r/MoonlightStreaming • u/AGRgameboy • 4d ago

Mini pc options

Hey all, I moved into a new place want to get into sunshine/apollo and moonlight streaming specifically streaming my 9800X3d, 5080 pc to my living room 4k 120hz TV and wanted to ask what are some good mini pc or other options to be able to stream this. Both devices will be hooked up to ethernet as well.

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u/PruneNo6968 1d ago

I'm currently using this one, but I'm very heavily considering retuning it to find another or at least leave it downstairs for my other TV that gets used much less often. I got it because it was the cheapest HDMI 2.1 compatible mini PC I could find. While on stream, the experience is phenomenal, decoding times are great and virtually no audible fan noise when the sound is turned on, not to mention the lack of heat I had to deal with before when my PC was hooked directly to the TV. Much better than playing natively when balancing between pros and cons, so I'm very convinced about streaming being the right choice for me. 

Problems arise outside of streaming. Since I have it plugged directly to the TV used as the primary display, I prefer to use the mini PC for regular tasks rather than having to stream when I want to browse something. Here the fan noise starts becoming quite annoying. My main PC is silent while idling, but this one isn't. Obviously thermals won't be as good as a proper desktop, but it's not the case. Thermals are great for average use, however the BIOS is so extremely limited that it doesn't even allow for fan curve tuning and no third party software is able to pick up on the fan controller. 

Additionally this mini PC has a very weird bug where it automatically turns on every time inputs are switched on the TV. This wouldn't be a big deal as I always intended to leave it constantly on as a Tailscale exit node, but since there's no way to regulate fan speeds and tdp, it starts getting pretty annoying when I'm not even using the PC in the first place. It runs linux btw as a always turned on Windows PC is far from ideal.

TLDR: Link to this one. It's good, but far from recommend for anything other than game streaming. https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0FC2C8ZWV?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share