Building fast call center PCs, 95W CPUs okay? Or 65W because less heat output in a single room?

[Jaquavius]

Building lots of PCs for my dad's company's call center. Their current computers are awful and a big crutch. These new builds will NOT have a discrete GPU. So the CPU will be the main thing creating heat. I was planning to go with 95W i5-9600k but then I got worried about heat output since there will be many in one large room. Should I go for a 65W CPU with slightlyyy slower speeds instead? Thanks in advance.

 

EDIT: I know an i5-9600k is overkill. Buuut:

1. Money is not much of a factor in this case.

2. I want to future proof them to a reasonable extent.

3. They will be used for heavy spreadsheet work and databases.

4. I want to be able to slide a GPU in there and turn them into a photo editing machine at a moment's notice.

 

However, I want to balance heat output against performance maybe the i5-9600k isn't a good choice after all. Any suggestions as to what a good middle ground would be would be much appreciated. Again, I am looking for as much performance as possible, but without tooooo much heat.

 

EDIT 2: Is speedstepping potentially good enough for none of this to even matter? Will the CPU just use much less power when less performance is needed? I know this is a feature, but can I rely on it to the point where it doesn't even matter whether I go for a 65W or 95W CPU?

[Slottr]

A call center pc  doesnt need a 9600k

[Fasauceome]

What are these computers being used for? In a call center, the 9600k sounds ridiculously overkill.

[Jaquavius]

Just now, Slottr said:

A call center pc  doesnt need a 9600k

I'm not looking to save a couple hundred dollars. They will be used for a lot more than traditional call center PCs.

[Fasauceome]

I just thought aboutit for a moment, and I realize the reason these computers are probably so slow is because they used hard drives instead of SSDs.  

in terms of General use, more PC power will come from a better SSD, not a better CPU. If you just retrofit all of the old computers with SSDs, they probably won't seem to be as much of a crush. You can probably also upgrade the CPUs with used stuff from the Chinese market or off of eBay, going from some old pentiums to i5s or something.

[Slottr]

1 minute ago, Jaquavius said:

I'm not looking to save a couple hundred dollars. They will be used for a lot more than traditional call center PCs.

Like what? Any traditional office work that I could ever think of doesnt need anything remotely close to the 9600k

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, Slottr said:

Like what? Any traditional office work that I could ever think of doesnt need anything remotely close to the 9600k

Excel can be really heavy some times. I suggest ryzen here as my recommendation. Longer upgrade path lower tdp on the nonx, and so on. Not that intel is bad tho, I use one myself

[Jaquavius]

2 minutes ago, Slottr said:

Like what? Any traditional office work that I could ever think of doesnt need anything remotely close to the 9600k

Really heavy spreadsheet work, databases. And I want to be able to hook a high end GPU in at a moment's notice for transitioning the computers into photo editing workstations. But this isn't really the point. I know what a 9600k costs and I don't care to go cheaper. I just want to know if it's a stupid idea considering the heat output.

[Theguywhobea]

It's actually CRAZY how many variables there are to this question. Like, how big is the room, how many computers are there, how many people are working in the office, what is the climate like, are their south facing windows, and that's not even getting to the question of do these people need a 95w CPU over a 65w CPU.

 

Looking at just the main question and what I know about a typical office worker's computer load I don't think you'll notice a difference in heat output to the room, I'm sure in neither case will these CPU's be running full tilt for extended periods of time. All modern CPU's will run at lower wattage's when they are under a reduced load and I suspect that a 95w and 65w CPU will run at similar wattage's when under a reduced load.

 

Whether or not these are even worth it is a whole different question and it doesn't sound like OP wants to argue about that.

[Slottr]

1 minute ago, LukeSavenije said:

Excel can be really heavy some times. I suggest ryzen here as my recommendation. Longer upgrade path lower tdp on the nonx, and so on. Not that intel is bad tho, I use one myself

Oh, I know. 

I do marketing for work and use excel daily- But still, A 9600k isnt needed anywhere in that type of situation

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, Slottr said:

Oh, I know. 

I do marketing for work and use excel daily- But still, A 9600k isnt needed anywhere in that type of situation

Yeah... it was the only reason I could think of using a 8600k or 9600k (as they aren't that different) for a callcenter pc

[mariushm]

5 minutes ago, Jaquavius said:

Building lots of PCs for my dad's company's call center. Their current computers are awful and a big crutch. These new builds will NOT have a discrete GPU. So the CPU will be the main thing creating heat. I was planning to go with 95W i5-9600k but then I got worried about heat output since there will be many in one large room. Should I go for a 65W CPU with slightlyyy slower speeds instead? Thanks in advance. 

In such scenario, you want to keep things as simple as possible and as easy to replace. If a computer breaks down, you won't keep that employer waiting until the computer is fixed, you just pick the computer and take a spare one from the shelves and replace the box. At most, move the SATA hard drive over .... but even that's generally not needed - you have a generic Windows install and employer logs in and everything is retrieved from the server (preferences,files etc)

 

For a call center, a Ryzen 2200g would be perfectly fine... solid integrated graphics, good performance, low power consumption and you can use the stock cooler just fine.

 

But honestly, if it's A LOT of computers, I would seriously consider if it's worth even going with the latest socket FM2 processor AMD released, simply because it still uses DDR3 and that's much cheaper than DDR4 memory. The performance is much lower than Ryzen, but power consumption is good (low) 

 

A 9600k is really really weird choice... why get overclocking part, do you really think they'll overclock call center computers?

