New build PC

[GB]

I want to build a new PC which will meet all the requirements for W11.
When I think about it, I'm really quite a light user, these days. Mainly
browsing and TBird. A bit of word processing and lightweight spreadsheets.

I built a PC for my DW 4 or 5 years ago, and it seems to work okay. It's
a 3200G CPU with a A320 motherboard. That seems a generation or two out
of date now.

What should I build now?

[Theo]

Post by GB
I want to build a new PC which will meet all the requirements for W11.
When I think about it, I'm really quite a light user, these days. Mainly
browsing and TBird. A bit of word processing and lightweight spreadsheets.
I built a PC for my DW 4 or 5 years ago, and it seems to work okay. It's
a 3200G CPU with a A320 motherboard. That seems a generation or two out
of date now.
What should I build now?

Do you actually need to build? There are cheap mini PCs in the <£300
bracket, using laptop CPUs. If you don't have any particular requirements
one may suffice. Check Amazon, Aliexpress - mostly Chinese brands you've
never heard of.

Theo

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by Theo

Post by GB
I want to build a new PC which will meet all the requirements for W11.
When I think about it, I'm really quite a light user, these days. Mainly
browsing and TBird. A bit of word processing and lightweight spreadsheets.
I built a PC for my DW 4 or 5 years ago, and it seems to work okay. It's
a 3200G CPU with a A320 motherboard. That seems a generation or two out
of date now.
What should I build now?

Do you actually need to build? There are cheap mini PCs in the <£300
bracket, using laptop CPUs. If you don't have any particular requirements
one may suffice. Check Amazon, Aliexpress - mostly Chinese brands you've
never heard of.
Theo

"NUC" is a good search term to throw up mini PCs, you will have to pick
and choose, they don't all have mini prices!

[GB]

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by Theo

Post by GB
I want to build a new PC which will meet all the requirements for W11.
When I think about it, I'm really quite a light user, these days. Mainly
browsing and TBird. A bit of word processing and lightweight
spreadsheets.
I built a PC for my DW 4 or 5 years ago, and it seems to work okay. It's
a 3200G CPU with a A320 motherboard. That seems a generation or two out
of date now.
What should I build now?

Do you actually need to build? There are cheap mini PCs in the <£300
bracket, using laptop CPUs. If you don't have any particular requirements
one may suffice. Check Amazon, Aliexpress - mostly Chinese  brands you've
never heard of.
Theo

"NUC" is a good search term to throw up mini PCs, you will have to pick
and choose, they don't all have mini prices!

I can get a N100 mini PC from Amazon for around £160, and I thought of
that, but I might want a bit more power. Also, I have got used to
working with the security of mirrored hard drives, although I am not
sure I need that since I've retired from work.

For £140, I can get:
£50 - 3200G
£60 - Mobo (seems to be A520 these days)
£30 - 16GB of DDR4


So, it's not like the N100 option is cheaper?

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by GB

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by Theo

Post by GB
I want to build a new PC which will meet all the requirements for W11.
When I think about it, I'm really quite a light user, these days. Mainly
browsing and TBird. A bit of word processing and lightweight
spreadsheets.
I built a PC for my DW 4 or 5 years ago, and it seems to work okay. It's
a 3200G CPU with a A320 motherboard. That seems a generation or two out
of date now.
What should I build now?

Do you actually need to build? There are cheap mini PCs in the <£300
bracket, using laptop CPUs. If you don't have any particular requirements
one may suffice. Check Amazon, Aliexpress - mostly Chinese  brands you've
never heard of.
Theo

"NUC" is a good search term to throw up mini PCs, you will have to pick
and choose, they don't all have mini prices!

I can get a N100 mini PC from Amazon for around £160, and I thought of
that, but I might want a bit more power. Also, I have got used to working
with the security of mirrored hard drives, although I am not sure I need
that since I've retired from work.
£50 - 3200G
£60 - Mobo (seems to be A520 these days)
£30 - 16GB of DDR4
So, it's not like the N100 option is cheaper?

