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I am happy with the i3-2120 build that was recommended for me late in 2011. Looking to mimic that but no graphics card is needed here. Uses: email, home office tasks.

I'm an avid reader of the System Guides and the other builds in this forum. Been suffering from over-analysis for too long. Please check this out and advise. Many thanks.

$125 Intel Core i3-4130 processor
$109 ASUS H87I-PLUS LGA 1150 Mini-ITX
$ 82 Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB)
$ 50 Cooler Master Elite 130 - Mini-ITX case
$ 58 SeaSonic SSR-360GP 360W ATX12V 80 PLUS GOLD psu
$100 Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit - OEM

A Samsung 120 G SSD keeps this within the budget.

I have a monitor and keyboard. Looking for a wireless mouse.

What version of windows are you using now ? If it is win7 I would suggest dropping win 8.1 in favor of a better power supply... something from antec, corsair, coolermaster.

Or maybe more ssd space..

maxxcool wrote:

What version of windows are you using now ? If it is win7 I would suggest dropping win 8.1 in favor of a better power supply... something from antec, corsair, coolermaster.

Or maybe more ssd space..

I've had very good luck with SeaSonic PSUs, as matter of fact I highly recommend them.

gigafinger wrote:

I've had very good luck with SeaSonic PSUs, as matter of fact I highly recommend them.

Yeah, same. That Seasonic G-Series 80 Plus Gold unit is excellent (not to mention kudos for choosing the right wattage for the system). I think you have an excellent parts list. Pull the trigger!!

I like it. The only thing I might do is go for a really small case, since you know you're not going to be adding a videocard.

Actually.......if you grabbed an Intel NUC like this one for $200, you'd be looking at:

200 - Intel NUC (CPU, Mobo, Case, PSU)
~80 - 8GB SO-DIMMs (Your choice)
85 - Samsung 840 EVO 120GB
100 - Windows 8.1

$465

The Egg wrote:

Actually.......if you grabbed an Intel NUC like this one for $200

Make sure to note that that NUC only has an mSATA slot for an SSD. You'll have to use an mSATA SSD. mSATA SSDs don't really trade off any performance compared to 2.5" models, and their prices are very reasonable these days. I really want to build a system with an mSATA SSD, tiny is exciting.

I think some of the newer Haswell models support 2.5" drives if you prefer that form factor. I'm not sure which ones, I don't follow NUC's very closely.

DPete27 wrote:

The Egg wrote:

Actually.......if you grabbed an Intel NUC like this one for $200

Make sure to note that that NUC only has an mSATA slot for an SSD. You'll have to use an mSATA SSD. mSATA SSDs don't really trade off any performance compared to 2.5" models, and their prices are very reasonable these days. I really want to build a system with an mSATA SSD, tiny is exciting.

I think some of the newer Haswell models support 2.5" drives if you prefer that form factor. I'm not sure which ones, I don't follow NUC's very closely.

Ah. In my haste, I completely forgot about that.

I would recommend a larger SSD (unless you know you won't fill a 120GB), and going for a single 8GB DIMM to leave room for upgrades in the future. If you are on a budget, you can save money on the CPU and motherboard. For these types of builds I've been using $50 Celeron processors. They are plenty fast for email, web browsing, Youtube, and any sort of standard office work. I've not seen high reliability from ASUS motherboards. I used to use primarily Gigabyte, but have been deploying more ASRock boards as of late due to some of their boards' quick POST time. Haven't had any issues with them, but have been using them for less than 3 years, so I don't know about their long term reliability. I can say MSI has the best RMA process I've experienced.

SetzerG wrote:

I would recommend a larger SSD (unless you know you won't fill a 120GB), and going for a single 8GB DIMM to leave room for upgrades in the future.

What kind of "home office apps" use more than 8 gigs of RAM and fill a 120GB SSD? Only thing I can see is if the user will open a whole bunch of browser tabs?

Flying Fox wrote:

SetzerG wrote:

I would recommend a larger SSD (unless you know you won't fill a 120GB), and going for a single 8GB DIMM to leave room for upgrades in the future.

What kind of "home office apps" use more than 8 gigs of RAM and fill a 120GB SSD? Only thing I can see is if the user will open a whole bunch of browser tabs?

