Question Build or buy prebuilt - Need 3 PCs for our office

In2Photos · May 20, 2025

I have 3 PCs that I need to replace in our office. They are all Windows 10 machines and as we all know support is ending on October. Only one of them might actually upgrade to Windows 11 without some sort of workaround (PC2). I'm debating on buying prebuilts or building all 3. Here's what we have.

PC1-Office Work (getting a little slow and having trouble with some Adobe products)
i5-7400, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, integrated graphics

PC2-CAD Work (Works fine for the most part)
i5-8400, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, R5 220 GPU

PC3-File Server (Also works fine, nothing really going on here other than serving files and doing backups locally and off site)
AMD A8-7600, 8GB RAM, Integrated Graphics, Multiple drives

As you can see we don't really need the most demanding PCs. Even our CAD work is 2D, mostly mapping type drawings. Occasionally we get slowed down importing some images or other large files, but for the most part it works just fine. I was debating on trying to clone the existing drives to the new machine and then perform the upgrade to make the migration easier, but these PCs are all 7-8 years old and the Windows installs are at least that old so maybe not carrying over any "issues" to the new PCs is a good idea.

There aren't many prebuilts with AMD processors and there is no way in hell I'm buying something with an Intel 13/14 Gen. Microcenter does have this one with a R7 7745 Pro, 32GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD for $720 that would be more than enough for the Office and Fileserver. I had thought about something with a little more horsepower for the CAD machine, but there really isn't anything. At $1000 you can get an R7 7700 and faster RAM (6000 vs 4800), but the rest is about the same and the performance difference between the 7745 and 7700 isn't much. The next step up is $1400 for a 7950X3D and 2TB SSD (and RGB fans that I don't need for an office PC). But I could swap the 7745 for a 9900X ($360 if the prebuilt will handle it) and still be cheaper. Or I could just build it. I think I can do a 7700 build for around the $700 mark and the 9900 for about $900.

Thoughts?

In2Photos · May 20, 2025

Here's the build if I build them myself.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Familyman_19/saved/rFVvbv

For the CAD machine I would maybe opt for the 9900X bundle from Microcenter instead which would add about $150 and uses the MSI X670E Tomahawk mobo.

tcsenter · May 21, 2025

Bro the fastest machine there is the i5-8400 it is not hard at all to improve on that. e.g. an i5-12400 would be double the performance. Buy a couple-few of these and toss in some more RAM:

Lenovo IdeaCentre 5 14IAB7 (upgradeable to i7-12700 non-K - full specs psref)

No reason to avoid the mid-tier non-K models from 12/13th gen, particular the OEM machines that don't max out their turbo core and power limits.

Brand new with much faster i5-14400 and DDR5, from Lenovo on Ebay - $500 free ship:

IdeaCentre Tower 14IRR9 (upgradeable to i7-14700 non-K - full specs psref)

tcsenter · May 21, 2025

Geekbench Multi-Core scores:

i5-8400 - 4835

i5-14400 - 11039

In2Photos · May 21, 2025

tcsenter said:
Bro the fastest machine there is the i5-8400 it is not hard at all to improve on that. e.g. an i5-12400 would be double the performance. Buy a couple-few of these and toss in some more RAM:

Lenovo IdeaCentre 5 14IAB7 (upgradeable to i7-12700 non-K - full specs psref)

No reason to avoid the mid-tier non-K models from 12/13th gen, particular the OEM machines that don't max out their turbo core and power limits.

Brand new with much faster i5-14400 and DDR5, from Lenovo on Ebay - $500 free ship:

IdeaCentre Tower 14IRR9 (upgradeable to i7-14700 non-K - full specs psref)

Don't want to go the refurb route. As you can see we use these for a long time and I'd just rather go new and not have to try and justify a refurb. The new 14400 isn't a bad deal, but by the time I upgrade the RAM I'm creeping up to the price I can build one ( a 7700X with GB score of 15551) and get much better components. And no bloatware to deal with. It would have to be a really good deal I think to go pre-built after seeing what I can build one for.

crashtech · May 21, 2025

In2Photos said:
Here's the build if I build them myself.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Familyman_19/saved/rFVvbv

For the CAD machine I would maybe opt for the 9900X bundle from Microcenter instead which would add about $150 and uses the MSI X670E Tomahawk mobo.

I don't see any problem with this, though for your use case I might just look for a deal on a non-X CPU that comes with its own cooler, you shouldn't need more than that. Even a hex-core should be plenty, if I understand what is needed. The CAD PC being the exception of course.

