RandomStranger wrote on 2026-03-28, 07:16:

Microsoft's indoctrination really is strong if people still consider buying new computers instead of switching OS when MS ends their support.

To be fair, keeping mental health intact might be more important to some than saving money/the type of hardware. 🙁

Personally, I skipped Windows 10 and had mixed experience with Linux, simply.
It was fun as a hobby, but when I came back home to my main PC I didn't feel like tinkering with the OS all time.
I simply wanted something that works hassle free and didn't stress my nerves.

Linux also used to be annyoing in terms of permissions on the filesystem level.
That's also why some users stayed on FAT32 for a bit longer when switching from Windows 98SE to Windows XP many years ago.
When XP was installed on a FAT32 volume, all the permission issues went away. :)

Anyhow, Windows 10/11 aren't much of a difference in terms of user friendliness, I'd say.
Both are software-as-a-service, rely on telemetry and don't respect the user IMHO.
Windows 8.x was still close to Windows 7 under the hood, but the Metro interface wasn't exactly popular.
It's good aspect was native USB 3 support, though. :)

Again, I really wished the other OSes like BeOS (now Haiku) were more mature.
At the moment, users merely have the option between "ugly" and "not so pretty", I think.
MacOS used to be user friendly and consistent, but even that is changing now I'm afraid.

Linux doesn't cost money, at least. Well, not anymore.
I once bought a copy of SuSe Linux with a thick, printed manual and a set of 10 CDs or so.
Sometimes I wished a professionally made Linux distro was still on sale.
Something with proper support and a hardware compatibility list.
A big box release, so to say. Without the need for a permanent internet connection and a dependency on web servers.
Something that can be installed after many years again, if needed, with a full set of packages.

Jo22 wrote on 2026-03-28, 12:48:

To be fair, keeping mental health intact might be more important to some than saving money/the type of hardware. 🙁 […]
Show full quote

To be fair, keeping mental health intact might be more important to some than saving money/the type of hardware. 🙁

Personally, I skipped Windows 10 and had mixed experience with Linux, simply.
It was fun as a hobby, but when I came back home to my main PC I didn't feel like tinkering with the OS all time.
I simply wanted something that works hassle free and didn't stress my nerves.

I've been using Linux as my only OS on my daily driver since 2019 and dual booted it since around 2012. It's definitely something that works more hassle-free than any Windows that came after 7 and I'm much more relaxed interacting with my PC than when I was using Win 8.1 or 10. The crap that 10 gave me was that drove me to transition fully and not once have I felt like going back even to dual booting.

And on top of all, I'm saving money on hardware.

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-03-28, 02:08:

The older one is a Zotac Zbox: Re: smallest computer that can run windows XP with supported hardware (especially video card?)

I personally love my Zbox. I picked one up on eBay and set it us as my "bench computer", running Ubuntu. It's nothing special, but it works wonderfully for my needs and uses very little power.

https://theclassicgeek.blogspot.com/2022/07/s … zotac-zbox.html

I was looking at getting a couple more modern nano computers (AMD Ryzen based), there are quite a few out there, and they were actually pretty reasonable for the computing power you were getting. Sadly, I waited too long and now, like everything else, their prices have skyrocketed. If and when we ever crest this madness and prices come back to something more reasonable, I'll snag them then.

On a side note, all the talk about cloud computing. While it's something I will never subscribe to, I will always prefer to use my own hardware, it's so odd to an "old geek" like me who remembers a time when that's how most all computing was done. We just used different terms, like terminal and mainframe. Computers eventually became small and cheap enough to be self contained and worked their way into homes. While room or building sized computers never went away, I find it funny we are slowly moving back toward that mentality with massive data centers on scales and power demand requirements that would have blown our parents minds.

To OP, My general suggestion on the cost of PCs today is to switch to Linux. Since it sounds like you are reluctant on Windows 11, you are probably going that way anyway.

Once on Linux, pretty much any PC in the last 10 years is more than powerful enough, and can fit nicely in any RAM they came with. There are also plenty of low power options now too. Linux can run an older systems too. I suspect you have PCs that are good enough lying around, so you might not have to buy a machine right now.

The nice thing going on with Linux today, is Wine really turning into a complete solution to transitioning. But of course, if you want to keep a Windows 10 in an isolated VM for a little while, again any PC in the last 10 years probably can do that too.

