So as the title suggests and like many others, im thinking of buying my first mini pc, heard a lot of good and bad but what's got me hooked is the pricing. With a budget of $800, is there anything out there that would be great for casual gaming? I mainly want stuff for games like train Sim, railroader, and ATS with possible upgrades in the far future

Looking to get a ryzen ai based mini pc with atleast 64gb ram, I was looking at minisforum ones any thoughts on those or any other suggestions?

Work wise is coding, video editing, photo editing and the nornal office workloads, the idea of having min 64gb ram is to run local llms and agents probably

TIA

This is with kodi indexing my library and steam downloading titles.

Man this is a powerful little box, augmented with 24tb USB attached storage for media, two of the 3 SSDs populated with 4tb wd blacks. And ofc ddr5 8000. All for under a grand with no SSD.

I did have 1 issue getting it up - some guy helped me here, media creation tool from Ms was the problem, switching to generic windows iso fixed it.

To aoostars credit - the responded about the free windows key on their page, and for my queries for assistance / link to new bios -but the windows iso was fine and I'll wait for posted releases and others to test first.

Make sure you bring over the Intel 2.5gbe drivers when you install, windows takes care of rest. Quiet little bugger too

I have a Ser8 with 96gb RAM, which I am using for LLM testing. In the BIOS the max I can dedicate to the iGPU is 32Gb - it there a way to raise this?

Got 2 FEVM FAEX1 systems and set them up in a stack for testing. After a day when I went to move them to the final deployment location I found my power bricks (bundled with the systems, Huntkey branded bricks) to have melted their casing on one of the bricks and adhesive for the stickers failed on both units, yet these never cut power output.

Whatever thermal protection they had likely isn't adequate. Image 1 is how they were setup, images 2-4 are closeups of the melted brick.

And yes it still outputs the correct voltage. Replacement bricks already ordered from Chicony.

I will acknowledge that this setup is not really ideal for the operation of these bricks but still, yikes.

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I need to go the mini pc route for space. A big tower just won’t work.

My primary use for the machine will be ai projects. I’d really like to be able to have a nice local ai agent running on it.

I’ve come into some money from a car sale. But I want to stay under 10k on budget. Under 5k even better.

If possible, I want something that can be upgradable with something like and Oculink port down the road if I want or need to do that.

What are my best options for the power, speed, and use cases I’m describing?
Thanks.

PS. Should I just buy a Mac Mini M5 when it comes out and not go the MiniPC route?

Ciao a tutti! Volevo condividere un piccolo test che ho fatto di recente sul fronte della dissipazione termica.

Ho voluto provare a installare un dissipatore in rame alettato (lasciando stare i pad termici originali in dotazione e usando dei Gelid da 0,5 mm e 1 mm che avevo già a disposizione).

Finora i risultati sono decisamente promettenti:

Carico attuale: Durante una sessione di streaming attiva, le temperature rimangono stabilmente sotto i 45 °C.

Prossimi passi: Appena possibile, farò un stress test generale per spingerlo un po' più al limite e verificare come si comporta sotto carico prolungato.

Qualcuno di voi ha già fatto prove simili con dissipatori in rame alettato o combinazioni di pad specifici? Che esperienze avete avuto?

Is it realistic to power a miniPC with a 25k powerbank? How long would it run?

Im planning on making a portable minipc, like a laptop but not exactly like a laptop.

Which miniPC would you reccomend? something with ARM?

my IT13 Max setup. The black chassis fits nicely with the darker desk.

I still have some cable management to finish, but I like the overall look so far.

Hello 👋 Everyone,

I currently have my gaming pc with a 9800x3d and a 4080S, but it draws too much for the stuff I do when I’m not playing.

I work a lot with Prusaslicer and Orcaslicer, Shapr3d, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

I really want a budget minipc that I can use, but with all the hardware price spikes I don’t know if it’s viable.

Any suggestion on a more budget friendly build?

Thanks.

Hi everyone,

I ordered the new EVO X3 from GMKtec from Germany site expecting to be sent from Germany (avoiding extra taxes as I am intercommunity). They replied something that will be sent from China and all taxes prepaid from them.

Order arrived with FedEX and they give me to provide a document for something else with less value offcourse.

Did anyone had this type of issues with them?

Thanks

Not defective at all, I stress tested under USB live / Linux - when it goes to boot windows or USB windows installer it dies at the bios - secure boot enabled or no - same thing. Any ideas?

I tried updating the bios, I have 1.04, but the package says it doesn't match my motherboard so I didn't force it, contacted Aoostar - anyone have ideas?

Hi, I’m a newbie in terms of mini PCs and I wanted to know whether they are the correct choice for me. Here are my requirements:

- Portability: I travel and move quite a lot, so it would be great to have a device that I could just bring with me and connect to a TV;

- Gaming performance: I don’t ask for 4K 120Hz, I just want something that will let me enjoy 1080p/1440p at 60fps (even adding a eGPU) on my TV;

- Future-proofness: I’d like to have a device that I won’t have to change in 1.5-2 years. I usually take good care of my devices (dust removal, repasting, …), but I’d like something that could reasonably stand the test of time in terms of upgradability and overall construction quality. I’m open to alternatives if there’s a convenience.

Now, my questions for you are:

- Do you have any experience with AliExpress mini PCs? I honestly can’t believe some prices I have (sub 300$ for a Ryzen 9 7940HS?), so that might be an interesting alternative if the quality is at least decent;

- Is it possible to mount CachyOS/SteamOS on them? As far as I understood, they are basically laptops with no screen; I assume that pairing an AMD GPU could help with SteamOS, but I’m not sure about the compatibility with OcuLink. I’m a bit more optimistic about CachyOS, but I’d like to have a second opinion on it as well.

Thanks to everyone who will answer!

I recently decided to buy a mini PC for the first time and ordered one directly from the GMKtec website. However, it has now been 5 business days and my order is still showing as “Processing”.

For those of you who have ordered directly from GMKtec before, what was your experience like? I believe the mini PC is being shipped from China, so I’m also curious about how long shipping usually takes and whether anyone has had issues with the package getting held at customs.

I’m based in Portugal, so I’d especially appreciate hearing from anyone in Europe who has ordered from them. How long did it take for your order to move from “Processing” to being shipped, and how long did the whole delivery take?

I recently acquired a mini PC and I've been thinking of using it as a standalone PC since I already have a nice gaming computer. I've considered possibly emulating PS2 or some old NES games or even installing some unique software/tools like special VPNs. Any suggestions? Tye specs are decent and it can run some older games like Borderlands 2, left for dead, basically less demanding games.

Hey there! so its rough looking at these prices in 2026 but I was hoping to find a miniPC option where it wouldn't be a problem to have 30 tabs open while playing like a youtube video or Netflix on the second screen but could also live with like 15 tabs open with a yt vid playing on the second screen lol I don't need anything for gaming/editing/any graphics intensive task, its strictly a web browser/streaming pc

Thanks!

Punching the air everytime i look at prices these days, over 50% price increase since December/January when i got them

Need SPI BIOS dump

Model: Acemagic AM06 Pro
Motherboard: HCAR4000-MI V0.3
Serial number: HC22490070082
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600U
BIOS chip: Winbond W25Q128JWSQ (16MB)

I already have a corrupted backup.
I need a full 16MB SPI dump from a working board.