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Old PC for WFH can I update it?
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13-11-2020 12:29pm#1
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Not sure what speed the ram you have is or if you have 4*1, 2*2 or 1*4 in there, but it's probably €4 or €5 for 2*2 from cex. They don't have any 4GB in stock, in theory you could up it to 4*4GB (up to 1600MHz DDR3) but best case (where you have 1*4GB already) that's €24 and I'd guess more than the rest of the PC is worth!
Noticing the "speed up boot" question, well that's where an ssd would help most but really that machine is fit to be retired!
If you want another excuse to upgrade, that system probably uses 100W or more just idling! If you have it on for 8 hours a day a modern machine could knock €50/annum off your electricity bill
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I guess it's safe to say you have no need for gaming or development or video editing or anything at all demanding and don't foresee anything?
Of those I'd be torn between suggesting the 3200G or 3600 based machines and with either you could bump the ram to 2*8GB 3600MHz and the ssd to ~500GB NVMe to get the most from them and also make sure by the time you thought maybe you should upgrade ram or ssd the entire machine should be as obsolete as your current PC
Amusingly you might be better off with one of the gaming builds! In particular this one caught my eye: https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-falcon-ryzen-5-3400g-with-vega-graphics-pc-for-gaming.html
That improves to the 3400G, has a bronze rated psu and also includes a copy of Windows (the others will come with windows installed but unlicensed which you can use as is or buy a "cheap" key to get rid of the watermark)! Again bumping the ram and SSD would tempt me if it's not breaking the bank and you would rather a "one and done" purchase that should last a decade rather then at least feeling tempted to upgrade in 5 years time. The 500GB in particular might be overkill if you are the sort of person who re-installs windows clean every year or few but otherwise I suspect 240GB would fill up and need cleaning before the machine is obsolete and getting replaced.
Remove the crappy anti-virus trial!0 -
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I guess it's safe to say you have no need for gaming or development or video editing or anything at all demanding and don't foresee anything?
Of those I'd be torn between suggesting the 3200G or 3600 based machines and with either you could bump the ram to 2*8GB 3600MHz and the ssd to ~500GB NVMe to get the most from them and also make sure by the time you thought maybe you should upgrade ram or ssd the entire machine should be as obsolete as your current PC
Amusingly you might be better off with one of the gaming builds! In particular this one caught my eye: https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-falcon-ryzen-5-3400g-with-vega-graphics-pc-for-gaming.html
That improves to the 3400G, has a bronze rated psu and also includes a copy of Windows (the others will come with windows installed but unlicensed which you can use as is or buy a "cheap" key to get rid of the watermark)! Again bumping the ram and SSD would tempt me if it's not breaking the bank and you would rather a "one and done" purchase that should last a decade rather then at least feeling tempted to upgrade in 5 years time. The 500GB in particular might be overkill if you are the sort of person who re-installs windows clean every year or few but otherwise I suspect 240GB would fill up and need cleaning before the machine is obsolete and getting replaced.
Remove the crappy anti-virus trial!
Thanks
I also need Wifi so what is the best one to choose?
Also whats best but not breaking the bank for the below
PC MEMORY UPGRADE DUAL DDR4
PSU
MOTHERBOARD
GRAPHICS CARD
PRIMARY HARD DRIVE
Could Budget up to probably 500 but dont want overkill
Also might want to be able to switch between the current desktop and the above or better to just get an enclosure for the drive and dispose of it?
Or keep it as spare?
Cheers0 -
Opinions will vary on "overkill".
My first choice (for a "WFH" PC which is likely to see a decade of use without tinkering/upgrades) would be to go with the:
16GB AData 3600MHz
Leave the PSU as stock
Leave the motherboard as stock
Leave the graphics as onboard
AData SX8200 Pro 512GB SSD
1200 Dual Band internal wifi (if you could use powerline adapters instead of wifi I'd do that).
But that would be £480.95 with DPD shipping or about €536.
To get under €500 with their prices my instinct would say to just drop back to the stock 240GB BX500 ssd which would make it about €483 (or €460 without the wifi card which would leave enough to get a powerline kit, if you got the tp-link 600Mbps one from them it would be €492). The upgrade price for the 512GB AData SX8200 Pro isn't great (it isn't horrible either though) so that coupled with how much more likely I imagine it is you might do an SSD upgrade/addition down the road then change the ram is why I'd go that way. If you really want to shave more off go with the Team Group 16GB 3200MHz which would also leave you just enough to get one of the cheap 480GB/512GB SSDs if you know you really need or want the extra space straight away.
If in hindsight €500 really is too much and you want to save every cent now then just leave everything at stock except the wifi/powerline and remember to upgrade the ram in a year or two rather then waiting 10 years to think about it
As for the old machine, with WFH I'd guess it's handy to have it as a spare "in case of emergency". I'm going to guess it's disk is small enough and you don't have mountains of data on it so I'd just pop the disk into the new machine for long enough to copy everything across and then pack the old machine into the attic so you can dig it out for an emergency 0 -
Opinions will vary on "overkill".