Jo22 wrote on 2026-03-28, 12:48:

Linux doesn't cost money, at least. Well, not anymore. I once bought a copy of SuSe Linux with a thick, printed manual and a set […]
Show full quote

Linux doesn't cost money, at least. Well, not anymore.
I once bought a copy of SuSe Linux with a thick, printed manual and a set of 10 CDs or so.
Sometimes I wished a professionally made Linux distro was still on sale.
Something with proper support and a hardware compatibility list.
A big box release, so to say. Without the need for a permanent internet connection and a dependency on web servers.
Something that can be installed after many years again, if needed, with a full set of packages.

I'm not aware of any big-box Linux or any OS really offered today. As far as manuals, there isn't likely anyone that does one like they did in the 90s. I have one of the SuSE printed manuals since I also purchased those big box releases back in the day.

However, there are still some distros that don't need an internet connection to get packages. Slackware doesn't need one, and that comes as a fairly complete distro on a DVD iso image. Distros today that don't need internet are usually ones that try to be minimal, but then you won't have alot of the software that people want anyway, so you'd have to download extra software. Slackware isn't a minimal distro.

Slackware 15.0 can fit on single layer DVD for a very complete system. Slackware 15.1 when it comes out, probably won't. However it will still be able to image to any larger dual layer, bluray or USB.

So yeah, no way to acquire on sale physical media for a linux distro anymore, unless maybe you find some sketchy third party place. But with Slackware, you can pull down images, and make an install media that you can keep around for many years. This is what I do. I don't need the internet to get a machine going.

RandomStranger wrote on 2026-03-28, 07:16:

Microsoft's indoctrination really is strong if people still consider buying new computers instead of switching OS when MS ends their support.

A big problem is the lack of GPU upgrade options for older OEM units that aren't full-size cases. Intel is the only one to really offer anything for that, while AMD and NVidia board makers are sticking to advanced gaming GPUs and full-sized multi-fan behemoths that weigh so much that they warp and break over time. Then, there's also the many OEM units that don't have appropriate power supplies for current GPU upgrades, unless those GPUs are low-end and don't require anything more than whatever power connectivity those units can offer and that card selection is almost non-existent in recent GPU offerings.

So the post title touches mini PCSs while the OP is about what to do about Win10 EOS?

I'm sticking with Win10 until the wheels fall off. Win11 is slower, buggier, infested with AI non-sense, newer iterations don't run on CPUs without SSE 4.1...

Linux never clicked with me. No plan for when wheels actually fall off, but if we're dead from WWIII or plugged into the cloud, it won't matter. 🤣

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2026-03-28, 15:34:

A big problem is the lack of GPU upgrade options for older OEM units that aren't full-size cases. Intel is the only one to really offer anything for that, while AMD and NVidia board makers are sticking to advanced gaming GPUs and full-sized multi-fan behemoths that weigh so much that they warp and break over time. Then, there's also the many OEM units that don't have appropriate power supplies for current GPU upgrades, unless those GPUs are low-end and don't require anything more than whatever power connectivity those units can offer and that card selection is almost non-existent in recent GPU offerings.

Do you need an advanced GPU on a mini PC? Mini PCs are small low power PCs that meet most desktop user needs. Ryzen systems from the past two generations can be gotten with 780M graphics which falls between a GTX 1050 and 1060 in terms of performance. And meets the minimum requirements for quite a few modern games. And anything retro themed will run without issue.

If you are using one as a server, Intel's iGPU in the Alderlake N100 and up series, or the Pentium Gold 8505 has an excellent media engine. Unless you are transcoding a half dozen or more video streams simultaneously, it can handle 4K AV1 transcoding in hardware and just sip power.

Minisforum created a GPU dockable mini PC, but IMO it's was expensive and somewhat pointless as the GPU sat out in the open, and the required desk space was just a hair under an ITX case that would protect everything.

I gave up my daily driver power hungry rig and moved to a Ryzen mini PC that's driving three monitors. I do light gaming without issue. If I want to play modern AAA I can game with a powerful rig connected to a TV. Or if I want to play them at my desktop. I just use Apollo (moonlight fork) to stream to my desk. The >$50/month power savings already paid off the new machine after a few months.

