'Future Proof' Business Desktop

[Phete]

Hi

I need a new home/office computer. My current machine is an eight year old 2.8Ghz Pentium 4 with 1gb ram and 80gb hard drive. It runs slowly and noisily, particularly when I'm browsing the internet. It has Windows XP on it.

I'd like a computer that is much faster and quieter. It will be used for office work, internet browsing and watching videos, with a lot of multi-tasking (many programmes and browser tabs open at once). I won't be playing any games, but it's possible that I might want to edit videos at some point in the future. I'm planning on installing Windows 7 pro.

I'm happy to pay up to £1,000 for a new machine (don't need a monitor, keyboard etc), but I don't know whether to go down the route of getting as powerful pc as I can for the money (eg Intel i7 processor, 8 gb memory, SSD and separate HDD) with a view to keeping it for 8 years, or should I spend about £500 on a much lower spec and expect to upgrade in 4 years?

One question I have: do computer components simply wear out? I don't want to spend the money on a top spec machine only to find that the hardware starts to fail in 5 years time.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[D1craig]

for £1000 you could get something extremely good fro what you are using and if it where not for things "possibly" wearing out they would last 8 years easily. i will leave the more accomplished people on these forums to make you a spec. but with your budget you can get something that would do what you have asked for many years to come.

 

[steaky360]

As a general rule, yes components wear out - will they wear out in 5 years? Probably not if you're putting the rig under relatively light use (office use etc. - not workstation type stuff) and keep it reasonably clean. Saying that however, nothing is warranted beyond 3 years from PCS (and manufacturers rarely offer warranties beyond that too).

If you were considering upgrading in 4 years, you're better off doing that than trying to go all out now and upgrading in 8 years. That's my opinion at least.

 

[mantadog]

With clean installations of the OS and a bit of dusting, I see no reason why your PC shouldn't last 8 years. Components do ware out but that is a theme for all electronics. The most likely candidate for failure would be a HDD, that's just what they do, often when you least expect it. Generally speaking (possibly apart from the PSU) id expect everything else to last 8 years easily unless you get a random failure that can happen to anything.

For your needs I don't even think you need to spend 1k on it. Even with a little video editing later I think this spec will do you just fine.




Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 550 QUIET MID TOWER CASE Nice quiet case
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4670 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache very strong CPU, will even handle video editing just fine. An i7 will be better for video editing but isn't really needed unless you are planning to spend all day every day doing it
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87M-PLUS: m-ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6.0, XFIRE Plenty of expansion room
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (1 x 8GB) Could add a 2nd 8Gb stick later if you do take up video editing, as editing video loves RAM 8GB will still work just fine too
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU) No gaming, no need for a GPU. You have enough space on the motherboard to add one if needed, also plenty spare capacity on the PSU
1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW) They just rock...
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) fast storage for anything you don't fit on the SSD, caviar green would be a slower, quieter alternative but the HDD only makes a noise when your working it hard, which wont be often.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£79) Fairly good quality, runs fanless at low load so also very quiet
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19) Ample cooling, very quiet.
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £733.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-home-office-pc/BD3KOmSEJr/

 

[GeorgeHillier]

You can easily get a good machine for that amount of money. Although I wouldn't recommend spending the full amount, keep some of it and use it to upgrade parts later on.
Here's a build that comes to £798:
Case CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 200R COMPACT GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4670 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache The i5 should last a long time for general use
Motherboard ASUS® H87M-E: Micro-ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 750 Ti - DVI, mHDMI, VGA - 3D Vision Ready Not necessary but could help with video editing and if you did decide to do anything graphically intensive
2nd Graphics Card NONE
1st Hard Disk 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW) Nice speedy boot up
2nd Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader NONE
Power Supply CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY This could be downgraded if you don't get the graphics card
Processor Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Extra Case Fans NONE
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
Wireless Router/HomePlugs NONE
USB Options MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Firewire NONE
TV Card NONE
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media Windows 8.1 (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor NONE
2nd Monitor NONE
3rd Monitor NONE
4th Monitor NONE
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables NONE
Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision NONE
Keyboard & Mouse NONE
Mouse NONE
Gaming Mouse Pad NONE
Speakers NONE
Webcam NONE
Headsets NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Home Installation NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Miscellaneous FREE WATCH DOGS with GTX 660 & 7 Series GPUs!
Pricing Information
Price (excluding VAT) £665.00
Price £798.00

