office pc build

Turbof1 · July 6, 2022

Budget (including currency): 760 euro's

Country: Belgium

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: office, browser

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):

Hello fellow PC builders. i have built a new pc for a friend to replace his aged laptop. Since he never actually moves the laptop, I suggested a micro atx build instead. To which he agreed.

Now, he does not game and simply has to be able to use office and his browser. We also kept longevity [the parts ideally do not need an upgrade for several years] and power consumption in mind (energy prices are going through the roof in Europe). So while the workload does not require top of the line parts, they should be both a strong upgrade from his 2012 HDD laptop and have the PC handle the next 5-6 years with a breeze.

So I went for the followimng parts:

-AMD 5600G EUR 170,72

-G-Skill Aegis 16GB 3200Mhz EUR 60,30

-Asrock A520M-HVS EUR 56,84

-Be Quiet! Power 9 400 W CM (80 plus bronze, semi modular) EUR 50,33

-WD Blue SN570 1TB M.2 Nvme SSD EUR 85,41

-Inter-Tech Micro-Tower H-606 EUR 48,76

-TP-Link USB wifi-adapter EUR 20,30

-Cherry keyboard EUR 25,37

-Amazon speakers EUR 16

-Asus VA279HAE monitor (1080p, 75hz, 27inch) EUR 151,50

-Shipment costs EUR 10

So parts including shipment is EUR 695,46. No mouse given he already has a perfectly fine one. Count up 50 euro's assembly, software installation & migration (which I did) and 10 euro's for windows 10 and office 2021 license keys, and it is rounded up 760 euro's.

Again, the goal was to not overspend on hardware he would not have any use for anyway, while also not cheaping out and having the PC future proof for quite a few years to come.

I did chose that specific motherboard because the webshop listed the 5600G as compatible. I don't have older AMD ryzen chips around, so the bios version already supporting the 5600G was critical.

The Asus monitor also has a good filter for eye protection, something we also kept in mind.

Assembly went without a hitch. The case is a little bit tight and does not have a good cable compartment, but since I went for a semi-modular PSU this was not an issue.

The only problem I ran into was the XMP/DOCP profile not running the RAM at 3200mhz, but at the standard 2133Mhz. I fixed this by updating the bios to the latest version.

Just want an opinion, also for similar future builds. Are these solid choices? Could better choices have been made?

venomtail · July 6, 2022

Solid build but quite big. I'd have gone with an htpc case. Far smaller, I'd even spend a bit extra something like a Chopin, comes with a PSU for about 100euro.

Pricy CPU just for office use, i3 12100 would have done the job or even a cheaper Celeron or Athlon for 40-60euo.

If I'm buying a Vega APU I'd spend 10euro more on 3600MHz memory. Not vital for his use case but resell value would be better because APU and 3600MHz is a much better combo for performance.

What mechanical keyboard did you get? I struggle to find any for less than 50euro but you've got one for 25...

ColdFusion04 · July 6, 2022

I also think this is a solid build.

I follow another approach for those cases though... If possible, i would try to choose a prebuilt-system (in this case something akin to a Zotac ZBOX CA621 nano for a small footprint), simpy because in case of a problem i don't want to be held reliable ("but you built it, so you fix it").

For simple office use i would further suggest looking for refurbished computers (in D/A there is a cool company who specialises in that and provides workplaces for disabled people), i.e. i bought a refurbished notebook for my wife around 7 years ago and she still uses it. So this might be worth a consideration for the future...

Somerandomtechyboi · July 6, 2022

Board is a particularly terrible choice as used b450 go for similar prices while allowing overclock or just having better i/o than a lowend garbage a520

Psu is stupid overpriced, thats the kind of price 500-600w gold psus go for

And what kind of usb wifi adapter cost 60€? Just use a pcie card instead as theyre more reliable or just buy a board with built in wifi

Otherwise looks ok ish

Turbof1 · July 6, 2022

15 minutes ago, venomtail said:

Solid build but quite big. I'd have gone with an htpc case. Far smaller, I'd even spend a bit extra something like a Chopin, comes with a PSU for about 100euro.

Pricy CPU just for office use, i3 12100 would have done the job or even a cheaper Celeron or Athlon for 40-60euo.

If I'm buying a Vega APU I'd spend 10euro more on 3600MHz memory. Not vital for his use case but resell value would be better because APU and 3600MHz is a much better combo for performance.

What mechanical keyboard did you get? I struggle to find any for less than 50euro but you've got one for 25...

Hello,

Thanks for the input. I could probably have gone indeed for a htpc case. Ultimately, my mate was fine with micro atx and it is easier to build with. Next project I will take up that challenge :D.

I went back and forth with the CPU. i3 12100 is indeed cheaper, celeron too, but the 5600G has 6 cores and is more efficient. The 5600G might be overkill now, however it will also ensure he will not have to buy a new cpu for quite some time.

Turbof1 · July 6, 2022

30 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Board is a particularly terrible choice as used b450 go for similar prices while allowing overclock or just having better i/o than a lowend garbage a520

Psu is stupid overpriced, thats the kind of price 500-600w gold psus go for

And what kind of usb wifi adapter cost 60€? Just use a pcie card instead as theyre more reliable or just buy a board with built in wifi

Otherwise looks ok ish

Ehh, I made a typo for the usb wifi adapter. It is EUR 20.33. My apologies on that.

I am not considering used parts. If it was a build for myself, then yes I would be doing that. However, if I am building something for others i only work with new parts due to the warranty and being able to send right back to the seller if a part does not work. In that regard, a new B450 is more expensive than a new A520M. Also, the extra overclock features are not being used (the 5600G is powerful as it is, and overclocking will only increase power consumption). The only 'overclock' happening is the DOCP/XPM profile which the A520M supports. Actually, the A5220M features quite a few OC options (see picture).

The PSU is 15 euro's more expensive than the cheapest one (a random generic none 80 plus 300W PSU) I could find for my region. By paying 15 euro's more, I got 80 plus bronze, semi-modular cabling and a trustable brand. Given how critical the PSU is (the saying goes "do not cheap out on your PSU"), that extra 15 euro's is worth it.