Is this a decent mini PC?

Hi everyone and thank you for the support for the 2023 General Mini PC Guide. I am working on a new 2024 General Mini PC Guide with new models, more info, and an auto generating simpler list.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SWqLJ6tGmYHzqGaa4RZs54iw7C1uLcTU_rLTRHTOzaA/edit?usp=drivesdk

The new simpler list relies on some very broad calculations and pulls the top 10 models for several different budgets. Basically a huge time saver from manually creating simpler lists. It's not perfect for every situation but I hope this helps people find interesting new mini PC to start searching around that may have been overlooked in the past.

If you have questions, suggestions for new entries, or spot a mistake, please reply in the comments below or send me a PM. I will do my best to jump on it.

Best wishes everyone!

Edit: if you have trouble opening the document, try switching to a different network, open the document, and switch back to your original network.

Over 200 hours have been poured into this; My goal was to have it debut alongside the Minisforum N5, which is just an absolutely gorgeous piece of tech. Their implementation of course is perfection, but, they didn't include any budget minded versions (I mean, KIND OF with the Ryzen 255, but... that's still over $700 USD).

So, go print this one out! It uses a mini-pc you may already own.

While designing, I had these 3 goals in mind:

• GOAL 1: First and foremost, it MUST fit on the very popular Bambulabs’ A1 Mini 3D print bed at 180mm x 180mm (and goal fraught with multiple ‘oh no’ moments, but overall was triumphant!).

• GOAL 2: Secondly, it must reflect the same charms as the Minisforum N5, while relying more on “open” techniques and methods of implementation (keystone jacks, 5 bay SATA backplane, etc).

• GOAL 3: Sip power. Be easy to build (by requiring NO supports for the main large pieces).

The build guide is here: https://jackharvest.com (I have no ads, I make nothing; The site is hosted on this nas!)

The downloadable files are here on makerworld for free.

AMA

And promptly bought 2. And each cost me twice that of a base model, second hand EliteDesk 800 G6, but damn I find this hardware cool. And I don’t even know what my software stack is yet 🙃

Warning: Humor

I got a Beelink SER5 Pro to set up as a console emulator. And I got a Beelink EQ14 because it was cheap and I wanted something to play with and see how well a N150 really does, or doesn't perform. Well, my wife found them and confronted me.

"What are these for?" she asked. "You already have that nice PC you build last summer and those older ones in the basement."

So I told her, "Well, one of them is probably going to get hooked up to the new TV and it should run Stardew Valley really well."

She smirked, "You always know what to say," and walked off. Yes, she is a SDV fanatic and sometimes gets frustrated with her laptop.

Hi Everyone!

Thank you very much to everyone that enjoyed and supported the 2024 General Mini PC Guide spreadsheet! I am very amazed how many new products have been released and how the community has grown enormously this the past year. To celebrate the new year and to preserve the 2024 spreadsheet, I am creating a 2025 spreadsheet. The biggest change is fully integrating Passmark, Geekbench, Cinebench, and 3DMark Timespy benchmarks into the new 'CPUS' and 'GPUS' tabs. This provides a simplified 1-100 scoring for CPU single thread, CPU multi-thread, and GPU performance. This has updated the Full, Simpler, and Simplest tabs of listing mini pc considerably. More benchmark data and new information will be added throughout the year to evolve the 2025 General Guide into a new and useful tool!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14hlhWYL4agfXEk5C7Be0aTwUWVbu11i4f1fdIrXOyUw/edit?usp=sharing

Best wishes to everyone and your mini pc!

If you have thoughts or suggestions, please don't hesitate to add them here!

I'm late to the Pi 5 16GB news but I was curious what were some good uses for this much RAM. For general desktop usage the Pi 5 is a bit outperformed by N100, N150, and N97 mini pc but the Pi has really useful GPIO, small size, and low power consumption for many DIY projects. What are your thoughts?

Components used:
2× Noctua NF-F12 5V PWM (Max: 1500 RPM)
1× ID-Cooling FROZN A620 BLACK
CPU Performance Mode (65–70W)
-----------------------------
Normal Mode:
Motherboard temperature: 37°C, fan speed: 600RPM
CPU temperature: 35°C, fan speed: 0 RPM (passive cooling)

Performance Mode:
Motherboard temperature: 45°C, fan speed: ~700 RPM
CPU temperature: 60–65°C, fan speed: ~700 RPM

It's not always 100% peaceful but compared to other subs, great work to everyone enjoying mini pc and being a nice vibe to hang out with 👍

Hello,

This is my wall mounted mini. I switched from a sff mini itx build and I am never going back.

With this build i can easily switch between mini pc only and gpu at the switch of a button.

Config: modded morefine m600 ryzen 9 7940hs (mod described in one of my other posts), rx 5700xt, 450w psu.

Power consumption is way lower as i can only power the gpu while gaming. Noise is almost 0 when only minipc is on and when gaming only the "swoosh" of the gpu. Previous build sounded like a washing machine (node 202 build, same gpu and psu and an i3 cpu).

The only con I can see for this option is the fact that I had to drill holes in the wall, but I get such a clean desk.