My first choice (for a "WFH" PC which is likely to see a decade of use without tinkering/upgrades) would be to go with the:
16GB AData 3600MHz
Leave the PSU as stock
Leave the motherboard as stock
Leave the graphics as onboard
AData SX8200 Pro 512GB SSD
1200 Dual Band internal wifi (if you could use powerline adapters instead of wifi I'd do that).
But that would be £480.95 with DPD shipping or about €536.
To get under €500 with their prices my instinct would say to just drop back to the stock 240GB BX500 ssd which would make it about €483 (or €460 without the wifi card which would leave enough to get a powerline kit, if you got the tp-link 600Mbps one from them it would be €492). The upgrade price for the 512GB AData SX8200 Pro isn't great (it isn't horrible either though) so that coupled with how much more likely I imagine it is you might do an SSD upgrade/addition down the road then change the ram is why I'd go that way. If you really want to shave more off go with the Team Group 16GB 3200MHz which would also leave you just enough to get one of the cheap 480GB/512GB SSDs if you know you really need or want the extra space straight away.
If in hindsight €500 really is too much and you want to save every cent now then just leave everything at stock except the wifi/powerline and remember to upgrade the ram in a year or two rather then waiting 10 years to think about it
As for the old machine, with WFH I'd guess it's handy to have it as a spare "in case of emergency". I'm going to guess it's disk is small enough and you don't have mountains of data on it so I'd just pop the disk into the new machine for long enough to copy everything across and then pack the old machine into the attic so you can dig it out for an emergency
Thanks that budget would be ok just want it to last.
I currently have PC Hardwired to Internet so thats ok but want the option of wifi should I have to move the PC
Yeah moved what I could from current PC to external storage and can move / reinstall any software that I require
Would the above be able to hold enough for Bluestack emulator so that I can put some android apps on it0 -
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The main difference with CCL from what I can see is they use really cheap power supplies on all the machines you would be looking at (and cases but that doesn't really matter much as they are building it and tbh you might prefer the duller look) and they don't give you the option of fast ram or ssd so you get the very basic performance out of it rather than the most out of it.
The big price difference depends on your attitude to Windows licensing You can just use unactivated windows with a watermark on screen for €0, you can buy a "cheap" license from all kinds of places for maybe €20 but legalistically they are dodgy or you can pay €100ish to be perfectly above board.
Finally, I'd say the cheapest of the CCL cpus (Athlon 3000G) would be ok for a while but you won't be running it for a decade without at least going looking for the price of an upgrade. The question of how far to upgrade that, ram and ssd is really about whether you want a machine you won't be thinking about upgrading and will just run it until you can't take it any more or one you might keep thinking "maybe I should try and improve it".
The windows question is a big one. I think something like https://www.cclonline.com/pc/business-pcs/standard/ccl-amd-standard-business-pc/0000000203000000000001/ is about the CCL equivalent of what we were looking at and if you don't care about the windows watermark/licensing then it's a good chunk cheaper with the biggest "problem" being cheaping out completely on the power supply (but it's also holding back the performance with the ram/ssd), if you put windows on with them it's basically the same price as the AWD one but without the sane enough power supply and big performance improvements.
I'd love someone else to jump in here and offer another perspective to you 0 -
The main difference with CCL from what I can see is they use really cheap power supplies on all the machines you would be looking at (and cases but that doesn't really matter much as they are building it and tbh you might prefer the duller look) and they don't give you the option of fast ram or ssd so you get the very basic performance out of it rather than the most out of it.
The big price difference depends on your attitude to Windows licensing You can just use unactivated windows with a watermark on screen for €0, you can buy a "cheap" license from all kinds of places for maybe €20 but legalistically they are dodgy or you can pay €100ish to be perfectly above board.
Finally, I'd say the cheapest of the CCL cpus (Athlon 3000G) would be ok for a while but you won't be running it for a decade without at least going looking for the price of an upgrade. The question of how far to upgrade that, ram and ssd is really about whether you want a machine you won't be thinking about upgrading and will just run it until you can't take it any more or one you might keep thinking "maybe I should try and improve it".
The windows question is a big one. I think something like https://www.cclonline.com/pc/business-pcs/standard/ccl-amd-standard-business-pc/0000000203000000000001/ is about the CCL equivalent of what we were looking at and if you don't care about the windows watermark/licensing then it's a good chunk cheaper with the biggest "problem" being cheaping out completely on the power supply (but it's also holding back the performance with the ram/ssd), if you put windows on with them it's basically the same price as the AWD one but without the sane enough power supply and big performance improvements.
I'd love someone else to jump in here and offer another perspective to you
Thanks for the input and very detailed
Okay will more than likely go with your original suggestion0 -
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