New work desktop

[barryrs]

Hi all, can anyone give me some pointers when searching for a new desktop for work.

I’m thinking of getting a refurbished one but there’s a bewildering amount via the usual websites such as EBay and Amazon.

The most taxing task it will need to cope with is AutoCAD LT so needs to be 64-bit and the usual office programs.

I’ve seen this spec for £228 inc postage

Brand: Could be DELL/ HP/ Lenovo/ Acer/ Fujitsu
Processor: Intel quad core i7 6th generation
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics
Ram: 32GB
Storage: 240gb SDD
Operating System: Windows 11
Optical Drive: Yes

It’s just going to sit in the corner of my office so doesn’t need to be fancy, just quick when multitasking.

[wyson]

That will cope with your workload but will be the computer equivalent of a shed. Computers have a 10 yr design life, components like capacitors can start falling out of spec on the motherboard after this, to the detriment of system stability. Also not sure a 6th gen Intel chip can support Windows 11 ‘natively’.

If it’s for work, I would spend a few hundred more quid and just get a new machine with Windows 11, in warranty and support. That spec you posted otherwise looks ok, but I’d highly recommend a newer chip. Intel are releasing 14th gen now, so 12th gen, 13th gen will still be respectable and sold new.

Edited by wyson on Monday 11th December 06:58

[Brainpox]

It’s an 8 year old quad core. It’ll function as a computer but being “fast when multitasking” can mean a whole load of things. There will be no upgrade path for it - once it’s done you’ll have to buy another computer.

You’ll more or less get what you pay for, basically. I don’t know what your time is worth but £200 for a PC to make money with doesn’t sound right.

[barryrs]

Thanks both.

I spend most of my time report writing these days so just hammering away on word with occasional CAD work.

My current PC is fine most of the time; however, if i have a number of programs open switching between them can be mildly frustrating when it has to think about it.

[Mr Pointy]

Congratulations for considering a refurb rather than spunking a grand on a new PC - it's a much more sensible use of money. Personally I'm a fan of the Dell Optiplex range as they are plentiful & very easy to work on. I'd say you need at least an 8th generation CPU so that's a 7060 but I would aim later until you hit your budget limit. Here's a Wiki link detailing which model has which CPU - look at 7070/7080/7090 for a start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_OptiPlex

I buy mine from ebay; just look for a seller with good feedback & with luck you might get a few months RTB warranty from them. Just be comfortable that it won't have 3 year onsite warranty & if it breaks you just buy another cheap one. PCs are disposable commodity items.

I like the Small Form Factor range but it does limit your choice of graphics cards to half height & not too many watts. Currently I'm running a 7010 with an i7 3770 CPU & a GeForce 730 (which cost me £12) which drives 2x 4K displays quite happily. Currently I'm running full AutoCad, Outlook, Excel, Teams,, seven instances of Firefox, Word & Chrome & it's not an issue. I did stuff it with 16Gb or RAM and an SSD. You don't need a 20th gen chip to run office programs, but it's true it's not a gaming or 3D rendering PC.

I'd suggest buying the RAM you need now as that's expensive but I wouldn't be too worried about an SSD - it's nice but you can add one easily & a lot of them will come with mSATA "drives" now - make sure that is big enough though. Here's two examples:

£149 for an i5 8th gen with 16Gb/512SSD in SFF chassis:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155936868816

£179 for a bigger chassis & 1TB M.2 SSD:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325915572400

Not much waaranty, but consider them disposable items. 7080s are probably double this to get a 10th gen CPU.

[wyson]

I agree with getting a refurb, but an 8th gen machine, I would not be buying ‘new’ to make money from, although that is the cut off for native Win 11 support.

I often get stuff here:
https://www.itcsales.co.uk/

As well as Dell’s own outlet.

Recently got the Mrs a XPS 2 in 1 (12th gen) from the Dell outlet and the Folio keyboard and XPS pen from itcsales.co.uk. Can’t tell the difference from new, and a good saving over retail. Over 50% saving on all items.

Retired her 8th gen machine because she uses it for work. Total false economy in my book to try and save a few hundred quid and then risk the same amount of cash through lost earnings because something stops working right. Its better to replace it in good time, on your terms, staying somewhat on top of the performance and reliability curves. Of course if it’s a machine that will sit in the corner and be used for checking emails now and again, that is different calculation, but for your main work machine?

Edited by wyson on Monday 11th December 16:54

[varsas]

240GB SSD is very tight, unless it/you have another drive you will also be using? Having everything on SSD will make more difference than a faster processor or even loads of RAM, depending exactly what you do in AutoCAD.

[dhutch]

What about a 3yo second hand ex-industry usb-c laptop (thinking Dell latitude) and usb-c dock.

This has become standard in the last two places I have worked as an engineer, runs CAD perfectly fine, two full size screens, keyboard, mouse, and you can take it with you as and when you want.

