Why Are Mini PCs Everywhere in 2024? | What Mini PC is Worth Buying? | Mini PCs Taking Over

if you've been watching any amount of tech YouTube over the last year you might have noticed that a lot of content creators out there have been covering mini PCS there's multiple reasons for this one of the main reasons of course being the fact that Mini PC manufacturers seem to be very happy to throw review units to pretty much anyone out there but that's not necessarily unique to mini PCS themselves there's a lot of different product categories out there where many facturers are more than happy to throw units at influencers just hoping that they'll get any kind of coverage the reason that many PCs do get any kind of coverage whatsoever is specifically because of the fact that they're really popular and if you're the kind of person that really Associates computers with these big boxes that take up a lot of space and kind of just make weird noises while you're using him then it's time that you really familiarize yourself with the modern world of computing and that really involves mini PCS mini PCS have been on the rise in terms of popularity globally right now due to the fact that they are extremely small extremely powerful and extremely power efficient and considering that most of us out there in the world aren't exactly living in these gigantic houses with a lot of space being able to have these really small compact systems that pack a lot of per performance in a really small package is an extremely attractive offering if you're trying to make a compact little Computing space for yourself if you're living in an apartment with roommates you don't exactly have a lot of space to have this gigantic desk with an ultrawide Monitor and you can have this big liquid cooled ATX case a lot of the times you might only have enough space to have a little 24 in or even 21in monitor and you need something that can maybe fit underneath the space that that monitor takes up and that's what a lot of these mini PCS can actually do cuz see here's the thing the reality of it is is that the vast majority of us out there are not exactly using our computers to do anything complex you more than likely are not sitting there editing a 4K video you probably just want to be able to open up a web browser go on to YouTube go on to Facebook go on to Instagram go on to Twitter go on to Tik Tok you want to be able to watch Hulu you want to be able to watch Netflix you want to be able to watch any streaming service out there maybe you want to be able to do your homework so all you have to be able to do is open up a web browser and open up Office 365 or Google Docs and you could pretty much do all of that with a system like this any system running on Intel n95 n100 n97 any of these types of processors it's going to do a pretty fantastic job at any kind of day-to-day activity that the vast majority of people out there are trying to do and really the benefit of these extremely entrylevel mini PCS is the price points that they're at with some of these going down to as low as $100 at that price point you're getting a quad core processor that has the same IPC as Skylake which is Intel sixth generation and I understand we're on 14th generation right now so that seems like quite a while ago but the truth of the matter is is that if you had a system with a fourth gen processor you have enough horsepower to do day-to-day activities more than adequately and the benefit of this is that it's an extremely low power chip while also having really great performance for day-to-day tasks and while it isn't as low power as something based off of arm like the RAs Berry Pi it does actually have some pretty major benefits in terms of the fact that it is multiple times more powerful in terms of the performance and because it's based off of x86 you have a larger selection of software and operating systems that will actually run on this as opposed to the far more limited and a lot of times experimental software that is out there for arm just to due to the long Legacy of 86 there is a significant amount more support for it and the fact that you could pick up a system with a chip like this for around $1 to $150 means that it makes it a very compelling option as opposed to going for a single board computer where you will be seeing significantly better efficiency but you are sacrificing overall raw performance and overall software compatibility but while the entrylevel section of mini PCS is extremely interesting I think where the real Superstar Hardware is is in the midsection that starts off at around the2 200 to $350 price range in this price category this is pretty much completely dominated by AMD as opposed to where the $100 to $200 price range is almost exclusively owned by Intel here AMD just has such compelling options at extremely affordable prices to the point where it makes it a tough sell to really get a system in the 100 to1 to $200 range because of the fact that the performance uplift that you get just for spending an extra $100 is pretty massive a perfect example and a staple of this price point is of course the belink Sur Five series where there have been a wide assortment of different models with a wide assortment of different chips with right now the stand standard ones that you can find is rocking a ryzen 5 556u and a ryzen 75700 u and these are anywhere around that 200 to $260 price range usually usually with 16 GB if you want 32 GB you're looking at closer to around 300 to 330 those sales happen very frequently for systems in this price category the real standard pieces of Hardware that you're going to see across the board here is a mixture of Zen 2 or Zen 3 things like the ryzen 5 5500 U 5700 U are based on Zen 2 so they're quite a few years old at this point but they're usually at the cheapest price point the biggest benefit that you really get from Hardware like this is the fact that you get quite a few cores for not a lot of money and while Zen 2 is quite a few years old at this point the IPC of it is still higher than Sky lake so it actually does end up beating out any of the systems by Intel at this price point because at this point you're dealing with six cores at a minimum and really when it comes to what to choose here because of the fact that radon Graphics aren't really as cut down as rdna Graphics are now these Vega based Graphics well they do see some drops in performance as you go down the tiers it's really not as drastic so a lot of the times when choosing what system to go with here you're really just better off going with whatever is the best priced and of course pay attention to the io because there are some compelling options here for example the gmk tech M5 has a ryzen 75700 u and two 2.5 GB NYX which means it makes it a extremely compelling option if you want to have a Home Server because we're dealing with eight cores here eight cores with Zen 2 IPC which is extremely fantastic performance and at its stock configuration it has a TDP of 15 watts so it's extremely power efficient making it an extremely Ideal Home Server and again while the hardware in there isn't the latest it's really fantastic performance and especially at the wattage that it's going to run at