Well, 120 GB would be pretty small if you've got a lot of large files, pictures, etc. But if this is just an office machine, an external drive or network storage is probably a good solution.

As for RAM, I don't think office apps or web browsers are really going to require 8GB for some time, so planning ahead for that doesn't make a lot of sense, IMO. And RAM performance probably isn't a huge deal, but you would limit performance by only using one channel.

Let's move on to a question that was not addressed yet - the mouse.

PhilipMcc wrote:

Looking for a wireless mouse.

Does it have to be wireless? Since I assume your existing keyboard is wired? Do you prefer a large or small hand grip? How much resolution do you need? Do you have an affinity towards certain brands, like Logitech? Do you want regular 2.4GHz or Bluetooth wireless? Do you need at least a back button or would a 2 button mouse is good enough?

Sure, that build would work great in my opinion. The only thing I would recommend is make sure you have a good backup solution for all your files (especially if using for business purposes). Have a good online backup and / or redundant copies in a safe place.

Given the direction AMD is headed, this might be your last chance to purchase a piece of computing history - one of the last practical AMD CPUs.

At your price point, you might consider:
Grabbing a 6 core FX chip.
OC the 'turbo' frequency a tad to improve single/low-thread performance while leaving the base clock (4+ threads) as-is to keep max power draw reasonable. Using AMD's overdrive, you can build a voltage vs frequency vs # cores profile to suit your taste.

Pro Intel:
Lower peak power.
Possibly slightly better single-thread performance.
More modern chipset.
Smaller PS and less need for cooling hardware.

Pro AMD:
Much better multithreaded perf.
Cheaper Mobo.
Easier, much more flexible O.C.
Own a piece of history!

Push:
For typical light use, CPU power consumption isn't going to be all that different.
Prices are about equal.

What about a Gigabyte Brix? The models I've looked at incredibly small (like, mount behind a monitor small) , and tend to come with a mSATA SSD slot, 2 SO-DIMM DDR3L slots, and a single SATA 6Gbps HDD connection There is NO connection for a discrete video card. They come with different CPUs i3-i7 Ivy bridges and Haswells, motherboards, and PSUs.

There's a single HDMI (and maybe a mini-display port), multiple USB3 slots, and the WiFi card supports b/g/n/ac. If you need any other type of connection( PS/2, DVI, VGA, Serial, etc), you're hosed.

As an office only machine, word, excel, powerpoint, web surfing and light photo editing anything will work for you, the SSD is really the only requirement.

Both myself and Geoff (TR staff) own Acer 1810T that have core 2 duos in them with 4GB of ram and SSDs. [I have mine running windows 8.1] They work just fine for office applications. I do hook mine up to the TV from time to time and stream netflix or play an HD movie file without issues that I have personally seen.

You really don't need more than an old core 2 duo for general office applications. Database software will primarily rely on the speed of your SSD, so if you run any of that it won't be a worry. 120GB is more than enough general room as long as you don't want to turn it into a media computer as well. The SSD is the key in this situation.

Since you don't need a graphics card, how about something like the Antec ISK300?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129080
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129081

Thanks for the suggestions. Backup is taken care of via a samba share and external HDD. Mouse - the reason I'm asking about wireless is the current mouse-wire takes a long path through the computer desk. It tends to get caught on something.

PhilipMcc wrote:

IUses: email, home office tasks.

Tablet?

I'll agree with the early suggestions to go as-is or grab yourself a NUC. There's nothing that needs changing in your parts list unless you really do want something smaller, in which case you won't beat a NUC for compactness.

I've gone through a few wireless mice in my HTPC years, (a couple of cheapies, then Razer, Logitech, Microsoft, MadCatz) but I've settled on Microsoft for wireless mice - their BlueTrack mice really do work on any surface and they're not crazy price either.

Aim for bluetooth, it interferes less with other 2.4GHz devices than the usual RF dongles, useful if you have other wireless devices/networs nearby.

superjawes wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

SetzerG wrote:

I would recommend a larger SSD (unless you know you won't fill a 120GB), and going for a single 8GB DIMM to leave room for upgrades in the future.

What kind of "home office apps" use more than 8 gigs of RAM and fill a 120GB SSD? Only thing I can see is if the user will open a whole bunch of browser tabs?

