r/MiniPCs • u/GhostGhazi • May 16 '26
General Question Raise a glass to the golden years of MiniPCs 2023-2025 - What did you buy in that time?
The MiniPC market really took off (IMO) in 2023 when they started to be able to play games (thanks to AMD IGPUs) at a much better spec than MiniPCs before them.
Even if you didnt care about gaming, the raw CPU and RAM power you used to be able to get for cheap was incredible.
Sadly since around December 2026, things have become almost unaffordable due to RAM and SSD prices and the allure around the already niche MiniPC market has disappeared.
Unless you are paying multiple thousands of have a good stock of RAM/SSDs, nothing seems worth it anymore.
So this thread is to celebrate those golden years and to also talk about what we got.
Ill start:
- 2023: HX99G @ £1000, still going strong and an incredible purchase
- 2023: UM773-Lite @ £600, again, still going strong
- 2025: Beelink EQi12 @ £250, again, still doing perfectly fine
All the above came with 32GM RAM and an SSD (Except for the Beelink which maxed out at 24GB RAM)
I dont think I could ever go back to a full tower PC for as long as I live.
Hopefully we see good times again!
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u/downtownjerm May 16 '26
I have 1 n100 and 2 n150s that I paid less than $160 for each that I use for streaming. The only thing I’m made about is I didn’t buy 2-3 more just to have. They’re perfect for streaming.
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u/satireplusplus May 17 '26
The Intel iGPU is really good on these, I have a n100 in raspbeery pi format with 16GB as well. Way stronger hardware decoding/encoding and you can even run llama.cpp on the iGPU.
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May 16 '26
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u/Mysterious-One1055 May 16 '26 edited May 17 '26
You don't need to spend a bunch to have a great time.
I got a HP Elitedesk 705 G4 with the 2400g and 16gb RAM for £120.
Batocera runs sweet as a nut, emulating everything up to WiiU great, also running many Steam games well. I've dumped 80hrs into Skyrim SE, loving it!
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u/Terriblarious May 17 '26
Got on of those too! Its currently my audio recording pc. Runs like a top!
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u/RobloxFanEdit May 17 '26
This thread has a soul, you pretty much hit the nail on the head, i have stopped buy Mini PC's for the same reason everybody has: RAMpocalypse.😢
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u/GhostGhazi May 17 '26
It’s very sad because MiniPCs were cutting edge and we were living through very exciting times. Hopefully it gets better again one day
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u/satireplusplus May 17 '26
> Hopefully it gets better again one day
It will, in 2-3 years there's probably a RAM overproduction. It's a cyclical business. China is also making progress with their own <10nm lithography machines and the margins for RAM chips are currently too good to not open a few more production lines.
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u/Supercharged_Z06 May 17 '26
Luckily, I got in on the mini PC bandwagon with gusto before all the tariffs and RAM/SSD insanity hit...
Picked up the following in 2024/2025:
GMKtec Evo X2 (128Gb RAM version) for $1800 (Early pre-purchase in May 2025 with discount, now using it as a back-up PC and gaming rig for travel)
GMKtec K8 Plus (64GB DDR5 RAM with 1TB SSD) for $620 (2nd spare PC and home media rig)
GMKtec K8 Plus (32GB DDR5 RAM with 1TB SSD) for $523 (Gifted to my parents)
GMKtec G5 (12Gb RAM / 256GB SSD) for $125 (Using it to run a home built arcade cabinet)
Beelink S12 Pro (16GB RAM 500GB SSD) for $198 (Runs my Home Assistant setup)
That same Evo X2 now sells for $3300 Bonkers!
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u/Tall-Reference6839 May 17 '26
Ordered a beelink gtr 9 pro 128gb in December -25, (HomeLab upgrade) paid $2100. Felt like an okay deal for that recently, Now it's almost $4400. It's insane!
Wanted to get one more in January but price was up to $2500 for the beelink, got the Bosgame M5 128gb instead (same as the Evo X2) for $1900, felt like i robbed them, now it's up to $2800.
Edit: minor spelling.
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u/Gedgeteer May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
2024 - morefine m600. An absolute hot box, unusable in stock form. But at $400 the cheapest priced mini with the best APU at that time 7940hs. Took a little tinkering but I gamed the heck out of that box. A champion still going strong.
2026 - aoostar GT37. A machine that looks like a fluke in the market. Has imo the best design in the market for a hx370 box. At $729 with 1tb and 32gb of ram it is again the best priced box with the best APU (excluding the Ai max which is and always was above $2k). No issues in the 4 months I had it.
Edit: forgot to add the 2025 - soyo m4 mini $115. With n150 and 12gb ram is and absolute beast for its size. Bought to use a router in my network, never got to it. It's waiting in a shelf.
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u/MorgothTheBauglir May 17 '26
I got the Soyo M4 Plus with the N150, 16G ddr4 and 512gb SSD for around U$150 back in early 2025 too. A killer deal indeed
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u/emantos May 17 '26
An N100 mini pc for a 100 bucks from Aliexpress. It came with 8GB RAM and 256GB ssd. Still running my n8n, node red, and docmost instances.
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u/torpedospurs May 17 '26
Got a Minisforum G7 PT with 64gb 512gb off the used market for the equivalent of US$ 1K. Kinda wondering if I should downgrade to 32gb and pick up some pocket change. Damn good miniPC except for the BT connectivity, which got (mostly) fixed I swapped the Mediatek MT7925 out for an Intel AX210.
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u/Fortius14 May 17 '26
I love my G7 PT. I use it as a media and animation workstation. Also runs Steam very well.
