Build for private school

[ZeroF0X]

So I have a contact that works for a little private school that could use some slight PC upgrades for their students (I've seen them, a lot of their current PCs are circa-Compaq era and I/Os are starting to die). They don't need a lot of power from them (apparently as long as they can run Rosetta Stone and some word processing program). 

 

Any suggestions on how to make these as affordable as possible?

 

Edit: they would like to upgrade 66 computers, and their school head would like some extras so 75 is the goal.

[Droidbot]

g4560 + cheap board + 4g ram + seasonic PSU + cheap case

should be around $300/machine for 

cable management doesn't matter, but it's nice 

[RadiatingLight]

 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hLw6Ps

 

How about this?

 

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, RadiatingLight said:

 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hLw6Ps

 

How about this?

 

drop it to 4gb, and the board may not work with the CPU

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

drop it to 4gb, and the board may not work with the CPU

4GB is too little IMO, and it only saves about $20.

it might not work, but there's a chance it will, and even if it doesn't, it's cheaper to loan a skylake CPU than buy kaby lake chipsets

[Droidbot]

4 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

4GB is too little IMO, and it only saves about $20.

it might not work, but there's a chance it will, and even if it doesn't, it's cheaper to loan a skylake CPU than buy kaby lake chipsets

updating 75 boards one by one would be a total shitshow, would take ages lmao

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($61.99 @ Jet) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($73.77 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($50.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA Premier SP550 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($48.89 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($50.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $316.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-15 00:18 EST-0500

 

$16 over budget but you get a better PSU and mobo will work first time every time

[ZeroF0X]

3 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

4GB is too little IMO, and it only saves about $20.

it might not work, but there's a chance it will, and even if it doesn't, it's cheaper to loan a skylake CPU than buy kaby lake chipsets

True, and 20 dollars from each unit wouldn't be too much of a difference. And at least they would have the extra ram, which has never hurt anyone.

[RadiatingLight]

2 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

updating 75 boards one by one would be a total shitshow, would take ages lmao

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($61.99 @ Jet) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($73.77 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Team Elite Plus 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($50.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: ADATA Premier SP550 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($48.89 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($50.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $316.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-15 00:18 EST-0500

 

$16 over budget but you get a better PSU and mobo will work first time every time

so that adds about $15 per system for the B250 motherboard, but if OP is buying more than 4 systems, it would acutally be more effective to BUY a skylake Pentium to use for upgrading the BIOS. it's not worth it.

 

the PSU i chose isn't great, but it's not a bomb either. it's good enough.

if you choose to spend $50 on a PSU, you can do a lot better than that.

[RadiatingLight]

BTW the EVGA 430W i picked is rated 8.5 on jonnyguru.com

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&file=print&reid=431

and a few points were taken off for stuff like non-modularity, so it's great for budget builds. pretty solid PSU. (but non-modular, which doesn't matter as the case is not clear)

[brob]

With that many units I would suggest contacting Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc. to see about a bulk purchase. It may even be possible to get some sort of education discount or donation.

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, RadiatingLight said:

so that adds about $15 per system for the B250 motherboard, but if OP is buying more than 4 systems, it would acutally be more effective to BUY a skylake Pentium to use for upgrading the BIOS. it's not worth it.

 

the PSU i chose isn't great, but it's not a bomb either. it's good enough.

if you choose to spend $50 on a PSU, you can do a lot better than that.

cxm is semi-modular, makes cable management in shitty cases one hell of a lot easier especially in bulk. was maybe gonna go for s12ii 620w but decided against it. 

assuming that 35 of the mobos are updated and 35 are not, you still have to go through, boot into windows, update uefi (which can take 10-15 minutes) and take off the cooler and CPU swap. you need thermal paste aswell since the stock one will be screwed after heat applied to it. much easier just to front the extra $15 and build them first time

[brob]

2 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

cxm is semi-modular, makes cable management in shitty cases one hell of a lot easier especially in bulk. was maybe gonna go for s12ii 620w but decided against it. 

assuming that 35 of the mobos are updated and 35 are not, you still have to go through, boot into windows, update uefi (which can take 10-15 minutes) and take off the cooler and CPU swap. you need thermal paste aswell since the stock one will be screwed after heat applied to it. much easier just to front the extra $15 and build them first time

The problem with using modular or semi-modular psu in this sort of environment is that one then has to store and inventory all the unused cables. It is actually much better I think to use non-modular psu.

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

cxm is semi-modular, makes cable management in shitty cases one hell of a lot easier especially in bulk. was maybe gonna go for s12ii 620w but decided against it. 

assuming that 35 of the mobos are updated and 35 are not, you still have to go through, boot into windows, update uefi (which can take 10-15 minutes) and take off the cooler and CPU swap. you need thermal paste aswell since the stock one will be screwed after heat applied to it. much easier just to front the extra $15 and build them first time

Ultimately, OP should decide if he wants to save money and put in the extra hour or so of work.

cleaning off a CPU isn't really that hard, and if you only go into the BIOS to update (you don't even need an OS) I'm confident you could get away with a thermal pad between the CPU and heat sink, which wouldn't get messy at all.

