Thinking about picking up a mini-pc for living room gaming for the family, to replace the old desktop computer that's been filling the role but has developed terminal hardware issues as of late.
Main usage is emulators, up through PS1 at least, but would also love to leverage a hefty but long-neglected steam library too, so probably going with a Bazzite setup on this one. Had Batocera on the other one, but it was pretty annoying to get anything outside of retroarch to run, and a few times updates caused major issues I had to ssh in to fix.
Have been interested in the GMKTEC systems, but their stock is decimated and what they have left has jumped in price a lot, so I'm considering going with some wild no-name brand to get a higher tier cpu for a similar price. AMD only, of course. Trying to stay under 200 with ram and sdd included - looks like 3500u is pretty common in that range, but with a no-name I'm finding even 5700hs in that range too.
Anyone else have experience going this route? Not too worried about the shopping aspect, just the experience of running a device like this.
towhee [he/him] - 6day
I only have experience with intel NUCs, and you can find used ones from the mid-late 2010s in plentiful supply on eBay for around a hundred bucks. Would be surprised if you could find similar with a non-integrated GPU for less than $200. Personally I love NUCs, they’re such nifty little well-designed pieces of hardware.
6
peeonyou [he/him] - 6day
I bought this BOSGAME mini-pc back in January because I was tired of running all my server stuff on my desktop and having to leave my desktop running 24/7. This thing is freaking amazing and for most cases could entirely replace my desktop except that I have a big ol beefy nvidia card in it.
I realize its more than what you're budgeting for but I gotta say it has been an incredibly solid little server handling all my plex/downloading/pi-hole and everything else I throw at it with no issue. I sometimes forget it's even in the little stand sitting behind me because it's just quietly sitting there doing everything in the background for me.
6
CarbonConscious [he/him] - 6day
Yeah that's one of the generic brands I'm looking at. They've got skus all over the price range. Glad to hear a good experience with them!
A little over budget but i couldn't be happier with my little game box
2
AF_R [he/him] - 6day
You could probably find an old Optiplex and like a used RX580 in that price range
5
tombruzzo [none/use name] - 6day
You could get an old SFF Dell and depending on your budget there are single PCI slot graphics cards. Look up ETA Prime on YouTube, he does a bunch of those sorts of builds
4
machinya [it/its, fae/faer] - 5day
i have been using an hp elitedesk with an integrated amd apu (Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE) for a while and works well emulating up to switch and some old-ish aaa games with some slowdowns sometimes. i got it quite cheap (100-150) a couple of years ago and it has been great. i did a quick search on ebay and i can see some of those for 150-250 second hand. maybe there is something like that there that could be good for what you want
2
cbd [he/him] - 6day
Could try getting an old used business workstation like a thinkstation or a dell, check if they have the option to install an external GPU enclosure.
2
CarbonConscious [he/him] - 6day
Definitely! Did that for the homelab. Other goals here include something more streamlined for the living room setting, and reliability cuz the kids are going to be crawling all over this thing.
External gpu enclosure goes huge on price, but yeah good for expandability. Looking at a unit now with an amd 4800u for <250, which is probably about what most enclosures I've seen run for, let alone the actual card. Some day though...
2
stupid_asshole69 [none/use name] - 4day
Everyone saying use a sff workstation is right.
The ones using 8th gen Intel chips and previous are available now for very cheap because they’re being mass dumped onto the secondhand market due to the windows 11 transition. They will all take half height gpus which are also incredibly cheap and almost universally cool by pulling air front to back so they can look like the cat face amongst owl faces meme when put on a bookshelf.
CarbonConscious in technology
Mini-PCs for Gaming
Thinking about picking up a mini-pc for living room gaming for the family, to replace the old desktop computer that's been filling the role but has developed terminal hardware issues as of late.
Main usage is emulators, up through PS1 at least, but would also love to leverage a hefty but long-neglected steam library too, so probably going with a Bazzite setup on this one. Had Batocera on the other one, but it was pretty annoying to get anything outside of retroarch to run, and a few times updates caused major issues I had to ssh in to fix.
Have been interested in the GMKTEC systems, but their stock is decimated and what they have left has jumped in price a lot, so I'm considering going with some wild no-name brand to get a higher tier cpu for a similar price. AMD only, of course. Trying to stay under 200 with ram and sdd included - looks like 3500u is pretty common in that range, but with a no-name I'm finding even 5700hs in that range too.
Anyone else have experience going this route? Not too worried about the shopping aspect, just the experience of running a device like this.
I only have experience with intel NUCs, and you can find used ones from the mid-late 2010s in plentiful supply on eBay for around a hundred bucks. Would be surprised if you could find similar with a non-integrated GPU for less than $200. Personally I love NUCs, they’re such nifty little well-designed pieces of hardware.
I bought this BOSGAME mini-pc back in January because I was tired of running all my server stuff on my desktop and having to leave my desktop running 24/7. This thing is freaking amazing and for most cases could entirely replace my desktop except that I have a big ol beefy nvidia card in it. I realize its more than what you're budgeting for but I gotta say it has been an incredibly solid little server handling all my plex/downloading/pi-hole and everything else I throw at it with no issue. I sometimes forget it's even in the little stand sitting behind me because it's just quietly sitting there doing everything in the background for me.
Yeah that's one of the generic brands I'm looking at. They've got skus all over the price range. Glad to hear a good experience with them!
I bought one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-Windows-Display-Output-Computer/dp/B0DNLX5KXN?psc=1
I installed this: https://bazzite.gg/
Works great
A little over budget but i couldn't be happier with my little game box
You could probably find an old Optiplex and like a used RX580 in that price range
You could get an old SFF Dell and depending on your budget there are single PCI slot graphics cards. Look up ETA Prime on YouTube, he does a bunch of those sorts of builds
i have been using an hp elitedesk with an integrated amd apu (Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE) for a while and works well emulating up to switch and some old-ish aaa games with some slowdowns sometimes. i got it quite cheap (100-150) a couple of years ago and it has been great. i did a quick search on ebay and i can see some of those for 150-250 second hand. maybe there is something like that there that could be good for what you want
Could try getting an old used business workstation like a thinkstation or a dell, check if they have the option to install an external GPU enclosure.
Definitely! Did that for the homelab. Other goals here include something more streamlined for the living room setting, and reliability cuz the kids are going to be crawling all over this thing.
External gpu enclosure goes huge on price, but yeah good for expandability. Looking at a unit now with an amd 4800u for <250, which is probably about what most enclosures I've seen run for, let alone the actual card. Some day though...
Everyone saying use a sff workstation is right.
The ones using 8th gen Intel chips and previous are available now for very cheap because they’re being mass dumped onto the secondhand market due to the windows 11 transition. They will all take half height gpus which are also incredibly cheap and almost universally cool by pulling air front to back so they can look like the cat face amongst owl faces meme when put on a bookshelf.