 

[Phete]

Thanks very much for the advice and suggestions - as a non-technical person, it's great to have access to this level of expertise.

Just to clarify: I'm not actually intending to upgrade at any point unless I have to - I tend to keep my most of my posessions (PCs, cars etc) until they become unuseable, then I replace them.

It's very helpful to have two suggested specs (from GeorgeHillier and Mantadog - thank you both). I'd appreciate any insights as to the significant differences between the two....

Thanks again.

 

[mantadog]

In terms of 'driving' the 2 specs you would notice almost no difference at all, unless you looked at the case and even then they are very similar indeed.

From a technical point of view the differences are:

CPU,RAM and HDD, all identical

Motherboard, my spec has a better motherboard which has more expansion room. However if you never plan to upgrade you can drop it to the basic version with no problems at all.

SSD, George included the 250GB Samsung drive. That has a much larger capacity than the 120GB Kingston (obviously) and perhaps less obviously is a slightly (slightly) better drive overall in terms of performance. if you want bulletproof reliability then grab the intel drives as they are truly bulletproof. Although go for whatever you fancy, they are all brilliant. Just don't skimp on the £10 and get the Kingston v300 as its not quite up to spec with modern SSD's IMO.

The GPU is quite a significant difference, George added the 750ti as it might help with some editing you might do in the future. To be brutally honest, unless your doing hardcore editing the GPU is not going to help too much. I bought my current PC from PCS without a GPU and I had very similar needs to you, only added a dedicated GPU last year and video editing worked just fine without it. Your call though, its probably the most significant difference between out 2 builds.

The other slightly significant difference is the PSU, mine has the 650w modular one which has a 0rpm fan mode for when under low load so its quiet. George went down the route of a smaller PSU that handles the system load perfectly well but is of a slightly cheaper construction and has a fan that goes all the time regardless of load.

However both specs are perfectly adequate for your needs and if you cut the fat off mine (nice extras like the PSU, motherboard) it comes down in price significantly but doesn't lose any performance. Only you know how much SSD space you will need. Roughly count what kind of apps you want to load onto it for fast opening, the OS takes about 40GB leaving you about 60 is on a 120Gb drive to play with. (some is lost to formatting etc)

 

[GeorgeHillier]

The other slightly significant difference is the PSU, mine has the 650w modular one which has a 0rpm fan mode for when under low load so its quiet. George went down the route of a smaller PSU that handles the system load perfectly well but is of a slightly cheaper construction and has a fan that goes all the time regardless of load.

Didn't know the modular PSUs could run at 0rpm, learnt something new there! So if you did want it to be quiet then the case and PSU mantadog selected would be best.

The SSD in the build I did is bigger, which means more programs can obviously be put on it, which depending how many programs you have will determine weather you need more storage. I added a GPU as it never hurts and my build only costs an extra £70 for the larger SSD and a dedicated GPU.

I think mantadogs case is probably more suitable and so is the PSU if you want it to be quiet. The larger SSD and GPU may be worth it if you are willing to spend the extra money but aren't necessary

 

[Phete]

Thanks very much. That's really helpful advice, and it's enabled me to be much clearer about the choices I'm making.

Two further questions:

(1) are the Intel SSDs a significantly better bet in terms of reliablility than the Kingston or Samsung offerings?

