[SOLVED] Advice on new home/office build

[chasebreeding]

Ok, I apologize if this is the incorrect forum for this thread. I know that most diy builds are focused on gaming, and perhaps it would be better served for me to purchase a prebuilt for my use. If that is the case, then by all means please advise me to do so.

I am looking to build a new PC for my home office. I am a CPA and need a computer at home to work on when I can not get to the office. I use a laptop at the office, but it was provided by my firm. It is horrendously slow, and quite new.

The uses will be for heavy microsoft excel usage with large data sheets(switching to mysql is not really an option), various accounting programs like quickbooks, general web browsing, and the occasional streaming video on youtube. There will be no gaming played on this machine.

I have the storage, ram, monitor, case, power supply, and all of that sorted. The question, and this is the first question I should have answered, is what CPU do I need or want. Since I do not need gaming graphics, I at first thought APU like a Ryzen 5 3400G, but then I thought "do i want half my CPU going to graphics when I need that power for processing data for my work? Then I thought about a Ryzen 5 3600 but then I have to pay a separate GPU and that seems wasteful.

Currently I am considering a Ryzen 5 2600, the cost is lower than the 3600 so I could get a GPU to enable the entire CPU to be used for data processing. and keep the cost around the same as the 3400G.

Basically I am all over the place on costs vs performance for my desired tasks and could use someones advice as to what would be the way to go.

 

[bmockeg]

2600 would be a great choice because you get 6 cores with multithreading. 3400g doesn’t use half your CPU for graphics it literally has its own GPU processing cores but is also only a 4 core CPU. What the 3400g will use is system RAM for VRAM. If you aren’t doing anything graphic intense then it wouldn’t be much but you’d be better off keeping your RAM for your spreadsheets. I’m certain the laptop is slow because it needs more RAM. The cheapest option would be to buy an additional 8GB of RAM for the laptop.

 

[chasebreeding]

2600 would be a great choice because you get 6 cores with multithreading. 3400g doesn’t use half your CPU for graphics it literally has its own GPU processing cores but is also only a 4 core CPU. What the 3400g will use is system RAM for VRAM. If you aren’t doing anything graphic intense then it wouldn’t be much but you’d be better off keeping your RAM for your spreadsheets. I’m certain the laptop is slow because it needs more RAM. The cheapest option would be to buy an additional 8GB of RAM for the laptop.

Thank you for the quick reply, I will most likely go the 2600 route. I am going to wait and see if the 3600 goes on discount for black friday, but unless the 3600 gets close to the normal price of the 2600 I will probably go ahead and go with the 2600. Can you recommend a cheap no thrills GPU to go with the 2600.

 

[Fate05]

Thank you for the quick reply, I will most likely go the 2600 route. I am going to wait and see if the 3600 goes on discount for black friday, but unless the 3600 gets close to the normal price of the 2600 I will probably go ahead and go with the 2600. Can you recommend a cheap no thrills GPU to go with the 2600.

Ok, I apologize if this is the incorrect forum for this thread. I know that most diy builds are focused on gaming, and perhaps it would be better served for me to purchase a prebuilt for my use. If that is the case, then by all means please advise me to do so.

I am looking to build a new PC for my home office. I am a CPA and need a computer at home to work on when I can not get to the office. I use a laptop at the office, but it was provided by my firm. It is horrendously slow, and quite new.

The uses will be for heavy microsoft excel usage with large data sheets(switching to mysql is not really an option), various accounting programs like quickbooks, general web browsing, and the occasional streaming video on youtube. There will be no gaming played on this machine.

I have the storage, ram, monitor, case, power supply, and all of that sorted. The question, and this is the first question I should have answered, is what CPU do I need or want. Since I do not need gaming graphics, I at first thought APU like a Ryzen 5 3400G, but then I thought "do i want half my CPU going to graphics when I need that power for processing data for my work? Then I thought about a Ryzen 5 3600 but then I have to pay a separate GPU and that seems wasteful.

Currently I am considering a Ryzen 5 2600, the cost is lower than the 3600 so I could get a GPU to enable the entire CPU to be used for data processing. and keep the cost around the same as the 3400G.

Basically I am all over the place on costs vs performance for my desired tasks and could use someones advice as to what would be the way to go.

2600 is a very capable CPU. If you can get the 3600 for around the same price, by all means go ahead. As for GPU I wod recommend 1050, rx 570, 1060 etc

 

[bmockeg]

Thank you for the quick reply, I will most likely go the 2600 route. I am going to wait and see if the 3600 goes on discount for black friday, but unless the 3600 gets close to the normal price of the 2600 I will probably go ahead and go with the 2600. Can you recommend a cheap no thrills GPU to go with the 2600.

For what you are doing, cheapest you can find. Maybe a Nvidia 710.