Well, 120 GB would be pretty small if you've got a lot of large files, pictures, etc. But if this is just an office machine, an external drive or network storage is probably a good solution.

As for RAM, I don't think office apps or web browsers are really going to require 8GB for some time, so planning ahead for that doesn't make a lot of sense, IMO. And RAM performance probably isn't a huge deal, but you would limit performance by only using one channel.

I'm buying 8GB of RAM with 256GB SSDs for the office laptops at my job.

120GB is okay if people are going to be rather disciplined about keeping junk off of the computer, or run Linux, but most people aren't. Thus, a 256GB SSD is standard.

RAM gets eaten up quicker then people expect. 4GB is marginal, 6GB is adequate, and 8GB is more then adequate. 8GB has room to absorb software bloat for the next few years, and it has a fudge factor for the dumb stuff people put on their machines. Most of the people in the company I work for use Office and a web browser, and they were using up 4GB. Moving to 8GB smoothed things out.

Right now, I'm using 5.28GB of 32GB, and I'm not doing anything heavy. Firefox, Outlook, and the IM client are the heavy weights, in that order.

Chrispy_ wrote:

Aim for bluetooth, it interferes less with other 2.4GHz devices than the usual RF dongles, useful if you have other wireless devices/networs nearby.

It's annoying that Bluetooth devices are so rare, in regards to wireless peripherals designed for laptops and desktops. There are a lot for tablets and phones.

Go with a $200 PC from the local refurb shop and throw a $100 SSD in it. Should be fine for almost all general office use unless you are Excel heavy or something else intensive.

Honestly, for a simple Office or Home Use type PC I'd go AMD. My Office PC I built has been flawless and boasts an AMD A6-3500 Triple Core, MSI A55M-P33 Mobo, G.Skill 8GB Ram & Samsung 64GB SSD and everything works perfectly. Best part, this build cost less than 300 bucks and does everything I needed it to do. Office, Google Earth, KML data, etc. Today I'd do this...

Fractal Design Core 1000 Case - 35.99 (or any case under 50 bucks)
AMD A4-4020 3.2Ghz Dual Core - 49.99 (as I was impressed with the A4-4000 performance i built for a friend for home office use. Was paired with Sandisk Ultra 128 and screamed)
MSI A78M-E45 FM2+ Motherboard - 59.99 (Purchased the older version of this for the A4 build last year, has run flawlessly.)
Kingston HyperX Black 8GB 1600 - 64.99 (Don't need 1833 as your not gaming, especially with this APU.)
Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD - 89.99 (Great performance, Reliability & additional software that makes monitoring and cloning easy!)
Antec Earthwatts 380w 80+ PSU - 49.99 (While paired with the A4-4000, MSI Mobo, SSD & 500GB Green HDD it idled at just 22.5 watts! Stress test took it to 49 watts)

Total: 349.95

If I were going to build my office PC again today, and on a small / entry level budget this is exactly what I would go with. And you'll have plenty of room / cash to upgrade to more speed should you need it. Recently built an AMD 750K Quad Core Entry Level Gaming build PC and was amazed at how well it performance. For another 30 bucks, it couldn't hurt to go that route. And the 120GB should be plenty, as my 64GB has yet to be filled after nearly 2 years.

Just my two cents. Hope this helps.

I would recommend avoiding dual-core and going for a quad-core CPU. It seems that in the past few years we have crossed a threshold software-wise where dual-core can feel a little sluggish at times, even for relatively non-demanding use cases.

PhilipMcc wrote:

I am happy with the i3-2120 build that was recommended for me late in 2011. Looking to mimic that but no graphics card is needed here. Uses: email, home office tasks.

I'm an avid reader of the System Guides and the other builds in this forum. Been suffering from over-analysis for too long. Please check this out and advise. Many thanks.

$125 Intel Core i3-4130 processor
$109 ASUS H87I-PLUS LGA 1150 Mini-ITX
$ 82 Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB)
$ 50 Cooler Master Elite 130 - Mini-ITX case
$ 58 SeaSonic SSR-360GP 360W ATX12V 80 PLUS GOLD psu
$100 Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit - OEM

A Samsung 120 G SSD keeps this within the budget.

I have a monitor and keyboard. Looking for a wireless mouse.