In2Photos · May 21, 2025

crashtech said:
I don't see any problem with this, though for your use case I might just look for a deal on a non-X CPU that comes with its own cooler, you shouldn't need more than that. Even a hex-core should be plenty, if I understand what is needed. The CAD PC being the exception of course.

The Microcenter bundles only have the X variants and the pricing on them is so good that adding a $20 cooler is still cheaper. The 7700X in the bundle pricing is $168. Even the 7600 non-X is $180.

crashtech · May 21, 2025

In2Photos said:
The Microcenter bundles only have the X variants and the pricing on them is so good that adding a $20 cooler is still cheaper. The 7700X in the bundle pricing is $168. Even the 7600 non-X is $180.

Ah, that explains a lot. My Pcpartpicker login excludes Microcenter since they are exclusive to select geographical areas. I thought the price you had listed was a deal that had expired, but if that is what you can buy them for today, it seems as if you are pretty well set.

manly · May 21, 2025

Gray market Windows licenses? Otherwise, DIY is unlikely to save any money.

For work PCs, I'd rather buy than build. As alluded to above, Intel's lower tier 13th/14th Gen CPUs are actually rebadged Alder Lake LOL.

As the cliche goes, time is money.

In2Photos · May 21, 2025

manly said:
Gray market Windows licenses? Otherwise, DIY is unlikely to save any money.

For work PCs, I'd rather buy than build. As alluded to above, Intel's lower tier 13th/14th Gen CPUs are actually rebadged Alder Lake LOL.

As the cliche goes, time is money.

Yes on the license. Sucks that you can't buy OEM licenses anymore from retail shops.

No matter what I have to spend time setting up the PCs and that will be weekend work. As part owner and the one that handles the tech, it's the only time I can get it done and reduce down time. I enjoy the PC building though so it isn't all bad. And if building a better PC keeps me from having to troubleshoot down the road even better. We have had pretty good luck with pre-builts though. The 3 being replaced are an Acer, a Dell, and a Lenovo.

tcsenter · May 21, 2025

In2Photos said:
Don't want to go the refurb route. As you can see we use these for a long time and I'd just rather go new and not have to try and justify a refurb. The new 14400 isn't a bad deal, but by the time I upgrade the RAM I'm creeping up to the price I can build one ( a 7700X with GB score of 15551) and get much better components. And no bloatware to deal with. It would have to be a really good deal I think to go pre-built after seeing what I can build one for.

Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 5600 (PC5 44800) JEDEC 1.1V - $78 delivered

So it brings the grand total to ~$1750 for three PCs and you're done! Also comes with meeses and keyboards I think?

Clean install is no issue, you'll be doing it anyway with BYO.

In2Photos · May 21, 2025

tcsenter said:
Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 5600 (PC5 44800) JEDEC 1.1V - $78 delivered

So it brings the grand total to ~$1750 for three PCs and you're done! Also comes with meeses and keyboards I think?

Clean install is no issue, you'll be doing it anyway with DIY.

If I go the pre-built route I would probably go with this one since I can get it locally at Microcenter. It's a Dell with the same specs, $50 more. https://www.microcenter.com/product/691568/dell-inspiron-3030-desktop-computer

And they have the same RAM kit - https://www.microcenter.com/product...annel-desktop-memory-kit-ct2k16g56c46u5-black

Now if I go that route I might take the old 8400 and repurpose it for the server since I don't really need much horsepower for that one. Plus it has enough room for the drives I need to install. These new pre-builts don't seem like they want you to install any extra drives.

tcsenter · May 21, 2025

And good grief give that CAD machine a MASSIVE gpu upgrade over that R5 220 OEM? e.g.

Dell Nvidia Quadro P620 2GB GDDR5 4x Mini DP - $36.00!

Like 5x more performant and supports decoding newer codecs in hardware e.g. H.265 and VP9.

In2Photos · May 21, 2025

tcsenter said:
And good grief give that CAD machine a MASSIVE gpu upgrade over that R5 220 OEM? e.g.

Dell Nvidia Quadro P620 2GB GDDR5 4x Mini DP - $36.00!

Like 5x more performant and supports decoding newer codecs in hardware e.g. H.265 and VP9.

I honestly don't remember why we put that in there. I don't remember if we had trouble with the iGPU or just did it for additional monitor output. I don't think hardware acceleration is even turned on in CAD.

tcsenter · May 23, 2025

Memorial Day sales are coming up, too. Might find a good sale price on something.

tcsenter · May 30, 2025

What did you decide? Inquiring minds want to know....

