Does anybody have any good experiences with Micro PCs?
I am tempted to buy a micro PC but, at half the price of a PC, am I buying junk?
This one looks really good with all of the specs, but am I being fooled?
I am not a gamer, but I would use the micro PC for graphics and audio work. While I expect the video not to be as good an actual PC graphics card, I would still like to have Dual 4K to 8K video.
Did you have any good experiences?
Did you have any bad experiences?
I use a Mini PC. I bought one during Black Friday last year. If you can wait until then, I would recommend doing so. Many will go on sale.
Mini-PC’s are great for certain use-cases. They’re getting to be REALLY popular for small businesses and Home Lab uses.
The main pros of a mini-PC compared to the regular PC’s is that they are small, portable and very energy efficient. They’re also quieter.
In some ways you can think of them as a laptop. They even often use laptop components. So, just as laptops are generally less powerful than desktop PC’s, it’s the same thing with a Mini-PC. But many laptops are extremely formidable and can easily handle almost anything you want/need them to. It’s kind of the same for a Mini-PC. It’s just that the Mini PC doesn’t come with a keyboard as part of the case, and doesn’t force you to use a certain screen, and it’s a smaller box instead of a long thin thing. Seriously, if you think of them as the equivalent of a laptop, you’ll have the right idea.
I like them. I am using mine to run Docker Wyze Bridge right now, along with some other dockers. I’m quite likely going to move Home Assistant onto a MiniPC and soon will run my own local LLM AI on a mini-PC. I think Mini-PC’s are fantastic.
I recommend doing a google search of a few of the mini-pc’s you’re interested in and see what people say. In some cases, just google search the brand and model number and type the word reddit on the end. Reddit is an excellent source for users sharing experiences about certain Mini PC experiences. For that model, lots of reviews indicate that the GEEKOM XT12 Pro Mini PC does some thermal throttling under sustained loads for more than a few minutes. I would be cautious.
I also use a Mini PC, to be more precise a MacMini. I love it. it does everything that a desktop can do. I got it last February as a birthday gift. It is small, quiet and energy efficient. I take it with me when I go to the cottage as it is my primary computer.
Mini PC’s have come a long ways since Apple started the trend off inexpensive small factor computers back in 2005.
Two of my clients, largest North American prepress houses, replaced all their desktop computers with MacMinis. We’re talking 500+ employees each. They run heavy graphics files using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects…
I tap in into their infrastructure using TeamViewer and haven’t had any issues.
To summarize, I’d say go for it. Mini PC is the way to go.
Isn’t some thermal throttling good for controlling temperature runaway?
I think I blew up one of my i7s by having it render files over night.
I have read reviews and watched videoes. I heard it is a great production-work unit but not an extensive gaming PC. I guess nowadays, if I got a full desktop size PC, I would get a 6 to 8 GB video card.
Currently I am using an i7 XPS laptop with two monitors and and docking station as my secondary PC. It is very adequate but looking for a Windows 11 or 12 system for my primary, older i7.
Thanks as always for your input.
Thanks for your insight.
I’ve been using mini PCs since 2013. I’ve had 2 from intel’s NUC series, now defunct. Asus has taken over the NUC mini PC hardware line. I just retired an old skull canyon model last year. Now using minisforum mini with an AMD Ryzen 9 with 2 4K 27-in monitors.
Prior to that, I built my own PCs with full-size cases. These mini PCs are great and much more convenient, as long as you’re not a gamer.
I used to have fun doing that, but now I take the easy way out.
Do you have a preference when selecting Intel or AMD?
It depends on your application mix. Some applications use intel-exclusive machine instruction codes, mainly media applications. AMD cpus are generally cheaper for the same power and have better on-chip gpus.
That is what I gathered with the reviews. Intel does better with productivity apps (single core applications) while AMD does better with games (multi core applications). And I forgot about better GPUs on AMD.
Thank you.
Absolutely. Just some users reported this one seems to throttle more than most do.
Ditto. I used to build my own, now I’m too lazy. 
It’s worth the extra money to me to just buy them fully put together, though I’ll often order from some places that let me do some customization (add ram, upgrade processor, choose certain other things, etc). I also used to do my own upgrades, but now I just buy a new computer instead since other electronics parts start to wear out with use, and I run mine 24/7 until it’s time to replace them.
Very true. Also having one warranty is nice and a “free” copy of Windows".
That’s one reason I’ve looked at them, too. I mostly use Linux day-to-day, but some things I want to do still require Windows, so for that I’ve been keeping an older laptop plugged into power and Ethernet. It spends most of its time sleeping, and when I want to use it I send a magic packet with wakeonlan and then connect with RDP. I imagine a “headless” mini PC could do that just as well or better and with a smaller footprint.
Guess I will hold off for Black Friday.
I initially saw a coupon for $100 off but I needed to do some research. By the time I decided, the offer was withdrawn.
I find it amazing that you can get an i9 and 32 GB of RAM at such an affordable price.
Careful about off-brands. Some have good rep while others have malware shipped along with pre-installed Windows. Worse, some of the malware are in the UEFI itself.
Yeah. I have seen those videos. Is Geekom considered an off-brand?
One of the shadier ones, but in Geekom’s case, fresh Windows install works.
Any evidence I can review? I am open to all viewpoints.
It’s all anecdotal of course.
I wish I could find this Anec Dotal.
He has a lot of interesting viewpoints.
I don’t have one of these but I heard about it on a computer podcast. Very small and fanless.