Boss Build

[Jeremy C]

So my boss asked me to come up with a system for him.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Productivity - Office 2013, web surfing, probably video watching.
2) What's your budget? $800-900 complete
3) Which country do you live in? US, AZ
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? Scratch build: Case, PSU, Mobo, CPU, RAM, GPU, HDD, KB+M, Monitors (two), OS
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? none
6) Will you be overclocking? no
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it? 2X 1920X1080
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? within the next few weeks
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? Potentially onboard video, possible wi-fi (not needed)
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? Will be purchasing

On to the details: My boss is looking for a decent system to use at home. He doesn't seem interested in gaming, but hasn't thought about using his pc for gaming prior (so it might be in the back of his head). However, his stated main goals is a snappy production machine. I tooled around the Egg last night and came up with:

2X Acer S220HQLAbd Black 21.5" 5ms LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor: $219.98
AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Socket FM2+ Desktop Processor +
HyperX Fury Black Series 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) +
Western Digital Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB +
Rosewill LINE-M Micro-ATX Mini Tower Computer Case +
ASUS A55BM-E Micro ATX AMD Motherboard +
Rosewill ARC M450 Continuous 450W@40 C degree Power Supply $374.99 (combo deal)
Kingston SSDNow V300 Series SV300S37A/120G 2.5" SSD $74.99
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit $99.99
ASUS DVD-Writer Black SATA Model DRW-24F1ST $19.99
Cheap 2.1 speakers $43.99
Cheap KB+M $20

Total $833.93

My thoughts is that the onboard video should be enough to handle most anything he could throw at it, but I'm not familiar with AMD systems and the top thread in the AMD forum is all about how quirky this particular chip is.

Anyone able to come up with something better in the price range? I was also thinking I might toss an old GTX 285 or GTX 260 that I have laying around in instead of relying on the APU and giving me more options.

This will be my first build for someone I work with that's higher up the chain than I, so I want to make sure I get this right the first time.

 

[gathagan]

Given your last comment, I'd suggest an i5-4460 and an Asus H81M-K LGA over the AMD units.
The Intel will run cooler, and short of side-by-side benchmarks, you're not going to be able to see a difference between the two clock speeds (3.2 vs 3.7).
For the usage model you describe, I'd be surprised if you needed anything more than a dual core, let alone a quad core or higher.
I'd also consider a WD1003FZEX over the WD10EZEX, for no other reason than the extra 3 years of warranty that the additional $20 gives you.

 

[silk186]

I second an Intel recommendation.
I would also go for a larger SSD in favor or dropping the HDD.
If he didn't use that space before he won't use it now.
You could build him a very slip system with an ITX and SSD. maybe mound it on the back of one of the screens like an Intel NUC.

 

[Dangman]

Ditch that SSD for sure: Kingston can't guarantee that you'll get what was actually tested by reviewers around the web. As such, you may end up with significantly less performance than you may expect. I recommend this SSD instead:
$110 - Crucial MX100 256GB SSD