My last new build was a Z790 motherboard so I am quite a way behind the
curve!

I tend to try and keep my old kit going as it runs Window 8.1 which treats
me as grown up when it comes to updates!

[GB]

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by GB

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by Theo

Post by GB
I want to build a new PC which will meet all the requirements for W11.
When I think about it, I'm really quite a light user, these days. Mainly
browsing and TBird. A bit of word processing and lightweight spreadsheets.
I built a PC for my DW 4 or 5 years ago, and it seems to work okay. It's
a 3200G CPU with a A320 motherboard. That seems a generation or two out
of date now.
What should I build now?

Do you actually need to build? There are cheap mini PCs in the <£300
bracket, using laptop CPUs. If you don't have any particular requirements
one may suffice. Check Amazon, Aliexpress - mostly Chinese  brands you've
never heard of.
Theo

"NUC" is a good search term to throw up mini PCs, you will have to
pick and choose, they don't all have mini prices!

I can get a N100 mini PC from Amazon for around £160, and I thought of
that, but I might want a bit more power. Also, I have got used to
working with the security of mirrored hard drives, although I am not
sure I need that since I've retired from work.
£50 - 3200G
£60 - Mobo (seems to be A520 these days)
£30 - 16GB of DDR4
So, it's not like the N100 option is cheaper?

My last new build was a Z790 motherboard so I am quite a way behind the
curve!
I tend to try and keep my old kit going as it runs Window 8.1 which
treats me as  grown up when it comes to updates!

Windows 8.1 won't have troubled you much with updates over the last two
years!

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by GB

Post by Jeff Gaines
I tend to try and keep my old kit going as it runs Window 8.1 which
treats me as  grown up when it comes to updates!

Windows 8.1 won't have troubled you much with updates over the last two
years!

Some sort of updates come through, and they are down-loaded and installed
when it is convenient for ME!

[Theo]

Post by GB
I can get a N100 mini PC from Amazon for around £160, and I thought of
that, but I might want a bit more power. Also, I have got used to
working with the security of mirrored hard drives, although I am not
sure I need that since I've retired from work.
£50 - 3200G
£60 - Mobo (seems to be A520 these days)
£30 - 16GB of DDR4

Storage? Case? PSU? Are you planning on booting from HDD (slowly!), or
will you have a separate boot SSD from your HDDs?

I was thinking of the Ryzen mini PCs, the first hit on Amazon being:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/BOSGAME-E2-Windows-Computers-Display/dp/B0DPGZ73ZS

£183 for a Ryzen 3550H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, case and PSU.

According to CPUbenchmark.net:

N100: single thread score 1931, multi core 5476
3550H: single 2025, multi 7765
3200G: single 2204, multi 7122

On Aliexpress the first hit for a 3550H has a similar price including VAT.
There are plenty more options of other vendors/CPUs/configs.

If you do need space for multiple HDDs then a more standard mobo and case
may be preferable.

Theo

[GB]

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by Theo

Post by GB
I want to build a new PC which will meet all the requirements for W11.
When I think about it, I'm really quite a light user, these days. Mainly
browsing and TBird. A bit of word processing and lightweight
spreadsheets.
I built a PC for my DW 4 or 5 years ago, and it seems to work okay. It's
a 3200G CPU with a A320 motherboard. That seems a generation or two out
of date now.
What should I build now?

Do you actually need to build? There are cheap mini PCs in the <£300
bracket, using laptop CPUs. If you don't have any particular requirements
one may suffice. Check Amazon, Aliexpress - mostly Chinese  brands you've
never heard of.
Theo

"NUC" is a good search term to throw up mini PCs, you will have to pick
and choose, they don't all have mini prices!

One advantage of the N100 PCs is that the power usage is much lower on
standby, and my PC is on standby most of the time.

