Looking for a small home office PC

sakura2

Member
Hi everyone. I'm not very tech savvy so hope this makes sense.

I'm looking for a new PC... current one bought from PC Specialist around 7 years ago.
My main requirement is something small. I've been looking at the mini PCs but finding it difficult to get the dimensions of the cases. I'm not sure if the Mini ITX case will do or if we need to go for a NUC.
Basically I'd like something that can neatly sit behind or next to our monitor so we can get a smaller desk to make better use of our tiny home office area.
Currently use mostly for Word, Excel, internet browsing, very simple photo editing, streaming films to our TV so I don't think the specs need to be great.

Our current PC specs are as follows. I'd like an upgrade on this so we can hopefully use the new computer for another 7 years!! Thanks for any help

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Version 10.0.17134 Build 17134
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name IPSCLAB
System Manufacturer System manufacturer
System Model System Product Name
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Processor AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 955 Processor, 3200 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 0602, 09/08/2011
SMBIOS Version 2.5
Embedded Controller Version 255.255
BIOS Mode Legacy
BaseBoard Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
BaseBoard Model Not Available
BaseBoard Name Base Board
Platform Role Desktop
Secure Boot State Unsupported
PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United Kingdom
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.17134.1"
User Name Ipsclab\toyvi
Time Zone GMT Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 4.00 GB
Available Physical Memory 593 MB
Total Virtual Memory 8.00 GB
 

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sakura2

Member
Thanks SpyderTracks. We're currently using 800GB of space on this PC. But a lot of it is rubbish which can be deleted. Maybe 500 GB?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Thanks SpyderTracks. We're currently using 800GB of space on this PC. But a lot of it is rubbish which can be deleted. Maybe 500 GB?

Actually, I suddenly noticed those NUC's are on dual core chips which is pretty crap.

I'll have another go.

What's your max budget? The benefits of a small case come with the negatives of increased cost.
 
Last edited:

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I was hoping around £600 if that's possible. Otherwise may need to rethink!

Nah, I admit defeat, I'm not the best person for this, I would probably over spec anyway.

Someone else will be able to advise better, they'll be along shortly I'm sure.
 

sakura2

Member
What are the dimensions of the Mini ITX case? It may be small enough but I can't find the measurements (I'm sure I must be missing the obvious!)
 

sakura2

Member
Thanks Oussebon. This is what I've come up with but no idea if right for my purposes:

Case
PCS Mini ITX Case 180W
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i3 Quad Core Processor i3-8300 (3.70GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME H310i PLUS: Mini-ITX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
Integrated Intel® HD Graphics
1st Hard Disk
480GB KINGSTON UV500 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 500MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
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)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price £556.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-performance-mini/aCDuJ3r6SM/
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I'd suggest dropping the UV500 SSD as it really is very basic and slow by SSD standards and instead getting an SX6000 from the M.2 SSD Drive menu. As well as being faster, it will also leave the 2.5" bay free for additional HDD storage in future.

Personally I would suggest the i5 8400 for another £30 as it's faster (once you factor in turbo boost frequencies - the frequencies PCS list of the product page are only base frequencies) and has 2 more cores. multiple browser tabs, extensions, and badly scripted adverts/websites etc can cause pretty high CPU usage even for a quad core, so for ~5% of the budget I'd recommend it.

I'd recommend the better CPU cooler too as the Intel one is frankly unpleasantly noisy, I have found.
 

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
I'd suggest dropping the UV500 SSD as it really is very basic and slow by SSD standards and instead getting an SX6000 from the M.2 SSD Drive menu. As well as being faster, it will also leave the 2.5" bay free for additional HDD storage in future.

Personally I would suggest the i5 8400 for another £30 as it's faster (once you factor in turbo boost frequencies - the frequencies PCS list of the product page are only base frequencies) and has 2 more cores. multiple browser tabs, extensions, and badly scripted adverts/websites etc can cause pretty high CPU usage even for a quad core, so for ~5% of the budget I'd recommend it.

I'd recommend the better CPU cooler too as the Intel one is frankly unpleasantly noisy, I have found.

On this point: "badly scripted adverts/websites etc can cause pretty high CPU usage even for a quad core" I would always recommend a script/ad blocker.

I use uBlock Origin and Ghostery for Chrome.
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
This was with Adblock Plus only on Comodo. I should look at Ghostery.

The CPU usage on this i5 7400 is ~15-20% with various apps open. Then using google maps pushes it to ~80-90% for a while, as does scrolling the map after opening it.
 

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
Very finger-in the air, but i5-6200U, with 8GB RAM.

A very locked down (too much so, in my opinion) corporate build.

Running Chrome, Skype for Business, Outook 2016, IE, Edge, Team Viewer and a few background apps such as OneDrive, Greenshot, Hangouts and the Citrix Receiver.

CPU use is bouncing around 5 - 25% or so. Open maps.google.co.uk and it bounced to 75% for about 2s then settled back to about 20%. Scrolling saw it jump for 1-2s to 55-65% but then dropped back down.
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
We got our own off-the-shelf systems for this small office, partly due to the corporate ones being too locked down. And partly due to the specs and performance being even worse... Perhaps Comodo is less pleased with google maps than other browsers including other Chromium based ones. But it does go to 80-90% usage and stay there for 10-20 seconds. To the point I use bing maps in Edge :)/) mostly...

For ~5% of the budget (£30 out of £600) I do think the extra 2 cores of the i5 8400 could come in handy for the OP - even if the best solution in many of these cases may be to change software :)
 

Tony1044

Prolific Poster
We got our own off-the-shelf systems for this small office, partly due to the corporate ones being too locked down. And partly due to the specs and performance being even worse... Perhaps Comodo is less pleased with google maps than other browsers including other Chromium based ones. But it does go to 80-90% usage and stay there for 10-20 seconds. To the point I use bing maps in Edge :)/) mostly...

For ~5% of the budget (£30 out of £600) I do think the extra 2 cores of the i5 8400 could come in handy for the OP - even if the best solution in many of these cases may be to change software :)

That makes sense and I'll be honest in day-to-day use I couldn't tell you if I've ever noticed the difference between processors full stop, be they i3, i5 or i7 or however many cores they have and I hop from system to system quite frequently.

In my more extreme use-cases such as in servers, I know the greater core/thread counts come into play but that's what you'd hope and expect.
 

sakura2

Member
Thanks Oussebon! Does anyone know what the dimensions of the case for this spec would be? I've made all the changes suggested above

Case
PCS Mini ITX Case 180W
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Six Core Processor i5-8400 (2.8GHz) 9MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME H310i PLUS: Mini-ITX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
Integrated Intel® HD Graphics
1st Hard Disk
NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB ADATA SX6000 PCIe M.2 2280 (1000 MB/R, 800 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 40 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
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)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price £607.00 including VAT and delivery
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Ah, knew I'd forgotten something you'd asked..

I don't know the dimensions, but if you look at the case it's not going to be very big at all.
1_big.png
That's a thin DVD drive slot there and it's almost 2/3rd the length of the box. So that's what, between 20 and 25cms tall as ultra-rough napkin maths? You can call PCS to get the dimensions. If they tell you, do let us know. :)
 
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