this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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I need to get a new pc and am deciding on a mini pc to save space. I want to use it for non-intensive games (indie and possibly switch emulation at highest) and to do light office tasks (browser, obsidian, libreoffice and random hdd file management.)

I don't know anything about mini pcs and there's so many out there. Youtubers say that the Amazon ones aren't good and another site I saw is very pricey for a nice one with 32gb ram which I do not need. As long as it has 16gb, a good amount of ports and isn't going to die on me within a few years, I'm happy. If possible to upgrade ram/ssd that would be better.

Currently, I have $600 saved and rather not spend much more than that if possible.

Current accessories I have:

  • Keyboard (Wired and bluetooth)
  • Wireless mouse
  • Dell S2721HS 1920 x 1080p 27" monitor (no speakers, mic or webcam)
  • Basic usb-c dongle for my tablet (power usb-c, hdmi, regular usb) for now
  • Bluetooth/aux Speaker
  • Bluetooth/aux Heaphones

Also, any recommendations for which distribution to use? I have used Ubuntu and Mint before and am willing to use other OS as well as the gaming ones.

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[โ€“] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Does it have to be a mini PC? For $600 you could assemble a pretty decent full size PC with performance levels similar to or ahead of current gen consoles.

For distro, I can recommend Fedora (KDE Spin if you care about VRR) as it strikes a good balance between reliability up-to-date packages (fairly recent kernels).

EDIT: If you need to save space, consider how much you need to save. You could go for an ITX build for example, which can be quite compact (although bigger than what I would consider a mini PC).

[โ€“] Tramort@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

This is good advice

Look at logicalincrements.com to budget different levels of hardware