Building an office PC

S

stefan-west1

New Member
Hi all. A friend of mine wants me to build him a new pc for his office. I know how to do it as have built my own and others for college etc. However other than my own I've never had to choose parts etc. I've just been given the parts to assemble.

He's told me he wants a sort of budget high end one for things like taking orders and making adjustments to the website etc.

These are the parts I am thinking of choosing and was his wondering what people had to think.

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit SP1 Operating System Single OEM DVD

8GB Corsair DDR3 SO-DIMM PC3-10666 (1333), 204 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V

Intel Core i5 3570K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 6MB Smart Cache, 34x Ratio, 77W, Retail

Cooler Master Elite 343 Black micro-ATX Mini Tower Case w/o PSU

Samsung SH-118AB/BEBE Black 18x SATA DVD ROM - OEM

500W Corsair Builder Series CX CP-9020047-UK, 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX, PSU

Gigabyte GA-B75M-HD3, Intel B75, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub (VGA) DVI-D HDMI, Micro ATX

1TB WD Blue WD10EZEX SATA 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms HDD

As for the graphics I was thinking that because it is an office pc the built in graphics would be enough?

Many thanks for your help
 
I'd get Windows 8 unless he needs 7 for a specific reason.

Get faster RAM that's either 1600 or 1866. 1333 is a bit slow.

I'd look in to an SSD as that will really make for some snappy performance when booting and with commonly used programs that would be installed on there. Integrated video is fine as long as his job doesn't require rendering or anything like that.

Save some money on the Power Supply, a CX 430 would be fine. Don't need 500 watts with no video card.
 
I only chose windows 7 as personally I can't stand windows 8. And will definitely look at the ram. And no all his job really is, is selling products on the website and taking orders over the phone to put them in a database. I might look into an ssd as I have one on my pc and it is good to have the speed on boot up. I wasn't too sure on the power. I don't really know how to work out how much I need
 
Ok so from considering your reply I've added and changed some of things and changed them for these:

Corsair Builder Series 80+ Bronze CMPSU-430CXV2UK 430W Power Supply (PSU)

Sandisk 64GB SSD - Solid State Drive - SDSSDP-064G-G25

Corsair Memory Vengeance Blue 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 10-10-10-27 Dual Channel Desktop

It's still roughly the same price so that's ok but are them parts any good?
 
I disagree with the above statements. I have 1333 ram (16gb mind you) and I have never EVER had to wait for any RAM render. I can render a 10 minute video in RAM render in under 5 minutes...I believe if you went from 8gb to 12 or 16gb then you'd be doing more to that computer then you would with an SSD. This man isn't going to be booting a work PC 40 times a day...he'll be leaving it on for weeks at a time most likely. an SSD would be amazing, if he's using photoshop or something like that, but he's not. He's using the internet and probably Peach Tree...he's fine with an HDD or if he's really not, I recommend the Momentus XT HDD/SSD Hybrid drive. I have had it for over a year now and it is incredible! It learns as it goes and I have loved it. If I open photoshop once it takes about 15 seconds, if I open it again later that day it'll be about 4 seconds because it learned that I wanted to use that program more often. If he's doing intense graphic design, get a higher G-card then the Chipset otherwise he's fine....that computer seems really nice otherwise :) Make sure he has a good monitor, keyboard and mouse to go with it too!
 
A SSD will make things much quicker then 16 GB of RAM. Starting up Windows, opening files, etc. 16 GB of RAM will help in Photoshop, but not in most stuff, where a SSD will.
 
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Well as for the ram there's only around £3 in it so may aswell have the better one. And I'm not entirely sure on the ssd. Yeah they're great for booting up etc. but that's all it's going to be used for is booting up. All files would be stored on the standard 1tb HDD. Would it be better to get a faster rpm HDD instead as a compromise?
 
jamesd1981 said:
What exactly will you be doing with this system generally an office pc does not need to be very powerful.
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It's really for building databases and making changes to the website, Such as adding more products

