New desk top PC ???

[Blobber]

I know we have a few computer savvy folks on here and the question has probably been asked many times before but what spec do I want, there seems to be an endless choice of processors?? got a budget of £500 and only need the base, I dont "game" so its general PC stuff with photo storage and office type software, the only thing that may be useful is the ability to run some sort of CAD package at a later date

 

[Kayos]

CAD is very different to generic office and more like game spec

My work laptop is i5, 8gb ram, 14" screen and it runs the full Office suite, including Project and Visio fine. It does not run CAD

My engineers laptops have just been refreshed, i9, 32gb ram, discrete graphics and 17" screen they are CAD machines

 

[Martin45]

This might suit if you fancy building one yourself. It’s a quite informative watch even if you don’t build one. Well within your budget.

Best Value Ryzen PC Build:

I built one for my daughter. I never built one before. It’s a very straight forward build. It took a around three hours but I was taking it slowly. He’s very good at explaining and shows all the steps.

Processor, motherboard SSD and memory comes to £268 from Amazon UK.

The power supply I used was this https://www.amazon.co.uk/BN301-Syst...=1712568306&sprefix=b07v8rnch6,aps,162&sr=8-1

£77. There are plenty of other cheaper ones which would work fine but I wanted to avoid the Chinese generic ones and go with a known brand name. A smaller one would have worked fine. The wiring is easier on a semi integrated one as well.

Cases, any amount and any price. It’s for a micro ATX board. £20 upwards.

I put a 1TB hard disc in as well for more storage just because I had it spare.

It works really well. I’ll build another one for myself when my present one gives trouble.

 

[fizzy]

My brother and I were IT engineers for many years. We still keep our hand in and my brother is an avid gamer and must always have the best of everything.
We recently built some machines for our staff and have a few spare. If you are interested send me a pm. Can have one at cost which is around your budget.. Was going to stick them on Ebay.
AMD are the best value CPUs at the moment.
Make sure you get an M2 ssd.

 

[tigdlo]

I'm happy with my Ryzen 5 4600U laptop with no discrete graphics for basic 3D modelling in Onshape and Fusion 360, folded sheet metal, square tube assemlies, shafts, bearings, laying out electrical panels, importing 3D models that are normally available from manufacturers websites of things like motors, pumps, linear rail/bearings, electrical components, etc is fine with no noticable performance issues.

What CAD package are you interested in and what do you plan on doing?

 

[gaz1]

I know we have a few computer savvy folks on here and the question has probably been asked many times before but what spec do I want, there seems to be an endless choice of processors?? got a budget of £500 and only need the base, I dont "game" so its general PC stuff with photo storage and office type software, the only thing that may be useful is the ability to run some sort of CAD package at a later date

for me the base unit is not in the price
same with the power supply as its the main piece to run the system

Power Supplies from 650W to 850W | CCL

Our range of power supplies ranges from 650W to 850W and includes Modular Supplies, 80plus Cerfied Supplies and Fanless Supplies.

www.cclonline.com

cost of pc stuff at the moment is truely a rip off you will pay through the nose for a system

do your homework on parts usa get them before us so read the read ups first on the gear

do you need onboard graphics on your mainboard its handy but if your a gamer or photo editer its not needed as we normally buy a gcard instead

 

[Munkul]

A midrange i7 11th-gen onwards, and 16gb RAM, are enough for a lot of CAD work. You don't NEED a discrete card, it just helps.

Even my workstation laptop at work only has 16gb. Solidworks assemblies with 5000+ parts run just fine on it.
It also has a 6gb quadro graphics card, but honestly, the only time it ever gets a workout is when rendering, which I barely ever do any of.

I run solidworks on two laptops for myself - a Spectre 16 with i7-11390H and 4gb RTX 3050, and a Spectre 14 with i7-1255U and integrated graphics. Both with 16gb RAM. It's a bit smoother and quicker on the 16, understandably, as it's a much zippier processor, but it's not terrible on the 14 even running assemblies with hundreds of parts.

Once assemblies get too big or use too many configurations, it's more the software itself being inefficient than it is a hardware problem.

That's my experience anyway. I only really use Solidworks and Fusion 360 these days so no experience of inventor, NX etc.

Anyway my conclusion is, get an i7/equivalent from the last few generations, and 16gb ram, and it'll work just fine.

M.2 SSD definitely preferred, it's a nice step up in speed over a SATA SSD!

 

[Blobber]

My brother and I were IT engineers for many years. We still keep our hand in and my brother is an avid gamer and must always have the best of everything.
We recently built some machines for our staff and have a few spare. If you are interested send me a pm. Can have one at cost which is around your budget.. Was going to stick them on Ebay.
AMD are the best value CPUs at the moment.
Make sure you get an M2 ssd.

Thanks for the offer, can you PM me some specs please?

I'm happy with my Ryzen 5 4600U laptop with no discrete graphics for basic 3D modelling in Onshape and Fusion 360, folded sheet metal, square tube assemlies, shafts, bearings, laying out electrical panels, importing 3D models that are normally available from manufacturers websites of things like motors, pumps, linear rail/bearings, electrical components, etc is fine with no noticable performance issues.

What CAD package are you interested in and what do you plan on doing?

No idea on a CAD package yet just trying to future proof myself!

A midrange i7 11th-gen onwards, and 16gb RAM, are enough for a lot of CAD work. You don't NEED a discrete card, it just helps.

Even my workstation laptop at work only has 16gb. Solidworks assemblies with 5000+ parts run just fine on it.
It also has a 6gb quadro graphics card, but honestly, the only time it ever gets a workout is when rendering, which I barely ever do any of.

I run solidworks on two laptops for myself - a Spectre 16 with i7-11390H and 4gb RTX 3050, and a Spectre 14 with i7-1255U and integrated graphics. Both with 16gb RAM. It's a bit smoother and quicker on the 16, understandably, as it's a much zippier processor, but it's not terrible on the 14 even running assemblies with hundreds of parts.

Once assemblies get too big or use too many configurations, it's more the software itself being inefficient than it is a hardware problem.

That's my experience anyway. I only really use Solidworks and Fusion 360 these days so no experience of inventor, NX etc.

Anyway my conclusion is, get an i7/equivalent from the last few generations, and 16gb ram, and it'll work just fine.

M.2 SSD definitely preferred, it's a nice step up in speed over a SATA SSD!

Thats nice too have some real world experience and gives me something to go on, boy the stuff has got expensive since I last bought anything!

I am trying not to build anything from scratch, I dont have the time or will power for that techie stuff it will be a struggle enough getting all the other info swapped over and the "plug and play" stuff