UCyborg wrote on 2026-03-28, 15:52:

So the post title touches mini PCSs while the OP is about what to do about Win10 EOS?

I'm sticking with Win10 until the wheels fall off. Win11 is slower, buggier, infested with AI non-sense, newer iterations don't run on CPUs without SSE 4.1...

Linux never clicked with me. No plan for when wheels actually fall off, but if we're dead from WWIII or plugged into the cloud, it won't matter. 🤣

This is me in a nutshell.

I'll move to 11 when it's convenient for me to do so. I could care less if MS ends support for 10, as long as the software and games I want to run still work, I'll keep using it. Generally speaking, that date is often years after the official MS EOS date. Security is also of no concern, there are plenty of common sense steps and 3rd party options out there to keep you "safe".

For Linux, it clicked for me back in the 90's for a very short time, then I let it go. Then, I got back into it a few years ago. Personally, I've gotten pretty comfortable in Ubuntu, and Mint is looking pretty sweet these days. In all fairness, if Linux had the software and game support I needed, I would drop Windows with no love lost. I already run it on all my other modern hardware, other than my primary desktop.

Of course, let's not go crazy, I still love Win9x! 😜

On modern nano and mini systems, you have no real upgrade path, but they are pretty powerful. You just need to understand their limitations, like their iGPU. I personally prefer the Ryzen minis becasue AMD seems to have the best overall coverage in terms of GPU power in their chips. Many of them, like others have said, can handle many modern games if you don't mind lowering settings to meet minimums. If 1080 60 is your goal, it's definitely possible for a lot of modern games on the nano/mini systems. It all boils down to what you play and what you want to play it at.

RandomStranger wrote on 2026-03-28, 07:16:

Microsoft's indoctrination really is strong if people still consider buying new computers instead of switching OS when MS ends their support.

It's about software support. For home use, you can get away with open-source alternatives to commercial software. In corporate environments, some software is cross-platform or officially supported in Wine, but there's still stuff like CAD software that needs to run in Windows on physical hardware.

UCyborg wrote on 2026-03-28, 15:52:

So the post title touches mini PCSs while the OP is about what to do about Win10 EOS?

I'm sticking with Win10 until the wheels fall off. Win11 is slower, buggier, infested with AI non-sense, newer iterations don't run on CPUs without SSE 4.1...

Linux never clicked with me. No plan for when wheels actually fall off, but if we're dead from WWIII or plugged into the cloud, it won't matter. 🤣

The title is confusing, but it kind of shows how mini-PCs have improved while expansion has mostly moved away from PCIe to USB (partially because most consumer motherboards are made for gaming, which requires a ridiculously large 4-slot graphics card and all remaining PCIe lanes dedicated to multiple multi-terabyte SSDs if you want to keep more than one game installed at a time).

I never liked Windows 10, and 11 is even worse (Microslop might settle down and remove the dumbest "features" after a few years like they did with 10). I'm stubbornly trying to make Linux work on my main desktop, but I've had multiple occasions where I thought about spending a few thousand dollars on a Mac. However, a Mac might go cloud-based as well, and I'll do everything to resist that. None of these corporations understand that even if I like the concept, my Internet connection forces me to have local storage and local compute.

SScorpio wrote on 2026-03-28, 16:23:

Do you need an advanced GPU on a mini PC? Mini PCs are small low power PCs that meet most desktop user needs. Ryzen systems from […]
Show full quote

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2026-03-28, 15:34:

A big problem is the lack of GPU upgrade options for older OEM units that aren't full-size cases. Intel is the only one to really offer anything for that, while AMD and NVidia board makers are sticking to advanced gaming GPUs and full-sized multi-fan behemoths that weigh so much that they warp and break over time. Then, there's also the many OEM units that don't have appropriate power supplies for current GPU upgrades, unless those GPUs are low-end and don't require anything more than whatever power connectivity those units can offer and that card selection is almost non-existent in recent GPU offerings.

Do you need an advanced GPU on a mini PC? Mini PCs are small low power PCs that meet most desktop user needs. Ryzen systems from the past two generations can be gotten with 780M graphics which falls between a GTX 1050 and 1060 in terms of performance. And meets the minimum requirements for quite a few modern games. And anything retro themed will run without issue.

