Home Office PC Build for €2,200

JamesFlynn

1. What is your budget? €2,200

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Home office - main work PC, would also like to stream a/v to a TV in another room, maybe use skype from that TV.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No.

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Yes Large Vertical Tower Case, Decent Power Supply and UPS, keyboard, mouse, wifi router, speakers.

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

5a. If yes, what size do you need. Whatever you recommend - it will be used 8/9 hours a day so a good enough one but but it will not be used for gaming - ideally I'd have two - one for Email/Skype/etc and one for work.

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Keyboard/Mouse/Wireless Card/Card Reader/Speakers/etc.] - no have all those already.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Hmmm, I've not done it before and assume it would not be worth it for a work pc, could be convinced however.

8. How can you pay? Any method

9. When are you purchasing? Over next couple of days

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Dublin, but have done one build before so should be ok.

My work are shutting down our office and I've been made a "home office" worker, with a budget of €2,200 to set up a work PC in the spare room. I built a home pc a few years ago with the help of people on this forum and I was wondering if you could recommend a modern spec I could order from hardwareversand.de for a home office pc?

It would need to be able to boot multiple Windows and Linux installs, and would mostly be used for email and MS Office docs, as well as bit of C++/Java/JavaScript programming If there was a way to interface with the TV in the living room to watch youtube on it that would be a bonus - I've run a CAT5 cable between the two rooms. It would need to be fairly reliable, but whether that is achieved though a good backup solution, or else RAID, I don't know. I'd rather pay a bit more for the screen(s) as I'll be looking at them for extended periods. The budget will hopefully stretch to a printer also.

Any suggestions much appreciated, thanks
James

braddun

you could get a dell prebuilt cheap,for office you don't need great computer





http://www.dell.com/ie/business/p/desktop-deals


add vat iff your not buisness

Tropheus

I would suggest that you don't go Dell and build yourself. You'll get much better value for money.

€2.2k is at least twice as much as you need to spend for what you want to achieve.

Serephucus

Here's something to get you started, at the upper end of your budget:



I went for speed and silence with this one, as you have the money for it. For starters, a very nice, well ventilated, compact case, with plenty of room for adding hard drives if you want to in the future.

There's a very high-efficiency power supply in there with a fan that doesn't even spin under light load, so it shouldn't turn on at all. There's a Core i3 CPU in there, but you could easily bump that up to an i5 if you wanted. Probably no real point though with office work.

The star of the show though is the 512GB SSD. If you've used one before, I don't have to say anything else. If you haven't... You won't go back.

I might have gone a little bit overkill with the CPU cooler, but this means that it should cool the CPU without even needing fans.

8GB of RAM is fairly standard. I also didn't include a graphics card as the motherboard can connect a bunch of monitors on its own, and the integrated graphics will be fine for anything non-gaming.

There's also two very high quality IPS displays in there, that go really well in dual monitor configurations because of their very slim bezels.

Wossack

what manner of work? as I'd be leaning towards a dell with excellent support/warranty, and a herman miller chair personally

if the work is particularly cpu/gpu heavy, might push the abilities of Dell (budget/performance wise), so really only then would I look at a custom pc

JamesFlynn

Thanks for the suggestions! I enjoyed building the last pc so plan to do so again - dell is great but I have case and power supply already and it is more fun to build. I already bought the Herman Miller chair 😄.

The work is typical software development - nothing too onerous. Comfort (good screens) and reliability (backups) the priorities, as well as being able to add new hardware over time. I'll look into the suggestion from serephucus and work from there.

Gumbi

That mobo seema like expensive overkill for a nn overclockable i3, no?

What PSU do you have? The system suggested is pretty sweet. The cooler is way overkill I think though, though I like the tendency towards quietness. Perhaps this will be better, really quiet and not far from the same performance (which is still insane overkill :P) http://www.hardwareversand.de/Intel+AMD/150654/be+quiet%21+Dark+Rock+3.article?pvid=4pqjbcucp_i44slxc0&ref=13

john the one

If we are suggesting an i3, why not buy a dell. Personally, I wouldn't go for the i3, work PC has it and I find it very slow.

For an extra 100ish you can get a vastly superior i5.

Think about it

Johnboy1951

As you mentioned multiple OSs, I suggest you build this machine with the capability of running a few such OSs in Virtual Machines.

