Anyone using a Mini PC ?
Discussion
I kicked my desktop out as it tended to make too much noise, use too much space and use to much electricity.
I replaced it with a Raspberry Pi 400, then more recently a PI 5 8GB which is much better but I do sometimes fancy something that can do a bit of gaming but not bringing the desktop back in.
So, Windows Mini PCs seem to have come on leaps and bounds, will get £100 for the Pi and can add to my budget up to maybe a total of £700 for a decently powerful Mini PC, may also let the desktop go as it sits there never getting switched on.
Will be on a single 26 inch 1080P monitor for now.
Looking at the Beelink ones, thinking something with a Ryzen CPU with some built in graphics, 32 GB of ram and dont need massive storage really, but may as well get 1TB or so.
Anything to look out for ?
I replaced it with a Raspberry Pi 400, then more recently a PI 5 8GB which is much better but I do sometimes fancy something that can do a bit of gaming but not bringing the desktop back in.
So, Windows Mini PCs seem to have come on leaps and bounds, will get £100 for the Pi and can add to my budget up to maybe a total of £700 for a decently powerful Mini PC, may also let the desktop go as it sits there never getting switched on.
Will be on a single 26 inch 1080P monitor for now.
Looking at the Beelink ones, thinking something with a Ryzen CPU with some built in graphics, 32 GB of ram and dont need massive storage really, but may as well get 1TB or so.
Anything to look out for ?
I have a Minisforum M1 with i5 and iGPU, 32GB RAM etc
I picked it up for about £450 before RAM prices went mental
It's a very capable little thing, I currently use it on an away-from-home desktop setup, but might repurpose it at some point to run a few headless workloads with a hypervisor (I currently have Home Assistant, Plex and various other things running on a NUC but this is better)
Be warned though its not silent under any reasonable load - my main workstation is a big Dell workstation with 2 Quadro cards in it and that's much quieter generally. Small fans tend to be noisier. If you want something genuinely quiet I'd look for a mini PC in a passively cooled case.
I picked it up for about £450 before RAM prices went mental
It's a very capable little thing, I currently use it on an away-from-home desktop setup, but might repurpose it at some point to run a few headless workloads with a hypervisor (I currently have Home Assistant, Plex and various other things running on a NUC but this is better)
Be warned though its not silent under any reasonable load - my main workstation is a big Dell workstation with 2 Quadro cards in it and that's much quieter generally. Small fans tend to be noisier. If you want something genuinely quiet I'd look for a mini PC in a passively cooled case.
I've got a Beelink SER8 Ryzen™ 7 8845HS having come from an older Intel NUC. I don't do much stressful on it at all but so far has only had the one issue. That issue was an AMD driver update which caused the machine to lockup and reboot but fortunately was easy enough to find about and Beelink had issued a firmware update to fix the problem and it's been fine against since.
I always do a fresh Windows install when I get a new Windows machine and I had to request a valid Windows key off them as it was shipped seemingly with a standard cloned image. There was no hassle getting it though, they were quick with a response and gave me a fully working key.
My only criticism would be that the system drivers aren't always easy to find on their website, so when you do find them bookmark the URL.
Happy with mine though, purchased 28th August 2025 and had been faultless prior to me updating the video driver. It's much quieter than my much older Intel NUC too.
I always do a fresh Windows install when I get a new Windows machine and I had to request a valid Windows key off them as it was shipped seemingly with a standard cloned image. There was no hassle getting it though, they were quick with a response and gave me a fully working key.
My only criticism would be that the system drivers aren't always easy to find on their website, so when you do find them bookmark the URL.
Happy with mine though, purchased 28th August 2025 and had been faultless prior to me updating the video driver. It's much quieter than my much older Intel NUC too.
This company has a nice selection of mini PCs and offer excellent service. I got a Ryzen 5 mini PC from them last year and have been very happy with it. Rock solid and boots up in seconds (all their PCs come with zero bloatware).
https://www.vjmcomputers.co.uk/?campiagn=brand&...
https://www.vjmcomputers.co.uk/?campiagn=brand&...
