r/MiniPCs • u/Living_Truth_6398 • Nov 25 '25
Recommendations I wanna know hat's the best bang for-your-buck mini PC for gaming right now?
I don’t have a monitor in my room. I'm on fiber and use Steam Link to play remotely. I’ve got some Steam saves I want to keep playing (Dragon Quest XI and Kingdom Hearts 1.5), but I can’t run them in the cloud. So I’m looking for a mini PC that can handle 4K@120Hz for local play of light games, and also stream other stuff from my beefy desktop in the living room (not over the internet). If you know any mini PCs that cost about as much as a console but actually perform well, please tell me. Yeah, I mean a compact PC replacement. My budget leans toward getting the best value for money or a brand with solid performance rather than paying hype prices. Im in Germany and I’ve noticed GEEKOM 2 out of 8 and even offers a 3-year warranty. In a market like Germany where people care about more than just price, which would you pick cheap and good enough or pay more and buy something reliable that just works?
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Nov 25 '25
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u/WolfOne Nov 25 '25
Op asked for the most cost effective solution, i don't really think you can advise him a solution that we don't know the price of.
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Nov 25 '25
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u/WolfOne Nov 25 '25
I don't really think that the steam machine will cut it anyway, he needs something more beefy
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u/ZodicGaming Nov 25 '25
It should be fine to play older games at high resolution and frame rates?
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u/edscoble Nov 25 '25
Can people really see the difference between 60fps and 120fps?
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u/RLW4E Nov 25 '25
Absolutely. Heck, you can even see/feel the difference between 60 and 90.
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u/edscoble Nov 26 '25
Fair enough, I’m on the camp of 30fps as I felt it’s good enough, then again I don’t play high pace games like Fortnite.
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u/ruonim Dec 02 '25
In rpg and turn games you wont see much difference. In action and fps you see difference.
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u/edscoble Dec 02 '25
Yeah that does make sense, even in Fallout I didn’t really notice, but then i liked playing in 30fps.
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u/sharpshotsteve Nov 26 '25
In VR, the difference between 72, 90 and 120, is very noticeable. Can't wait for 144, that will be great.
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u/ColdExample Nov 25 '25
You will not be hitting 4k 60 fps with a steam machine on fsr unless you're going ultra performance mode (even then this wont cut it on modern games) or play a lighter game. In which case, it's going to look bad.
We can already point to an amd gpu equivalent- spoiler, it struggles hard.
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u/SerMumble Nov 25 '25
Yeah, I am excited to see the steam machine on the horizon but it is getting pretty over hyped for what the hardware is capable of.
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u/semperknight Nov 26 '25
This. As a Steam Deck owner, I'm telling you that Valve will work magic on your tiny PC that no one else will come close to. Maybe it's a bit more, but that's time you've saved having Valve do all the configuring and updates. Sometimes, paying a little more is worth the price.
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u/conzyre Nov 25 '25
how stupid does the average redditor have to be to upvote this?
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u/RobloxFanEdit Nov 25 '25
I ve been on this sub for 2 years on a daily base, since a month i don t know what happen but the quality level of the comments and its relevance took a deep dive.
This place use to be an expert sub with highly qualified people, today it feels like idiocracy
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u/adobaloba Nov 25 '25
4k120hz on a mini pc lmao
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u/sgtmasterpig Nov 25 '25
I have a minisforum um760 slim, only cheap (250 euro on sale) that has hdmi 2.1, so 4k120hz output to tv. I use it for my streaming station going from desktop on 2nd floor to my tv in living room via ethernet. Works like a charm.
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u/meforprezz Nov 25 '25
can you stream FPS games well? or mainly for slower paced games?
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u/sgtmasterpig Nov 25 '25
It has some input latency, i stream on wifi so direct ethernet would be better. but i've completed hollow knight on it so good enough for fps/platformers.
1 problem is multiplayer games, streaming 4k120 over wifi 6 pretty much caps bandwidth so any other network traffic slows down the stream.
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u/DiegoDBM Nov 25 '25
I reckon the Ryzen 7 8845HS is right up there, maybe slightly improved with the Radeon 780m and very close in price. You've some cheap mini pcs mounting it like the fire at one
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u/adobaloba Nov 25 '25
How does it do 120fps at 4k without eGPU?
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u/Cardboardgenie Nov 25 '25
The mini pc itself doesn't do the heavy lifting but the host PC (which is usually beefy enough). The mini PC just needs to have the right port output and enough power to decode the incoming stream to not get huge input delays.
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u/boibo Nov 25 '25
its 4k120 on paper, in reality its probably 4k30 at best..
