Budget Office PC build. Best value possible!

[krzyzaw]

Hello,

 

After lots of reading and researching i've decided to ask for some help as Im still not sure if i can do this right...

So, here is the case - i need to build a PC for general office tasks (office, some internet, rarely gimp for image editing).

Budget is ~ 370$ (1500 PLN) - but as it is a PC for non-profit students organisation every buck counts - we need a PC that will last as long as it possibly can.

From our last PC we still have working keyboard, mouse, screen, hard drive and cd/dvd burner so i will propably just swap them to the new system.

As for OS we will use Windows 10 - we already have that so - exclude the costs.

I am from Poland - prices here are around 10-20% higher than in US.

 

Here is something I came up with after reading some threads here - http://pcpartpicker.com/p/G8VFBm

I included a small SSD instead of a bigger hdd becouse we arleady have one (but we need something more reliable and fast for day to day data managment).

 

Best regards,

Chris

[79wjd]

You can probably find a cheaper motherboard, SSD, case, and power supply. I would also recommend going with 8gb of RAM instead since it's not much more and at some point it will likely become necessary in that system. 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($125.74 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($45.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($30.49 @ Newegg) 
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($39.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($44.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $317.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-28 08:45 EST-0500

[krzyzaw]

Just now, CUDA_Cores said:

do you mind buying used parts? Becasue you can build an LGA 775 core 2 quad system with 8GB of ram that, while it will not perform as well as an i3, will be more than plenty for basic office tasks. 

We cannot buy used parts unfortunatelly ;/ Our university covers the costs and we need receipts.

[Nena Trinity]

I think you want a APU! (AMD A4-7300 is very cheap but if you want more performance you can grab a A6, A8 or A10!)

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, Nena360 said:

I think you want a APU! (AMD A4-7300 is very cheap but if you want more performance you can grab a A6, A8 or A10!)

I'd take an i3 (or a Pentium for that matter) over an APU for office tasks any day. CPU performance would be much more important tha GPU performance. 

[Frame Drops]

First thing never combine DDR3 ram with sky lake processor , if you want your PC to run for a long time. DRR3 work on high volts (1.5v) which damage the CPU slowly and after that your CPU will be dead. Sky lake is designed to work with DDR3L and DDR4 which operates on low volt (1.2v)

[krzyzaw]

1 minute ago, Nena360 said:

I think you want a APU!

(AMD A4-7300 is very cheap but if you want more performance you can grab a A6, A8 or A10!)

What do you think about A8-7650K 3.8GHz BOX (FM2+) paired with ASRock FM2A68M-HD+ ?

[krzyzaw]

2 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

 

OK, that is fine. Have you considered looking at an AMD AM1 system? They are low-power, don't create much noise and will work just as well and cost less. 

This is the first time i heard about that, I will check that right away.

[Nena Trinity]

3 minutes ago, krzyzaw said:

What do you think about A8-7650K 3.8GHz BOX (FM2+) paired with ASRock FM2A68M-HD+ ?

Seems like a solid motherboard!

4 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

I'd take an i3 (or a Pentium for that matter) over an APU for office tasks any day. CPU performance would be much more important tha GPU performance. 

On pure value the A series are much cheaper, also the Pentium only have 2-cores while the i3 is simply overkill...

[krzyzaw]

7 minutes ago, amit523dutta said:

First thing never combine DDR3 ram with sky lake processor , if you want your PC to run for a long time. DRR3 work on high volts (1.5v) which damage the CPU slowly and after that your CPU will be dead. Sky lake is designed to work with DDR3L and DDR4 which operates on low volt (1.2v)

Does it affect all processors? Or is it the case only with sky lake?

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, Nena360 said:

Seems like a solid motherboard!

On pure value the A series are much cheaper, also the Pentium only have 2-cores while the i3 is simply overkill...

An A4-7300 is $9 cheaper than a Pentium while being significantly slower. 

 

Depending on the use case, I can think of a lot of office tasks where the i3 would be worthwhile due to the extra threads. 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3240 3.1GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($62.98 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($39.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $102.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-28 08:57 EST-0500

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD A4-7300 3.8GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($45.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A68M-DG3+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard  ($47.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $93.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-28 08:57 EST-0500

5 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

My choice for a cheap office PC build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD 3850 1.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($29.95 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock AM1B-ITX Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard  ($29.99 @ Micro Center) 
Memory: Crucial 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($16.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Team DARK L3 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($32.99 @ Micro Center) 
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($23.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $173.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-28 08:54 EST-0500

Note that if the computer will see anything more than extremely light office use that cpu is going to be a problem. 

[Frame Drops]

1 minute ago, CUDA_Cores said:

My choice for a cheap office PC build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD 3850 1.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($29.95 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock AM1B-ITX Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard  ($29.99 @ Micro Center) 
Memory: Crucial 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($16.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Team DARK L3 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($32.99 @ Micro Center) 
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($23.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $173.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-28 08:54 EST-0500

i will raise some price but i won't go with that CPU and that gen PC. Per core performance really ... . When you are using your PC for internet or reading book you won't get any help with 4 cores or 32 cores because those kind of work don't consume more than 1 or 2 cores.