[JimJobs81]

Does Autocad not require a dedicated GPU? As notice you have posted integrated.

If not, then perhaps a laptop and a dock rather than a desktop. Gives you flexibility to work in different places.

Edited by JimJobs81 on Monday 11th December 15:24

[Mr Pointy]

JimJobs81 said:

Does Autocad not require a dedicated GPU? As notice you have posted integrated.

If not, then perhaps a laptop and a dock rather than a desktop. Gives you flexibility to work in different places.

Not necessarily, I ran it on the integral GPU in an i7 3700 before I installed a graphics card. Of course if you want to do complex 3D shading & modelling then yes you need a GPU but for many uses you don't.

[blackscooby]

Mr Pointy said:

Congratulations for considering a refurb rather than spunking a grand on a new PC - it's a much more sensible use of money. Personally I'm a fan of the Dell Optiplex range as they are plentiful & very easy to work on. I'd say you need at least an 8th generation CPU so that's a 7060 but I would aim later until you hit your budget limit. Here's a Wiki link detailing which model has which CPU - look at 7070/7080/7090 for a start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_OptiPlex

I buy mine from ebay; just look for a seller with good feedback & with luck you might get a few months RTB warranty from them. Just be comfortable that it won't have 3 year onsite warranty & if it breaks you just buy another cheap one. PCs are disposable commodity items.

I like the Small Form Factor range but it does limit your choice of graphics cards to half height & not too many watts. Currently I'm running a 7010 with an i7 3770 CPU & a GeForce 730 (which cost me £12) which drives 2x 4K displays quite happily. Currently I'm running full AutoCad, Outlook, Excel, Teams,, seven instances of Firefox, Word & Chrome & it's not an issue. I did stuff it with 16Gb or RAM and an SSD. You don't need a 20th gen chip to run office programs, but it's true it's not a gaming or 3D rendering PC.

I'd suggest buying the RAM you need now as that's expensive but I wouldn't be too worried about an SSD - it's nice but you can add one easily & a lot of them will come with mSATA "drives" now - make sure that is big enough though. Here's two examples:

£149 for an i5 8th gen with 16Gb/512SSD in SFF chassis:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155936868816

£179 for a bigger chassis & 1TB M.2 SSD:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325915572400

Not much waaranty, but consider them disposable items. 7080s are probably double this to get a 10th gen CPU.

I bought myself a Dell 7060 micro form factor that has an Intel 8500T in it. Stuck in 16Gb RAM with a 1TB M2 ssd and it runs 3 consecutive Virtual Machines, Kali, Centos running a dev website, and an Apple OSX VM just because.
To say it's a few years old, ex business machine off eBay I bought it for about £240 plus memory and an SSD.
OK you couldn't run games on it as it doesn't have the graphics capability, but as a daily machine that just sits there and runs Office365 and uses bugger all 'lecy it's bloody good.

Edited by blackscooby on Monday 11th December 16:24

[Funk]

I concur with the points on buying refurbished, however for a work tool that's making you money I would say the investment and peace of mind in a newer, supported PC which is still receiving security updates/patches is worthwhile. It's one thing if your games machine crashes occasionally and you lose progress on a level, however for work what you want is reliability and security. Buying new will also mean you should be able to claim VAT back and also write the cost of it off against tax etc.

You don't need to spend a fortune - you could get a decent Dell MFF with a 13th-gen i5-13500T CPU, 16Gb RAM (which could be upgraded for about £25 from Kingston/Crucial etc), a 512Gb SSD and a 3yr next-day onsite warranty for £550+VAT. Have a look at their Outlet kit which is usually pretty much unmarked and brand new but discounted as it may be open-box or returned etc (still comes with full warranty).

Sometimes it's absolutely the right thing to buy used but for something that could be business-critical isn't usually it.

[Road2Ruin]

Even less than that is available for new, if you know where to look.
https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-it-amd-ryzen-5-5600g-...

Add 32gb ram, 512gb nvne ssd, win 11, all for £380 + VAT. The Ryzen 5 chip is generally regarded as the best value chip available at the mo. Faster than most Intel chips and cheaper.

[Mr Pointy]

Funk said:

I concur with the points on buying refurbished, however for a work tool that's making you money I would say the investment and peace of mind in a newer, supported PC which is still receiving security updates/patches is worthwhile. It's one thing if your games machine crashes occasionally and you lose progress on a level, however for work what you want is reliability and security. Buying new will also mean you should be able to claim VAT back and also write the cost of it off against tax etc.

You don't need to spend a fortune - you could get a decent Dell MFF with a 13th-gen i5-13500T CPU, 16Gb RAM (which could be upgraded for about £25 from Kingston/Crucial etc), a 512Gb SSD and a 3yr next-day onsite warranty for £550+VAT. Have a look at their Outlet kit which is usually pretty much unmarked and brand new but discounted as it may be open-box or returned etc (still comes with full warranty).

