Question First desktop PC in.. 5+ years. What should I buy?

[Migroo]

Hi everyone,

I've been absent for a few years but used to post around here back in the early 2000s! I'm happy I remembered my login...

I used to have a nice home office with a fixed desktop PC where I could surf websites, research the next project and play the occasional game. Then my PC blew up (PSU went BANG!), we moved and I lost the home office, and we've been doing a major house renovation and have had a kid - so life has changed a bit and we've been "coping" with my business laptop - but its far from ideal and I'm now pretty lost in the PC hardware market.

We have at last setup a small home office corner and I'm looking forward to having a fixed computer again with a decent widescreen display - however I'm so out of touch that I need some opinions on what to buy. At work I use a Iiyama ProLite B2480HS (1920x1080 at 60Hz) which seems "fine", but I notice the monitor market has really expanded over the past few years - ultra widescreen... 4K... curved, 120hz etc etc.

For my uses - is there anything in newer tech that I should get excited about? Its worth me mentioning that I'm not going to spend ££££ on the latest high speed gaming PC - my use is pretty casual.

Thanks for reading this far!!

 

[Arkaign]

Well dang. Integrated graphics are the limit. It's totally fine for watching videos and doing work using the onboard video, but they're pretty awful with gaming. Much older titles or pretty low intensity stuff like Rocket League can run ok on low 1080p. Running sub-native resolution will look either blurry or weirdly chunky due to the pixels not adding up, unless it's a perfectly divisible resolution. For 2560x1440 this means 1280x720. Which considering onboard video is pretty appropriate actually.

There was an exception to the awful IGPs, with the Hades Canyon 7th gen Intel NUC, which used weirdly a Radeon Vega IGP variant. Still slow, but HUGELY faster than the Intel HD stuff.

If you are able to compromise a bit in size, a Slimline / SFF PC will at least allow you full desktop socket CPUs and half height GPU potential. Here is a SFF PC featuring a Haswell Xeon that is basically an i7-4770 4C/8T, already has a W7P license that will activate Win10 Pro, and pretty nice quality all around. GPU selection for things like this is a bit limited, but way better than virtually zero as with a NUC.

Also most NUCs even labeled 'i5' or 'i7' are actually dual core models, which is a little deceptive. Google each CPU listed in the description along with the word ARK so you can get the actual details. For example this NUC says it has an i7-5557U, what the hell is that?

Amazon.com: Intel NUC NUC5i7RYH Mini PC, Intel Core i7-5557U Upto 3.4GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Mini HDMI, Mini DisplayPort, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Windows 10 Pro (Renewed): Computers & Accessories

Amazon.com: Intel NUC NUC5i7RYH Mini PC, Intel Core i7-5557U Upto 3.4GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Mini HDMI, Mini DisplayPort, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Windows 10 Pro (Renewed): Computers & Accessories

www.amazon.com

Welp, it's this, a 2 Core 4 Thread CPU (akin to a desktop i3-4130 or so) with a 300Mhz Intel HD 6100 IGP. That lets you know what kind of limit you're going to expect.

Intel® Core™ i7-5557U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Core™ i7-5557U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

ark.intel.com

NUCs with Thunderbolt 3 are capable of running external GPU boxes, but with both an extremely high cost ($200-$400 for the box alone) as well as a performance penalty of a fairly large margin.

HP Z240 SFF WORKSTATION Intel Xeon E3-1245 v5 3.50GHZ 8GB 1TB - Windows 10 Pro | eBay

(Form Factor: SFF. 5) 100% Authentic and genuine products. We are always available for communications during these hours. Product Images. Network Support: Onboard Ethernet. Optical Drive Type: DVD-RW.

www.ebay.com

This will give you the potential to run something like this 1050ti 4GB : https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Gef...-N105TOC-4GL/dp/B06WWLWWJM?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_2

Which is many MANY times faster than the Intel HD IGP, even the Hades Canyon Radeon model, and it would still be fairly borderline for 2560x1440. It works, I've done it before, but you're best off choosing mostly medium settings to keep reasonable framerate in most major titles of the past half decade.

