

7 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Well you can use your TV for a while, until you can get money for the monitor.

But anyway, if you still want that one, its okay, you don't need a GPU if you're not gaming.

3TB HDD maybe hard to sell, since people don't want used HDD.

I woudl just use it and take the GPU money for a 240gb SSD.

That, no, using a TV for work is horrible, when i was building my rig a year ago, thats what i did, it was the worst decision i ever did. Getting a monitor will be a priority. 

[TehDwonz]

40 minutes ago, ivanrcks95 said:

Budget (including currency): 280usd roughly

 

The main purpose of this PC will be Office based programs, chrome browsing, streaming shows, remote connection work. The budget includes money for a monitor too, and any extras. So far i have found a nice deal for a i5-3450 powered machine, has 8gb of DDR3 ram, ASUS P8H61-M board, 3TB HDD, and it comes in a nice compact chassis, its 120usd. My plan is to get it, probably sell the 3TB drive and use the cash for a 120-240gb ssd, maybe add a 50$ GPU, something like a GT 1030, and use the rest on a nice 24-27inch 1080p monitor. What are peoples thoughts? Do i even need a GPU for such work? I just dont want it to feel laggy/stuttery when working, hence the want for a GPU/selling hdd for a ssd. Im waiting for the owner of the PC to tell me what wattage the psu is, to know if it will even support a GPU, it might be those realy weak 150w ones, who knows. There are alternatives, i7-3770 powered rigs, fx-6300 powered rigs, but those are a bit pricier so getting a GPU for them and fitting budget will be harder. But im open to feedback and suggestions thanks!

 

Seems a decent deal. i7 is obv nicer if you can fit it into your budget, but do NOT get an AMD FX era CPU, they are awful.

 

If you're just doing office work and browsing, the built-in Intel GPU will be fine. You can always add a bigger GPU later, like the cheap 1030 option if you feel the i5/i7 GPU isn't cutting it. I don't see you have issues at 1080p though. SSD is a good idea - 240GB are around £30/$40 at the moment. I reckon one of those nice metal Kingston A400 ones will be great.

PSU should be fine for adding a low power GPU - if you get a fanless 1030, it won't be drawing much power.

[ivanrcks95]

2 minutes ago, TehDwonz said:

Seems a decent deal. i7 is obv nicer if you can fit it into your budget, but do NOT get an AMD FX era CPU, they are awful.

 

If you're just doing office work and browsing, the built-in Intel GPU will be fine. You can always add a bigger GPU later, like the cheap 1030 option if you feel the i5/i7 GPU isn't cutting it. I don't see you have issues at 1080p though. SSD is a good idea - 240GB are around £30/$40 at the moment. I reckon one of those nice metal Kingston A400 ones will be great.

PSU should be fine for adding a low power GPU - if you get a fanless 1030, it won't be drawing much power.

Just the answer i was looking for! Yeah my biggest worry is just how snappy and smooth the system will feel when being used, so like, accessing remotely the work computer, while at the same time having chrome running, and an excel document etc Will it start to just shit itself? Or will it be fine, and will something like a 1030 help in that regard or its all about ram/core count. As you can see my main rig is pretty "beefy" so i genuinely dont know what is the main factor in affecting how smooth a system feels when under a multi-task load like that. Having no stuttering in video playback too etc etc

[whm1974]

If you can spare some money, you will be better off just building a Ryzen 3 3200G Rig. Things I would build around in your case:

 

16GB DDR4.

~500GB SSD of a decent brand.

Ryzen iGPU will work fine.

~450w PSU.

Case.

A Display of your Choice.

[Aereldor]

CPU prices right now are ludicrous. The Athlon 200GE is $130. That's a $50 chip. The Ryzen 3200G is $200 for a $100 APU. The only CPU I've found at MSRP is the i3 10100, and while excellent value, at $115 that's about half your budget. 

 

I'd roll with that Sandy Bridge desktop, though it's not worth $120, try to get it for $80 or so. That 3TB HDD is worthless. You might as well get a 500GB SSD so it's actually usable. It's only about $40 these days, SSD prices haven't inflated. 

 

[ivanrcks95]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

CPU prices right now are ludicrous. The Athlon 200GE is $130. That's a $50 chip. The Ryzen 3200G is $200 for a $100 APU. The only CPU I've found at MSRP is the i3 10100, and while excellent value, at $115 that's about half your budget. 

