Office PC Build Help!

[SkiBronJames]

Hi all! Needing some advice and help on planning a build for an office PC. This is going to be my first build, practice for a personal gaming rig. I'm a small business owner, and as such, I do a lot of the accountant, payroll, etc. work myself, and my prebuilt PC from 4 years ago is ridiculously sluggish, even with the light work that I do. 

 

1. Budget & Location

Anywhere from $500-$750. Obviously, I'm not trying to break the bank for an office PC, but I absolutely want it to zoom through what I want it to do.

Location: USA.

2. Aim

Quickbooks (only 1 company file at a time), lots of Excel (multiple worksheets open at a time), Microsoft Word, web browsing, and very light photo editing, if you can even call it that. Mostly logo work on Gimp and such.

3. Monitors

I have two monitors hooked up to the prebuilt now, and 2 is absolutely necessary. May upgrade them one day, but I don't really see a need for 3 within the foreseeable future.

4. Peripherals

I will purchase peripherals, and Windows 10, but I am not including that in the above budget. This is for the PC build only, the rest I can handle. 

5. Why are you upgrading?

Because this older prebuilt has a hard time handling multiple monitors and multiple programs. As far as I know, the prebuilt was only $450-$550 itself, so you can imagine it doesn't have much firepower. I keep the insides clean, drivers updated, WIndows updated, etc., but it just can't handle as much as I need it to anymore. 

 

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any help or advice you guys are able to provide. Really looking forward to getting to work on my first PC build and then stepping it up to a gaming PC!

[Zyndo]

1 minute ago, SkiBronJames said:

Snip

what are the specs of your current pc?

[SkiBronJames]

2 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

what are the specs of your current pc?

I'm not exactly sure. I know it has an AMD chip, but that's all. It's an HP Pavilion. Is there some way I could find out exactly what I have? 

[dizmo]

I'd just get a NUC. It should do everything you need it to. If you want a larger PC it's of course possible, but I wouldn't spend anywhere near $750. You can likely get away with spending $400ish.

[Zyndo]

Just now, SkiBronJames said:

I'm not exactly sure. I know it has an AMD chip, but that's all. It's an HP Pavilion. Is there some way I could find out exactly what I have? 

right click on "my computer" or "this PC" and select properties. You should see your CPU and RAM listed there. then go to your "device manager" and open the "display adapter" drop bar and it should show you what your video card is.

[EunSoo]

Check this out:
 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/p6MkwV
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/p6MkwV/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($182.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($41.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($52.30 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial MX300 525GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($129.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($29.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($24.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $462.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-01 13:46 EDT-0400

[SkiBronJames]

5 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I'd just get a NUC. It should do everything you need it to. If you want a larger PC it's of course possible, but I wouldn't spend anywhere near $750. You can likely get away with spending $400ish.

This is something I've considered, but I'd also like to use this as a little practice building a PC before building a $1200 rig for myself. 

[Quaker]

- Get an i5-6500 with a B150 or H170 motherboard.

- 16Gigs (2x8G) of DDR4-2133 or 2400 RAM

- CX450M or similar power supply. (80+ bronze or gold)

- 250Gig or larger SSD

- An HDD if you think you'll need the space, but check how much drive space you are currently using. You may find that a single 250 or 500Gig SSD is all you need.

- case - any old case

- if you don't intend to keep your old system, you can re-use any parts, such as the HDD and case and maybe even the power supply.

 

You can drive 2 monitors off the IGP in the i5-6500 (provided you have the proper connections and/or adapters), so no discrete graphics card is needed.

If you do feel the need for a graphics card, a cheap RX 460 or GTX-150 will do fine.

[Zyndo]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/GP6H4C

 

that is a pretty solid office build.... quite overkill really. then whenever you're ready for gaming, you drop in the best GPU you can afford. if you were looking to have two separate PC's, then an i3 6100 and 8GB of RAM would probably be okay for an office pc if you're looking to save some money

[SkiBronJames]

4 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

right click on "my computer" or "this PC" and select properties. You should see your CPU and RAM listed there. then go to your "device manager" and open the "display adapter" drop bar and it should show you what your video card is.

Processor: AMD E-300 APU w/ Radeon HD Graphics, 1300 MHz, 2 core(s), 2 Logical...

Installed Physical Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB

Total Virtual Memory: 9.60 GB

BaseBoard Manufacturer: PEGATRON CORP.

Graphics Chipset: AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics

Memory Size: 1971 MB

Core Clock: 488 MHz

Memory Clock: 533 MHz

[dizmo]

6 minutes ago, SkiBronJames said:

This is something I've considered, but I'd also like to use this as a little practice building a PC before building a $1200 rig for myself. 

This is what I'd do.

I used a Pentium for the same thing you're trying to do without issue. The i3 has twice as many threads.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-HDS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($39.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Elite Plus 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: OCZ TRION 150 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  ($24.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($24.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $330.92

[Zyndo]

2 minutes ago, SkiBronJames said:

Processor: AMD E-300 APU w/ Radeon HD Graphics, 1300 MHz, 2 core(s), 2 Logical...

Installed Physical Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB

Total Virtual Memory: 9.60 GB

BaseBoard Manufacturer: PEGATRON CORP.

Graphics Chipset: AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics

Memory Size: 1971 MB

Core Clock: 488 MHz

Memory Clock: 533 MHz

oh yeah. an i3 6100 or especially any i5 6400 6500 6600 would be a pretty significant upgrade from what you have there.

[Quaker]

6 minutes ago, SkiBronJames said:

Processor: AMD E-300 APU etc

Um, yeah, just about anything would be faster. But the good thing is, it should have a standard mATX case, which you can re-use (Just be sure to get an mATX motherboard) and the power supply should be good enough for an i3-6100 or i5-6500 based system that's using the IGP. (on-chip graphics)

 

Btw, another possibility would be to get a newer APU such as an A8-7600 and appropriate motherboard. The APU would have better graphics than the i3 or i5 and be suitable for light gaming (older smaller games).

[brob]

You might consider a mini-ITX build in a quiet case. Aside from the small footprint, most mini-ITX motherboards include WiFi and Bluetooth.

 

An i5 is likely more power than really needed, but coupled with 16GB of memory and an ssd it should make working with complex worksheets a breeze.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($214.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($67.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($74.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($69.95 @ SuperBiiz) 
Case: Fractal Design Define Nano S Mini ITX Desktop Case  ($49.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic 360W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  ($58.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $536.90
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-01 14:09 EDT-0400

[SkiBronJames]

Thank you all for the help!