Mini PCs

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TroonsDid911

TroonsDid911

kiwifarms.net
Joined
Apr 6, 2021
I custom built my PC but it took a lot of effort and I spent a decent amount to get good specs. I want to play more games with my spouse but don't want to put as much effort and cost into getting it all setup. I was considering a PS5 since we mainly crossplay PC / PS4 games but I recently came across these "Mini-PCs" that seem affordable and a PC has a lot more uses then a console.


Obviously they won't be as good as a real PC but they are basically as easy to setup as a console and they seem to have decent specs but I'm not an expert on these things. Are they any good? Do they get decent frame rates for games? Any other hidden problems like overheating / bloatware etc. ?
 
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i see mini pc's / thinkcentres as office pc's but if it works for you then it all should be gucci. the specs look okay with my limited knowledge. remove windows 11 if you want to pirate games because they sniff out your whole HDD/SSD with each second.

Edit: it doesnt have a graphics card lol, just an integrated AMD Radeon 680M which sucks ass

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I am a big fan of Lenovo for smaller PCs. I use them for media centers. They are great.

Here is a thread that came up in search you may find useful.

I also have experience with ITX form factors and can recommend against them. They are fun and challenging. Build one if you want. Stick to mid tower or full tower ATX builds for most things.

My wife uses an older system that runs a i7 and a 1080Ti and she can play just about any game with me. A Lenovo will do some of that, but you will largely be playing an older (therefore better) library of games.
 
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OptiPlex SFF is the Dell one that is on the small side but can take a discrete GPU.

CPU performance isn't usually the bottleneck for games, so you can find some old/refurbished stuff with as low as a quad-core CPU, add a GPU, and have a decent experience.

But if we're talking about integrated graphics only, that's approaching the point where it's good enough to play many recent games at 900p/1080p60, sometimes worse and needs scaling like FSR. I think the next-gen Strix Point APUs could have graphics at least on par with Xbox Series S, and Strix Halo will obviously be a game-changer if it hits the mini PC market, but expensive for what it is.


More mini PCs are starting to include USB4/Thunderbolt or a different connector like Oculink for an eGPU. From what I've seen you need to spend a large chunk of change to get an eGPU enclosure + discrete GPU. Seems like a waste of money to me for something that isn't likely to move from the desk, but it might be an attractive option to some.
 
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The Mass Shooter Ron Soye said:

More mini PCs are starting to include USB4/Thunderbolt or a different connector like Oculink for an eGPU. From what I've seen you need to spend a large chunk of change to get an eGPU enclosure + discrete GPU. Seems like a waste of money to me for something that isn't likely to move from the desk, but it might be an attractive option to some.
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I can vouch for these little BeeLink SER series things. Even the cheapest of them make for absolutely fine desktops (for non-gaming) and getting one that's even slightly higher spec'ed yields a fantastic Linux tinkering desktop or workstation. If you want to screw around with docker or even a cheap-ass kubernetes or ceph cluster, they're pretty good for the price. They'll run a good number of containers (or even full VMs) before you start running out of horsepower.

They're quiet little bastards too, which can make quite the difference for environments like a living room (for a media player) or a portable office (like a hotel room).
 
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Tims said:
Get one of these that supports thunderbolt, Dell and Lenovo offer good ones. Then get a cheap EGPU to run games on and you're gucci.
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You experience a massive performance hit as thunderbolt 4 has less bandwidth and PCIE lanes than a dedicated GPU something to the tune of 20%, even worse if you reproject it to a laptop screen for example as you effectively get half bandwidth
 
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Lower your gaming expectations and get something like a Lenovo Tiny. Older i5 models are dirt cheap on eBay, and are fine for playing older games as long as you're not expecting 100fps+.
 
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Mini Pcs are great but not for your use case. They're good for office work, HTPCs, or home server clusters. Gaming needs gpu resources and they have nothing in that aspect. Even if you go the egpu route like someone mentioned earlier in the thread, egpus are fairly expensive and you lose the benefits of the form factor. Id just get a proper desktop at that point.
 
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If you like playing modern AAAaaaaaAaa games then yeah, no. But if you like playing indies, old games, and other games with low graphical requirements like strategy games, at least AMDs APUs are actually very decent and might be all you need. Just get the fastest RAM you can put in there, as they can use every bit of bandwidth they can get.
 
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TroonsDid911 said:
Obviously they won't be as good as a real PC but they are basically as easy to setup as a console and they seem to have decent specs but I'm not an expert on these things. Are they any good? Do they get decent frame rates for games? Any other hidden problems like overheating / bloatware etc. ?
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As said before get a decent used PC, if you got one with a 1080TI in it you can play all the modern games with no problems in standard HD.
 
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I second the Steam Deck idea as it's tailored to gaming but can also be docked and used as a desktop if desired. It's also pretty powerful for the price as well and has the portability option. I would wait until the end of the year before buying one as it's possible for Valve to announce, or even releases an updated version since Nintendo will announce their updated Switch.
 
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