Cheap Office Build 3-400

[a.haggerty1989]

Hi all,

A friend of mine has asked for assistance building an office computer. He has roughly £3-350 to spend. He roughly wants i5, 16gb Ram and 1TB HDD.

I put together a quick idea of something but I found that the DDR4 2133 was ridiculous expensive and wasn't sure if there was any other builds out there that would work just as well but cheaper. Dont think he will need a GPU if just doing office style stuff.

HDD - HDD Mob Blue 1TB 2.5 SATA 128MB £43

DVDRW - Asus DRW-24D5MT 24x Internal DVD Writer - OEM Bare Drive £13

PSU - Builder 500W Fully Wired Efficient Power Supply £13

MOBO - Gigabyte H110M-S2H Socket LGA 1151 Micro ATX Motherboard £45

CASE - CIT Hero Mid Tower MATX Case with 1 x 12cm Front Blue LED Fan & 1 x USB3 with Side Window

RAM - Crucial 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR4-2133 UDIMM Desktop Memory thumbnail Crucial 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR4-2133 UDIMM £155

CPU - intel Core i3-8100 1151 3.6GHz Coffee Lake Processor £89

Total - £377

Any help would be appreciated to help bring down the costs ! Also will probably need windows 10 with it.

 

[captaincharisma]

if this is only going to be used as an office computer then you will be able to get away with the cheaper intel pentium G4620. also note that motherboard would not work with an i3 8100 but it would work with an i3 6100 and 7100 with a BIOS update. currently only a Z370 motherboard will work with the 8100

 

[nick_hags]

If you can get a motherboard that uses ddr3 RAM, I would. Also, I would not buy the RAM new. To save money, check for any electronics recyclers in your area. I built a workstation and only spent $20 on the case, power supply, optical drives, and all fans combined.

 

[geofelt]

Look for bundles on amazon.uk
Here is one for £209.99 including G4600, 8gb ram and lga1151 motherboard.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pentium-Motherboard-2133Mhz-Crucial-Pre-Built/dp/B06VX22JC4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1520266693&sr=8-3&keywords=g4600+bundle


To my mind, a ssd is what will make the pc a joy to use.
Buy a Samsung evo 240gb unit for about $80.
Unless there is a need to store large files such as videos, that is likely all you need.

A £13 psu is best used as a doorstop.
DO NOT buy a cheap no name psu.
You probably need to spend £50 for a corsair CX450( grey model not green)

Really, though, look for a pre built unit.
The Lenovo small form factor units are coming off lease.
A small unit like this will do the job for a lot less.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M91P-Desktop-Black/dp/B01LONLBDQ/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1520267397&sr=8-10&keywords=lenovo+pc

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

A copy of Windows will take nearly a third of the total budget. Personally, I'd look at buying a refurbished computer and installing an SSD or buying a pre-built. Sure, pre-builts may use cheap components, but they'll have a warranty and you won't need a copy of Windows, a keyboard or a mouse. If you buy an AIO you won't need a monitor either.

 

[coozie7]

Does he really NEED all that hardware for an office system? Most can easily run office applications, even large Excel spreadsheets with a fraction of the CPU/RAM he's asking for.

Amazon has a mass of refurbished systems for sale:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=s9_acss_bw_cg_CertRefu_2b1_w?srs=8362590031&rh=i%3Acomputers%2Cn%3A428651031&ie=UTF8&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-2&pf_rd_r=EWJNYRGZ6A83MVVPF0WY&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=12fc7227-369f-49d6-93a4-50f3fb97aff1&pf_rd_i=8362590031

You could also try the Dell Outlet: http://www.dell.com/learn/uk/en/ukdfh1/campaigns/splitter

Even with a Pentium G4600, only 8Gb of RAM and no Windows:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4600 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£59.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI - B250M PRO-VD Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£52.99 @ Box Limited)
Memory: Kingston - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£69.06 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£33.95 @ Aria PC)
Case: BitFenix - Nova ATX Mid Tower Case (£25.19 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX - XT 400W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£32.59 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Asus - DRW-24D5MT DVD/CD Writer (£13.99 @ AWD-IT)
Case Fan: BitFenix - Spectre 43.5 CFM 120mm Fan (£5.49 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £293.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-03-05 18:48 GMT+0000

 

[a.haggerty1989]

Wow, thank you for all the assistance.

I think from reading over what you guys have said the best options is probably to go for a refurbished system and update it with an SSD.

Really appreciate the assistance, not sure why he wanted a quad core etc as you said. I think for most office work it's not going to have a massive impact right? especially against putting in an SSD, think he has been using a normal HDD previously.

 

[Rdslw]

Wow, thank you for all the assistance.

I think from reading over what you guys have said the best options is probably to go for a refurbished system and update it with an SSD.

Really appreciate the assistance, not sure why he wanted a quad core etc as you said. I think for most office work it's not going to have a massive impact right? especially against putting in an SSD, think he has been using a normal HDD previously.

upgrade to SSD make a lot of sense in office work. Ram is also important as it speeds up stuff (no less than 8 GB or it will slow down multitasking. If your friend is a fan of chrome then 16 GB ram is important)
other parts will not make much difference, 4 threads are fine so pentium is good choice. Just make sure you don't go for 3xxx or older pentium as they are 2/2 not 2/4 with threads.

 

[captaincharisma]

Wow, thank you for all the assistance.

I think from reading over what you guys have said the best options is probably to go for a refurbished system and update it with an SSD.

Really appreciate the assistance, not sure why he wanted a quad core etc as you said. I think for most office work it's not going to have a massive impact right? especially against putting in an SSD, think he has been using a normal HDD previously.

upgrade to SSD make a lot of sense in office work. Ram is also important as it speeds up stuff (no less than 8 GB or it will slow down multitasking. If your friend is a fan of chrome then 16 GB ram is important)
other parts will not make much difference, 4 threads are fine so pentium is good choice. Just make sure you don't go for 3xxx or older pentium as they are 2/2 not 2/4 with threads.

agreed. an office PC only needs an SSD drive with 250GB-500GB of storage