# Build for heavy desktop and Excel work



## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

The build will be mainly for general heavy office work.

I’m looking for advice on just the CPU, the motherboard and RAM. The rest I will manage it.

I'm looking for a durable *(5-7 years), on-budget build (400$ for only CPU, MOBO & RAM)* less that 400 will be great. The idea is to get a build that respect all the criteria’s on a strict budget (why spend more?!!)

What I will not do with this build:

NO GAMING NO VIDEO/Photo Editing rendering ripping...

NO overclocking

What I will do with this build:

Long heavy text editing: all Microsoft office suite with heavy usage mainly Word, PowerPoint andExcel.
PDF documents:

Excel: heavy complex financial calculation with spreadsheets not exceeding 100MB.

1080p, 4K video playing.

Browsing: 6 windows of (Chrome, Firefox) with 20 tabs each.

Specific software's that i use: R, SPSS, and Macro’s in Excel, Eviews, Calibre (E-books management) and maybe some Matlab in the future.

I just want to be able to do (in a comfortable way) some complex (but on a small scale) calculations.

Regarding Intel based solution should I go for Skylake or Haswell. I would like to take advantage of future DDR4 improvements and why not M2 SSD’s when it will be more affordable.

I really need your help, guys. Thank you all in advance.


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

A modern i3 and plenty of RAM will keep you all set for all of the tasks sans the 4k video playback. The 4k bit really throws a wrench into the works, is it a "would be nice" or a "must have"? Without a 4k display, doing 4k playback means nothing IMHO. That's a pretty tall order for a lot of iGPUs unless you have a CPU with Iris Pro or a modern Skylake build which is probably going to be outside of your budget. IBM SPSS and Excel like single-threaded performance but, will consume a lot of memory on large data sets so a quad-core probably is over kill as well (hence the i3 recommendation,) but I not sure if an i3 will handle 4k gracefully, a Skylake i3 might but, that's a big if.


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## Schmuckley (Dec 19, 2015)

dang,$400 and here I was thinking 4960x.

My thoughts=

LGA 1366 Motherboard: $220-ish
Xeon X5650 CPU: $75-ish
Spend the rest on RAM..
probably 1333-1600Mhz,and go for volume..4gb sticks.
Overclocking would net a good bit of performance.

You have $2200 tastes on a $400 budget.


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> dang,$400 and here I was thinking 4960x.
> 
> My thoughts=
> 
> ...


The OP is doing mostly office work, why does he need a HEDT platform from many years ago? No, that's a waste.

The OP also said that they're not going to be overclocking. There is absolutely nothing about your suggestion that would help. Simply put, the software he's using benefits more from clocks, IPC, and memory density, so a Skylake i3 would be vastly better for the OP's purposes.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> A modern i3 and plenty of RAM will keep you all set for all of the tasks sans the 4k video playback. The 4k bit really throws a wrench into the works, is it a "would be nice" or a "must have"? Without a 4k display, doing 4k playback means nothing IMHO. That's a pretty tall order for a lot of iGPUs unless you have a CPU with Iris Pro or a modern Skylake build which is probably going to be outside of your budget. IBM SPSS and Excel like single-threaded performance but, will consume a lot of memory on large data sets so a quad-core probably is over kill as well (hence the i3 recommendation,) but I not sure if an i3 will handle 4k gracefully, a Skylake i3 might but, that's a big if.



Thanks Aquinus,

I’m ready to go with an I5 maybe an I5-6500. I could get a graphic card in the future just to get better graphic and video experience. But what really matters for me is the office work I really need to be sure that for the coming say 7 years I will do my modest but complicated calculations and office work without lags. I can wait for some simulation or calculation to be finished but it’s all about frequency if it for some calculations that I do once a week I can wait for it.

I know it’s too much details but I really need to get the best of my investment all over the period and still on a limited budget.

Just to let you know guys whenever I go I get always the same answer “go with an i7-4790k” and without any argument! I got sick of it.

So is there any other recommendations


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Thanks Aquinus,
> 
> I’m ready to go with an I5 maybe an I5-6500. I could get a graphic card in the future just to get better graphic and video experience. But what really matters for me is the office work I really need to be sure that for the coming say 7 years I will do my modest but complicated calculations and office work without lags. I can wait for some simulation or calculation to be finished but it’s all about frequency if it for some calculations that I do once a week I can wait for it.
> 
> ...


I would say that any Skylake i3 should fit the bill. I seriously doubt than an i5 will give you much in terms of tangible benefits given the software you're using. It also gives you more money to get a GPU should 4k playback be important as well as more memory. When it comes to business tools, more memory and an SSD will give you responsiveness which you'll want. Beyond that, anything else is really overkill for your situation IMHO.


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## lightningstrike46 (Dec 19, 2015)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132579R&cm_re=h170-_-13-132-579R-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-117-564
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...011114&cm_re=16gb_ddr4-_-20-011-114-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7438016&cm_re=500_watt-_-17-438-016-_-Product
with all this you'll have 48 bucks left to buy a matx case to your preference.


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## Schmuckley (Dec 19, 2015)

3770K for $220
Used z77 or p67 or z68 mobo that's compatible: $100
rest on RAM.
Pretty sure an x5650 will keep pace with a 4790K in video editing;due to extra 2 cores/4 threads..
edit:After quick look,It does much better at same clocks, even.


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> Pretty sure an x5650 will keep pace with a 4790K in video editing;due to extra 2 cores/4 threads..


Read the thread again. *The OP isn't video editing or overclocking, this is a business computer. *


omarsrv said:


> NO GAMING NO VIDEO/Photo Editing rendering ripping...





lightningstrike46 said:


> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132579R&cm_re=h170-_-13-132-579R-_-Product
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-117-564
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...011114&cm_re=16gb_ddr4-_-20-011-114-_-Product
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...7438016&cm_re=500_watt-_-17-438-016-_-Product
> with all this you'll have 48 bucks left to buy a matx case to your preference.


I would replace the i5 with an i3 because an i3 will cost less and has higher clocks. The software the OP is using won't benefit from a quad-core at lower clocks versus a dual-core with higher clocks and hyper-threading.

Once again, higher clocks, more memory, and an SSD will give you everything you'll ever want with the software the OP has described. The only question hovers around the iGPU of the i3 and if it will gracefully handle 4k video playback or not.


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

Low-end Skylake i3. The dual core's high clock will benefit far more than core count.
Speed of ram will not matter. So, grab the cheapest you can in 8gb range.
Mobo, grab the cheapest. Like one with H110 chipset.

Should be enough under 400.