If you are using one as a server, Intel's iGPU in the Alderlake N100 and up series, or the Pentium Gold 8505 has an excellent media engine. Unless you are transcoding a half dozen or more video streams simultaneously, it can handle 4K AV1 transcoding in hardware and just sip power.

Minisforum created a GPU dockable mini PC, but IMO it's was expensive and somewhat pointless as the GPU sat out in the open, and the required desk space was just a hair under an ITX case that would protect everything.

I gave up my daily driver power hungry rig and moved to a Ryzen mini PC that's driving three monitors. I do light gaming without issue. If I want to play modern AAA I can game with a powerful rig connected to a TV. Or if I want to play them at my desktop. I just use Apollo (moonlight fork) to stream to my desk. The >$50/month power savings already paid off the new machine after a few months.

I don't need a 66GB NVidia GeForce RTX 6969 Prostate Massage Edition GPU. I just need something current, with current tech. Nvidia has dumped the non-RTX GPUs into the garbage bin and isn't supporting them with long-term driver updates, despite the fact that there is still a massive pile of them in global retail channels, AMD has done something similar, and neither cares much for the non-Super Gaming Enthusiast market anymore, so there are few designs for "regular PCs". Intel has offerings that are intended for my use, but they are both hard to come by in smaller sizes and do not work well in older machines, due to their - by design - requirement for ReBAR, which is something neither of the two (otherwise good) desktop PCs that I have to upgrade for Windows 11 or Linux use have. NVidia may be coming out with a new low-end 9GB GeForce 5050 that meets my needs, but I'm skeptical about that, given the state of GDDR and other things.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2026-03-29, 20:50:

I don't need a 66GB NVidia GeForce RTX 6969 Prostate Massage Edition GPU. I just need something current, with current tech. Nvidia has dumped the non-RTX GPUs into the garbage bin and isn't supporting them with long-term driver updates, despite the fact that there is still a massive pile of them in global retail channels, AMD has done something similar, and neither cares much for the non-Super Gaming Enthusiast market anymore, so there are few designs for "regular PCs". Intel has offerings that are intended for my use, but they are both hard to come by in smaller sizes and do not work well in older machines, due to their - by design - requirement for ReBAR, which is something neither of the two (otherwise good) desktop PCs that I have to upgrade for Windows 11 or Linux use have. NVidia may be coming out with a new low-end 9GB GeForce 5050 that meets my needs, but I'm skeptical about that, given the state of GDDR and other things.

The GTX 10 series is hitting ten years old and doesn't have the tensor cores needed for raytracing nor DLSS support. While Intel Arc cards really need ReBAR support, newer AMD and NVIDIA cards also take a sizeable performance drop if you don't enable it. But system that doesn't support is are also locked to older PCIe version which hurt some of the cards as they are only x8 cards versus being x16 for the entry level cards.

But this thread is about mini PCs what normally don't have dedicated GPUs at all. As I mentioned Ryzen mini PCs with 780M graphics can game very well. A dedicated GPU is a much better card though, but even the cheapest of the cards are almost the price of an entire mini PC. But the 780M has the same specs at the most powerful PC gaming handhelds, expect they aren't power limited. And people are gaming just fine on those cards.

If you don't need gaming, then mini PCs are more than capable while sipping power and being on modern architecture that support the latest OSes and perform great at desktop use or being a home server running however may services you want to throw at them.

lti wrote on 2026-03-29, 20:13:

The title is confusing, but it kind of shows how mini-PCs have improved while expansion has mostly moved away from PCIe to USB (partially because most consumer motherboards are made for gaming, which requires a ridiculously large 4-slot graphics card and all remaining PCIe lanes dedicated to multiple multi-terabyte SSDs if you want to keep more than one game installed at a time).

I never liked Windows 10, and 11 is even worse (Microslop might settle down and remove the dumbest "features" after a few years like they did with 10). I'm stubbornly trying to make Linux work on my main desktop, but I've had multiple occasions where I thought about spending a few thousand dollars on a Mac. However, a Mac might go cloud-based as well, and I'll do everything to resist that. None of these corporations understand that even if I like the concept, my Internet connection forces me to have local storage and local compute.

Yes, mini PCs pack quite a punch these days.

Win10 just happens to be what I can make work best for me. I've read anecdotes some switched to Windows 7 (from 10), like, "if both are unsupported, might as well use the one I like better".