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Considering buying a Mini PC - advice needed

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First post, by andre_6

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Hello everyone,

I've had the same daily driver desktop PC for many, many years, and while I've been upgrading and tinkering with it out of necessity along the way, the time is coming to obtain something new. Mini PCs are growing on me as space saving and compact solution to have something current. I'm not an intensive (not even regular) gamer and I haven't kept up to date with newer games nor do I have a particular interest in doing so.

I would like something that would allow me to play Windows 7 era games with very good performance (the original CoD Modern Warfare series, etc.), emulation of retro stuff and newer stuff that is not that demanding, e.g. Sonic Mania, Streets of Rage 4, Pharaoh: A New Era (this last one is very recent and seems more demanding but a good Mini PC should be able to deal with it right?). As for the rest, basic browsing with all it entails.

I was thinking of going for something at most around the 500-550 euros ceiling if it's truly worth it even if it's way more powerful than I would need. I have been intrigued by the value for money aspect of the Beelink SER 4 or SER 5 Mini PCs, which are even cheaper on AliExpress. However I'm not that versed in the Mini PC specs, how the new Intel graphics and CPUs stack up vs. the Ryzen ones and Radeon graphics in the Mini PC scene, etc.

Could you please point me out to alternatives that would get me closer to that sweet spot between money and performance? As always thank you for your time and replies

Reply 1 of 2, by elszgensa

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Do you want alternatives as in different mini pc models, or other ways to find small computing devices in general? If the latter, a combination of logicalincrements' hardware recommendations and /r/sffpc's build philosophy would probably get you something nice. It'd probably be a bit larger than those Beelinks, but you'd be able to maintain and/or upgrade stuff if need be.

(Ideally, since your requirements are low, one would use LI's recommendations from, say, two to four ago and buy used, but alas they do not seem to offer historical data.)

Last edited by elszgensa on 2023-02-24, 19:15. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 2, by andre_6

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elszgensa wrote on 2023-02-24, 19:09:

Do you want alternatives as in different mini pc models, or other ways to find small computing devices in general? If the latter, a combination of logicalincrements' hardware recommendations and /r/sffpc's build philosophy would probably get you something nice. It'd probably be a bit larger than those Beelinks, but you'd be able to maintain and/or upgrade stuff if need be.

Thanks for the link, alternatives as in different mini PC models would suffice, honestly. It's a compromise between not having much time and not having much space. Plus it would be more than enough for anything I'd need

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