It would surely save a lot of rebooting.

For such use I would suggest you get about 32GB RAM and a multicore processor.

I would be suggesting an 8 core CPU.

Gumbi

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

For such use I would suggest you get about 32GB RAM and a multicore processor.

I would be suggesting an 8 core CPU.

Having multiple OSes doesn't really affect RAM at all AFAIK. Why 32? That's crazy. 8 is plenty. I have 8 myself and have never seen it above 6GB.

Why would you suggest an 8 core CPU? The dual core chip offered is more than enough for basic office work and media playing.

Sonics2k

To be honest with your budget and knowledge of PC building I would stay well away from Dell. Hell, even if you had a lower budget I'd stay away from Dell.

Have a look at Overclockers.co.uk for some very good pre-built machines or even components, or even hardwareversand.de for components.

I personally highly recommend Overclockers.

Johnboy1951

Gumbi wrote: »

Having multiple OSes doesn't really affect RAM at all AFAIK. Why 32? That's crazy. 8 is plenty. I have 8 myself and have never seen it above 6GB.

Why would you suggest an 8 core CPU? The dual core chip offered is more than enough for basic office work and media playing.

Then I guess you have never run simultaneous OSs in VMs ...... CPU cores and RAM are allocated to each VM.


I am obviously reading the needs of this PC differently to other posters ......... it is not a 'basic office work' machine that is required IMO.

The budget is available for a reason ...... to get a very good machine ......

Gumbi

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Then I guess you have never run simultaneous OSs in VMs ...... CPU cores and RAM are allocated to each VM.

That's different. I agree here. No need for a crazy CPU though, espcially given the work being done. A non-k i7 maybe, or perhaps even just an i5. No need for crazy horsepower, nothing crazy being done here


I am obviously reading the needs of this PC differently to other posters ......... it is not a 'basic office work' machine that is required IMO.

The work is quite basic. Perhaps 16GB RAM on the safe side for multiple OSes but really given what kind of work will be done you could probably get away with 8 (especially given the SSD, RAM-SSD swapping wouldn't be such a pain even if it were to occur).

The budget is available for a reason ...... to get a very good machine ......
One needn't blow all their money just because it's there.

Answers in bold.

TerrorFirmer

He didn't mention VM's anywhere though did it? Just that he wants to boot different OS. It still appears to me to be a legitmate 'basic office' PC. An i3 would definitely suffice, i5 possibly, but an 8-core is total overkill.

I suppose the other issue is that it's not 'his' money, but in that instance, I would be more inclined to go for some incredible accessories, 1440p displays, etc.

Johnboy1951

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

He didn't mention VM's anywhere though did it?

No, and if you read my post, VM was my suggestion and the multicore processor and high ram was based on that suggestion.

A 'basic' office machine can be bought or built for <€500 ...... do you really think that a company is not well aware of this?

Do you also think they would provide a budget of >€2,000 for such a machine?

I have no interest in arguing around VMs or not, only wish to emphasise that budgets are not set willy-nilly by most companies, and the budget is a better indicator of the requirements of the company than any of our interpretations of the original post.

Of course it is also possible that the budget is not just for the PC, but a combined budget for setting up the home-office, a part of which is to be allocated to the purchase of a PC.

Gumbi

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

No, and if you read my post, VM was my suggestion and the multicore processor and high ram was based on that suggestion.

A 'basic' office machine can be bought or built for <€500 ...... do you really think that a company is not well aware of this?

Do you also think they would provide a budget of >€2,000 for such a machine?

I have no interest in arguing around VMs or not, only wish to emphasise that budgets are not set willy-nilly by most companies, and the budget is a better indicator of the requirements of the company than any of our interpretations of the original post.

Of course it is also possible that the budget is not just for the PC, but a combined budget for setting up the home-office, a part of which is to be allocated to the purchase of a PC.

My experience of budgets is that they can often be too much. While interning in a medical devices company and putting together a purchase order I saved over 2 grand, 2 grand instead of 4 and there was a budget of 6! This isn't always the case, but it happens.

in any case there is too much speculating going on here, until the OP confirms exactly what is required we can't really say anything else. The least we can do is spec out a comfortably premium computer without going overboard and I think we've done that so far.