(2) at the moment my 80gb hard drive is about 50% full. I have about 13gb of data, and 25gb of programmes etc (Windows XP, MS Office 2003 and various bits and bobs). I believe that Windows 7 requires 16gb (plus 20gb to operate in XP mode) and MS Office 2013 needs 3 gb. It seems to me that a 120gb SSD is likely to be large enough, but am I missing something? I'm planning on storing all my programmes on the SSD, and my data on the hard disk drive.

Thanks again.

 

[keynes]

1) all do them are as reliable. Intel offers a longer warranty (5 years).
2) 120gb SSD should be plenty for the OS and office.

 

[mantadog]

SSD's are generally very reliable anyway. Intel has the reputation for being top of the line tough, 5 year warranty as Keynes said. I'd have no problems going for the Kingston hyper x myself, that's the drive I plan on getting unless its upgraded by the time I get round to buying my next rig.

120GB would be broken down like this. Say 40Gb for windows, 25Gb of programmes, 15 Gb of data would leave you about 25/30Gb for any fresh data and applications.

One way might be to grab yourself a 250Gb SSD, ditch the 1TB caviar black and use the SSD for everything.

 

[Phete]

One way might be to grab yourself a 250Gb SSD, ditch the 1TB caviar black and use the SSD for everything.

What might be the advantages/disadvantages of this approach compared to a smaller SSD and separate disk drive? Would I need to request that the SSD be partitioned when I place my order? I'm planning on buying Windows 7 pro as part of the system.

 

[mantadog]

The advantage is that you don't have a great hulking 1Tb drive sitting running at 1% capacity. The disadvantage is, erm... None... unless you need 1Tb of storage...

Presuming everything you currently have fits on an 80Gb drive a 1TB drive is not much use to you when you have a 120Gb SSD that holds everything anyway.

because of the way SSD's work you wont need to partition it, if you want to have it partitioned you can certainly have it done to aid in reinstallations of the OS or just to keep everything neater but that's personal preference. You do get the option to ask for partitions and stipulate the sizes at checkout.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

What might be the advantages/disadvantages of this approach compared to a smaller SSD and separate disk drive? Would I need to request that the SSD be partitioned when I place my order? I'm planning on buying Windows 7 pro as part of the system.

The advantage is a larger SSD which means more programs can be accessed faster. The disadvantage is that you have less storage space, but if you won't even use all 250gb then it's fine as you won't need the extra 1tb HDD.

 

[Phete]

Great. It sounds as though I don't need a separate hard disk drive.

One (hopefully final) question before I place my order: what would be sensible partition sizes for me to request on a 250gb SSD? I was thinking maybe 80gb for Windows, 80gb for other programmes and 80gb for data? I'm hoping that should be more than adequate for my needs given that I'm only using 40gb in total at the moment.

Thanks again.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Great. It sounds as though I don't need a separate hard disk drive.

One (hopefully final) question before I place my order: what would be sensible partition sizes for me to request on a 250gb SSD? I was thinking maybe 80gb for Windows, 80gb for other programmes and 80gb for data? I'm hoping that should be more than adequate for my needs given that I'm only using 40gb in total at the moment.

Thanks again.

Why do you need to partition it? The PC will be able to access all areas of the SSD just as quickly

 

[steaky360]

I second this, I wouldn't bother with a partition personally. I can't see the benefit (but you might require it for some reason I guess )

 

[mantadog]

I second this, I wouldn't bother with a partition personally. I can't see the benefit (but you might require it for some reason I guess )

If you make a single partition for the OS then it could make reinstallations easier, just wipe that partition and reinstall windows without loss of data. So say a 80-100GB partition for windows + software with the rest as a storage drive for data.

Anything that needs installing will need to be re installed after a new installation of windows anyway so best make the partition big enough for any software you use too.

 

[Phete]

Just wanted to say thanks for all the expert, and speedy, advice I received in this thread. I've just placed an order for a desktop along the lines that you suggested.

Thanks again.

 

[mantadog]

You listed to what we said? hmm might be a bad move...

Enjoy ;P