Need advice - new home PC

[ranger]

Situation: Current home PC - generic HP desktop - is about 6 years old and I am considering a replacement.
1) Black Friday sales opportunity - discounts through employer for Dell, HP, Lenovo - cheaper is better, think police tradein G22 vs custom 1911
2) Prefer desktop vs laptop - have work laptop plus iPad
3) Do not game
4) Primary use - cruising PF and searching for powder/primers
5) Secondary use - light business use for consulting
6) Have monitor, keyboard, mouse, camera, etc. - just need new desktop
7) Size not a concern
8) Will never upgrade except maybe add more RAM
9) Have copies of MS Office I can load
10) I have multiple external backup memory drives I can plug in.

So,
1) What "chip" speed, etc. minimum - I am fine with AMD
2) How much RAM
3) 128 or 256 SSD or 1TB
4) Shared graphics or dedicated graphic card
5)?

[spinmove_]

Situation: Current home PC - generic HP desktop - is about 6 years old and I am considering a replacement.
1) Black Friday sales opportunity - discounts through employer for Dell, HP, Lenovo - cheaper is better, think police tradein G22 vs custom 1911
2) Prefer desktop vs laptop - have work laptop plus iPad
3) Do not game
4) Primary use - cruising PF and searching for powder/primers
5) Secondary use - light business use for consulting
6) Have monitor, keyboard, mouse, camera, etc. - just need new desktop
7) Size not a concern
8) Will never upgrade except maybe add more RAM
9) Have copies of MS Office I can load
10) I have multiple external backup memory drives I can plug in.

So,
1) What "chip" speed, etc. minimum - I am fine with AMD
2) How much RAM
3) 128 or 256 SSD or 1TB
4) Shared graphics or dedicated graphic card
5)?

Since you’re buying pre-built, then it’ll most likely be Intel. If you’ve got a choice, AMD’s Zen 2 and Zen 3 architecture is definitely the way to go. For what you’re using it for, I’d go Ryzen 5 3600X (Zen 2) or 5600X (Zen 3). 16GB of RAM should be sufficient for your uses for the next 6 years. Since you’re not doing anything heavy duty you shouldn’t have to worry about running DDR4-3200 vs DDR4-2133. Get a 256-500GB SSD for your OS drive. Additional storage can be whatever you need it to be as determined by your storage requirements, I’d need more info on that for a recommendation. Integrated graphics should be fine unless you're gaming or doing CAD work.

[RoyGBiv]

What are the specs on your current PC?

IMO, the best upgrade I made to my older (>5 years) desktop was swapping the HDD for an SSD. I was thinking about upgrading, but after adding some RAM and swapping to the SSD, I quit looking. SSD was a huge performance upgrade. I do a lot of MS Office and some CAD. CAD was slow with the HDD but much improved with the SSD and some RAM.

Lots of refurbished units around that will do what you need them to do for low cost..
Example: https://www.newegg.com/lenovo-thinkc...1VK-0003-0FBP6

ETA: https://www.techbargains.com/search?search=desktop

[randyho]

Do you need office?

[ranger]

Current PC:
Windows 10 Home
AMD AB-5500 APU, 3.20 GHZ
24 GB RAM (I put in all I could cram in)
1 TB

Maybe I am ok?
Add SSD?

[ranger]

Do you need office?

I am preparing for full retirement - suspect I should have a form of OFFICE in case I do some consulting. I have MS 10 disc. Definitely do not plan on Office 365 unless business demands.

[Andy T]

For your stated purpose, the current PC seems OK. Are you experiencing any slowdowns or just want something new?
The only thing I would consider is a 1GB SSD for the main drive.
If you decide to buy, something with an SSD and at least 16GB RAM for about $500-600 should be good.

[RJ]

I'd just pick the cheapest name-brand Black Friday windoze box you can find?

From your use case, just about anything remotely "current" will be a step up. Sure, more RAM is good. More storage is of course better. (I saw a 5T backup drive at Costco the other day; wowsers.)

Ditto @RoyGBiv on the SSD, you'll notice the difference (solid state disk is faster, there's no physical platter to spin up/keep spinning, no optical head to control).

What would you need a dedicated graphics card for? Not a problem, just curious.

[RJ]

Add SSD?

Yep.

[md8232]

FWIW Apple dropped a new Mac Mini today.
https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/