$730 Office/Productivity Live Build

After a few (rather expensive, cough) gaming and rendering systems, it's time to build a more modest system for general office and productivity software use. Jenny handles our retailer relationships, and with the move to the new office we wanted to put together a new system for her. She's not an avid gamer, so we decided to skip external graphics and go with the CPU on-board GPU chipset instead. However, we didn't want it to be a plain ugly box, so we spent a bit more for the nice Silverstone case. Here's the full part list:

PCPartPicker part list

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i3-4350 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor	$151.98 @ Newegg
CPU Cooler	CRYORIG C1 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler	Already had on-hand
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard	$112.00 @ B&H
Memory	Kingston HyperX Fury White 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory	$46.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$84.89 @ OutletPC
Case	Silverstone FT03S-MINI Mini ITX Tower Case	$142.08 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Silverstone 300W 80+ Bronze Certified SFX Power Supply	$48.99 @ SuperBiiz
Keyboard	Microsoft Designer Bluetooth Desktop Bluetooth Wireless Slim Keyboard w/Laser Mouse	$79.98 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$666.91
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-21 22:02 EDT-0400

wildskiller

50 months ago
9 points

This computer is the devil!

click here for image

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50 months ago
2 points

lol

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Emmettdogg

49 months ago
1 point

Permalink

50 months ago
3 points

The livestreams are weekly now?

COOL!!!

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49 months ago
2 points

Chess boards will never look the same again...

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PorkyDonut

49 months ago
1 point

Not best, for a few reasons:

Man, use Team Elite memory, its cheaper.

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PorkyDonut

47 months ago
1 point

This computer costs like my gaming build. My gaming build is at over here

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Psyckosama

47 months ago
1 point

Lets see...

i3? Less than ideal.

Expensive ram?

An 150 dollar case? Really?

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philip
staff
submitter
10 Builds

47 months ago
1 point

Really!

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Psyckosama

47 months ago
1 point

Really excessive.

With some wiser parts selection this build could have easily been reduced in cost by an easy 200 dollars... or have had that money put into improvements that would have benefited it performance wise.

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philip
staff
submitter
10 Builds

47 months ago
1 point

Just a heads up - this was not a build guide. This was a personal build for our office. Sure, we could have changed the case and saved money or spent it elsewhere, but we chose not to. We were comfortable spending extra to get the aesthetics we wanted.

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Psyckosama

47 months ago
1 point

Fair point. Though still, a 150 dollar case strikes me as a needless excess.

That said I tend to run along the lines of ITX cases exist to be tucked away out of site and out of mind.

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philip
staff
submitter
10 Builds

47 months ago
2 points

I understand you feel it is excessive.

I've built with $50 ITX cases, $100 ITX cases, and got to see this one up close. Yes, it's $150, but it's also really well built. When you spend more on a case like this one, you'll often notice substantial differences in build quality. Seriously, it's a really nice case, and it's really nice to build in. (Didn't you just recommend a not-cheap Enthoo recently due to the ease of working in it?) It's not my personal build, but I like it. It looks really clean on the desk and takes up minimal space. It's super quiet.

Regarding the choice of CPU, the i3 is plenty capable for what the build is being used for. She's not gaming on it. She's not doing heavy number crunching. Just basic productivity apps and tasks.

At the end of the day, Jack and Ryan put together this part list for Jenny's work computer. I didn't give them a budget, but let them splurge where they wanted to. I think that's ok, but I also recognize not everyone has that luxury. We just ended up optimizing for personal preference rather than trying to squeeze the most out of every dollar.

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PorkyDonut

47 months ago
1 point

If there is no gpu, buy a A10-7870K or A10-7850K instead! Same price, a little bit more electricity, but is worth the gpu.

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philip
staff
submitter
10 Builds

47 months ago
1 point

We didn't need the extra graphics capability.

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piemancoder

50 months ago
0 points

Office builds are cool, I think it's smarter to omit an external GPU. Can't wait to watch the replay, as I'll be in a long car ride during the live stream, but it's one day before the monotony data limit resets!

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philip
staff
submitter
10 Builds

50 months ago
0 points

If I remember correctly, we ordered the parts for her build before the non-K variants of Skylake were available.

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$730 Office/Productivity Live Build

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