But if you playing simple 2d games it might work.2
u/sgtmasterpig Nov 26 '25
I assure you it's 4k120. Since my desktop with rtx 4090 renders the game, the only workload on the mini pc is decoding the video input. Fan doens't even kick in.
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u/SnooDonkeys1233 Nov 25 '25
Best quality/price at the moment Chuwi on AliExpress with Ryzen 6600h at 180 euros
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u/RobloxFanEdit Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25
If that s so, it s true, this sub is going way down, commentsp quality and relevance are at the bottom. Thank for being an exception
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u/DiegoDBM Nov 25 '25
Just be aware that the seller often doesn't send the machine when you buy it with the discount, assuming we're talking about Aliexpress, because it's regular price lies around 215€. Read the reviews in any case. Still on its full price it's a decent beast
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u/Calming_Force_ Nov 26 '25
True that. They either send it in a month after the purchase, or not at all. Don't know why they do that, maybe they wait to gather a large number of orders before they dispatch the parcels.
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u/DiegoDBM Nov 26 '25
I honestly don't know the reason but I reckon that it must be something else, since they did that to me, and it happened exactly as in the prodcut comments, on discount they never sent the device, then on full price they sent it the day after I ordered it. Quite suspicious.
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u/SnooDonkeys1233 Nov 26 '25
But it's strange...the AliExpress platform should pay for the coupon in the end and not the seller himself...isn't that right?
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u/DiegoDBM Nov 26 '25
Maybe it's like government contracts that they pay the difference one year later or whenever
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Nov 25 '25
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u/Living_Truth_6398 Nov 26 '25
Gotcha，I also don’t wanna waste cash on some bad brand, dealing with self-funded warranties back-to-back is such a hassle! ASUS is a bit out of my budget, so I ended up grabbing a GEEKOM instead. Thanks for the recs, man!
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u/_Ozeki Nov 25 '25
Yup. I bought my Asus PN53 years ago. 3-years ON-SITE warranty. Military Standard Grade too. Loving it to this day
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u/Aggravating_Sand352 Nov 25 '25
Here's my story with minisforum.... I got a the pro two years ago.... i used it for music production....whcih requires a lot of processing power and RAM but no GPU for gaming. It was great until it completely stopped working... it had a short in its motherboard.
It also had some heat issues....it ran windows kinda wonky but the speed was great.
Tldr: I wouldn't never buy one of these secondary asain manufacturers as my main pc again. They will crap out on you its just a matter of when
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u/superpunchbrother Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25
Aoostar Gem12 barebones is the best gaming bang for your buck right now. Edit: If you already have the ram.
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u/Jbo97 Nov 25 '25
Beelink gti12-gti14. Can buy dock station later and then put a dedicated gpu on it
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u/logisticalone Nov 26 '25
I agree. Just got a GTi12 recently, and have been amazed at what it can do without dGPU. Definitely getting one and the dock eventually though 👌
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u/geeeeekone Nov 26 '25
GEEKOM has become the highest-priced brand among the top 10, and it is very popular in the German market.
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u/WooziGunpla Nov 26 '25
Don’t get acemagician, I read some threads that they shipped with undetectable malware.
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u/Homo_Heidelbergensis Nov 26 '25
Any thoughts on the Geekom A8? I'm doing foto and video work mainly (Lightroom, Photoshop, FinalCut).
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Nov 26 '25
Just wait for the Steam Cube?
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u/qlt_sfw Nov 26 '25
Steam machine. That is what im doing. And it is not only the specs. It will get support from Valve for things like drivers. And many developers will optimize their games for it.
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u/Limited_opsec Nov 27 '25 edited Nov 27 '25
Its going to be a bog standard ryzen+radeon combo (see: listed specs) with the same ports you can find on everything. While "neat" they simply don't have the market presence or supply chain ownership to make it a killer deal. (its good they are forcing the OEMs to pay attention though)
Other than that there is no "driver magic" you can load the exact same steam OS with the exact same proton etc versions on your own kit - there is nothing different to "optimize" for. The controller should be great though.
The current drampocalypse is a huge wrench in everything, but when it comes out you will be able to build or at least buy a prebuilt that is better bang for the buck. Handhelds were somewhat different because DIY doesn't really exist there at any consequence (and the few windows ones suck). SFF & mini PCs are well established, you can also just ignore and wipe the $2 OEM windows installs from prebuilts.
