$250 budget build for Work

[Elo Gaming]

I have a Lenovo laptop that I bought a few years ago for $250 that had a Pentium it. Little did I know at that time what a Pentium processor was and after barely using it throughout the few years, the computer can barely even function. I had built a pc a couple years after buying that laptop and it’s been working great at home. It came to my mind that maybe if I sell the laptop and pay a little bit from my own pocket, I could get a functional pc for work. My budget is $250-$300 and I do not think a graphics card would be needed but if there were integrated graphics i would love it. I have my own 500gb hdd so that saves a few too. My first question is what is a good processor I can get with power, reliability, but also a little easy on the budget? Second, what case can I get that is compact but easy to build in? Third, what cheap psu is good for this build?

[NoobCase]

1st employeers pay your work gear

2nd there is none

[TheElectronicGeek1]

3 minutes ago, Elo Gaming said:

I have a Lenovo laptop that I bought a few years ago for $250 that had a Pentium it. Little did I know at that time what a Pentium processor was and after barely using it throughout the few years, the computer can barely even function. I had built a pc a couple years after buying that laptop and it’s been working great at home. It came to my mind that maybe if I sell the laptop and pay a little bit from my own pocket, I could get a functional pc for work. My budget is $250-$300 and I do not think a graphics card would be needed but if there were integrated graphics i would love it. I have my own 500gb hdd so that saves a few too. My first question is what is a good processor I can get with power, reliability, but also a little easy on the budget? Second, what case can I get that is compact but easy to build in? Third, what cheap psu is good for this build?

What does the current desktop have? Are you planning to upgrade it or build a new pc? And for a cheap psu look for a good brand name psu and please don't cheap out on some off-brand weird one. If you upgrade the pre built get a new PSU. Someone else posted recently that their pc died from upgrading the pre-built and not changing out the psu.

[Streetguru]

7 minutes ago, Elo Gaming said:

I have a Lenovo laptop that I bought a few years ago for $250 that had a Pentium it. Little did I know at that time what a Pentium processor was and after barely using it throughout the few years, the computer can barely even function. I had built a pc a couple years after buying that laptop and it’s been working great at home. It came to my mind that maybe if I sell the laptop and pay a little bit from my own pocket, I could get a functional pc for work. My budget is $250-$300 and I do not think a graphics card would be needed but if there were integrated graphics i would love it. I have my own 500gb hdd so that saves a few too. My first question is what is a good processor I can get with power, reliability, but also a little easy on the budget? Second, what case can I get that is compact but easy to build in? Third, what cheap psu is good for this build?

Just buy any old business machine from dell or HP that has an i5 or i7 and 8GBs of RAM

 

Or buy any older Thinkpad or business laptop with an i5 or i7 for your price point

 

Even a lowly Ryzen APU build is $99 for R3 2200G + $75 for ASrock Pro4 + 70-90 for DDR4

[Elo Gaming]

Just now, TheElectronicGeek1 said:

What does the current desktop have? Are you planning to upgrade it or build a new pc? And for a cheap psu look for a good brand name psu and please don't cheap out on some off-brand weird one. If you upgrade the pre built get a new PSU. Someone else posted recently that their pc died from upgrading the pre-built and not changing out the psu.

I do have some old PCs laying around and I think that they are so old that I can only really use the Hard drives. It’s a partial new build though and about the PSUs... yes I will look into a good brand name one but I kinda want something that is at least under 50$ with maybe an 80 plus bronze.

[Elo Gaming]

4 minutes ago, NoobCase said:

1st employeers pay your work gear

2nd there is none

It’s a private work business 

[TheElectronicGeek1]

Just now, Elo Gaming said:

I do have some old PCs laying around and I think that they are so old that I can only really use the Hard drives. It’s a partial new build though and about the PSUs... yes I will look into a good brand name one but I kinda want something that is at least under 50$ with maybe an 80 plus bronze.

You should be able to find something under 50$, I'll go take a look at some good ones I can find. Do you know what parts it's going to have or the wattage it will require?

[Elo Gaming]

3 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

Just buy any old business machine from dell or HP that has an i5 or i7 and 8GBs of RAM

 

Or buy any older Thinkpad or business laptop with an i5 or i7 for your price point

 

Even a lowly Ryzen APU build is $99 for R3 2200G + $75 for ASrock Pro4 + 70-90 for DDR4

That was almost exactly the parts I was planning on using (the third option) but I’m thinking of just using 4gb of ram so that’s cheaper and a problem I’ve ran into is the motherboard bios may not natively support raven ridge so how do I find a board that does.

