Office Computers - Build Your Own

Office computers need to be reliable, be secure, be fast, with good capacity and memory, and they need to demonstrate good office computer ergonomics. If you need a computer for your office, you need more than cheap computers for sale (though you can sometimes get a great deal); use computer benchmarking to build the best system for your specific business needs.

This build will work great for computers for office work. Whether you are a small business, or have a home office, this build will handle your small business needs.

An Office Build also needs:

• Financial software
• Document editing
• Email management
• Custom graphics

Note: All prices shown do not reflect mail-in rebates or store rebates, as they change so often. When you are looking to purchase, check around for available rebates, discounts, and sales. Because computer prices are changing so often, only price ranges are shown here. If you can get lower priced products (from a reputable dealer with a good warranty and return policy), drop me a line and let me know where.

We're looking for a good CPU here that won't slow you down, and won't break the bank. The AMD Athlon 5600+ will do that for you. It's a dual core processor running at 3GHz with 1MB L2 cache per core. Very nice for office computers.

We'll need a motherboard to match up with that. The AMD Athlon 5600+ is an AMD AM2 socket. The ASRock A785GM-LE/128M Micro ATX AMD Motherboard will hold that processor nicely. It provides all the connections you need, and has a reasonable price tag.

For RAM, go with Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory memory. Patriot makes excellent memory, and manages to keep the prices low. 2GB will give us plenty of room to allow for multi-tasking office applications. If you are anything like me, you'll have 10 programs open at once, and 2GB will cover that.

We will need a case to install the computer in. We're not looking for anything fancy here, just something practical that will save some money but still provide what we need. For office computers, the Cooler Master Centurion case will work nicely. It has a nice conservative look, with plenty of room to install everything you need.

A graphics card is optional in office computers. I am going to recommend one here, but the choice is up to you. The ATI Radeon 2400 is an inexpensive solution that will give you a nice picture to go with the LCD screen I recommend below.

For data storage, I would recommend running with two hard drives. One for your operating system and office applications, and the other for data backups. For office computers, the Seagate Barracuda 250GB drive is a nice balance between price and performance.

For a second drive, my personal opinion is that office computers should use an external hard drive for data storage and backups. The Western Digital Elements 500GB external drive is portable if you have a need for security, and with firewire or USB 2.0 connection, it will not slow you down.

To power the system, the KINGWIN ABT-450MM 450W Power Supply will keep your office computers happy. It will give you plenty of power to run your system, and it comes at a great price.

A nice 19" LDC monitor should do the trick. The Samsung SyncMaster 920NW is my recommendation. Big enough for multitasking, yet not so big that it takes up your whole desk.

DVD-Burners are pretty cheap these days, and we don't need any of the bells and whistles here. A straight burner for installing DVD applications and burning the occasional DVD should suffice. The Lite-On SuperAllWrite will do just fine.

So, to total it all I have used approximate prices - you may be able to find a better deal:

AMD Athlon 5600+ - $58.99 AsRock A785GM-LE - $64.99 Patriot DDR2 800 PC6400 - $49.99 Cooler Master Centurion - $69.99 ATI Radeon 2400 - $49.99 Seagate Barracuda 250GB - $57.99 Western Digital Elements 500GB - $96.99 KINGWIN ABT-450MM 450W - $35.99 Samsung SyncMaster 920NW - $159.99 Lite-On SuperAllWrite - $29.99 Total - $674.90

 

Mods

• There's not to much room to save on this computer. You can save $40 if you decide not to go with a graphics card.

• You could save another $40 if you dropped down to a 17" monitor.

• If you do not need the external hard drive and think that 250GB will be enough, or if you went with a 500Gb internal drive, you could save around $50-$100.

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