I’m not even sure those are the correct or preferred terms these days but my wife needs 3 new pcs for her office. She manages a small non profit organisation and they have a budget of £3k to spend. The main program they run is Sage, but apart from that most other stuff is internet/in browser based so I guess massive grunt or graphics capabilities aren’t required, although good ergonomics and nice displays are probably desirable.

Without blowing the whole budget (or leaving as much change as possible) could anyone recommend me a decent mid level workhorse PC with a reasonable display?

10 years ago I could have specced and built a 3d workstation from the ground up myself but being out of the loop for that long means I have no clue anymore as to whats what. Thanks in advance.

You could buy 3 X 3d workstations for 3k these days…

Pretty much anything will work for what it sounds like is required… but for long term robustness, I’d be looking at Dell outlet at their business machines.

Eg all in ones, 8gb, 256gb SSD, i5 etc 435+ vat

http://m.dell.com/h5/m/uk/SecondaryInventorySearch?p=%2FOnline%2FSecondaryInventorySearch.aspx%3Fc%3Duk%26cs%3Dukdfb1%26l%3Den%26s%3Ddfb%26sign%3DPXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%252fPR7UdbvuSsjjSSOAAT5hmK9HT2eXbq%252fTosnOjTTQb88PqG064nvkCnvO22ZnvNtsbiPGPCek%252bSc9Zc2NTuzJWCloY7MJjSp8QFNjbmudZw0nijJUnkHHQmvdqezLvjil85IevfzKsrpvxav2hNN0AZiW01Y3cLILydw8MKr5C8RubmYmalzh%252be6czsaVUebxmGqEtuWwyUXn60%252fQH4y4mRmI6TY%253d

Or 24″ 4k screen, dedicated graphics etc 635+ vat

http://m.dell.com/h5/m/uk/SecondaryInventorySearch?p=%2FOnline%2FSecondaryInventorySearch.aspx%3Fc%3Duk%26cs%3Dukdfb1%26l%3Den%26s%3Ddfb%26sign%3DPXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%252fPR7UdZsfQs0YvVt1seHbB7zcx3CHbpG%252fbHEAa8Ms4PVBWlKaSR9lkF1pOsOAb6Dfl2w3qTFGEKM3IllubY2HAvhRFCs2Gbc65e7uIt1ivK1t2XM%252b6%252bcGcXdzVSi%252f3l3LF857naRU1HqwO1mU85UIyq1CAaCZjTuancNayScQPbBNMTn%252f3Aa83hybzrtWGtAdxX9SC3vXgTuQsR17EL%252b2dLbL%252bazNryobgUVXNQ%253d%253d

Spoken in a Patrick Stewart voice..

Genuine question, what TF is a 3d workstation?

For doing 3d cad or 3d graphics work on

He didn’t mention cad, he said sage and general office duties.

3k for 3 PCs to run a Sage client and a web browser?  If you can find a PC that doesn’t meet those criteria you can have my bike.

Get something branded with a decent warranty, Dell Outlet as cp suggests or Lenovo.  Plenty of RAM, SSD is a nice to have.

Dell Optiplex is their business range (we run 7020’s here) but not really needed (useful for larger deployments where you need standard hardware for a long period etc.). Anyway, I’d budget £250-400 for the base unit and then get the monitor size/resolution you need (I’d personally get a 27″ monitor for accounting/spreadsheet work, possibly even dual monitors but then you will be nudging against the budget limit). Also make sure you factor in operating system and application software licences (MS Office isn’t cheap although you might want to look at an Office 365 subscription) you may already be covered for this though depending if you’re adding or replacing PCs.

Buy her something suitable for 500 quid then spend the rest on a bike.  😉

I’d be focusing on getting a good quality and decent sized monitor, probably two for that kind of application so she can leave her spreadsheet open while she does other stuff.

I’d be focusing on getting a good quality and decent sized monitor, probably two for that kind of application so she can leave her spreadsheet open while she does other stuff.

Me too as long as I can get a PC with an SSD.  Especially when entering lots of finance data it is useful to have that second screen

He didn’t mention cad, he said sage and general office duties

The point he was making is that, for his stated budget, he could get computers powerful enough to drive CAD programs, not that he should. You’re supposed to be able to infer from it that he can spend much less than 3k to get systems adequate for his more basic needs; or that his budget is in no way a restriction.

Any decent dell OptiPlex with a nice monitor or two, 8GB of RAM and an SSD

£3K would buy you a PC powerful enough to play Global Thermonuclear War.  Or even a game of Tic Tac Toe.

Dell are win really, price, decent quality, support. My personal PC is a Dell mini tower, can’t be bothered to build these days.

If you really wanted to spend 3K I’d get notebooks with docks and monitors/mice/keyboards so you can work from home a bit (or just be a bit more mobile) as an option.

https://www.ebuyer.com/817672-hp-280-g2-sff-desktop-pc-2ru52ea-abu

That plus a 24″ or 27″ screen that has speaker.

As a non-profit they can get Office365 cheap and could even get an Azure server free ($5000 annual donation).