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Best option for home office PC?

Y

YoungGun21

Platinum Member
I had an old (7+ yrs) massive (bigger than full ATX) gaming desktop that I recently parted ways with. I have a laptop, but it is annoying to actually try to be productive on and it is beginning to show some age as well (4 yrs). What I need is a PC that I can use to work from home 1-2 days per week, that is small and quiet, does not produce a lot of heat (I live in Arizona), and also on the cheap side (trying to stay under $700 if possible).

The work that will be done on this machine is mostly prototyping code that will eventually be run on HPC clusters, along with the occasional web browsing, etc. I don't game anymore. In this sense, it is almost a "thin client" but I do need more power than a traditional thin client system. I should also state that I'm planning to use Linux.

I've considered the new Intel NUC8i5 boxes and adding 16GB RAM and 500GB M.2 SSD gets me close to $700. This seems like a fine option but I am wondering how performance of these will compare to other options because these use notebook U-series CPUs.

I've also considered building my own SFF with something like a Ryzen 3 2200G or Core i3-8100 (or maybe 9000?). I'm less certain on what the case + mobo scene is like for mini or micro ATX. Something bigger than the NUC boxes are fine, but I definitely do not want anything close to the size of a typical desktop tower.

Would appreciate some insight on price / performance tradeoffs here.
 
Build one.

Mines a few years old now but at the time I was able to use a 35 CPU. Can’t hear it run at all.
 
YoungGun21 said:
Doesn't the 2600 not have iGPU?
Click to expand...
You are indeed right. It looks like he can either drop to a 2400G which does, but has only 4 cores, or stick with the 2600 and buy a cheap GPU.

Anyway, there's plenty of room in $700 for a pc that only needs to crunch code.
 
DigDog said:
You are indeed right. It looks like he can either drop to a 2400G which does, but has only 4 cores, or stick with the 2600 and buy a cheap GPU.

Anyway, there's plenty of room in $700 for a pc that only needs to crunch code.
Click to expand...
And that build needs at,least DDR4-3000 for good performance. DDR4-2400 will cripple the Ryzen 6 2600.
 
At this time I really wouldn't go lower then 6 cores for a mainstream PC. Either the 2600(X) or an 8th gen i5. The i5 has the advantage of an IGP, the 2600 has HT for 12 threads. So essentially it's what's most important for you.

Either have good a good selection of ITX boards, coupled to a small ITX chassis it doesn't have to be that big physically. Something like the Fractal Design Define Nano S would likely fit you perfectly.

2400MHz memory doesn't cripple anything except gaming (latency) for Ryzen, which is entirely irrelevant here.
 
What about an ASRock DeskMini H310 barebones chassis? It's like a NUC, but it uses regular desktop Intel CPUs (up to 65W).

I have several of the prior models, the H110-based ones. They're nice.
 
VirtualLarry said:
What about an ASRock DeskMini H310 barebones chassis? It's like a NUC, but it uses regular desktop Intel CPUs (up to 65W).

I have several of the prior models, the H110-based ones. They're nice.
Click to expand...
I'll have to look more closely at those.

I think I will wait for some more benchmarks if possible because I feel like the NUC with the i5-8259U could be nearly as performant (or even more so in single-threaded cases) as the Ryzen 5 2400G. The newer Macbook Pros use this same processor I believe.
 
To bring some closure to this thread, here is what I ended up going with. I got the i5-8400 for $199 on Amazon and got the DM310W and the 2TB WD Blue for slightly less than listed here. I think this system will be a good compromise for me (not much bigger than a NUC, but more powerful) and should last quite a while.

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tjp9Bb
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tjp9Bb/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor ($219.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($133.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Corsair - MP510 240GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($69.99 @ Corsair)
Storage: Western Digital - Blue Mobile 2TB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($77.99 @ Amazon)
Other: ASRock DESKMINI 310W Mini / Booksize Barebone System ($129.99 @ Newegg Business)
Total: $631.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-05 15:32 EST-0500
 
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