But they want it to run quick and not take an hour to do anything like the current one does. This is why I haven't bothered with a graphics card or not really considering an ssd
 
stefan-west1 said:
Well as for the ram there's only around £3 in it so may aswell have the better one. And I'm not entirely sure on the ssd. Yeah they're great for booting up etc. but that's all it's going to be used for is booting up. All files would be stored on the standard 1tb HDD. Would it be better to get a faster rpm HDD instead as a compromise?
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No. A 10,000 RPM HDD is to expensive to be worth it over a SSD for storing Windows,
 
No point in an SSD if all he's using it for is the boot up, go with the Momentus XT hybrid drive...lots of room, cheap and it's very quick

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momen...F8&qid=1374884207&sr=8-1&keywords=momentus+XT

this is an office computer, no need for anything fancy dude...a core two duo would probably do fine but if he's desperate, get an older i5 or i3 or something like that. If it's not too expensive, get the better ram or more ram...forget the SSD and stop trying to build a powerhouse for someone who doesn't need to spend a fortune on something lol...if he's playing video games at lunch, perhaps he'll want it...but I doubt it
 
comparatively it's a great upgrade...this guy isn't even going to use the SSD he even said it...how many times a day do you reboot your PC? lol once...maybe twice?...the HDD/SSD has 7 times the capacity at a similar cost and it'll be fine for this guy...If you had all the money to spend, great go buy an SSD...but when it's for a client and he wont' use it...it's pointless
 
But he has the money to spend to get a HDD and SSD, which OP should do. OP WILL use the ssd, and not just in windows. And it'll be a hellofa lot better then 16 gigs of ram.
 
I agree on the RAM part of it, I meant to say 16GB ram would do better then 8gb of a higher MHz ram (I believe) I'm not saying you're wrong PCunicorn, I'm just saying I wouldn't do that build if it will save the person some money. He said he wouldn't be using it much past windows. Perhaps a really small SSD for whatever database he's using and boot drive but because it's a PC and not a laptop, I wouldn't put an SSD in it. It'll start up faster and shut down faster, but he's going to be bothered with saving everything on a separate drive every time and making sure he is using the SSD correctly...I just think that the HDD/SSD would be a more simple solution at a reduced price.
 
If you're not even doing that much I'd say save your money and get an i3 or lower end i5.

SSD would be used and be helpful, it's not just for booting.

Faster RAM will help but not bucket loads, for 5-10 extra bucks I think it's worth it.

Also more RAM is pointless. I have 12GB of RAM and I only ever use maybe 5GB at a time at most. Mind you that's a high end game open, Skype, Steam, several tabs of Chrome, FRAPS, and my Anti Virus in the background. Getting anything above 8 is a waste of money, especially with the uses he has. 4 would probably be plenty.
 
xarik said:
I agree on the RAM part of it, I meant to say 16GB ram would do better then 8gb of a higher MHz ram (I believe) I'm not saying you're wrong PCunicorn, I'm just saying I wouldn't do that build if it will save the person some money. He said he wouldn't be using it much past windows. Perhaps a really small SSD for whatever database he's using and boot drive but because it's a PC and not a laptop, I wouldn't put an SSD in it. It'll start up faster and shut down faster, but he's going to be bothered with saving everything on a separate drive every time and making sure he is using the SSD correctly...I just think that the HDD/SSD would be a more simple solution at a reduced price.
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Sure, 8 GB of 1333 MHz RAM will beat 1600 MHz 4 GB, but 1600 MHz 8 GB WILL be faster then 1333 16 GB in average tasks.
 
stefan-west1 said:
I And no all his job really is, is selling products on the website and taking orders over the phone to put them in a database
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Why such a powerful build for such a minimal use? There is so much money that could be saved here.

Also; this is only my personal opinion but in non heavy use applications in an office setting, I would recommend a prebuilt solution from one of the large Dell or Acer type organisations almost every instance, an issue arises during the warranty period it isn't the business owners problem, saving money and big time/hassle (not to mention not your problem also).

Business machines are the bread and butter of big business and they do it well.
 
I suppose at work we do the exact same type of thing (with photoshop to advertise the product better) and we only have lower end i5's, 4-8GB ram, on board graphics and 7200HDD's...Still say, why over do it? no need for SSD still ;) I'm sticking my ground that those will be a waste of money until they are larger
 
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