[Pancho]

Post by GB

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by Theo

Post by GB
I want to build a new PC which will meet all the requirements for W11.
When I think about it, I'm really quite a light user, these days. Mainly
browsing and TBird. A bit of word processing and lightweight spreadsheets.
I built a PC for my DW 4 or 5 years ago, and it seems to work okay. It's
a 3200G CPU with a A320 motherboard. That seems a generation or two out
of date now.
What should I build now?

Do you actually need to build? There are cheap mini PCs in the <£300
bracket, using laptop CPUs. If you don't have any particular
requirements
one may suffice. Check Amazon, Aliexpress - mostly Chinese  brands you've
never heard of.
Theo

"NUC" is a good search term to throw up mini PCs, you will have to
pick and choose, they don't all have mini prices!

One advantage of the N100 PCs is that the power usage is much lower on
standby, and my PC is on standby most of the time.

The N100 certainly has a lower TDP than other AMD/Intel, but AIUI modern
CPUs have low idle. Standby?, maybe you should switch it off.

Maybe you need two PCs, a really low power one for browsing and general
always on use, and a big power hungry one for the few times you actually
need the power. You can even hide the big one away and RDP into it.

Why not try a Raspberry Pi 5? They work, Geekbench rates them not much
slower than a 3200G.

[Daniel James]

Post by Pancho
Why not try a Raspberry Pi 5? They work, Geekbench rates them not much
slower than a 3200G.

Indeed. They work well.

I have an 8GB Pi5 in an Argon NEO 5 NVME case with a 1TB SSD. It's just
like an ordinary PC ... rather boring for a Pi.

You'd pay ... (in round numbers, inc VAT)

Pi 5 8GB £77
Case £35
SSD £50
PSU £12
Micro-HDMI cable £6 (or adapter)

So about £180 for the neatest little PC you've ever seen. One might want
to add a fiver for a battery for the onboard real-time clock in case the
Piis ever unplugged and is then run it without access to network time.

A micro-SD card or a USB flash drive would be needed to boot it to get
the OS onto the SSD.

Of course, it won't run Windows, but that's not a downside.

[Well, it will run ARM builds of Windows 10 or 11, but that's not
supported (by either MS or RPi) and a huge amount of Windows software is
only available in x86(64) builds, so what's the point?]

[GB]

Post by Daniel James

Post by Pancho
Why not try a Raspberry Pi 5? They work, Geekbench rates them not much
slower than a 3200G.

Indeed. They work well.
I have an 8GB Pi5 in an Argon NEO 5 NVME case with a 1TB SSD. It's just
like an ordinary PC ... rather boring for a Pi.
You'd pay ... (in round numbers, inc VAT)
Pi 5 8GB          £77
Case              £35
SSD               £50
PSU               £12
Micro-HDMI cable   £6 (or adapter)
So about £180 for the neatest little PC you've ever seen. One might want
to add a fiver for a battery for the onboard real-time clock in case the
Piis ever unplugged and is then run it without access to network time.
A micro-SD card or a USB flash drive would be needed to boot it to get
the OS onto the SSD.
Of course, it won't run Windows, but that's not a downside.
[Well, it will run ARM builds of Windows 10 or 11, but that's not
supported (by either MS or RPi) and a huge amount of Windows software is
only available in x86(64) builds, so what's the point?]

I have a pi4, for my little robot, and I have a Jetson Orin on back
order, but this needs to run Windows.

[Raj Kundra]

Post by GB

Post by Daniel James

Post by Pancho
Why not try a Raspberry Pi 5? They work, Geekbench rates them not
much slower than a 3200G.