of course if you're going to be doing some gaming I would really recommend a system that actually comes with a higher stock TDP that would be something like the tricky speed S5 or the belink sir 5 where the system with the 5500 U or 556u is going to come with a stock TDP of 25 watts while the unit with the 5700 U is going to come with a stock TDP of 35 watts in this price category you're going to find a lot of these systems that end up looking the same systems from belink systems from from trig Key Systems from boss game the reason that they're all going to look pretty much identical is because they pretty much are they're all made by the exact same company company known as aw they're pretty much an oem that manufactures a lot of these and seems to actually own the vast majority of these Brands making these systems and luckily they do make some pretty great systems overall so you're safe to buy from any of these different brands they're made by the same OEM and that OEM does do a great job at that so you can have full faith that you can buy from them now keep in mind that another really popular brand out there is this one here called Ace magician Ace magician is one of those brands that also has a bunch of different brands under it like Ace magic Ace magician and Ace PC now Ace magician got into trouble recently because of the fact that it turns out that some of the systems that they were selling out there we coming with malware they have since addressed this and I actually made a video covering this a while ago the news only recently started to gain some traction but if you want to check that out there is the link there but because of this incident you might want to be cautious buying any hardware from them I currently have two systems from them I have one under the brand of Ace magician and another one under the acpc brand and both have not given me any issues whatsoever so I really can't sit here and say that I've had a bad experience with them or anything like that but again if you want to be cautious about it that is something in their history but I would recommend in general that anytime you get any of these systems that you wipe it completely just in case of anything nefarious is installed in there some standout models to me in this price category are really just the belink Sur five in whatever iteration I do like the overall design and the fact that it is one of the quietest systems that I've ever heard and I think that beelink has really nailed the overall design and most of the systems in this price category really tend to feel very cheap of course all of the other derivatives of the surf 5 like the trig key and the boss game P1 are fantastic choices as well especially the P1 because of the fact that it does come with that 2.5 GB ethernet Jack of course it's not as good as the gmk tech M5 where you get two of them but the two ports is only really great if you're actually going to utilize them if not the one port is more than adequate especially because you're still going to get the benefit of 2.5 gbit you just don't get the benefit of being able to use the system itself as a router a very Niche feature that a lot of people out there really shouldn't even consider though self-hosting your own router is a fantastic option if you just want a more casual PC then really really it's not something you should be considering at all though it is an option that is there now past this point in terms of price is where things start to get a little bit more complicated see in the $300 to $400 price range we're looking at systems like the Sur 5 Max with the ryzen 7 5800 H running at a pretty high TDP and we start to get into some of the ryzen 6000 series systems some of them of course labeled with 7,000 series but it's just a rebatch 6000 so systems with the 6600 H the 6800h and the 7735 HS here we finally start to actually get some rdna graphics going on and we do see some uplift in terms of performance the problem is is if you want those rdna Graphics a lot of the times in this price category you're looking at bare bone systems so to actually get the storage and the ram you're usually looking at spending an extra100 to $200 that really pushes a lot of these rdna based systems into a price category that is more in the 400 to $500 price range with some configurations really pushing you more into the 500 to $550 price range at this price point you really need to start questioning whether or not having a small PC is worth it because you could start to make a relatively small PC that is using a matx motherboard and has a full-size graphics card at this price range and you're going to get significantly better performance rdna does come with a pretty significant uplift in terms of performance when it comes to integrated Graphics but it does not compare at all to actually having a full dedicated graphics card even if we're talking about some pretty lowend or pretty old Hardware something like a GTX 1660 super which you could pick up online right now for around $80 that is going to give you significantly more performance and a graphics card like that will fit into a absolutely small system that will still fit in most tiny gaming environments where really the only benefits of something extremely small like this start to become a lot more niche of course there's some compell options in terms of performance here and at the end of the day this is a lot of especially CPU power that you can have in an extremely tiny box there's no competing against that it's just that at these price points if you just want a day-to-day computer your stopping point was at around $200 to $250 and if you want great performance well you can get that on a system that is at the end of the day yeah pretty significantly bigger but overall is going to not end up taking up all that much space and it's going to give you some pretty great performance that is going to be leagues better than this and you're going to have more flexibility in terms of upgrade ability and I mean there's a reason why all of the mini PCS that are in this price category aren't really in the top sellers on Amazon one the price is a barrier but two at this price point it does become a lot more compelling to go with another option but it's in that $100 to $300 price range where mini PCS really Dominate and I think that mini PCS really provide a lot of compelling options in terms of what you can do with them that I think that for the vast majority of people you really should just have one especially if you've ever had an interest in learning Linux they're really great for that they're kind of just little fun toys that you get to play around with while also being absolutely fantastic replacements for aging computers when you just want to use something that is extremely low power in terms of how many watts it uses but comes with a really great performance that is going to be way more than you're really ever going to need I promise you Grandma using Facebook is not suddenly going to need an 8 core processor but at $280 why not just give it to her

Channel: EVO Tech

Views: 38,535

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Id: 80m6zxxOgak

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 12 2024