 

I've ran windows 10 on an i3 with no TIM at all, and it was hot (90c) but not immediately dangerous unless i put it under some work.

 

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, brob said:

The problem with using modular or semi-modular psu in this sort of environment is that one then has to store and inventory all the unused cables. It is actually much better I think to use non-modular psu.

then yeah, s12ii all the way. 

[Finnman]

If you'd like to put out feelers to larger companies

 

Dell

Lenovo

HP

[ZeroF0X]

1 minute ago, brob said:

With that many units I would suggest contacting Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc. to see about a bulk purchase. It may even be possible to get some sort of education discount or donation.

3 minutes ago, Finnman said:

If you'd like to put out feelers to larger companies

 

Dell

Lenovo

HP

Well they did reach out to some of these companies to my knowlege.

Quotes are as listed (for 100 PCs):

Lenovo - 52,900 (Only PC with Win7) and 51,900 (Smaller Form-factor)

HP - Has not responded

Dell - 46,600 (PC with Win7, SFF)

[dizmo]

Contact the large companies and see about bulk orders. They have systems they don't list on their websites that you can purchase. While you could build the systems yourself, you're looking at a solid week of work. The larger companies also generally offer better after purchase support as well.

 

18 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

4GB is too little IMO, and it only saves about $20.

it might not work, but there's a chance it will, and even if it doesn't, it's cheaper to loan a skylake CPU than buy kaby lake chipsets

4GB is perfectly fine. They're not playing games. It's word processing.

14 minutes ago, ZeroF0X said:

True, and 20 dollars from each unit wouldn't be too much of a difference. And at least they would have the extra ram, which has never hurt anyone.

That's $1,500 over the cost of the entire roll out. That's 5 free computers. It's quite a bit.

6 minutes ago, brob said:

With that many units I would suggest contacting Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc. to see about a bulk purchase. It may even be possible to get some sort of education discount or donation.

I don't know why this wasn't thought of in the first place. Then again I know lots of people that aren't totally qualified for their jobs.

1 minute ago, RadiatingLight said:

Ultimately, OP should decide if he wants to save money and put in the extra hour or so of work.

cleaning off a CPU isn't really that hard, and if you only go into the BIOS to update (you don't even need an OS) I'm confident you could get away with a thermal pad between the CPU and heat sink, which wouldn't get messy at all.

 

I've ran windows 10 on an i3 with no TIM at all, and it was hot (90c) but not immediately dangerous unless i put it under some work.

 

It's a lot more work if you're doing that to them all. Thermal pads are a horrible suggestion.

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, ZeroF0X said:

Well they did reach out to some of these companies to my knowlege.

Quotes are as listed (for 100 PCs):

Lenovo - 52,900 (Only PC with Win7) and 51,900 (Smaller Form-factor)

HP - Has not responded

Dell - 46,600 (PC with Win7, SFF)

that's really expensive. about 460/pc.

build it yourself

[aisle9]

When debating the merits of more expensive PSUs and additional RAM, bear in mind that if one is buying 75 of each component, odds are a discount of 15-25% (possibly more) can be negotiated into the purchase price.

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

It's a lot more work if you're doing that to them all. Thermal pads are a horrible suggestion.

why?

I would argue that a day of work is definitely worth over 10K in savings.

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

When debating the merits of more expensive PSUs and additional RAM, bear in mind that if one is buying 75 of each component, odds are a discount of 15-25% (possibly more) can be negotiated into the purchase price.

yeah, Newegg do bulk discounts for most parts, OP

[brob]

4 minutes ago, ZeroF0X said:

Well they did reach out to some of these companies to my knowlege.

Quotes are as listed (for 100 PCs):

Lenovo - 52,900 (Only PC with Win7) and 51,900 (Smaller Form-factor)

HP - Has not responded

Dell - 46,600 (PC with Win7, SFF)

Sounds reasonable. Remember you will not need to invest ~300 hours of labor to assemble the systems.

[ZeroF0X]

3 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

yeah, Newegg do bulk discounts for most parts, OP

That is definatly something to consider in the after pricing numbers, if they go with the build.

5 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

that's really expensive. about 460/pc.

build it yourself

I agree with building it myself (and as a student, the time building could be clocked in for Comunity volunteer hours, So I benefit from experience and meeting a graduation requirement!)

[ZeroF0X]

2 minutes ago, brob said:

Sounds reasonable. Remember you will not need to invest ~300 hours of labor to assemble the systems.

True, But this school has a technology class and hey, this could be some hands on classes for the kids.

[Droidbot]

3 minutes ago, ZeroF0X said:

That is definatly something to consider in the after pricing numbers, if they go with the build.

I agree with building it myself (and as a student, the time building could be clocked in for Comunity volunteer hours, So I benefit from experience and meeting a graduation requirement!)

https://www.neweggbusiness.com/education-it