Textures High
Lighting Medium
Shadows Low
Anisotropic Filtering 16X
Ambient Occlusion Low/Off
Antialiasing Low/Off

That's a general template for getting 1050ti level (GTX960-970ish levels of performance) GPUs to play nicely with 1440p.

Of course, you having that PS4 in the running may just be your best bet for gaming if you prefer strongly to stay with NUC form factor. As general browsing/PDF/MS office devices the i3+/8GB+ ones are just fine. It's just gaming is basically a no go outside of emulators and extremely (with several underlines) low intensity 2d kind of games or very basic 3d games. Hell, something like Oblivion is 14 years old now, and will barely run acceptably on the best Intel HD graphics.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, NUC is not really, "for gaming". Maybe an AlienWare Alpha? I don't know if those are made anymore, but they were SFF gaming boxes, with GPU (however low-end).

 

[Arkaign]

Yeah, NUC is not really, "for gaming". Maybe an AlienWare Alpha? I don't know if those are made anymore, but they were SFF gaming boxes, with GPU (however low-end).

The Alpha R1 (OG Haswell variant) was pretty decent, and would still be better than a NUC for gaming. The 860M is appropriate for such a tiny device and is basically an exact performance match to the desktop 750ti. A respectable medium settings AA disabled 1080p gaming box.

The R2 was discontinued, they shot too high with the GTX960, and it is an overheating, flaky piece of crap.

Thinking of alternatives, actually a mid-range gaming laptop makes more sense to me if size is a genuine concern. Put some fatter rubber feet on it and a wireless KBM, and you can just run it as a set top connected to your monitor, only with the bonus of being able to take it to the coffee shop, hotel, beach, whatever. Because there is so much more competition in laptops, amazing deals can be found that will blow any NUC or even the R1/R2 to bits.

 

[Arkaign]

$600, with completely competent specs, and portable, with specs that just aren't possible with NUCs.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow, decent deal on that $600 gaming lappy. I almost want a gaming laptop now. (I hardly game anymore. But the specs for the price are so sexy. I still have a Ryzen 3500U BNIB next to me though.)

 

[nOOky]

I'd probably build or buy something current to keep the PC relevant for a few years. Just figure out the basic specs you need and go from there. If I were building one for you I'd go with a 256GB nvme ssd, a 1GB SATA SSD for storage, 16 gigs of system memory, a decent motherboard with good connectivity, $200 CPU, a mid range video card, and a 2560 x 1440 27" monitor @ 120hz. That all sounds vague, but half the fun is researching stuff before you build or buy, at least for me.

I think you're looking at around a grand total with Windows 10 and peripherals.

 

[Migroo]

Hi guys.

Wow, what a ton of responses! Thank you!

@Arkaign Thanks for that. Yeah I guessed 1280x720 would be something that would scale reasonably well, but you (and all the others) have made good arguments against a NUC, so I promised to check out SFF stuff. Maybe I can work something into the budget. Yeah you're right about the external GPUs. I was briefly excited about those until I read that they were huge money...

Nice shout on the gaming laptop. Not something I had considered but I will check out prices of those before I spend anything.

I tried a colleague's Dell U2713H today - and WOW, you can certainly tell it is running at a higher res than I'm used to (2560x1440). It seemed like a great monitor, so I might even consider picking one up second hand if I can find a good one - eBay has one for £100 ($130) which seems like a bargain...

@nOOky thanks, I'm going to try to get 16GB RAM in whatever I buy. I'll check out your suggested specs too.


Thinking of options, I actually have an old mini PC I bought back in around 2012 or 2013 based on an AMD A6-3500 (https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=128009) which I could technically upgrade. I guess it probably doesn't have space for a dedicated GPU in there, but I could repurpose it and buy a NUC to be my HTPC (which I assume could be a relatively pedestrian model as I only need 1080p. Anyway, thats taking the thread off course into another subject... but something else for me to consider.