[TheElectronicGeek1]

Just now, Elo Gaming said:

That was almost exactly the parts I was planning on using (the third option) but I’m thinking of just using 4gb of ram so that’s cheaper and a problem I’ve ran into is the motherboard bios may not natively support raven ridge so how do I find a board that does.

Some newer ones should support it. Just search for some, and if you need to get the free cpu thing amd offers for free which you send back later. Also if your case fits a atx power supply here's one. https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-BRONZE-Supply-Warranty-100-B1-0500-KR/dp/B00DZ6R9GE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1521747893&sr=8-3&keywords=atx+psu+80+plus

[Elo Gaming]

2 minutes ago, TheElectronicGeek1 said:

You should be able to find something under 50$, I'll go take a look at some good ones I can find. Do you know what parts it's going to have or the wattage it will require?

A basic 400w will be plenty because there is not even a graphics card. And no need to be modular because a normal psu will be cheaper (unless you find such) and thx for researching some.

[Elo Gaming]

1 minute ago, TheElectronicGeek1 said:

Some newer ones should support it. Just search for some, and if you need to get the free cpu thing amd offers for free which you send back later. Also if your case fits a atx power supply here's one. https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-BRONZE-Supply-Warranty-100-B1-0500-KR/dp/B00DZ6R9GE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1521747893&sr=8-3&keywords=atx+psu+80+plus

Thx I will for sure keep that on my parts list and I’m looking into the loan CPU program from amd

[TheElectronicGeek1]

Just now, Elo Gaming said:

A basic 400w will be plenty because there is not even a graphics card. And no need to be modular because a normal psu will be cheaper (unless you find such) and thx for researching some.

No problem. Once you start going cheaper you start running into crappy ones. Just make sure it will fit in the prebuilt pc if you use the pre built case. Most of those use smaller ones. Check the outside of the psu in the pre built and see if it's ATX or something else. If it's smaller than ATX then look at silverstone's SFX ones which are a lot smaller but a little expensive.

[Elo Gaming]

10 minutes ago, TheElectronicGeek1 said:

No problem. Once you start going cheaper you start running into crappy ones. Just make sure it will fit in the prebuilt pc if you use the pre built case. Most of those use smaller ones. Check the outside of the psu in the pre built and see if it's ATX or something else. If it's smaller than ATX then look at silverstone's SFX ones which are a lot smaller but a little expensive.

Ok and what about the processor 

[TurbulentWinds]

Just get a cheap used OEM. You can't save money by building something like this from scratch unless you have a crap ton of free time to waste.

[TheElectronicGeek1]

3 minutes ago, Elo Gaming said:

Ok and what about the processor 

What processor you want to buy? You could get a ryzen apu or some lower end intel one with integrated graphics.

[Elo Gaming]

Just now, TheElectronicGeek1 said:

What processor you want to buy? You could get a ryzen apu or some lower end intel one with integrated graphics.

Sandy bridge? Because a price an i5 8400 is for some reason almost exactly the same as an i5 Haswell. And can you give me some insight if it’s worth going a platform that supports ddr3 and get 8-16 gbs of that instead of 4gb of ddr4?

[TheElectronicGeek1]

3 hours ago, Elo Gaming said:

Sandy bridge? Because a price an i5 8400 is for some reason almost exactly the same as an i5 Haswell. And can you give me some insight if it’s worth going a platform that supports ddr3 and get 8-16 gbs of that instead of 4gb of ddr4?

I have a 4690k, which is a pretty good chip. What exactly are you going to do with the PC that requires enough power? The chip you want depends on what your doing with it.

[Herman Mcpootis]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($98.90 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($95.89 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Rosewill - SRM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($18.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($23.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $297.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-03-22 22:09 EDT-0400

[Elo Gaming]

14 hours ago, herman mcpootis said:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($98.90 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Team - Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($95.89 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Rosewill - SRM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($18.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($23.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $297.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-03-22 22:09 EDT-0400

OMG! Thx for the research and the time that you put into finding a set of parts for me i really appreciate it. That looks like a good setup and even 8gb of ddr4 is awesome! I will try to see what i can find to lower the cost if any but my budget should perfectly fit that build. Thx

[Elo Gaming]

17 hours ago, TheElectronicGeek1 said:

I have a 4690k, which is a pretty good chip. What exactly are you going to do with the PC that requires enough power? The chip you want depends on what your doing with it.

Multitasking (microsoft office, while internet browsing and also running a sometimes resource intensive security camera application) and that should be it

[TheElectronicGeek1]

44 minutes ago, Elo Gaming said:

Multitasking (microsoft office, while internet browsing and also running a sometimes resource intensive security camera application) and that should be it

Ok, the post above looks good, you could always try looking at older intel chips that use ddr3 which might be a little cheaper. But 98$ for that cpu is a good deal. I would say go with that one above.