Custom Made WIN 10 PC

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I have never bought a brand new PC “off the shelf” so to speak, most of my computers since Win 3.1 to XP have either been hand me downs or only had 1 ever had built for me from scratch-brand new-specific use, when XP first appeared.
Long time ago and I don’t know where that pc techy is today.

Has anyone got a link or has made their own PC using a “smorgasboard selection” method to build a tower-top personal use PC for WIN 10 ?

“smorgasboard selection” means, xzy CPU, and xyz mother board, etc etc, rather than what a retail outlets wants to supply.

It is not for games, not a game computer, but I need it robust and quick, minimal clutter

Thanks

PS
to illustrate an example, if it was a brand new car from the dealer, it would have most of the bells and whistles removed, windows replaced with a cages and a roll bar added with wider wheels, but not a NASCAR. Hope this makes sense

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I always build my own, it’s easy and fun.

My suggested starting point for a low cost but fast box would be:
Intel I5
8GB RAM
All in one USB3 mobo
120GB SSD
2TB HDD

Who is your preferred supplier? We can see what they have available and suggest.

cheers, Paul

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Building/upgrading is fun

The below are a few useful links, YouTube has plenty of HowTo videos as well. Budget, screen resolution and usage are probably most important. Noise/heat levels might also be important to you. Generally, Intel builds are more efficient but costly, their HD graphics is improving with each version. AMD builds are cheaper but require more power, their APU graphics are better.

http://pcpartpicker.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc
http://www.logicalincrements.com/

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

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Who is your preferred supplier? We can see what they have available and suggest.

cheers, Paul

I don’t have a supplier yet, still “pen to paper” design phase.

Thanks satrow, will check out the links.

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Primary use will be for large Excel VBA macro workbook/s and repetitious real-time web page query.

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Primary use will be for large Excel VBA macro workbook/s and repetitious real-time web page query.

Large Excel is CPU intensive afaik, so I wouldn’t bump down to i3. Go i7 if your budget stretches, or Xeon if you go for a separate graphics card for some reason. Xeon is i7 CPU performance for I5 price, as it lacks built-in graphics and can’t be over-clocked–so ‘minimal clutter’ as you asked. It runs cooler with less power draw, which aids your ‘robust’ requirement.

In addition to PCpartPicker, this might be useful:

A beginner’s guide to building a PC from scratch[/url]

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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… Xeon if you go for a separate graphics card for some reason. Xeon is i7 CPU performance for I5 price, as it lacks built-in graphics and can’t be over-clocked–so ‘minimal clutter’ as you asked. It runs cooler with less power draw, which aids your ‘robust’ requirement.

Not all XEONs lack the GPU component, of the current Skylake E3 xxxx V5 range, it’s 50:50.

Also, from Skylake on, they require motherboards based on Intel C232 or C236 chipsets – no longer are they compatible with the readily available consumer/enthusiast motherboards.

Excel might have been considered CPU-intensive when all we had were single core CPUs, nowadays it scales well across multiple cores/threads and I doubt whether a heavy Excel user would have more than an extra few minutes down time per day by using an i3 over an i5.

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You could save a bit by going to an i3-6100 CPU for that work load.

cheers, Paul

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To ensure that you get matched components, you can buy a motherboard bundle which contains the mobo, RAM, CPU and cooling fan. Its also often cheaper than going to disparate suppliers. eg.

https://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Bundles

I recommend that you get a screw-less tower as they make swapping components much easier and faster. Make sure that you get a PSU that will handle the load and don’t buy a cheap generic one, its a false economy as they tend to be unstable and unreliable.

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