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## Schmuckley (Dec 19, 2015)

I read that wrong. 
i3 6320: $200
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VPX48I/?tag=tec06d-20

Mobo: $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157637

RAM: Pick some: $100+- a little 16GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007611 600521523 600006074


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## tabascosauz (Dec 19, 2015)

The suggestions from Aquinus and alucasa are good. A Haswell 3M i3 is crazy effective in an office PC, and given the clock speed and IPC boosts for Skylake i3s, they should be even better.

Remember to put in an SSD. Having an office PC on a half-filled WD Blue sans SSD will make any recent Core i feel like a Core 2 Duo from 7 years ago.

If 4K video playback is what you need, then integrated graphics should suit you fine. Should it not suffice, however, a cheap video card like the GTX 750 or R7 360 will be more than enough to do all office work on a 4K monitor.


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## silentbogo (Dec 19, 2015)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2YWhhM

Core i3-6100 CPU scores pretty good in productivity software (in some cases better than i5-4xxx). For better performance you could bump it to i3-6320, but 5-10% performance increase is not worth $60 premium.
16GB of DDR4 will definitely hold your PC up to date for a few years, plus you will have 2 available slots to fill-in when needed.

Total: $315

You can also skip cooling, but I added an aftermarket HSF if you want to keep your PCs quiet. I am using a Deepcool HTPC-200 low-profile HSF, and it is working very good even with much hotter A6-5400K APU @ 4.5GHz, but I was not able to find it on PCPartPicker. 

The motherboard I've picked also has an M.2 slot. Those drives become cheaper and at this point you can get a 120+GB M.2 drive and 1TB SATA HDD, and be within $400 budget with all of the above.

120GB Samsung 850EVO stands at $75-$85 in US, while Sandisk Z400 of equivalent capacity is $20 cheaper.


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

silentbogo said:


> 120GB Samsung 850EVO stands at $75-$85 in US, while Sandisk Z400 of equivalent capacity is $20 cheaper.



Speaking of which, how does Sandisk M.2 SSD fare against the mighty EVO?


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

If I go with an I5-6600 with 3.90 GHz? It’s higher than any I3 Skylake. Will it be more future proof? Eventually handling well some cores demanding applications?

I know I’m getting out of my budget. But I just want it to be GOOD, without hassles for my needs.

Beside power usage does having a quad core impacts negatively performances in the applications I’m using?

Regarding memory: I tough fast memory is good “in general”?

Just to make sure we don’t get off topic:

*T**he build is not just for regular office work it for heavy regular office work and complex scientific excel calculation on a small medium scale*. Mainly all what you can imagine in financial modeling, Monte Carlo as an example, but in a small scale (my own limited data, small portfolios...) it’s not for my company it’s for my personal work/study projects.

Thank you all for all your insights. I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel for my build project!


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## silentbogo (Dec 19, 2015)

alucasa said:


> Speaking of which, how does Sandisk M.2 SSD fare against the mighty EVO?



Z400s: 546/342MB/s [R/W]
850EVO: 540/500MB/s [R/W]

Slower write speeds, hence the price difference. Not sure if it's gonna matter in office environment, but it is definitely a decent SSD.


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> If I go with an I5-6600 with 3.90 GHz? It’s higher than any I3 Skylake. Will it be more future proof? Eventually handling well some cores demanding applications?
> 
> I know I’m getting out of my budget. But I just want it to be GOOD, without hassles for my needs.
> 
> ...



Planning for 7 years is not really possible because something will break down along the way. Mobo's capacitor is likely get blown at 5th year mark despite how much they claim how solid they are. It does depend on how much usage the rig will see over the years but CPU hardly ever breaks down, so that's that.

The difference in low and high end Skylake i3 is minimal. I mean you won't see the difference with your naked eyes. So, save your money and go for low or medium i3.

DDR4-2133 is the standard. Use that. Ram speed will never matter in your workload. I'd put an SSD or SSHD for better performance however.

Again, future proof for 7 years is nearly impossible. But seeing even Sandy bridge CPU is still very capable even today, Skylake will last you 10 years. I can guarantee that much.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Dec 19, 2015)

I think an AMD Godavari APU would be a good option as well.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

alucasa said:


> But seeing even Sandy bridge CPU is still very capable even today, Skylake will last you 10 years. I can guarantee that much.



Exactly! This is my idea of future proof. I’ve used a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz for almost 10 years and it retired Okay.

 OK to RAM DDR4-2133.

OK for SSD.

CPU: I can put more money on it just to get better performance and why not improve the scope of usage for more demanding applications.

The idea behind my first post is to put only my priorities in the build. So can I get extra going for an I5-6600?


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## MxPhenom 216 (Dec 19, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> I read that wrong.
> i3 6320: $200
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VPX48I/?tag=tec06d-20
> 
> ...



Why does he need a $100 H170 board when a B150 which are cheaper and all he needs?

Here you go OP:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

*CPU:* Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($204.99 @ Newegg)
*Motherboard:* Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($81.97 @ Newegg)
*Memory:* G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($44.99 @ Newegg)
*Total:* $331.95
_Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-19 12:59 EST-0500

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

*CPU:* Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
*Motherboard:* Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($81.97 @ Newegg) 
*Memory:* G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
*Total:* $381.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-19 13:01 EST-0500
_
16gb could also be added to the first build as well and still stay under $400. Or the 600 could be added to the 8gb build and still be under $400 by a fair bit. All up to you.


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Exactly! This is my idea of future proof. I’ve used a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz for almost 10 years and it retired Okay.
> 
> OK to RAM DDR4-2133.
> 
> ...



It wouldn't hurt to go for true quad core if you have the money. But it will be just as future proof as i3. It will help to speed up complex calculations though.

The problem with trying to be future proof is not the cpu but the parts that go with it. Count 7 years to the future and if a part, like mobo, breaks down, it gets really hard to source compatible parts. SATA might not be there even!  Just be aware of the possibility.

I still have a running rig with T2600 cpu with 8 year old parts. The mobo has been acting but I can't find the part with a reasonable price.


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## silentbogo (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Exactly! This is my idea of future proof. I’ve used a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz for almost 10 years and it retired Okay.
> 
> OK to RAM DDR4-2133.
> 
> ...


You can pretty much scale it up to anything with B150 motherboard. Without overclocking features DDR4-2133 is your only option. It can handle any Skylake CPU up to i7-6700.
If you think you'll need more CPU power for multithreaded workloads - you made an excellent choice with i5-6600. If your finances allow you to scale your PC build to i5, then you should do it.
It will make noticeable difference in Matlab (not so sure about office software).


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

Guys what do you think about this rig (only CPU, MOBO & RAM)?


