PC Build for Student

Hi,

PCS has been recommended by a work colleague who bought a high end PC from you guys. I'm after something a bit less powerful and was wondering if I could get some advice on best build to go for.

The PC is for my 16 year old son, mainly for his studies in school, browsing the internet, general word processing etc. He is taking Higher Computing Science so there is a chance it may be used for some sort of software development/programming but I guess this would be very lightweight.

Requirement is for the full desktop build including dual monitors.

Budget would be in the range of £500-£700.

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Your budget to include monitors doesn't stretch very far. There are a few options you could go with but the one I've put below is a starter for ten (as the saying goes): -

Case
PCS 6003B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i3 Quad Core Processor i3-8350K (4.00GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® H310M-A: Micro-ATX, DDR4, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
1st Hard Disk
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 100 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KK3-00002]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Monitor
AOC 21.5" E2270SWDN LED Monitor. 1920 x 1080, 5MS
2nd Monitor
AOC 21.5" E2270SWDN LED Monitor. 1920 x 1080, 5MS
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price £704.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-home-office-pc-ii/JCAdt3VQTX/

This is at the top of your budget (£4 over in fact). You didn't mention mouse and keyboard and so that would increase the cost a little more if you need them.

In order to achieve the maximum processing capability for the price I've gone with the cheapest case, (I don't know how good it is) and the cheapest monitors over 20" (and I don't know how good they are). A better case will offer better cooling and will probably be quieter. I'm sure the monitors are perfectly decent but another option might be one larger monitor instead of two.

There's no graphics card and there's not much point spending money getting a low end one if it is mostly going to be used for study, Internet and general word processing. The computer could take a pretty decent graphics card in the future and maybe that could be a birthday or Christmas present. The on-board graphics will be fine for the tasks you described.

The 450W PSU will be fine for a GTX1060 or a RX580 but adding a GPU to that case might raise temperatures higher than is best for the longevity of all the components.

The processor has a good clock speed and four processing cores. If he's getting started on languages like Python, he'll find scripts and tools he creates will be mostly single threaded, so more cores wouldn't be of benefit. The 2.8GHz i5 (with six cores) is the same price just for reference. It might suit you better depending on the type of study and tasks he'll be doing.

RAM is quite expensive at the moment and 8GB should be enough and is certainly about a much as you can afford with the budget. You can add a second 8GB stick in the future.

As I say it's a starter for ten. You could also put something together using the AMD Ryzen processor. I just have experience of this i3 processor and thought it was remarkable for the price.

If you need a mouse and keyboard and this is over budget the bit I would drop back a little is the CPU (to the i3 8100). If you think he might want to add a graphics card later on I'd try to get a slightly better case.

Frank100

Thanks for that and yes a keyboard/mouse will be required so the budget will need to be stretched out!

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i3 Quad Core Processor i3-8350K (4.00GHz) 8MB Cache

Click to expand...

If I may, I would very, very strongly recommend not buying this particular CPU. The i5 8400 has 6 cores and costs exactly the same. Go with that instead.

Note that although the i3 8350k may appear to be clocked faster (4.0GHz vs 2.8GHz base speeds looks like a lot) the i3 doesn't have turbo boost, while the i5 8400 does. The i5 will boost as follows:

i.e. at worst 100MHz slower, and that only on 2-4 core loads. Single core is still 4GHz.

The i5's similar frequencies and 50% increase in cores will make it a lot more futureproof.

You could drop the HDD to a 1TB one if you need to save money to invest into a better case. The cheapest 'decent' case I would suggest if a GPU upgrade is on the cards is the PCS CYCLONE GAMING CASE (RED LED FANS) (£33) although the Game Max Falcon would be a lot better in terms of features.