 

I'd roll with that Sandy Bridge desktop, though it's not worth $120, try to get it for $80 or so. That 3TB HDD is worthless, you'll want to replace that with an SSD for a boot drive anyway, and while you're at it you might as well get a 500GB SSD so it's actually usable. It's only about $40 these days, SSD prices haven't inflated.

 

Exactly my thought originally, new pc part prices are way to inflated right now. Ive actually found another rig, a bit more, around 160usd, however, it already comes with a gpu, gtx 760, 16gb of ram over 8gb, and a xeon 1230v2, no hard drive though, seems like a far better deal overall. Use the saved money of gpu on a ssd and be done.

[TehDwonz]

36 minutes ago, ivanrcks95 said:

Just the answer i was looking for! Yeah my biggest worry is just how snappy and smooth the system will feel when being used, so like, accessing remotely the work computer, while at the same time having chrome running, and an excel document etc Will it start to just shit itself? Or will it be fine, and will something like a 1030 help in that regard or its all about ram/core count. As you can see my main rig is pretty "beefy" so i genuinely dont know what is the main factor in affecting how smooth a system feels when under a multi-task load like that. Having no stuttering in video playback too etc etc

As long as you de-clutter Windows 10, and remove all the bloatware, it should be fine. I still use an old Xeon X3360 (Q45 chipset) system for my admin/financial stuff with Win10 and Office 2016. Only an HD6450 for graphics, but even the on board Intel GMA graphics are fine.

[TehDwonz]

Just now, ivanrcks95 said:

Exactly my thought originally, new pc part prices are way to inflated right now. Ive actually found another rig, a bit more, around 160usd, however, it already comes with a gpu, gtx 760, 16gb of ram over 8gb, and a xeon 1230v2, no hard drive though, seems like a far better deal overall. Use the saved money of gpu on a ssd and be done.

Oh wow, that is outstanding for that price - I'd probably buy that even if I didn't need it...You were going to buy an SSD anyway, so no HDD is fine.

[ivanrcks95]

2 minutes ago, TehDwonz said:

Oh wow, that is outstanding for that price - I'd probably buy that even if I didn't need it...You were going to buy an SSD anyway, so no HDD is fine.

Exactly! How good is that gen of xeon? He says its about a 3770 equivalent.

[TehDwonz]

25 minutes ago, ivanrcks95 said:

Exactly! How good is that gen of xeon? He says its about a 3770 equivalent.

Basically, yeah: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=65719,65732

But it's a Xeon, so better silicon binning.

[ivanrcks95]

5 minutes ago, TehDwonz said:

Basically, yeah: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=65719,65732

But it's a Xeon, so better silicon binning.

Huh, didnt know Xeons didnt have a iGPU, thats interesting.

[ivanrcks95]

After basically a full day of searching, i think this might be the best deal ill find. i3 8100, 8gb ddr4, 240gb kingston ssd and a 500gb hdd, all for 170usd. Seems like a fair price, yes i wont get a gpu, but, getting a far more modern system, with still pretty decent performance. From the research i did the 8100 is actually as "powerful" if not more than a 3770, and a lot more powerful than the 3450 i was looking at originally. Will wait on the person to reply and hopefully grab it this weekend. Cheers everyone for the feedback, ill update this once i have things finalized. 

[ivanrcks95]

Final update, after losing quite a few bidding wars, this was the rig i ended up actually getting. Its an HP Prodesk based system, i5-4590, 8gb of ram, 120gb ssd and a GTX 750. All for 180usd. Turns out the ram however was completely mismatched, it had 2 sticks of 2gb 1600mhz ram, and 1 stick of 4gb 1333mhz ram, managed to find two more 4gb 1600mhz sticks for 10usd, and sell my 4gb 1333 for 5. So grand total 185usd with now 12gb of ram, but matching sticks. It performs really well, got a 1240 score on Cinebench R20, and im well aware that Userbenchmarks gets a bad rep, but i still like to use it to compare data between similar systems. How it performed attached below. Overall really happy with it, for sub 200usd i feel like its a pretty good system, and more than enough for the workloads i have planned. Cheers everyone who helped out!