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

sorry the link:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/m3ybP6


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

You don't need a Z170 mobo. Get something cheaper unless you are okay with over spending it for no benefit.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> sorry the link:
> 
> http://pcpartpicker.com/p/m3ybP6



Not necessary to get a Z board with a locked CPU and no intentions to OC. You can save a fair bit of money going with the B150 in this board.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

*CPU:* Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
*Motherboard:* Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($81.97 @ Newegg) 
*Memory:* G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
*Total:* $381.95
_Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-19 13:28 EST-0500_


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

Ok   any other recommendations?

Is it possible to get something durable with recent features (M.2, USB 3.1…)? is there any perceptible performance gain with M.2 over  SATA express or just regular SATA?

A MOBO that support high DDR4 speed will be more future proof?

And in terms of durability should I go with a certain MOBO manufacturer?


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## MxPhenom 216 (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Ok   any other recommendations?
> 
> Is it possible to get something durable with recent features (M.2, USB 3.1…)? is there any perceptible performance gain with M.2 over  SATA express or just regular SATA?
> 
> ...



There no point in a motherboard that support higher DDR4 then what is natively supported by the CPUs IMC, which is 2133. Anything over that, is considered an overclocking according to the IMC native spec. Especially for a workstation system. Memory speed is very dependent on CPUs IMC (Integrated Memory Controller).

This board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...74&cm_re=B150_Gigabyte-_-13-128-874-_-Product

The one in the build from my previous posts have M.2. Not USB 3.1 though. I feel like none of those will be very beneficial too you. Maybe M.2 because some drives are pushing 2.5gb/s sequetial speeds. Which you can get from that board, but the cost of the drives to push that speed are another thing. USB 3.1, meh, iuts got 3.0 that should be good enough for anything you need to use USB for.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> There no point in a motherboard that support higher DDR4 then what is natively supported by the CPUs IMC, which is 2133. Anything over that, is considered an overclocking according to the IMC native spec. Especially for a workstation system. Memory speed is very dependent on CPUs IMC (Integrated Memory Controller).
> 
> This board:
> 
> ...




Sorry but I’m asking too much questions. Really, I’m lucky with you guys because at least I get answer for my question, that’s why I continue asking more.

Regarding OC RAM. I’ve read that to get the most of DDR4 you should at least go with 2400 Mhz or even 2666Mhz. maybe I should go with a board that support let says 3400Mhz so that I can get more performance when DDR4 with that speed get cheaper?

Other than that, the GA-B150M-D3H looks promising for my needs.


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## Frick (Dec 19, 2015)

As for SSD I'd go for regular SATA drives.

And exactly what calculations are you running? Do they benefit from faster RAM? If not it's probably a waste of money to get faster sticks.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

Just to precise one more thing I would probably go for an ATX format for a better heat management and maybe more PCI slots for future add-ons.


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## NdMk2o1o (Dec 19, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> I read that wrong.
> i3 6320: $200
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VPX48I/?tag=tec06d-20
> 
> ...





omarsrv said:


> Sorry but I’m asking too much questions. Really, I’m lucky with you guys because at least I get answer for my question, that’s why I continue asking more.
> 
> Regarding OC RAM. I’ve read that to get the most of DDR4 you should at least go with 2400 Mhz or even 2666Mhz. maybe I should go with a board that support let says 3400Mhz so that I can get more performance when DDR4 with that speed get cheaper?
> 
> Other than that, the GA-B150M-D3H looks promising for my needs.



To get the most out of? in what sense? you'll see no benefit with your usage going from 2133mhz to 2400+ infact only benches seem to show an improvement with RAM speeds over 1600mhz. Good call on the quad core though I'm inclined to agree about the motherboard being overkill for your requirements, just go with the b150 chipset and save the money or put it elsewhere in your build.


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

RAM speed does not matter. (for your workload)
ATX or not does not matter, either.

Heat management? Nope. No need. PCI slots for future add-ons? I don't see the need... 

... I feel like you just want to spend more money.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

alucasa said:


> RAM speed does not matter. (for your workload)
> ATX or not does not matter, either.
> 
> Heat management? Nope. No need. PCI slots for future add-ons? I don't see the need...
> ...



I understand. It’s more about being too much cautious.

It’s also about getting something that I can upgrade maybe add a wifi card and stuff like that.

Unfortunately I can’t get GIGABYTE GA-B150M-D3H (rev. 1.0) in the country where I live. Only the DDR3 version.


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

Honestly, no one wants a big loud tower for office use. Why not something like this in a MiniITX chassis? This is *office use* after all and the motherboard has Wi-Fi already. Was able to fit an SSD in with the CPU, Motherboard, and 16GB of RAM for 400 USD.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sXqFRB


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## NdMk2o1o (Dec 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Honestly, no one wants a big loud tower for office use. Why not something like this in a MiniITX chassis? This is *office use* after all and the motherboard has Wi-Fi already.
> http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sXqFRB



Big loud tower? most office PC's are towers and are not loud even with stock cooling as they don't tend do be run at 100% for any extended period of time. And WiFi on a desktop for office use? sacreligious!!! gotta be wired all the way


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## Frick (Dec 19, 2015)

And there's always USB if you want stuff like RS232 links and the like. The only reason to have actual cards in the computer is if you want high end storage, good sound, or more NICs.


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## tabascosauz (Dec 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Honestly, no one wants a big loud tower for office use. Why not something like this in a MiniITX chassis? This is *office use* after all and the motherboard has Wi-Fi already. Was able to fit an SSD in with the CPU, Motherboard, and 16GB of RAM for 400 USD.
> http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sXqFRB



Can vouch for this. Gigabyte's Z87N/H87N, Z97N/H97N and Z170/H170N have been boards of very high quality. The -WIFI versions include good 802.11ac 2x2 wifi and you will not regret going ITX. Something like an SG05 is great, and if you want to save money by buying an ATX PSU instead of SFX, you can do the SG13 which is not much bigger.

On Haswell i3s, it's not necessary to have anything more than the stock cooler, which is plenty quiet. Skylake i3s should be more efficient and run cooler, which means that the stock cooler is plenty. There is no need to buy an aftermarket cooler.


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

NdMk2o1o said:


> Big loud tower? most office PC's are towers and are not loud even with stock cooling as they don't tend do be run at 100% for any extended period of time. And WiFi on a desktop for office use? sacreligious!!! gotta be wired all the way


Sound is less of the issue, it's space. You can make any chassis quiet but not every chassis is small. There is no point to use up extra space if you don't have to.

*Office use™*


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## Frick (Dec 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Sound is less of the issue, it's space. You can make any chassis quiet but not every chassis is small.



In most offices space isnt a problem.

The best office machines are AIOs btw.


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## silentbogo (Dec 19, 2015)

a simple micro-ATX board will do just fine. I've been running on an ASUS Rampage II GENE for many years on a gaming PC and never had a need for more IO ports. PCI is a thing of history now, so in case you want to make it into a gaming PC or do some super-heavy GPU-accelerated calculations, all you'll ever need is a PCI-Ex16 for a video card and a PCI-Ex1 for a WiFi card. 