 

Why do I suspect this is more like computers for webcam stuff (like chaturbate)?

 

 

[Jaquavius]

2 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

It's actually CRAZY how many variables there are to this question. Like, how big is the room, how many computers are there, how many people are working in the office, what is the climate like, are their south facing windows, and that's not even getting to the question of do these people need a 95w CPU over a 65w CPU.

 

Looking at just the main question and what I know about a typical office worker's computer load I don't think you'll notice a difference in heat output to the room, I'm sure in neither case will these CPU's be running full tilt for extended periods of time. All modern CPU's will run at lower wattage's when they are under a reduced load and I suspect that a 95w and 65w CPU will run at similar wattage's when under a reduced load.

 

Whether or not these are even worth it is a whole different question and it doesn't sound like OP wants to argue about that.

Thank you, this was a good point, I just know from personal experience that my home computer with a GTX 1080 will hear up my room even when I'm doing ight web browsing which confuses me. It seems the more juice I give the computer, the more it uses just to do tasks marginally faster, which in turn leads to more heat. But maybe this won't apply as much without the GPU then.

[Princess Luna]

You might want to specify what kind of workload it is because for your usual call center workload an i3 8100 already would suffice, probably with a headroom.

 

Hells my desktop at the office features an i5 7400 and I use pretty much all of Microsoft Office and browsing and more side applications and I never feel a slow down. Using a SSD is important though for this.

[LukeSavenije]

3 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

You might want to specify what kind of workload it is because for your usual call center workload an i3 8100 already would suffice, probably with a headroom.

 

Hells my desktop at the office features an i5 7400 and I use pretty much all of Microsoft Office and browsing and more side applications and I never feel a slow down. Using a SSD is important though for this.

Yeah, daily user of a 2120 for that

[Jaquavius]

7 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

You might want to specify what kind of workload it is because for your usual call center workload an i3 8100 already would suffice, probably with a headroom.

 

Hells my desktop at the office features an i5 7400 and I use pretty much all of Microsoft Office and browsing and more side applications and I never feel a slow down. Using a SSD is important though for this.

They will definitely have SSDs and I updated the main post with additional info.

[LukeSavenije]

26 minutes ago, Jaquavius said:

1. Money is not much of a factor in this case.

2. I want to future proof them to a reasonable extent.

3. They will be used for heavy spreadsheet work and databases.

4. I want to be able to slide a GPU in there and turn them into a photo editing machine at a moment's notice.

1. Noticed

2. Get am4, longer upgradeable

3. You don't need anything heavy for that

4. Then get a good tower with a 2600 or 2700, 65 watts tdp, headroom and possebility to do photoshop. 

[Princess Luna]

4 minutes ago, Jaquavius said:

They will definitely have SSDs and I updated the main post with additional info.

an i5 8400 on a b360 really is all you need.

[Jaquavius]

1 minute ago, LukeSavenije said:

1. Noticed

2. Get am4, longer upgradeable

3. You don't need anything heavy for that

4. Then get a good tower with a 2600 or 2700, 65 watts tdp, headroom and possebility to do photoshop. 

3. You sure? I mean seriously heavy spreadsheet work, 150,000 thousand rows and many columns. I get slow downs with working on these files on most computers.

Thanks for the advice!

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, Jaquavius said:

3. You sure? I mean seriously heavy spreadsheet work, 150,000 thousand rows and many columns. I get slow downs with working on these files on most computers.

Thanks for the advice!

Excel does scale well over the cores, like 5,4 on 6 cores. But as money isn't a issue here you could get something like a 2600, not that you need it for this

[Jaquavius]

3 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

an i5 8400 on a b360 really is all you need.

Thanks that is a good option.  But it would reduce the "level of future proofness" right? For personal rig I would likely do a lot of things differently, but I just want these PCs to stay relevant for a long time.

[Princess Luna]

Just now, Jaquavius said:

.

I mean 6 cores will last for a great long time and your software is not going to become that much demanding in the couple next of years, if you want peace of mind the i7 8700 is the best alternative as you get Hyper-Threading and noticeable boost in clocks but I don't really see the necessity of it.

 

No point to get unlocked overclockable CPUs either ways.

[Jaquavius]

1 minute ago, LukeSavenije said:

Excel does scale well over the cores, like 5,4 on 6 cores. But as money isn't a issue here you could get something like a 2600, not that you need it for this

The 2600 looks awesome, 6 cores, 3.4 GHz base, 65W. But any reason you pick AMD over intel other than this being a good deal? I notice that turbo speeds are lower on RYZENs but base speeds are higher.

[Jaquavius]

1 minute ago, Princess Cadence said:

I mean 6 cores will last for a great long time and your software is not going to become that much demanding in the couple next of years, if you want peace of mind the i7 8700 is the best alternative as you get Hyper-Threading and noticeable boost in clocks but I don't really see the necessity of it.

 

No point to get unlocked overclockable CPUs either ways.

Yeah def not, they won't be overclocked, was just looking at i5-9600k because of slightly higher base speed of similar choices.

Alright thanks for the advice!

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, Jaquavius said:

The 2600 looks awesome, 6 cores, 3.4 GHz base, 65W. But any reason you pick AMD over intel other than this being a good deal? I notice that turbo speeds are lower on RYZENs but base speeds are higher.

Becouse clock speeds doesn't matter that much here, intel has a shortage going on. Amd will make am4 ryzen chips untill 2021 (around that). Things like that make ryzen a great choise. Also, you get hypertreading, what you can only get in the 9900k for the intel side