[79wjd]

12 minutes ago, amit523dutta said:

First thing never combine DDR3 ram with sky lake processor , if you want your PC to run for a long time. DRR3 work on high volts (1.5v) which damage the CPU slowly and after that your CPU will be dead. Sky lake is designed to work with DDR3L and DDR4 which operates on low volt (1.2v)

That's not exactly true.

 

On 2/26/2016 at 3:28 PM, MageTank said:

I will try to make this very simple for you. Intel, in their warning, did not mean VDIMM. They meant VCCIO/VCCSA voltages are dangerous for your IMC. After all, VDIMM is supplied from the board to the ram, and does not come into contact with the CPU at all. VCCIO is the voltage for the electrical paths into and out of the IMC, and VCCSA  (System Agent) voltage is the IMC and PCIE sub domain voltage. These two are the dangerous voltages for your IMC. The problem is, when you load XMP profiles for 1.5 or 1.65v, they tend to automatically raise those two voltage values higher than what is considered safe. This can cause damage to your IMC, and degrade/kill it over time.

 

The reason tech reviewers do not convey this message is quite simple. None of them know what they are talking about. They just repeat what one misinformed person says, and they all roll with it. None of them spotted the obvious mistake, even though I and several other overclockers have repeatedly tried to point it out. Even Intel clarified in an interview that it's the way the boards read the SPD (Serial Presence Detect) on the ram itself.

 

Any who, ignore anyone else that says DDR3 is dangerous for Skylake. They don't know what they are talking about. As long as you manually input safe VCCIO/SA voltages (Anything under 1.25v is safe 24/7, but I would remain under 1.15v just to be extra safe) you will not have a problem. @Lays would be the first person on this forum to tell you if VDIMM kills IMC's. The dude is pushing 1.8v on Skylake as we speak.

[Nena Trinity]

5 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

My choice for a cheap office PC build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD 3850 1.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($29.95 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock AM1B-ITX Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard  ($29.99 @ Micro Center) 
Memory: Crucial 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($16.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Team DARK L3 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($32.99 @ Micro Center) 
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($23.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $173.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-28 08:54 EST-0500

AM1 is quite cool but why not grab the 5350?

[Frame Drops]

Just now, krzyzaw said:

Does it affect all processors? Or is it the case only with sky lake?

Current market : only sky lake.

[AlanAlan]

19 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

You can probably find a cheaper motherboard, SSD, case, and power supply. I would also recommend going with 8gb of RAM instead since it's not much more and at some point it will likely become necessary in that system. 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($125.74 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($45.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($30.49 @ Newegg) 
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($39.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($44.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $317.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-28 08:45 EST-0500

Wouldn't the power supply be to overkill?

[Matias_Chambers]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fvPJsY

[79wjd]

10 minutes ago, AlanAlan said:

Wouldn't the power supply be to overkill?

It's only a couple dollars more than a 300w variant that I would consider, but yes, anything over 150w would be overkill. 

[MageTank]

5 hours ago, krzyzaw said:

Does it affect all processors? Or is it the case only with sky lake?

It doesn't impact Skylake at all. He is misinformed. VDIMM does not kill CPU's nor does it degrade IMCs. VCCIO/VCCSA do. These higher VDIMM kits tend to automatically load higher VCCIO/SA voltages from their XMP/SPD information which can be harmful to your CPU's IMC. However, the fix is rather simple. Manually dial in your VCCIO/SA voltages. That's it. No extra tinkering required. You can run 1.65v memory if you want, and it won't hurt. However, I should warn you. Those 1.65v kits are pre-overclocked, and might require that high VCCIO/SA voltage to be stable. Not providing enough might mean you have to lower the clock speed, or reduce tertiary timings slightly to compensate. If it works fine with lower VCCIO/SA voltages, then more power to ya.

 

I do personally recommend going with DDR4 with Skylake. It's not worth it to stick to old standards and try to cling to them for as long as possible. The rest of the computer world is entering DDR4, or has already done so. X99, Z170, Zen, etc. Now is the time to make that leap. After all, DDR4 is better than DDR3 in every regard.

[krzyzaw]

Hello,

 

Thank you all for the answers !

We decided to go for the i3-6100 with DDR4 memory on gigabyte board (for now 4gb ddr4 - propably upgrade it later).

 

Cheers,

Christopher

[79wjd]

12 minutes ago, krzyzaw said:

Hello,

 

Thank you all for the answers !

We decided to go for the i3-6100 with DDR4 memory on gigabyte board (for now 4gb ddr4 - propably upgrade it later).

 

Cheers,

Christopher

If you haven't already ordered the system yet, I would really try go with a single 8gb stick so you can add a second in the future should it be necessary (unless the board you chose has four RAM slots, in which case it doesn't really matter).