I am planning on building a Skylake rig next year in even smaller mini-ITX form factor. I guess with age you start to value ergonomics over horsepower.


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## tabascosauz (Dec 19, 2015)

Frick said:


> In most offices space isnt a problem.
> 
> The best office machines are AIOs btw.



Just because there is the space in an office to accommodate ATX towers doesn't mean that one should build one. It's easier in just about any way to deal with an ITX box. If it's not considerably more expensive, then there's no reason why one shouldn't opt for an ITX board or at most, a mATX board.

Most office PCs are mATX towers with PSU on top, not much bigger than the mATX form factor allows. They can still be a pain to move around (I have to deal with about 7 of these at the office whenever I'm troubleshooting/maintaining).

@silentbogo The Gene boards are not "simple". They are top-of-the-line, expensive boards geared towards gamers. You do make a valid point, though. I've built with the likes of the H81M-S2PV and H81M-P33 and they are fine for office use.

@omarsrv  All this is debate over an unimportant issue. Most important part of whatever rig you choose will be the inclusion of an SSD. I've seen capable LGA775 and LGA1156 rigs go to waste in the office because the non-techsavvy users were simply too fed up with the abysmal HDD-only performance. An SSD will be a considerable performance boost over any HDD-only rig. Even an i7-6700K will suffer and your PC may feel like a turtle if it lacks an SSD.


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## Disparia (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> I understand. It’s more about being too much cautious.
> 
> It’s also about getting something that I can upgrade maybe add a wifi card and stuff like that.



I outfitted an entire department back in 2008 with Atom 330/2GB/1TB boxes at $195 each. Handled our ERP client, Outlook, Word, PDF manuals for reference, web browser, and any miscellaneous apps they used.

When Pentiums with Hyperthreading first came out I had employees share machines. Software allowed two users to login to a single machine and they each got their own monitor, keyboard, and mouse. They couldn't tell the difference between a dedicated machine and when they were sharing one.

Any of the modern chips talked about today (i3, i5, AMD APU) completely _trounce_ the performance of those 1st gen Atoms or early Pentium 4 HT. When paired with a decent amount of RAM and an SSD working on one will be so smooth. Hopefully my stories help alleviate performance concerns


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## NdMk2o1o (Dec 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Sound is less of the issue, it's space. You can make any chassis quiet but not every chassis is small. There is no point to use up extra space if you don't have to.
> 
> *Office use™*



My bad I missed the bit where he said he was working in a cardboard box  MATX or ATX tower would be my preference, not enough upgrade/storage options with mini ITX IMO they're best left where space is a premium or for HTPC's where they're targeted at.


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

NdMk2o1o said:


> My bad I missed the bit where he said he was working in a cardboard box  MATX or ATX tower would be my preference, not enough upgrade/storage options with mini ITX IMO they're best left where space is a premium or for HTPC's where they're targeted at.


Sometimes office spaces can be like that but I think the question for the OP would be: how many hard drives do you plan on putting in this machine?


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

Jizzler said:


> I outfitted an entire department back in 2008 with Atom 330/2GB/1TB boxes at $195 each. Handled our ERP client, Outlook, Word, PDF manuals for reference, web browser, and any miscellaneous apps they used.
> 
> When Pentiums with Hyperthreading first came out I had employees share machines. Software allowed two users to login to a single machine and they each got their own monitor, keyboard, and mouse. They couldn't tell the difference between a dedicated machine and when they were sharing one.
> 
> Any of the modern chips talked about today (i3, i5, AMD APU) completely _trounce_ the performance of those 1st gen Atoms or early Pentium 4 HT. When paired with a decent amount of RAM and an SSD working on one will be so smooth. Hopefully my stories help alleviate performance concerns



Thanks Jizzler, that’s reassuring, but there still a difference, it’s not just office work it’s also heavy scientific, Excel calculations.


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

Jizzler said:


> I outfitted an entire department back in 2008 with Atom 330/2GB/1TB boxes at $195 each. Handled our ERP client, Outlook, Word, PDF manuals for reference, web browser, and any miscellaneous apps they used.
> 
> When Pentiums with Hyperthreading first came out I had employees share machines. Software allowed two users to login to a single machine and they each got their own monitor, keyboard, and mouse. They couldn't tell the difference between a dedicated machine and when they were sharing one.
> 
> Any of the modern chips talked about today (i3, i5, AMD APU) completely _trounce_ the performance of those 1st gen Atoms or early Pentium 4 HT. When paired with a decent amount of RAM and an SSD working on one will be so smooth. Hopefully my stories help alleviate performance concerns



I second this. I once supplied a small office with 10 boxes of tiny embedded Celeron cpu on Mini itx. 4gb ram each, and SSHD in each of them. The female employees loved them especially more than the dudes. I saw some girls even putting on stickers and decorating it because they liked it so much. 

Skylake i3 would be aplenty for the job.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

NdMk2o1o said:


> Big loud tower? most office PC's are towers and are not loud even with stock cooling as they don't tend do be run at 100% for any extended period of time. And WiFi on a desktop for office use? sacreligious!!! gotta be wired all the way



I would love to have wired connection. At the moment I only got wifi but I will see if I can setup a powerline adapter.


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## Disparia (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Thanks Jizzler, that’s reassuring, but there still a difference, it’s not just office work it’s also heavy scientific, Excel calculations.



The biggest macro-heavy Excel sheets I work with execute in under 10 seconds. You probably can't share one (company confidential information) but if you are allowed, I'd like to take a look at one. Mostly out of curiosity.


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> it’s also heavy scientific, Excel calculations.


I wouldn't consider it heavy unless you're working with data sets that are gigabytes in size and you said no bigger than 100MB. I would suspect anything really large is handled by IBM SPSS, not Excel as well.


omarsrv said:


> Excel: heavy complex financial calculation with spreadsheets not exceeding 100MB.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Sorry but I’m asking too much questions. Really, I’m lucky with you guys because at least I get answer for my question, that’s why I continue asking more.
> 
> Regarding OC RAM. I’ve read that to get the most of DDR4 you should at least go with 2400 Mhz or even 2666Mhz. maybe I should go with a board that support let says 3400Mhz so that I can get more performance when DDR4 with that speed get cheaper?
> 
> Other than that, the GA-B150M-D3H looks promising for my needs.




I dont think so. But if you want to go that route then you need a k unlocked CPU and Z170 board. (As I do not think locked chips allow for changing memory speed even with a Z series board). Honestly for the usage you are doing, native 2133 DDR4 is perfectly fine. Plenty of bandwidth, etc. for your use.