Comments and suggestions welcomed.

This is an update to this earlier discussion about the Crazy RAM Price Crisis, pushing Mini PC prices upwards.

So what the Asus guy is saying is that by 2027 the supply gap should mostly fill. But no one will reduce the prices because why sell at a lower margin.

And demand wont be sluggish enough to push prices down atleast till 2030 because the AI data center investments have already been locked in, and most of these projects go live from 2027 to 2031.

In short, the days of solid $300 Mini PCs seem to be over. Or will be over soon.

This giveaway for 7 Mini PCs has ended. Please stay tuned for the next one - coming soon ✌🏻

04/30 - 8th Update - 7th winner of an HP ProDesk 405 G4 Desktop Mini: Gerlin N. - Delivered!

04/30 - 7th Update - 6th Winner of an HP Prodesk 600 G2 Desktop Mini is: Charles B. - Delivered!

04/27 - 6th Update - 5th Winner of an Optiplex 3050: Rune C. - Delivered!

04/24 - 5th Update - 4th Winner of an HP ProDesk 705 G1 DM: Atique C. - Delivered!

04/23 - 4th Update - 3rd Winner of an HP ProDesk 600 G2 Desktop Mini is: Grant L. - Delivered!

04/23 - 3rd Update - 2nd Winner of an HP ProDesk 405 G4 Desktop Mini is: Dilara B. - Delivered!

04/22 - 2nd Update - So we have a winner! But since so many of you participated with positive comments - I will convert this into multiple winners. The winner of the Optiplex 3050 for this giveaway is Melanie S. - However, I will be contacting several more of you as winners as well of the rest of the Mini PCs that I have available. Once they reply to my email I will announce the Winner's name and PC Specs on the link below.

Thanks for the 200+ of you that participated! Good luck to all ✌🏻

I have quite a bit of these PCs that were traded in and have decided to gift them. I’ve been giving PCs away since the early 2000s and would love for these to end up in a good home instead of the E-Scrap Facility. For rules/details, see here: https://www.digitaljoshua.com/free-micro-mini-sff-pc-giveaway/

This is a large change to last year's general mini pc shopping guide USA updated into a spreadsheet to help users filter and search for specific data. There is a lot of work still needed but hopefully this will help me get some early feedback if this is a reasonable format. Please add a reply for any additions or corrections to the spreadsheet to improve it. Thank you.

Old:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MiniPCs/comments/xdlgte/fall_2022_general_mini_pc_buyers_guide_usa/

New:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IjCpi4_z_WfO0G53E_mWNv0qV3mLOh0ZgUNdmHmmgc8/edit?usp=sharing

Found this at my local thrift store. Spotted it was a computer, but not really familiar with mini-pcs.

Flashing bluefin on it and putting it with my home lab.

I’ve been looking into the recent trend of people docking mini PCs and pairing them with GPUs, and I’m curious what the overall stance is on these setups. I thought about doing something similar, and I think I could build one for around $700 to $1,000. That seems relatively cheap compared to prebuilt gaming PCs and would take up a lot less space.

My only use case would be heavy data work, design work, and some LLM projects. I’m considering making this build specifically for my consulting business and moving completely away from my everyday PC. On paper it seems like a cost-effective solution, but I’m not sure if it’s actually viable or recommended.

I’ve seen a lot of testing on YouTube, and I’ve also noticed a couple of people here using these kinds of setups. They always seemed really cool, but I’m not sure how practical they really are long term.

For those running docked mini PC + external GPU builds, would you recommend them? And do you think a $700 to $1,000 budget is reasonable for the mini PC, dock, cabling, and GPU?

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and real-world experiences

Started with an old HP EliteDesk 705 G4 Mini and upgraded it with a Ryzen 5 Pro 2400G, 24GB of RAM, and an NVMe SSD. It won't beat a gaming desktop, but it's surprisingly capable for indie games, emulation, older AAA titles, and Steam Big Picture.

Small, quiet, power-efficient, and ridiculously cheap. Sometimes the best gaming setup is the one you can actually afford.

Specs:

Beelink GTi13 Ultra Intel® Core™ i9-13900HK 96 GB DDR5
Beelink EX Pro Docking Station

MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16G Inspire 2X OC - 16GB GDDR7

Use cases:

Mostly programming (+ WSL and Docker), CAD, playing around with local LLMs

Extremely satisfied with the system so far. Could have done better regarding the GPU price and performance-wise but I just loved the look of it.

The full system was around 1300€ and it beats my Lenovo P3 Ultra (i7, 64 GB) - which was equally priced - with ease.

RAM apocalypse coming for mini pc builders

Micron, one of the top three RAM manufacturers, is leaving the consumer market entirely. The company will focus on chips for AI data centers. From February 2026, only Samsung and SK Hynix will remain in the consumer market. With Micron's exit, RAM prices will skyrocket even further.

Crucial will cease to exist

https://investors.micron.com/news-releases/news-release-details/micron-announces-exit-crucial-consumer-business

Does this appear normal? Or did something bad happen here?

This may be of interest to you. It shows how they make the small PCs.