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The MiniPC Revolution

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Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#141

Post by bullen »

Agingcoder wrote: post #113

I want one for gaming , that is silent, provides high end graphics, and takes little space ( Mac mini or studio size ideally ). I’m essentially willing to pay extra for a specced up gaming console. I still haven’t been able to find something that fits the bill - the hardest part to get information on is noise, since most people don’t seem to care about it or just play with headphones. I understand that such a product…

http://move.rupy.se/file/radxa_works.mp4

Radxa CM5 + Waveshare CM4 Nano

Packs a punch at very low power...

You probably need a tiny Nuctua fan on it if you're going to play HL2 on it.

It's ARM so it will take a while for titles to be ported, but studios better realize this is the platform of the future.

Currently game engines are clueless.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#142

Post by FirmwareBurner »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #132

Back in 2022 I bought a 'case' of discarded NUC machines that some business had scrapped for $100 (it was like 35 computers in there) Roughly 1/3 had WiFi, none had storage (it had been removed before scrapping). Mix of CPU ranges but I keep finding uses for them. Hard to keep the ones powered up, up to date. If anyone has a good orchestration system for minipcs sitting on a network in terms of patching etc would lov…

Make a floppotron of NUCs

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#143

Post by Havoc »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #7
Havoc wrote: post #2

> So you mean to tell me you’ve been using your torch to take a shit this last week because your light bulbs don’t work without the PC you watch Netflix on? This made me laugh. I’ve currently got a home assistant controlled floor standing light in my bathroom because all the old school switch ones in ceiling are dead and landlord is being well a classic landlord

What does a "dead light" mean in this context? Your landlord isn't changing your bulbs? I've mostly lived in 100+ year old homes with old janky wiring and have never had a light fixture die, just bulbs.

>What does a "dead light" mean in this context?

I'm in the UK that has more reliance on ring circuits i.e. electrically its a chain of devices. So depending on details one fault can take out all the lights in a room

>Your landlord isn't changing your bulbs?

They're just taking their time.

Normally I'd just replace bulbs myself but this is a bit more complicated cause its hooked into other devices as well and i can't even tell what is broken

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#144

Post by lostmsu »

dontlaugh wrote: post #133
lostmsu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking of a beefy mini-PC + USB-C 8+ hard drive enclosure. I feel like I rarely upgraded anything except GPU and storage. And GPU's are not needed for a server. Enclosure means easy storage upgrade and I can always reattach the enclosure to another machine quickly. Might even install OS on the enclosure, then the whole setup will survive compute upgrades until the predominant architecture changes.

There's some with both hard drive bays and fairly powerful CPUs. Aoostar and Ugreen make varying sizes.

The point here is exactly allowing to upgrade compute independently of storage.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#145

Post by nerdix »

kogasa240p wrote: post #140

As much as I like the idea of miniPCs my biggest issue is that almost everything in miniPCs are soldered down, if you could replace the RAM/CPU/Storage I'd have zero with them. But for now, I'm skeptical in that the current push for miniPCs are a clandestine way to get more technical people onboard with unrepairable devices.

There are plenty of miniPCs with replaceable RAM and storage. Some of the newer ones based on the Ryzen Ai CPUs have soldered RAM but most don't.

Replaceable CPU is harder to find. However, there is the Minisforum MS-A1 which has an AMD AM5 motherboard with replaceable CPU.

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-a1

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#146

Post by Havoc »

giardini wrote: post #26
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does a "dead light" mean in this context? Your landlord isn't changing your bulbs? I've mostly lived in 100+ year old homes with old janky wiring and have never had a light fixture die, just bulbs.

It likely means the OP has poor handyman skills and wisely has chosen not to learn by him/her self due to safety hazard. After all, these circuits are usually ~110 volts and there is almost always an unintended ground nearby (a water or gas pipe, a wet bathtub, etc.).

>It likely means the OP has poor handyman skills

OP here - no just dealing with UK ring circuits where the lights are wired inline with non-light devices. And since I'm renting I'm not here to do handyman work. Lightbulbs I do ofc replace myself.

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#147

Post by LaurensBER »

nerdix wrote: post #134
Agingcoder wrote: post #113

I want one for gaming , that is silent, provides high end graphics, and takes little space ( Mac mini or studio size ideally ). I’m essentially willing to pay extra for a specced up gaming console. I still haven’t been able to find something that fits the bill - the hardest part to get information on is noise, since most people don’t seem to care about it or just play with headphones. I understand that such a product…

Depends on what you mean by "high end graphics" The Ryzen Max+ 395 is in the ballpark of a RTX 4060 (but I believe it's starts to massively fall behind when ray tracing is enabled). It's an iGPU so I would imagine noise is greatly reduced (though probably not silent) compared to machines with dGPUs. However, that's going to cost roughly $2000 so it won't be cheap and will be vastly outperformed by a $2000 desktop pc.

While the 395 is very cool I do feel that the next generation will be an enormous step forward if AMD integrates FSR 4 in their APUs. Neutral network based upscaling makes a huge difference since you can get away with far lower (real) rendering resolutions and don't need any (expensive) anti-aliasing solutions anymore.

There's a bunch of demos on YouTube of people upscaling from as low as 360p and while not pretty, it's definitely serviceable. It might be worth the wait if you're budget constraint or patient!

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#148

Post by zem »

ibaikov wrote: post #122
zem wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would honestly love a steam machine like thing that I could just plug into my laptop. I'm carrying my laptop around anyway, if I could plug in a small gaming system and have the laptop act as the input/output that would be ideal.

I liked the idea of type-c GPUs but there are so many problems again that it's just useless. It also should be something better than just a GPU tho, have HDMI eARC etc.

yeah I don't want an egpu, I want a complete gaming device that I can use my laptop as a peripheral for

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#149

Post by freetime2 »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #96

Unfortunately the article doesn’t really explain what is a MiniPC. Is it any small SoC system? Is there a specific size or price point? Is it these Ali express things?

This is basically the form factor: https://a.co/d/1Mll2aH

Price can vary significantly from under $200 for an Intel N150-based system all the way up to Ryzen AI Max+ 395 systems costing $2000.

A lot of the mini PC makers have gotten pretty legitimate recent years, and some makers like Minisform can even charge a bit of a premium based on their brand name. More "traditional" hardware makers like Asus and ASRock also sell Mini PCs. And of course Apple is also a significant player in the Mini PC world with the Mac Mini. So definitely not just an Ali express thing - although Mini PCs can certainly be purchased there as well.

These refurbished 1L "tiny" desktops from big vendors like Lenovo, HP, and Dell are also popular with the Mini PC server crowd. https://a.co/d/g1mgUnl

Re: The MiniPC Revolution

#150

Post by jmyeet »

I'm a big fan of mini PCs starting with the (now abandoned) Intel NUCs.

Yes, some have soldered down parts but a lot don't. For ~$500 you can get a decent CPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD and something like a Radeon 780M, which is no desktop GPU but it's surprisingly useful. Some even have Oculink connectors for external GPUs although I'm not sure how many people end up using this.

You will find wildly varying networking connectivity like Wifi 6 vs 7, 1 or 2 Ethernet connectors that can be anything from 1GbE to 10GbE and a wide variety of different USB connectors and speeds.

At $500 I really just don't care if it lasts forever.

You can go more expensive and get a beefier CPU and/or GPU or go cheaper by going cheaper on both.

I'm personally so over assembling PCs. I just want something that works.

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