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## Bo$$ (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> *T**he build is not just for regular office work it for heavy regular office work and complex scientific excel calculation on a small medium scale*. Mainly all what you can imagine in financial modeling, Monte Carlo as an example, but in a small scale (my own limited data, small portfolios...) it’s not for my company it’s for my personal work/study projects.



I've used SPSS extensively... you'll need 16gb of ram. this will keep the rest of the system nice and smooth, for this CPU really doesn't matter a new i3 or i5 will do fine


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

Jizzler said:


> The biggest macro-heavy Excel sheets I work with execute in under 10 seconds. You probably can't share one (company confidential information) but if you are allowed, I'd like to take a look at one. Mostly out of curiosity.



Unfortunately I can’t provide any of the macros I’m using they refer to proprietary data.


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## Frick (Dec 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I wouldn't consider it heavy unless you're working with data sets that are gigabytes in size and you said no bigger than 100MB. I would suspect anything really large is handled by IBM SPSS, not Excel as well.



There are excel files several gigabytes large. The very definition of stupid, but they're there. 

And in those cases I'm not even sure speed matters.

EDIT: Nevermind, just read 100mb. Small stuff.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

Bo$$ said:


> I've used SPSS extensively... you'll need 16gb of ram. this will keep the rest of the system nice and smooth, for this CPU really doesn't matter a new i3 or i5 will do fine



Do think that RAM speed would have any impact on the performance of your SPSS calculations?

What CPU, RAM did you use? How was it performing with your extensive usage of SPSS? How extensive was it?


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Do think that RAM speed would have any impact on the performance of your SPSS calculations?


Memory speeds almost always have very little impact on performance. I don't think you'll notice the difference between 2133Mhz and 3400Mhz to be frank. I could run my memory at 1600Mhz and I wouldn't know the difference.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Memory speeds almost always have very little impact on performance. I don't think you'll notice the difference between 2133Mhz and 3400Mhz to be frank. I could run my memory at 1600Mhz and I wouldn't know the difference.



Cool! How much power do you think I will need for all of this?

Just being curious. In what type of applications or usage RAM speed is a relevant parameter?


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Cool! How much power do you think I will need for all of this?
> 
> Just being curious. In what type of applications or usage RAM speed is a relevant parameter?



A quality 400w will be safe bet. Actual power usage should be 80w ~ 120w max.

RAM speed matters in almost everything we do with computers. It is just that the performance benefit is in millisecond. In other words, we can't notice it unless we benchmark it.

I/O performance (SSD in other words) will give far, far, more benefit over RAM speed.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

alucasa said:


> A quality 400w will be safe bet. Actual power usage should be 80w ~ 120w max.
> 
> RAM speed matters in almost everything we do with computers. It is just that the performance benefit is in millisecond. In other words, we can't notice it unless we benchmark it.
> 
> I/O performance (SSD in other words) will give far, far, more benefit over RAM speed.



That's good news!


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## Aquinus (Dec 19, 2015)

alucasa said:


> It is just that the performance benefit is in millisecond.


Nanoseconds and it doesn't show up as much because a lot of it can be fetched ahead of time and caching. Most computations have nutty high hit rates on CPU cache, as high as 80-90%+ depending on the workload so, it's entirely possible that you would seen even less gain because of how memory simply works. Pipelining makes prefetching data a lot easier as well, so modern CPUs can do a lot with not very fast DRAM. It shouldn't be a consideration IMHO.


alucasa said:


> I/O performance (SSD in other words) will give far, far, more benefit over RAM speed.


This but, only if you're working with non-sequential data from the disk which is a benefit for IBM SPSS. If you're working with Excel, it's going to load everything into system memory when the spreadsheet is opened. I would argue that ram capacity is more important than ram speed, especially if you're trying to do stuff like predictive analytics with SPSS on large sets of data.


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## omarsrv (Dec 19, 2015)

I love you guys!

One last thing, the motherboard?

I’ve tried to look for the mobo’s you recommended to me but they are not available in my country or the price is higer or similar to Z170’s?

Do you know other cheap mobo’s but still with USB 3.0, DDR4, M.2 and maybe wifi & better audio chipset…. still with at least 2 pci slots one for GC and the other for some extension card?


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## alucasa (Dec 19, 2015)

ATX and M-ATX don't generally come with wifi. USB3 and DDR4 are standard, so it will be present in 90% of cases. Why 90%? Some mobo are designed to take DDR3L. You may go with DDR3L as well.

Mini-ITX, however, does come with everything you ask for in one tiny package.


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## qubit (Dec 19, 2015)

I think $400 is rather too small a budget for what you're asking for. Prepare to spend $600+ to get something decent, especially if you have to upgrade other parts of your system to do justice to this upgrade. The PSU is especially important here and should only be considered from the best manufacturers such as Seasonic, Corsair and a handful of others.

There is no real way to "future proof" a PC, because if there were, then that would mean that there wouldn't be any performance improvements and new features over time, which are the very definition of technological progress. However, by not buying bottom end parts you can extend its lifetime a bit and increase it's physical lifespan and reliability by buying a quality mobo and RAM. Perhaps PSU too, if that needs an upgrade.

With this in mind, you should get a Skylake CPU with 4 real cores and perhaps hyperthreading, along with 16GB RAM (8GB now and another 8 a few months later, if you don't wanna take the full cost hit now). As you want this thing to last for a long time I recommend _not_ overclocking it, or only by a modest amount. The other thing you'll need is a decent aftermarket air cooler, of which there are many to choose from such as Noctua, Thermalright, Thermaltake etc.


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## omarsrv (Dec 20, 2015)

Still struggling finding the right motherboard


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## Aquinus (Dec 20, 2015)

qubit said:


> I think $400 is rather too small a budget for what you're asking for. Prepare to spend $600+ to get something decent, especially if you have to upgrade other parts of your system to do justice to this upgrade. The PSU is especially important here and should only be considered from the best manufacturers such as Seasonic, Corsair and a handful of others.


Well, the OP did say:


omarsrv said:


> I'm looking for a durable *(5-7 years), on-budget build (400$ for only CPU, MOBO & RAM)* less that 400 will be great.


400 USD for those 3 components isn't hard. He also (once again,) is doing what with this PC?


omarsrv said:


> NO GAMING NO VIDEO/Photo Editing rendering ripping...
> 
> NO overclocking
> 
> ...


Zero reason to get anything beyond an i3. The kind of software he has isn't going to become multi-threaded, end of story. There is absolutely zero benefit from going with an i5 over an i3 for what the OP will be using it for. That money would be better spent on an SSD IMHO. I did already put a list together of CPU (Skylake i3,) Memory (2x8GB), a Mini-ITX motherboard with Wi-Fi, and a 250GB SSD for 400 USD. For his purposes, that sounds fine. I'm also not worried about the PSU as much since the machine probably won't be drawing over 100 watts.

