Question CPU recommendation for an Office PC build ?

[Frigozzo]

Hello everyone i'm have to build a office pc for a friend. They don't need to do heavy work just regular office stuff, but still i wanna build them a good pc that's gonna run well for a while.
I was thinking of spending around 500-650 euros. And i'm gonna also buy a geforce gtx 1650 because he wants to connect 2 big monitors to this pc. The only thing i'm conficted on is which CPU to put in it.
I don't know if i should go with AMD or INTEL for a office pc and if i should pick one of the new CPUs (AM5 or LGA1700), what would u guys recommend?

 

[Lafong]

Either AMD or Intel should be fine.

650 max without the monitors, I suppose?

I'd just look at low and mid-range CPUs from recent generations, rather than something from 2017. For Intel, that would be 1700 socket.

I don't know where you will be shopping or prices in your area.

If you need to buy all parts necessary for a PC on that budget, plus Windows, that might restrict your Intel CPU choices to i3 rather than i5, but a recent i3 will certainly yank around standard office applications easily enough.

Maybe you stick with 16 gb of RAM rather than 32. You'll have to decide on DDR 4 versus 5.

Passmark CPU benchmarks should give you a decent insight into raw CPU horsepower on typical applications.

 

[thestryker]

It mostly depends on future upgradability as to what you should be buying. If you want them to have the ability to drop in a future more performant CPU AMD is the only choice. If this isn't a concern then just buy whatever is the best value, and that is likely Intel since the i3s can be had for much less than the cheapest AM5 (Intel can also go with DDR4).

With a low budget like that I'm not sure why you're getting a video card at all unless it's free. For office use any modern Intel or AMD CPU that come with integrated graphics is more than enough.

 

[Frigozzo]

Either AMD or Intel should be fine.

650 max without the monitors, I suppose?

I'd just look at low and mid-range CPUs from recent generations, rather than something from 2017. For Intel, that would be 1700 socket.

I don't know where you will be shopping or prices in your area.

If you need to buy all parts necessary for a PC on that budget, plus Windows, that might restrict your Intel CPU choices to i3 rather than i5, but a recent i3 will certainly yank around standard office applications easily enough.

Maybe you stick with 16 gb of RAM rather than 32. You'll have to decide on DDR 4 versus 5.

Passmark CPU benchmarks should give you a decent insight into raw CPU horsepower on typical applications.

Yeah without monitors. I mean i was alrady looking at something like a i3-14100. As i said it's regular office work nothing too fancy or complicated. So it should run well.

 

[Frigozzo]

It mostly depends on future upgradability as to what you should be buying. If you want them to have the ability to drop in a future more performant CPU AMD is the only choice. If this isn't a concern then just buy whatever is the best value, and that is likely Intel since the i3s can be had for much less than the cheapest AM5 (Intel can also go with DDR4).

With a low budget like that I'm not sure why you're getting a video card at all unless it's free. For office use any modern Intel or AMD CPU that come with integrated graphics is more than enough.

Well tbh i don't know if should buy it, cause he wants 2 32 inch monitors is the cpu good enough to run both? i've always been a bit confused by CPU with integrated GPU

 

[thestryker]

Well tbh i don't know if should buy it, cause he wants 2 32 inch monitors is the cpu good enough to run both? i've always been a bit confused by CPU with integrated GPU

As long as the motherboard you buy has appropriate outputs for the screens that's all that matters. You only need to concern yourself with dedicated graphics when you're doing work that needs 3D performance.

 

[Frigozzo]

As long as the motherboard you buy has appropriate outputs for the screens that's all that matters. You only need to concern yourself with dedicated graphics when you're doing work that needs 3D performance.

All right thanks for clarification

 

[Lafong]

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005580/graphics.html

Intel speaking about multi monitors at above link.

 

[punkncat]

For a use case like this you might want to take a look at the refurbished business grade PC from the likes of Dell or HP. Both of them have been known for making legendary tough systems that just run and run.

 

[geofelt]

LGA1700 B760 MATX motherboards are relatively inexpensive and will include both a DP and a HDMI output for monitors.
Integrated graphics is plenty good enough for desktop work and hd movie playback. I would try that first and see how you do. One can always add in a discrete graphics card if necessary later.

DDR4 and DDR5 ram performs comparably. DDR4 and components used to be cheaper but the price difference has narrowed to where I would buy DDR5.
A 2 x 8gb or 2 x 16gb kit of stock 5000 speed would be fine.

The key to desktop quickness is a ssd. ANY ssd. Buy the capacity you need and do not chase magical sequential speeds. You will not tell any difference because most usage will be random and performance is similar.
It turns out that m.2 pcie prices are comparable to 2.5" sata and I would buy one of those.

On the cpu, Intel and AMD have comparable price/performance.
I see users having less difficulty with Intel, mainly because of less ram compatibility issues. You can gauge the relative performance capabilities of
Processors by looking at the passmark performance numbers. For multithreaded apps, where all cores are fully loaded, the performance rating is relevant. For desktop quickness, look at the single thread performance.
A i3-13100 might be a good starting point.
I5-14500 might be as good as you want to go.

Most cases would work.
Ask the friend to look at cases that visually appeal to them.
Lian li, NZXT might be good ones to start with.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

At work we order Dell PCs usually with the i7 CPUs. But on a budget, an i5 with enough ram and integrated graphics should be plenty. We regularly have folks running 2 or more screens with the integrated graphics.

 

[COLGeek]

Hello everyone i'm have to build a office pc for a friend. They don't need to do heavy work just regular office stuff, but still i wanna build them a good pc that's gonna run well for a while.
I was thinking of spending around 500-650 euros. And i'm gonna also buy a geforce gtx 1650 because he wants to connect 2 big monitors to this pc. The only thing i'm conficted on is which CPU to put in it.
I don't know if i should go with AMD or INTEL for a office pc and if i should pick one of the new CPUs (AM5 or LGA1700), what would u guys recommend?

Sounds like a Dell Optiplex variant is in order here, to be honest. You don't need a custom rig for this use, nor a dedicated GPU as previously mentioned.

https://www.dell.com/it-it/shop/scc/sr/desktops/optiplex-desktops

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Agreed. Something like an i5 or i7 option on this page would likely do all you wish. At my work we typically are buying the small form factor optiplex systems with i7 CPUs, 32gb of ram and 512gb ssd.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/desktop-computers/sr/desktops/optiplex-desktops

 

[NedSmelly]

just regular office stuff

That’s a really big playing field. Any specifics you can mention? Because you can get away with very little hardware to run Office or Google Docs. We run HP SFF thin clients at our work with dual screens.

Don’t really need to build an ATX desktop box with a discrete GPU for this kind of application.