I like the current build. Only things I would change are:

1. Upgrade to Core i3 4330 for same price after coupon code: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819116945
2. Downgrade your motherboard to an Asrock or ASUS model in the $60-$75 range.

Comments on specific items:

CPU - Regarding core counts, I disagree with JBI (I owe you a beer, bro). This particular i3 is a desktop Haswell part, and while it's "dual core", it is still capable of handling 4 threads. I dance between a system with an i5 Haswell dualcore and i7 3770k quad every day and don't notice the difference in general performance.

RAM - 8 GB is ok, but 16 GB is better. If you can afford $40 more, I'd go for that instead.

OS - I love Windows 8, but then again I don't touch the Metro interface. I use Win 8 like I use Win 7, but with much better performance and some nicer tools (e.g. Task Manager). That said, weigh your benefits - Win 7 works just fine, and if you have Win 7 already and would rather save the money for Windows 9 or put it into a better SSD, maybe that is the better option.

Point taken. I should've probably said "go for something that can handle 4 threads" rather than recommending quad core. The comment was aimed more at the person who recommended the dual-core AMD APU.

Yeah. Agreed. AMD dual-core CPU. No. Stay away. Don't ... follow... the ... lights!!

To be fair to DarkMikaru, the reason this should be avoided is because 2 threads are not enough to handle multitasking anymore. Most apps now have multiple processes running simultaneously. For example, Google Chrome running with a single tab open has as many as 6 processes it spawns in the background. Add to that other system processes such as antimalware, driver utils, dropbox, audio, etc. This creates a situation where the UI can become "blocked" causing stuttering in video, audio, web animation, and general UI rendering.

JdL wrote:

RAM - 8 GB is ok, but 16 GB is better. If you can afford $40 more, I'd go for that instead.

I'd suggest you look at current RAM prices. 8GB doesn't cost $40 anymore.

PS. I'm using 3GB of RAM on my office comp. right now.
Also, SSD size depends largely on what you're storing and where. If you're not dealing with (lots of) large files or you're using a NAS, 120GB is fine. My gaming rig SSD has all my programs and a few games (documents/pictures/videos/etc on hdd) and it consistently has 30+GB free. That's a lot of documents and what-not. Office comp. is hooked up to NAS, but even with a some locally stored data, I'm only using 53GB.

JdL wrote:

Yeah. Agreed. AMD dual-core CPU. No. Stay away. Don't ... follow... the ... lights!!

To be fair to DarkMikaru, the reason this should be avoided is because 2 threads are not enough to handle multitasking anymore. Most apps now have multiple processes running simultaneously. For example, Google Chrome running with a single tab open has as many as 6 processes it spawns in the background. Add to that other system processes such as antimalware, driver utils, dropbox, audio, etc. This creates a situation where the UI can become "blocked" causing stuttering in video, audio, web animation, and general UI rendering.

Yes, this was vividly illustrated to me recently. I had slapped together a "junk box" system, using an old motherboard and an Athlon X2 7750. Even for basic web browsing it felt dog slow. Swapping in a 1090T (only an 18% clock speed advantage over the 7750, but 6 cores instead of 2) made a world of difference.

Hey guys, first, thanks for being so kind to a gerbil such as myself. Having said that, I respectfully disagree with you guys regarding the A4-4020.

Agreed, nothing wrong with budgeting for more horsepower. My point though, with it being an "office" machine, why double the money when that individual won't notice a performance increase. Coupled with a good SSD, the A4 performs amazingly well. My friend I built this machine for is a professor at a university who teaches physics. Though she doesn't run any complex simulation software as she primarily lectures, she does put the machine through its passes. After checking in with her last, she says the performance is great regarding Microsoft Office, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Google Earth, etc... I guess our definition of office PC differs from yours. I wouldn't discount the little chip. I tested it for a week before shipping the system to her and can vouch for the performance.

Not to mention, its FM2+ socket, so should she need more power (which is unlikely giving its role) we can do that. I know we live in a multi-core, multi threaded world, but to be honest, should a given machine have the right hardware we'd still be hard pressed to tell the performance difference. For everyday usage, you'd just be hard pressed to tell the difference between i3, i5,i7 vs A4, A6 or FX.