Sometimes it's absolutely the right thing to buy used but for something that could be business-critical isn't usually it.

Anything later than a 7060 will run Windows 11 as it has an 8th gen CPU & a TPM. It's true you could pick up a new Dell but it's over 3x the cost & for basic Office stuff I'm not sure it's 3x better. The desktops are very solid little machines but of course having a backup is always good advice - I could use my laptop or my spare 7060 if this one failed.

[wyson]

https://www.itcsales.co.uk/acatalog/Dell-Optiplex-...

Less than £500 with 3 year onsite Dell warranty.

Assuming its got 4 RAM slots, spend £30 on another 16gb Ram, you got something with a 12th Gen chip, for about £500 with 3 years onsite support, that meets your specs.

Edited by wyson on Monday 11th December 16:39

[blackscooby]

blackscooby said:

I bought myself a Dell 7060 micro form factor that has an Intel 8500T in it. Stuck in 16Gb RAM with a 1TB M2 ssd and it runs 3 consecutive Virtual Machines, Kali, Centos running a dev website, and an Apple OSX VM just because.
To say it's a few years old, ex business machine off eBay I bought it for about £240 plus memory and an SSD.
OK you couldn't run games on it as it doesn't have the graphics capability, but as a daily machine that just sits there and runs Office365 and uses bugger all 'lecy it's bloody good.

Edited by blackscooby on Monday 11th December 16:24

The other thing I had to do on my MFF 7060 was replace the BIOS battery. Hardly a massive hardship.
Runs W11 Pro and I RDP to it from my work laptop most of the time. Totally silent too.
In my opinion a great little work horse. Obviously if you could get a newer one, then all the better.

[Funk]

Mr Pointy said:

Funk said:

I concur with the points on buying refurbished, however for a work tool that's making you money I would say the investment and peace of mind in a newer, supported PC which is still receiving security updates/patches is worthwhile. It's one thing if your games machine crashes occasionally and you lose progress on a level, however for work what you want is reliability and security. Buying new will also mean you should be able to claim VAT back and also write the cost of it off against tax etc.

You don't need to spend a fortune - you could get a decent Dell MFF with a 13th-gen i5-13500T CPU, 16Gb RAM (which could be upgraded for about £25 from Kingston/Crucial etc), a 512Gb SSD and a 3yr next-day onsite warranty for £550+VAT. Have a look at their Outlet kit which is usually pretty much unmarked and brand new but discounted as it may be open-box or returned etc (still comes with full warranty).

Sometimes it's absolutely the right thing to buy used but for something that could be business-critical isn't usually it.

Anything later than a 7060 will run Windows 11 as it has an 8th gen CPU & a TPM. It's true you could pick up a new Dell but it's over 3x the cost & for basic Office stuff I'm not sure it's 3x better. The desktops are very solid little machines but of course having a backup is always good advice - I could use my laptop or my spare 7060 if this one failed.

For sure; however it's not about 'being 3x better' or 'will it run Win11' though - in this situation we're talking about spending maybe a couple of hundred more for a new device with full warranty and support for 3 years (as well as firmware/BIOS updates) vs. say £250-350 for a refurb'd device that is already a generation or two out of date and warranty.

For home use - absolutely buy refurb, 3-4 year old ex-business machines are a good shout - however there's a reason a business got rid of them already and if you run a business that relies on IT then when you combine it with being able to claim back VAT and tax write-offs (where possible), the new device becomes even more appealing.

[ant1973]

I got a 13th Gen 15 16gb Ram 512gb NVME Inspiron 3020 for just over £300 on Dell's own outlet.

Worth checking it out.

[barryrs]

I went with a Dell Outlet laptop in the end as above as there is an additional 10% off so £383.40


Dell Outlet Inspiron 15 - 3520 Laptop
Intel Core 12th Generation i5-1235U Processor (10 Core, Up to 4.40GHz, 12MB Cache, 15W)
Windows 11 Home 64 bit
16GB (2X8GB) Up to 3200MHz DDR4 SoDIMM Non-ECC
1TB PCIe M.2 NVMe QLC Gen 4 Class 25 Solid State Drive
15.6 inch FHD (1920 x 1080) 120Hz Wide View Angle Anti-Glare 250-nits LED Backlit Non-Touch Narrow Border Display
Webcam with Microphone
Intel Iris Xe Graphics
Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 2x2 802.11ax
Carbon Black - LCD Back Cover (Non-Touch Screen)
3-Cell, 41 WHr Lithium Ion Battery

Thanks for all the comments.

[Funk]

That's a really good spec for the money, glad you're pleased - I've bought several from Dell Outlet over the years and they've all been great (hence the recommendation yesterday). When you compare that to some of the older refurbs the VFM proposition skews heavily in favour of the newer device - the one you've bought should see you good for a long while!