In2Photos · May 30, 2025

tcsenter said:
What did you decide? Inquiring minds want to know....

Nothing yet. There were no real sales for Memorial Day weekend and I'm going to be out of town for the next week or so. I'm leaning towards the Inspiron with the 14400 for the office PC, and possibly the Powerspec unit with a 7700X for the CAD machine.

Sgraffite · May 30, 2025

I replaced all my PCs with mini and small form factor PCs. What CAD do you use? I have been running Fusion 360 on a Ryzen 9 HX 370.

For office work a previous gen mini PC would work great and they go on sale fairly often. This is a decent deal:

https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-PCle4-0-Computer-Support-Display/dp/B0DKF15XQJ/ref=sr_1_3?sr=8-3

Ken g6 · Jun 1, 2025

If I were you I'd try replacing the file server by taking one of your existing machines and installing TrueNAS on it. But I'm not sure how comfortable you are with non-Windows OSes.

In2Photos · Sunday at 7:34 AM

Sgraffite said:
I replaced all my PCs with mini and small form factor PCs. What CAD do you use? I have been running Fusion 360 on a Ryzen 9 HX 370.

For office work a previous gen mini PC would work great and they go on sale fairly often. This is a decent deal:

https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-PCle4-0-Computer-Support-Display/dp/B0DKF15XQJ/ref=sr_1_3?sr=8-3

I'm not a huge fan of the mini PCs. Even for office work. Now it could just be that the ones I've used in the past were way underpowered but they always seemed slow to me, even doing light tasks.

Ken g6 said:
If I were you I'd try replacing the file server by taking one of your existing machines and installing TrueNAS on it. But I'm not sure how comfortable you are with non-Windows OSes.

I actually thought about using unRAID at one point. I have unRAID at home. But I would be the only that knows anything about it. At least with Windows I can talk one of our office employees through something if I'm in the field and can't remote into it at the moment which has happened before.

crashtech · Sunday at 11:18 AM

In2Photos said:
I'm not a huge fan of the mini PCs. Even for office work. Now it could just be that the ones I've used in the past were way underpowered but they always seemed slow to me, even doing light tasks...

They've changed a lot in recent years, moving forward if you need an office PC and a mini would help save space, you might want to give one a try. In the last 5 or so years in particular, minis really have entered the realm of "good enough," more than good enough if you get, say an 8 core with plenty of RAM an an NVMe drive, you'd be hard pressed to tell it wasn't a full size PC for office work and browsing.

P.S. Only talking about units with real CPUs, not glorified mobile phones!

tcsenter · Sunday at 4:07 PM

SFF is the smallest I go unless space is some kind of super premium. The mini-PC just too thermally restricted and no expansion (or extremely limited).

tcsenter · Sunday at 10:42 PM

RE: graphics card for professional workstation, since you had AMD in there, if you preferred AMD I picked up one of these a few weeks ago and it is faster than Quadro P620 (I have a couple), for similar price ~$45

Radeon Pro WX 3200 - 4GB GDDR5

But you give up the VP9 hardware decoding that Quadro P620 supports.

Sgraffite · Monday at 11:51 AM

tcsenter said:
SFF is the smallest I go unless space is some kind of super premium. The mini-PC just too thermally restricted and no expansion (or extremely limited).

In my experience they are not thermally restricted. I can run the CPU at 100% for hours on end without it throttling.

In2Photos · Tuesday at 1:56 PM

Microcenter had some decent pricing for the PowerSpec units so I went ahead and picked up 2 machines. Installing software on them now and will do some testing before putting them in use.

Office PC - B736 $599.99 (back to $749.99 now)
R5 7600X
16GB DDR5-6000
1TB NVME
650W PSU
Win 11 Pro

CAD PC - B737 $719.99 (back to $899.99 now)
R7 7700X
32GB DDR5-6000
1TB NVME
650W PSU
Win 11 Pro

I planned to add another 16GB of RAM to the office PC by picking up a matching stick, but it looks like the G Skill RAM they use is a special part number and only sold in pairs in the DIY segment. Here's the part number on the stick: f56000j3238f16gx1rs5k Searching on Google only brings up the 2 stick kit. WTF. A 32GB Kit will run about $80. By the time I do that I might as well paid another $40 for the 7700X. Might run it at 16GB for now and keep looking for a matching stick. Also just noticed the RAM isn't even EXPO, it's XMP.

Question Build or buy prebuilt - Need 3 PCs for our office

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