I bought an HP G3 Mini from 2018 or 2019 for £80. I use Linux on it but it came with Windows 11, which seemed to run OK for the half an hour or so that I tested it. I was going to get a Pi but prices went up and they are now around £300 for a 16GB board, which is too much. I'll probably move the mini PC downstairs and use it as a media PC and get a laptop of the same age as desktop replacement.
If your full size PC tower was "too noisy" when gaming with its multiple big fans then you'll hate gaming on a mini PC with a single tiny fan in a compact box. As mentioned above, quiet they are not when you give them a load.
This video is probably worth 9 minutes of your time : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9qxvO-MVGQ
This video is probably worth 9 minutes of your time : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9qxvO-MVGQ
Edited by Tisy on Wednesday 5th August 22:30
If doing some occasional gaming is the main reason for upgrading, you are looking at a system that isn't well balanced. It's like pairing a new high end CPU and RAM with your old mid-range graphics card from 7 years ago.
What are you doing with the PC? Only very graphically intensive modern games recommend 32GB RAM.
Just a thought, perhaps you could rebuild your old tower into a compact case and position it somewhere unobtrusive. My media centre PC sits under a table 10ft away from the TV.
What are you doing with the PC? Only very graphically intensive modern games recommend 32GB RAM.
Just a thought, perhaps you could rebuild your old tower into a compact case and position it somewhere unobtrusive. My media centre PC sits under a table 10ft away from the TV.
Main reason is compatibility and familiarity, will maybe play the occasional game but the main reason is though the Pi is great its performance is marginal for some tasks and I dont have the knowledge or inclination to mess about in Linux, I am fairly proficient but have no real interest in getting more into it, just want a machine that works and I dont have to drag my old laptop out for certain stuff.
The PI 5 is brilliant but certain things it struggles with, its nearly there as a desktop replacement, but not quite so that will get sold and go towards the new one.
Had the Pi, and a Pi 400 for like 5/6 years, so just thinking will, now I can afford it, upgrade to something a bit less compromised.
Gaming wise, its only on a 1080P monitor so not that demanding, have my desktop in its own little room that I never go in, I sit next to this working all day so think its worth the upgrade.
The PI 5 is brilliant but certain things it struggles with, its nearly there as a desktop replacement, but not quite so that will get sold and go towards the new one.
Had the Pi, and a Pi 400 for like 5/6 years, so just thinking will, now I can afford it, upgrade to something a bit less compromised.
Gaming wise, its only on a 1080P monitor so not that demanding, have my desktop in its own little room that I never go in, I sit next to this working all day so think its worth the upgrade.
I've got a Beelink, but it's only used for Home Assistant, not Windows. It's been running 24/7 for 18 months with no problems.
My "desktop" is a Mac Mini. Good blend of performance and silence. Current pricing is pretty good when compared with other Mini PCs. The generic stuff has gone up massively in price recently, while Apple seem to have held their prices?
My "desktop" is a Mac Mini. Good blend of performance and silence. Current pricing is pretty good when compared with other Mini PCs. The generic stuff has gone up massively in price recently, while Apple seem to have held their prices?
Bought a Beelink SER8, 32 GB ram with a TB of storage, got it sat and wired it in, made a bracket to put it under the desk and leave space for cooling.
Am very impressed, doesnt feel like some weedy not quite a pc, zips along nicely, got it set up on two monitors and I downloaded Cyberpunk 2077 as it was on offer for £14.99 on Steam and it runs pretty well, maybe a little tweaking to do but its perfectly playable.
My Desktop is probably now redundant, sold my Pi 5 for £120 so a good return, not sure its not more than I paid for it originally, no point it sitting in a draw with the other two RPis I have, think a 2 and a 3.
Am very impressed, doesnt feel like some weedy not quite a pc, zips along nicely, got it set up on two monitors and I downloaded Cyberpunk 2077 as it was on offer for £14.99 on Steam and it runs pretty well, maybe a little tweaking to do but its perfectly playable.
My Desktop is probably now redundant, sold my Pi 5 for £120 so a good return, not sure its not more than I paid for it originally, no point it sitting in a draw with the other two RPis I have, think a 2 and a 3.
clockworks said:
I've got a Beelink, but it's only used for Home Assistant, not Windows. It's been running 24/7 for 18 months with no problems.