Indeed. They work well.
I have an 8GB Pi5 in an Argon NEO 5 NVME case with a 1TB SSD. It's
just like an ordinary PC ... rather boring for a Pi.
You'd pay ... (in round numbers, inc VAT)
Pi 5 8GB          £77
Case              £35
SSD               £50
PSU               £12
Micro-HDMI cable   £6 (or adapter)
So about £180 for the neatest little PC you've ever seen. One might
want to add a fiver for a battery for the onboard real-time clock in
case the Piis ever unplugged and is then run it without access to
network time.
A micro-SD card or a USB flash drive would be needed to boot it to get
the OS onto the SSD.
Of course, it won't run Windows, but that's not a downside.
[Well, it will run ARM builds of Windows 10 or 11, but that's not
supported (by either MS or RPi) and a huge amount of Windows software
is only available in x86(64) builds, so what's the point?]

I have a pi4, for my little robot, and I have a Jetson Orin on back
order, but this needs to run Windows.

I got some new boxed NEW HP RP5 5810 F6H32AV Retail POS System PC i5 4th
Gen 4GB RAM 500GB HDD Win 10
On e bay £149.99
If helps, I can do you one £100 delivered.

[GB]

Post by Raj Kundra

Post by GB

Post by Daniel James

Post by Pancho
Why not try a Raspberry Pi 5? They work, Geekbench rates them not
much slower than a 3200G.

Indeed. They work well.
I have an 8GB Pi5 in an Argon NEO 5 NVME case with a 1TB SSD. It's
just like an ordinary PC ... rather boring for a Pi.
You'd pay ... (in round numbers, inc VAT)
Pi 5 8GB          £77
Case              £35
SSD               £50
PSU               £12
Micro-HDMI cable   £6 (or adapter)
So about £180 for the neatest little PC you've ever seen. One might
want to add a fiver for a battery for the onboard real-time clock in
case the Piis ever unplugged and is then run it without access to
network time.
A micro-SD card or a USB flash drive would be needed to boot it to
get the OS onto the SSD.
Of course, it won't run Windows, but that's not a downside.
[Well, it will run ARM builds of Windows 10 or 11, but that's not
supported (by either MS or RPi) and a huge amount of Windows software
is only available in x86(64) builds, so what's the point?]

I have a pi4, for my little robot, and I have a Jetson Orin on back
order, but this needs to run Windows.

I got some new boxed NEW HP RP5 5810 F6H32AV Retail POS System PC i5 4th
Gen 4GB RAM 500GB HDD Win 10
On e bay £149.99
If helps, I can do you one £100 delivered.

Thanks for the kind offer, Raj, but I'm looking for a machine to meet
all the requirements for W11.

[Daniel James]

I can't find any upgrade to the 3400G. Is that the latest one with
inbuilt graphics?

The 3400G is still available.

Any Ryzen with a G (or GT) at the end of its number should have built-in
graphics (will require a compatible motherboard) including many newer
than the 3400G.

These things were hard to find a few years ago when I built the PC I'm
using now. I ended up getting a Ryzen Pro 4750G (a bit upmarket from
where I started) which (because it's a Pro) was only available as a
bundle with a motherboard (not quite the one I would have chosen but it
will do) from QuietPC.

The usual suspects all have plenty of stock these days. I see Scan have
the 5700G for £155.99, for example.

[David]

Post by GB
Thanks for the kind offer, Raj, but I'm looking for a machine to meet
all the requirements for W11.

When I bought my new machine a couple of years ago I got
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G with Radeon Vega Graphics
as the CPU, 32GB of RAM and an NVME SSD.
That at the time was the top AMD CPU with built in graphics. The RAM
helps a load of things, often just by being disc cache - even though
that "disc" is pretty fast.
AMD plus built in graphics was a lot LOT cheaper than Intel plus a
separate graphics card. (I suppose I could have used my son's old gaming
card, but I like my quiet!)
Andy

Care to share the approximate price?

Thanks



Dave R

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by Daniel James
[Well, it will run ARM builds of Windows 10 or 11, but that's not
supported (by either MS or RPi) and a huge amount of Windows software is
only available in x86(64) builds, so what's the point?]

Win/ARM runs intel code through a translater layer. It's not notably
slower, and runs almost everything - I've not met anything that it
doesn't like.

Cheers - Jaimie