Standard Setup?

[keyboards]

It's been so long since I've bought new equipment what size are people buying these days in my head I'm thinking

 

Classroom 22 monitor due to space on the desk

IT rooms and offices 24 IPS

 

Then I5 and 16GB roughly

[Cazab]

Well for the Trust I work for, they've gone for 21.5 inch Dell AiO's and 22-inch monitors for the Primary schools (slightly cheaper is the only reason I guess they'd do this) or the 23.8 inch Dell AiO's & 24 inch monitors for Secondary schools.

[3s-gtech]

The 'standard' spec we get now is:

 

22" monitor (1920x1080)

Core i5 / Ryzen 5

16GB RAM

512GB SSD

 

I certainly wouldn't spec lower if I can help it. Some of our newish machines have i3 with 8GB and they're a bit stingy - I'll have to buy RAM before they finish their lifecycle.

[kennysarmy]

i3 unless DT, Music or Computing then i5

16Gb RAM

256 SSD

 

22" student monitors

24" staff (more and more double setups - if not triple in finance!)

[PotNoodleTech]

For Pupil: i3/AMD 6 core 16GB ram 512GB NVME 22" 1080p tier 1 manufacturer only

 

For staff: same spec PC but with dual 24" 1080p for teachers and Dual 27" 1080p for SLT/support/admin staff.

[MatthewL]

i5 and 16GB minimum these days, laptop or desktop, 24" monitors, 500GB hard drive, upgraded to 1TB in areas where high traffic users due to profile size.

[CHiLL]

Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 (basically anything equivalent to 12th gen or newer)

8GB RAM for students and 16GB RAM for staff

22" 1080p displays

256GB SSD

[Jaan]

How you guys finding the AMDs over Intel? From both day to day and cost standpoint..... i'm a AMD user at home, #TEAMred .... But always used intel professionally for "compatibility"

[3s-gtech]

I don't have many AMD powered machines on the network, but many of our Azure joined sixth form laptops are Ryzen 3/4/5th gen and they're fine. No compatibility issues.

[PotNoodleTech]

I don't think there have been any "compatibility" issues for like the last 10 years.

 

If anything your more likely to have issues with intel currently.

 

My last 3 pcs at home have been AMD.

[jmak]

22" is damn small nowadays. Could you get bigger screens if you mounted them on arms? It is desk depth the limitation?

[steveg]

How you guys finding the AMDs over Intel? From both day to day and cost standpoint..... i'm a AMD user at home, #TEAMred .... But always used intel professionally for "compatibility"

 

Our last 2 batches of computers have been AMD based because of their very competitive price / performance. No issues at all.

[MatthewL]

We have a mix of AMD and Intel, there has never been any compatability issues. Ours is all down to cost at the time purchasing.

[DWilson1997]

Student Computer Rooms either i5/16GB/512SSD or i7/16GB/512SSD with a 24" IPS display

Student Laptops some i5/8GB/256SSD or i5/16GB/256SSD (all 16GB from now on)

Staff Surface i5/16GB/256 + E24" Docking monitor or 2x IPS Display with a docking station. Classrooms use wireless casting to an IWB.

 

Made the mistake last time of buying some staff devices at 8GB

[PotNoodleTech]

Made the mistake last time of buying some staff devices at 8GB

 

No biggie - Pick up some more RAM off amazon?

[DWilson1997]

No biggie - Pick up some more RAM off amazon?

RAM is soldered on, can't be upgraded

[Jaan]

Were currently;

 

student/teacher:

i5

8gb

256ssd

22"

 

offices

i7

8gb

256ssd

ultra wides

 

Just planning on going AMD, 16gb and 512SSD for all our windows 11 kit

[psydii]

12/13th gen i3 in the Photoshop/Illustrator suites has been absolutely fine.

 

256Gb nvme is too small in a OneDrive world unless you go Intune/shared device where magical things happen. (we've got 512 in all our media suites)

 

Photoshop/Illustrator classes do need 16Gb ram, but everywhere else is more than fine with 8Gb.

 

ML/AL/etc is allegedly the thing that kicks up specs, but ai cores are only on the higher end of Wintel CPUs so really that's moot. Probably more cost effective to go i3 equivalent, save between two to three hundred pounds and refresh after three years if it turns out AI-on-device is actually important for apps you need. If you go mid tier (i5 equivelent) you still don't get the AI cores, but you need to sweat out the assets to 5-7 (whisper it, even 10) to balance the budget, and then if AI really is important, you're 10 years behind the curve.

 

Oh and 24" screens are fab, but watch out some are extremely fragile (Philips), while others (IIyama - same spec, same price) are quite robust.

[jmak]

We have mostly won the battle to persuade users they don't need i7 and i9 processors by keeping i5s in stock. We mostly supply laptops and in real life, they're much happier with the longer battery life from the more efficient chip than the rarely used processing additional processing power.

 

Our standard build matches what most people have posted: i5, 16GB, 512SSD.

 

I do try to make sure we get a single 16GB RAM stick so that upgrades are cheaper and I have been specifying self-encrypting drives having read some articles about better performance and security for a few £s per unit.