 

[Arkaign]

Amazon.com: Sceptre C305W-2560UN 30-inch 21:9 Super Curved Ultrawide Creative Monitor 2560x1080p Ultra Slim HDMI DisplayPort up to 85Hz 1ms MPRT FPS-RTS Build-in Speakers, Machine Black 2020: Computers & Accessories

Amazon.com: Sceptre C305W-2560UN 30-inch 21:9 Super Curved Ultrawide Creative Monitor 2560x1080p Ultra Slim HDMI DisplayPort up to 85Hz 1ms MPRT FPS-RTS Build-in Speakers, Machine Black 2020: Computers & Accessories

www.amazon.com

Don't get a monitor these days without Freesync or Gsync if you want to game on it. It's just too valuable a feature. This link is for a 30" Curved Ultrawide Freesync 2560x1080 display. It is a nice balance that won't take a Herculean GPU to run, and it will have much tighter frametime and less screen tear than regular 60hz non-Freesync/Gsync displays. It's also a bargain, check the reviews.

 

[ElFenix]

gotta love this place:
"not really looking at gaming"
"are you sure you're not gaming? you need _________ and _____________ and you need to compromise ______________ to make sure you can game"
"well i haven't gamed in a long time and haven't even touched my dedicated gaming thingy in years"
"ok well that thing you want sucks for gaming so you need ______________ and _______________"

AMD A6-3500

that thing is terrible and you don't want to do anything with it. it uses AMD's k10 cores from ~2007, which were slowish even then.

 

[Arkaign]

gotta love this place:
"not really looking at gaming"
"are you sure you're not gaming? you need _________ and _____________ and you need to compromise ______________ to make sure you can game"
"well i haven't gamed in a long time and haven't even touched my dedicated gaming thingy in years"
"ok well that thing you want sucks for gaming so you need ______________ and _______________"



that thing is terrible and you don't want to do anything with it. it uses AMD's k10 cores from ~2007, which were slowish even then.

Haha True, though he balanced it with a mix of hell yes + possibly lol.

Otoh, building something that's strong enough for decent gaming generally results in a PC that will endure better than average. Eg; a 2012ish 2600k + GTX 660 would still be halfway ok today, compared to say any IGP budget build of that era.

 

[nOOky]

gotta love this place:
"not really looking at gaming"
"are you sure you're not gaming? you need _________ and _____________ and you need to compromise ______________ to make sure you can game"
"well i haven't gamed in a long time and haven't even touched my dedicated gaming thingy in years"
"ok well that thing you want sucks for gaming so you need ______________ and _______________"



that thing is terrible and you don't want to do anything with it. it uses AMD's k10 cores from ~2007, which were slowish even then.

I'd recommend 120HZ or better in a monitor even for just 2d Windows tasks.

 

[Migroo]

gotta love this place:
"not really looking at gaming"
"are you sure you're not gaming? you need _________ and _____________ and you need to compromise ______________ to make sure you can game"
"well i haven't gamed in a long time and haven't even touched my dedicated gaming thingy in years"
"ok well that thing you want sucks for gaming so you need ______________ and _______________"



that thing is terrible and you don't want to do anything with it. it uses AMD's k10 cores from ~2007, which were slowish even then.

You're not wrong there, but I'm 100% used to it from another forum. I try to blame my silly subwoofer addiction on them but it has always been my fault...

Re: the A6-3500, yeah I guessed as much. I was assuming I'd ditch the CPU and motherboard and investigate if the case and SSD were worth saving. I need to check, but I'm pretty sure there isn't room for a dedicated graphics card.

 

[Migroo]

Hi guys

Quick update for you - I decided on a 27" 2560x1440 monitor, and won an eBay auction and will collect it on Monday - its an Asus PB278Q https://www.asus.com/Monitors/PB278Q/

Thanks for everyone's help selecting a resolution