It's not hard to build for the future when you're not really doing anything graphical... it's an office PC, not a cruncher or gaming machine, so the bar is already set really low.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sXqFRB
Put a cheaper motherboard in place of the one in my list and you'll have room for a small PSU but, that isn't what the OP asked for.


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## qubit (Dec 20, 2015)

@Aquinus I know he said that and the budget looks too small to me, especially as a decent i5 or something (4 real cores) quality mobo, 16GB RAM and especially if a replacement PSU if necessary is gonna cost somewhat more than that.

For a lifetime of 5-7 years not only does the spec have to be increased, but the build quality of the parts as well (mobo and PSU especially) which is gonna raise that cost significantly. There's just no getting around it.


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## Aquinus (Dec 20, 2015)

qubit said:


> @Aquinus I know he said that and the budget looks too small to me, especially as a decent i5 or something (4 real cores) quality mobo, 16GB RAM and especially if a replacement PSU if necessary is gonna cost somewhat more than that.
> 
> For a lifetime of 5-7 years not only does the spec have to be increased, but the build quality of the parts as well (mobo and PSU especially) which is gonna raise that cost significantly. There's just no getting around it.


He used to use a Penium 4 to do all of this stuff for almost a decade, buddy. I think an i3 will do fine... Once again, he's not doing any real heavy lifting with this PC, there is *zero reason for a quad core*. What the OP is using it for has just as much to do with it, an i5 is wasted money.


omarsrv said:


> Exactly! This is my idea of future proof. I’ve used a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz for almost 10 years and it retired Okay.


So reading the OP as having said, "future proof," is a misnomer. He just wants a machine that will last just as long. Remember, he's not gaming, crunching, or doing any real heavy lifting on this machine.


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## qubit (Dec 20, 2015)

Ok then, perhaps an i3 would be fine then, but I'd get one with HT for sure, because I can notice real world improvements in the smoothness/fluidity of the Windows desktop right now without even looking for them with one of these compared to a dual core and that difference is only gonna become more pronounced as time goes by.

Just to defend the i5, it would still last that little bit longer and have more CPU power for those calculations that he wants to run if he stretches to it.


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## Aquinus (Dec 20, 2015)

qubit said:


> Ok then, perhaps an i3 would be fine then, but I'd get one with HT for sure, because I can notice real world improvements in the smoothness/fluidity of the Windows desktop right now without even looking for them with one of these compared to a dual core and that difference is only gonna become more pronounced as time goes by.
> 
> Just to defend the i5, it would still last that little bit longer and have more CPU power for those calculations that he wants to run if he stretches to it.


All desktop i3s are dual-cores with hyper-threading, at least they are with Skylake. I thought was was the case going all the way back to Sandy Bridge as well.


qubit said:


> Just to defend the i5, it would still last that little bit longer and have more CPU power for those calculations that he wants to run if he stretches to it.


Not if its clocked lower!!!! The software he'll be using isn't multi-threaded and will hammer I/O and memory harder than it will ever hammer the CPU. More cores isn't what the OP needs.


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## JunkBear (Dec 20, 2015)

What country are you living Omars??


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## omarsrv (Dec 20, 2015)

JunkBear said:


> What country are you living Omars??


France


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## qubit (Dec 20, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> All desktop i3s are dual-cores with hyper-threading, at least they are with Skylake.


Ok that's great. I haven't really looked at the Skylake product line in detail, just saying what spec of processor I think he would need.

I dunno about a higher end CPU not making any difference because of the I/O hammering. Surely the extra cache memory of an i5 would help here? Not speaking from performance benchmarks here, just supposing.

And if the clock speed is lower, then it depends by how much, as 100MHz here or there makes no difference other than benchmarks. 4-500MHz of course _would_ be significant.


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## BarbaricSoul (Dec 20, 2015)

I'm liking the advice @Aquinus is giving


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## Aquinus (Dec 20, 2015)

qubit said:


> Ok that's great. I haven't really looked at the Skylake product line in detail, just saying what spec of processor I think he would need.
> 
> I dunno about a higher end CPU not making any difference because of the I/O hammering. Surely the extra cache memory of an i5 would help here? Not speaking from performance benchmarks here, just supposing.
> 
> And if the clock speed is lower, then it depends by how much, as 100MHz here or there makes no difference other than benchmarks. 4-500MHz of course _would_ be significant.


Reality still needs to be measured in cost given the budget. Sure, an i5 might have boost clocks higher than an i3's clocks but, how much more are you paying for it? The OP can always upgrade down the road but, I seriously doubt that will be necessary for quite some time. Also for the cost of the i5, you would lose the SSD according to my part list. An SSD will speed up a machine a whole lot more than an i5 will without one. The budget is small so, it makes sense not to go too gung-ho over any one thing (other than memory.)


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## qubit (Dec 20, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> Reality still needs to be measured in cost given the budget. Sure, an i5 might have boost clocks higher than an i3's clocks but, how much more are you paying for it? The OP can always upgrade down the road but, I seriously doubt that will be necessary for quite some time. Also for the cost of the i5, you would lose the SSD according to my part list. An SSD will speed up a machine a whole lot more than an i5 will without one. The budget is small so, it makes sense not to go too gung-ho over any one thing (other than memory.)


Agreed about the SSD boosting performance (certainly made a major difference on my rig) but I was addressing the original post which just mentioned upgrading certain parts of the PC, so I'm not expanding the scope of it other than possibly the PSU if it needs replacing.

I still think that budget is too low to get something that will more comfortably last 5-7 years, so getting a better CPU and better quality components will help with this. If you start adding upgrades further down the line then the whole exercise goes out of the window as anything goes then, so I'm not including this in my advice.

The feeling I'm getting here by the way you're challenging every post I make is that you think my advice is somehow wrong, but it isn't, for the reasons I've explained above. I don't think your advice is wrong either, just a different angle, although it does widen the scope a bit. However, these differences are the whole point of having a forum discussion about the best way to go with something like this.


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## BarbaricSoul (Dec 20, 2015)

I agree with Aquinus. There is no need for an i5, especially with the stated budget. Even today, in 2015, common office desktops are only Pentium dual cores. So in approximately 30 years, the common office workstation has only gone from a single core to a dual core (plus the obvious improvements in core performance). An i3 is a dual core that works as a quad, which I'd venture to say will be enough for the office environment for at least another 10 years, if not more. An SSD would be a more favorable addition in this situation IMHO.


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## alucasa (Dec 20, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Still struggling finding the right motherboard



It isn't really hard. Go to Newegg and filter by LGA 1151 and sort by price. I did mention a few times to choose the cheapest one because you don't need any "advanced" features an expensive one offers.