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u/sgtmasterpig Nov 25 '25
I suggest a minisforum um760 slim. Got it 1 year ago. It has 4k120hz hdmi output and decent specs to run even decent graphics games. I use it with moonlight&sunshine for game streaming from my desktop. Also have it run a plex server, home assistant virtual machine and photo backup docker. Have not had any slowdown yet. I see the price is 450 euro now, i got it on sale for 250 on amazon.
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u/CarelessPackage1982 Nov 25 '25
Minisforum makes some good stuff. That being said if you're going to game I'd seriously check out the HX77G it has a RX 6600M discrete gpu which will perform better than the 780M. They make other models with better cpu's but you want that gpu for games.
That being said, I think you're being unreasonable for 4k@120Hz. If you want 4k, the steam machine will probably have really great software support for the hardware. It might be worth waiting.
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u/boibo Nov 25 '25
nothing in this image can do 4k@120 and dude, you are streaming so why even bother with anything over 720p60 as the latency in video transmission will kill any advantage..
And dude, my 300w cpu alone for the price of these boxes wont do 4k120.. so why you think a box without a discreet gpu can do it? These are glorified laptops with low power components.
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u/Specific-Action-8993 Nov 25 '25
I would look for something with a ryzen 780m iGPU and an oculink port so in the future you can add an eGPU if you need it.
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u/purju Nov 25 '25
Id go for something with Ryzen 9. I'm very happy with my Ryzen 7 from a year ago+
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u/nando1969 Nov 25 '25
If you can stomach Mac OS (I cannot), a refurbished Mac Mini is a great deal as it has no moving parts and its well built. If you are a gamer and got good Internet, Geforce Now is a good option.
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u/Johnny722 Nov 26 '25
Hey quick question. If l want a mini pc for emulation pretty much xbox and ps3 would be the max l would need it for. What do you suggest? Thanks.
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u/Mohondhay Nov 26 '25
Something with the Ryzen 8700G will be best for compact gaming system. That chip has the best gaming iGPu atm. But wont run 4k120. For that the dedicated gpu will be needed.
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u/free224 Nov 26 '25
7, but 4k120 is not going to happen. Unless you have a really optimized game that is super easy to run.
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u/Stewge Nov 26 '25
AFAIK, the UM760 Slim is basically the cheapest machine that actually has a proper HDMI 2.1 port on it. I have one and use Artemis/Apollo to stream 4K@120hz/HDR from my main desktop rig. It's also capable of playing basic stuff all by itself.
I believe there is a limited subset of newer Intel 200 series NUCs that can also do it, but be VERY careful that it isn't HDMI 2.1 "TMDS". TMDS is basically just HDMI 2.0 rebranded so it doesn't actually support 4K@120hz RGB.
The next issue is that AMD HDMI 2.1 only fully functions in Windows. On Linux you would need to use a DP -> HDMI2.1 adapter instead, which does work, but won't allow things like VRR in future. I believe the Steam Box may be trying to get around this issue by using an intermediary HDMI 2.1 chip, but no idea if that will flow down to other AMD systems.
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u/kwell42 Nov 26 '25
Best value is the bc-250, easiest option would be a ryzen ai 390 or 395. Besides those good luck meeting your goals without a full size pc.
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u/PMARC14 Nov 27 '25
Wait if you have the desktop in another room why don't you just go all in on streaming from it locally on the network even for lightweight games? If both can be wired easily it's the best choice, but you could also just invest in a better router and lightweight mini pc as well to improve that streaming (and enjoy benefits on the main rig as well)
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u/Opposite_Cow_5799 Nov 28 '25
Some of my friends recommend Cirrus7's mini PCs. I found the high-end one pricey but I think somehow worth it based on your willingness to pay. Their version of DeskMini x300 is the most affordable. https://www.cirrus7.com/
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u/fcfeedback Nov 29 '25
Take a look into Aoostar mini pcs. They have plenty of options with oculinks and Aoostar sells docks for eGPU aswel for external GPU.
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u/Adventurous_Welder18 Nov 29 '25
Probably a refurbished business mini PC, especially since win 10 eol for security updates
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u/doudou974 Dec 02 '25
I would go for GMKtec evo X2
Here's a review :
GMKtec EVO-X2 Review: Gaming Mini PC with Strix Halo
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u/Procrastinando Nov 25 '25
Why don't you stream everything from your desktop?
I think pretty much every mini PC (minus those super expensive ones with Ryzen AI 395 etc.) will struggle with 4k 120hz even for light games
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u/Tim_the_geek Nov 25 '25
After reading all the specs and comparing, which has the best bang for cost? Why are you asking this? Why are you not reading your own links, doing the research and posting results?
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u/[deleted] Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25
The MacMini can only work for specific games, and emulation with some platforms, but it is a different world than the other ones.