Can I ask which Beelink you're using for Home Assistant, and what the power consumption is like?I've been running HA on an Odroid N2 for several years now and although it's been flawless, it struggles with video streams and I want to get Frigate going at some point.
I also found out the other day the SPI switch doesn't work (looks like I bent it getting the case on at some point), which means I can't put it into boot mode to fix things, which feels like a bit of a time bomb.
If you want to run proper server workloads, you might be better from a cost
erformance perspective in running a setup that isn't space constrained. Frigate for example is far better run in a Docker Container and then proxied into Home Assistant rather that running it inside Home Assistant directly, particularly because you'll want to put resource limits around it so that everything else stays running if it gets carried away recording and saturates your system. If you put Frigate in Home Assistant at some point you'll want to add an extra camera and it'll cause you a world of pain!
If you can put a servery thing out of the way then if you later want a silent PC running you can spend £50 on a mondern-ish thin client like the Dell Wyse etc, run a VM on the server and RDP Windows over 3 screens seamlessly with as much horse-power as you need just by adding bits into the server.
And all the other tings you've not yet thought of are much easier to accommodate if you already have a server to put them on.
erformance perspective in running a setup that isn't space constrained. Frigate for example is far better run in a Docker Container and then proxied into Home Assistant rather that running it inside Home Assistant directly, particularly because you'll want to put resource limits around it so that everything else stays running if it gets carried away recording and saturates your system. If you put Frigate in Home Assistant at some point you'll want to add an extra camera and it'll cause you a world of pain!If you can put a servery thing out of the way then if you later want a silent PC running you can spend £50 on a mondern-ish thin client like the Dell Wyse etc, run a VM on the server and RDP Windows over 3 screens seamlessly with as much horse-power as you need just by adding bits into the server.
And all the other tings you've not yet thought of are much easier to accommodate if you already have a server to put them on.
durbster said:
Can I ask which Beelink you're using for Home Assistant, and what the power consumption is like?
I've been running HA on an Odroid N2 for several years now and although it's been flawless, it struggles with video streams and I want to get Frigate going at some point.
I also found out the other day the SPI switch doesn't work (looks like I bent it getting the case on at some point), which means I can't put it into boot mode to fix things, which feels like a bit of a time bomb.
It's a Beelink S12 with N95 3.4GHz processor, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD.I've been running HA on an Odroid N2 for several years now and although it's been flawless, it struggles with video streams and I want to get Frigate going at some point.
I also found out the other day the SPI switch doesn't work (looks like I bent it getting the case on at some point), which means I can't put it into boot mode to fix things, which feels like a bit of a time bomb.
Cost just under £130 from Amazon 18 months ago. Proper bargain at the time! Double that price today.
No idea what the power consumption is, but it runs cool.
I've got 3 live camera streams on the HA desktop, plus 2 of them are running under Frigate, but with the Frigate storage on my NAS.
I'm not using the Frigate AI object detection though, I don't think it would cope with that.
I've got a Ryzen 5 5500u (laptop cpu) based one attached to my TV. Logged into chrome I use it for youtube (no ads) and also my Amazon Prime, I subscribed to Prime when there were no ads, then they added ads with a extra fee for no ads but running Prime video through the website in chrome uses my adblocker and I don't see the ads, the service I originally paid for. I went for a Ryzen based MiniPC because the Intel ones are pretty crap at the same price level I paid for this, which was £200 and this doesn't struggle with multiple tabs as it's a 6 core CPU and has 16GB or RAM. Handles 4k too.
It's very handy, can even game on it. I've played Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts, Tiny Glade, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Styx Master of Shadows on it. And it can of course play all the classics I was playing Quake last night as they have just released a new set of levels for the 30th anniversary in 4k on it., Dawn of the Machine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uf4PcgE8gA
It's very quiet too.
It's very handy, can even game on it. I've played Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts, Tiny Glade, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Styx Master of Shadows on it. And it can of course play all the classics I was playing Quake last night as they have just released a new set of levels for the 30th anniversary in 4k on it., Dawn of the Machine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uf4PcgE8gA
It's very quiet too.
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