Took me 30 seconds to find this one, the cheapest.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157679

If you want to go Mini itx, this one. It's twice more expensive but has wifi and M.2.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128871

If you choose to use USB wifi stick, then this mini itx. I also chose the below mobo for my next build. Mini itx packed with a lot of features is something I tend to avoid.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130901


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## Aquinus (Dec 20, 2015)

qubit said:


> The feeling I'm getting here by the way you're challenging every post I make is that you think my advice is somehow wrong, but it isn't, for the reasons I've explained above. I don't think your advice is wrong either, just a different angle, although it does widen the scope a bit. However, these differences are the whole point of having a forum discussion about the best way to go with something like this.


Well, knowing a bit about Excel and how most analytic engines work, you won't be gaining much from getting an i5 and software like this hasn't changed much in the last 10 years, so expecting it to in the next 10 years might not be realistic. The OP did also say the *a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 lasted him 10 years*. I think that alone should put his needs into perspective. That's the point I'm making. Also honestly, with how little such a machine would be drawing, I have less concerns about the PSU.

I'm just confused as to why you're making recommendations that really won't benefit the OP (it's really the i5 that I'm questioning, nothing more,) that's why I'm being more critical than normal because I don't want the OP thinking that an i5 is needed when it very well isn't. I've seen people do this kind of stuff on low power laptop i5s (basically an i3 with boost and lower clocks in general,) without a problem. In fact at work the biggest complaint I've seen in this regard is memory capacity, not compute.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm just trying to understand why you think it's a good idea because, from everything I know, it's not, unless there is something you know that I don't and that I'm missing something here.


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## qubit (Dec 20, 2015)

Ok, I get where you're coming from, especially from the kind of work that the OP does. Yes, the workload is light, but the general software load on a PC tends to go up over time (been a bit of a reversal/stagnation recently, to be honest, with current CPUs being "good enough") and it will continue tending to go up in the future. Think how a 10 year old+ PC would run a modern version of Windows today compared to back then - a struggle just to sit at the desktop for most of them and even slightly newer ones might need more RAM at the very least. Hence, I'm upping the spec to take this into account so that it will last longer before the upgrade becomes really necessary. Perhaps a basic i3 and 4-8GB RAM will be fine for now and the next couple of years, but it might not be in the longer term, I don't know. It's all a bit nebulous really, because no one has a crystal ball to predict what will happen in the future, hence there's no absolute right answer with this one. 

If this helps any, my workplace has recently upgraded all of its IT, including the laptops and desktops. These have W7 installed with 4GB RAM which ran well. However, it was soon discovered that installing daily updates via the centralized Microsoft SCCM tool totally bogged them down to the point that they were barely useable, with the whole desktop semi-freezing until it was over. For this reason alone we've had to install 8GB in all of them which made the updates barely noticeable. Seems stupid to have so much RAM just for updates, but that's what the software demands and there doesn't seem to be a way round it.

In our OP's case, it's not beyond reason that some update to W10 in a year or two suddenly demands more CPU/RAM in the way that .NET did all those years ago with XP. Have you ever run an older PC with XP with and without .NET, especially if it doesn't have much RAM? The slowdown is painful and this is the kind of thing I'm trying to avoid for him. Of course, one could say get the cheaper stuff now and upgrade bits later if need be and that's just as valid, of course. However, he wanted to build a PC _now_ that will last longer without having to upgrade it, hence I've upped the spec a bit for the above reasons.

I took this approach when I built my mum's PC a couple of years ago for basic internet use. It's got an i3-3225 (Ivy Bridge) dual core with HT, small basic aftermarket CPU cooler, 8GB RAM on a mATX Gigabyte mobo and Seasonic PSU, which runs Windows 7 64-bit very well indeed. It's really smooth, with hardly ever a bottleneck. I explained to her at the time that I'm overspeccing it to get something which runs really well that will last longer and give the least hassle, which she was fine with and now it's paying off. I recently put in a 128GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD for £70 and it of course flies with it. She couldn't see the point until she tried it.


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## Aquinus (Dec 20, 2015)

8GB might be obsolete in several years but, considering what the OP is doing I doubt the i3 will be. This is why I suggested 16GB with the i3 6100 and between those and the SSD, I think he'll be set for a lot more than 2 years.


Aquinus said:


> http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sXqFRB


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## alucasa (Dec 20, 2015)

I don't tend to pick fancy RAM with mini itx builds. There is a chance that a custom heatsink will get in its way.

But considering OP will likely use Intel stock HS, I doubt this will be an issue. But in my own builds, I choose either bare RAM or RAM with minimal heatsink.

I haven't seen the need to go over 8gb RAM at the moment but I've been stuck with 8gb for several years now, meaning it will be probably few more years maximum until 8gb should become the bare minimum. Right now, I consider 4gb to be bare minimum for light office rigs & home (web browsing) pc.


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## qubit (Dec 20, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> 8GB might be obsolete in several years but, considering what the OP is doing I doubt the i3 will be. This is why I suggested 16GB with the i3 6100 and between those and the SSD, I think he'll be set for a lot more than 2 years.


Yeah, it'll probably be fine. Interesting that you've gone for the larger RAM, too. Can't have too much it, really.


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## Devon68 (Dec 20, 2015)

If you plan on using something for 5-7 years you better think again. Usually something unexpected will happen, that's just how things are.


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## omarsrv (Dec 20, 2015)

I understand that it is really hard to predict the performance for the next 7 years. But I generally consider that there is a real inflation in performance capacities in modern CPUs compared to the performance needed for the customer. Apart from professional usage, video rendering, 3D modeling, scientific and financial calculating, I don’t see the need for high end or even mi range CPU’s.

There a benchmark that puzzles me:

I’ve run it on my Work laptop Dell latitude E7450 with a I5-5300 and 250GB SSD. I've tried this Excel Benchmark and this is what i get:
Benchmark: 

http://exceltrader.net/984/benchmark_et-xls-an-excel-benchmark-for-traders/

CPU & RAM usage is around 30%.

When running dependent formulas test CPU usage go up to 70%.

My results:




Full results:

http://exceltrader.net/et2/benchMark.php?tfm_order=DESC&tfm_orderby=TotalScore

My question how is it possible that a Pentium4 2.80 GHz, 2GB RAM, WIN XP, Excel 2003 scores better that a I7-4790K 4Ghz, 16Gb, WIN 8.1, Excel 2013.

The idea behind what I’m saying is how much performance do we really need?

Benchmarks don’t mean anything, how can I interpret a 30k Cinebench score in terms of real world usage?

I’m not trying to be rude with high-end CPU’s fan’s (except professionals) but I see them as someone who is saying:

I treat my pc like garbage, always full with bloatware and non-relevant software and also without any maintenance so I need the fastest CPU to get through all this rubbish and get the performance of a Pentium 4 for my web browsing needs!!!


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## qubit (Dec 20, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> My question how is it possible that a Pentium4 2.80 GHz, 2GB RAM, WIN XP, Excel 2003 scores better that a I7-4790K 4Ghz, 16Gb, WIN 8.1, Excel 2013.


Your answer is in the question itself: different versions of the OS and Office. Until very recently, each version of either would require lots more CPU power just to stand still in terms of performance, since the software puts a bigger load on the CPU.* Now, if you were to run that old version of the software on the latest CPUs, which are so much more powerful than that old P4, that you'd be staggered at just how much faster it ran. Conversely, if you ran the new software on the old CPU, it would run like molasses, if at all. This is why I'm advising you to overspec your machine to some degree to guard against this, since the trend will eventually continue.

As @Devon68 said, you could be surprised by some unforeseen development which will require you to upgrade your computer sooner than you intended whatever you do now and it's just how things are. It's called progress.

*This could be due to bloatware, or just simply because the newer software supports so many more functions and implements greater security (more complex routines for bounds checking) which all takes greater processing power for the same level of performance.


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## silentbogo (Dec 20, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> My question how is it possible that a Pentium4 2.80 GHz, 2GB RAM, WIN XP, Excel 2003 scores better that a I7-4790K 4Ghz, 16Gb, WIN 8.1, Excel 2013.
> The idea behind what I’m saying is how much performance do we really need?
> Benchmarks don’t mean anything, how can I interpret a 30k Cinebench score in terms of real world usage?



The problem there lies not with the CPU performance, but with the benchmark itself. If you look at the results table you'll see that the same CPU in almost identical PC configuration can score, for example, between 65 and 130 (whatever that means).
The benchmark is definitely flawed and by definition cannot qualify as a benchmark. Also results for large datasets are a lot more consistent than their formula tests, but for some reason weight less in the final score.

I haven't had a chance to run the spreadsheet on my PC, but I'll look into it after some sleep (it's 11PM and I'm using LibreOffice).

For your area of interest you should look at productivity benchmarks, like PCMark, SYSmark, etc, because they include webpage rendering tests, GUI response tests, database operations and much more.


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## Bo$$ (Dec 20, 2015)

omarsrv said:


> Do think that RAM speed would have any impact on the performance of your SPSS calculations?
> 
> What CPU, RAM did you use? How was it performing with your extensive usage of SPSS? How extensive was it?



Speed of the ram doesn't appear make too much of a difference if you are using massive data sets eg (>1GB .sav files).

I was using an AMD FX-8350 CPU for these calculations at my university workstation.

I first had 4GB of 1600mhz ram which i changed to 2400mhz 4GB which didn't really speed up the calculations (it personally felt slower? might have been the timings). I then upgraded to 8GB 1600MHZ (which i 'borrowed' from my supervisors computer which was only logging useless data and her emails) and noticed a large increase in performance, however at 8GB i was running at pretty much 80-90% ram so I suggest around 12-16GB if you want to be doing other stuff in the background.

when running a slightly reduced set on my i7 4700MQ + 12GB 1600MHZ ram laptop calculations were no more than a few seconds


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## Squeek8 (Jan 3, 2016)

There is no simple answer to this question: most of the scientific programs you mentioned are mostly single-threaded depending upon how much you can parallelize the code via vectorization methods, especially Matlab. With large data you want to put everything in RAM, so more memory is helpful there. So with simple optimization loops or small datasets, than RAM and fast single-thread is what you are looking for. Most decent CPUs have similar singlethread performance.

The big unknown is Excel - there is no clean Excel benchmark. In my experience it depends on the specific excel file. Excel usually max out in performance with around 8 threads (or 4 cores) unless you are doing real-time financial stuff, then you need as many cores as you can such as feeding in thousands of stocks and crunching through that (lots of threads going on). For example, a 30MB file can become 2GB in memory as it loads. When it becomes that big and complex than I find that Excel needs EVERYTHING: fast RAM and high frequency CPU and many cores. So it very much depends on how large the files resides in memory and this depends on the complexity and dependency of the underlying computational logic used in the excel file. So please ignore any i3 suggestions if you really think you are going to do any real financial crunching. So its best to have a sample of the Excel files you are actually going to use and benchmark that, rather than some generic Excel benchmark (which is usually a simple monte-carlo with very low dependency calculations and so mostly single-threaded). The benchmark you should focus on is: 1) time it takes to load the file (RAM speed mostly - rarely is the SSD or HDD the bottleneck here if under 100MB) 2) time to complete an iteration or full computation (CPU speed and multi-threading requirements) 3) how long it takes to save and close the file (RAM speed again). As you can see here, Excel can become very memory intensive depending on how large the file is resident in memory and the computations required: both loading the file and manipulating the data in memory.

Even with very fast hardware, I have found the best approach is to have your coding as efficient as possible. This can have multiples more impact than buying the fastest hardware possible.


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## hat (Jan 3, 2016)

I don't know if I'm a bit late to the party, or if this had been mentioned before... but just about any Skylake CPU should be able to handle 4k playback. I think you'll get what you want with a nice i3 paired with a decent mobo (cheap options available, since you're not overclocking) and a 16GB DDR4 kit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231960
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130886
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117622

There you go, nice i3, plenty of RAM and a good board with some money left over. I realize this is a "gaming" motherboard, but I picked it mainly because it has the latest Realtek ALC1150 audio chipset. It also has a M.2 SSD slot, if you want that (SATA 6Gb/s, not PCI-E). I figure you may appreciate the Realtek 1150 since you're asking about 4k video playback...

Skylake can handle HEVC (h.265) hardware acceleration via iGPU, so no worries there. Should be able to do 4k just fine. Even if you come across some 4k AVC (h.264) media, it'll do that too. If, for some reason, you find yourself struggling with 4k playback, you can chuck in a GTX950 later on, but I really think you'll be fine with Skylake's iGPU doing it for you.


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## NumberCruncher (Sep 1, 2016)

OMARSRV,
Just curious if you ever decided, what you got, and how you like it?


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## slozomby (Sep 1, 2016)

16gigs of ram + ssd + older system = just fine for running excel/word....


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## Jetster (Sep 1, 2016)

F it. Get a skylake i7 non K with 16 gb DDR4 descent MB and PSU

"6 windows of (Chrome, Firefox) with 20 tabs each" Sound like he likes to multi task. And he's not in college its a business. I can choke our i7s at work with a spreadsheet and I'm not that good

Older system is not the way to go. To much heat, power and old ram


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## Hockster (Sep 9, 2016)




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