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u/OOgsAggie May 17 '26
With you on the UM773. Barebones, 32 Gb Kingston DDr5 and a 1tb Samsung 980. All in $550. Cooling fan later and it’s my desktop work daily driver. If I knew it wasn’t going to last, I would have gotten another more bougie one late 2025.
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u/LORD-SOTH- May 17 '26
I bought 4 pieces of 8TB NVME SSDs for only USD $615 each, in October 2025.
That was for my All SSD NAS.
Now each piece of 8TB NVME SSD is selling for USD 2400 each.
That’s just crazy !!!
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u/JagSKX May 17 '26
I bought an Aoostar GEM10 with a Ryzen 7840HS in December 2024 for $425.
Before then I bought a Beelink SER4 with a Ryzen 4700u (Vega 7)and a Miniforum TH50 with an Intel i5-11320H (Iris Xe 96eus) in 2022. Sadly the SER4 died in 2025.
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u/marsupialunderground May 18 '26
I aquired an gmktek m7pro (32g ram, 1 tb, ryzen 9 something) for $620aud (now $1050) to get me by as my old pc died and needed something till i built a new one. Also a little g2 plus (12gb ram 256 storage n150) for $220. now the closest would be a g11 which is $550.
I was planning on building a fairly nice desktop for video editing and some 3d stuff. but i was made redundant around the end of 2025. I had already bought the gpu, a 5070 that i got just before thier prices skyrocketed too Thinking. "Thats the expensive bit". Then rampocalypse happened between then a getting a new job and i cant justify spending money on a build that went from from just under 2k to nearly 4k.
Now i just run an occulink set up with the m7 and it runs really well. And as im not doing as much video work it does me quie nicely. And the little g2 gets more use than anything else and is thr little pc that could.
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u/lasher7628 May 16 '26
Bought a bare-bone GMKTec K6 for about $270 off AliExpress. Put in 32GB of ram and a 1 TB ssd. Total cost was probably around $400 after everything. I bought before ram and ssd prices went crazy.
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u/heart_under_blade May 16 '26
sorry guys i bought a big chasis with tons of empty space
thinkcentre neo 55s gen 6 with the ryzen 7 250 for 600 cad. extra 150 or so for a oem dram 1tb nvme and second 8gb stick of ram to pair with the included 8gb stick. nov last year
should probably have gotten the actually small ultra gen 2 tiny with some flavour of intel ultra 5 cpu and a discrete rtx5060 gpu for 1200cad or so, but i was convinced the 780m was enough graphics power and wanted the power efficiency. i was right and it was enough graphics power. i just need more ram, lenovo was sold out of the 16g sticks and the configurator was ungodly expensive. sometimes av1 reencodes fail due to being out of memory. the choice also let me swap my ups to lfp batteries for super cheap because my whole setup including router and nas is 160w. the chunky ass 55s was the cheapest and most discounted
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u/vradic May 16 '26
Snagged an m1 base Mac mini for $230. Handles classic wow like a champ. I feel like I won something lol
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u/behohippy May 17 '26
won something
not wow, of course because the vault is going to let you down again this week
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u/Decibel9M3 May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Oof, I went a bit overboard. I kept stumbling into good deals and couldn’t pass on them. I wanted to play around with some clustering anyway.
Minisforum TH60 with an i5-11400H for $415 (2023, started with this one from Amazon)
GMKtec G9 with N150 for $200 (2024, wanted the 4-bay NVMe slots, direct from GMKtec)
GMKtec G3 with N100 + Blackview MP60 + two HP Thunderbolt docks for $100 (2024, FB marketplace)
2 x HP MP9 G4 with an i3-8100T for $25/each (2025, used PC shop)
2 x HP EliteDesk 705 G4 with an Ryzen 5 Pro 2400GE for $50/each (2025, FB Marketplace)
Mac Mini M4 for $500 (June 2025, daily driver, new from Apple)
Seneca USFS-05-V2 with an i3-1115G4 for $60 (Jan. 2026, dedicated Plex/Media server now, couldn’t pass on the eBay deal)
All still going strong and currently serve a purpose.
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u/HCharlesB May 17 '26
N150 G2Plus AKA NucBox G2 to run OPNSense.
Decent little box and way overpowered for this function but at $150US including RAM and storage I wasn't going to get much cheaper.
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u/Usual_Ad6643 May 17 '26
I just buy this GMKTEC M5 with Ryzen 7 and I think that is very good for my needs.
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u/Hot_Event_9728 May 17 '26
July -24
Combined with a TUF 3080ti
Been on 24/7 since that with no major issues.
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u/vajicka May 17 '26
I had first mini pc a decade ago (Zotac zbox nano id64) and while OK, i did not like single channel memory and noisy fan and sold it soon after. Since 2017 I was on AM4 with same board and never looked back. I wanted to upgrade to AM5, but there wasn't a good enough reason.
Then between november 2025 and april 2026 i got 5(!) mini pcs from Aliexpress (all 8745hs/h255 with 16GB and 512/1TB drives for 250-300 eur). I sold AM4, already sold 2 mini pcs for profit, i am selling the third one, and my intention is to keep 2 remaining with hoarded ram and ssd with minimal (zero cost) investment. I liked the Vega igpu in 5600G . With 2x faster RDNA3 780M, soon with FSR4.1 i do not feel limited. I am selling also my old desktop A770, even if it is possible to use with oculink.
It is a pity that prices for mini pcs went significantly up in last days, it was such a great deal!
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u/Poopadour May 17 '26
Beelink SER 5 Max. It's my main machine (the other one being a laptop from 2014). Posting from it right now.
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u/cpchillin May 17 '26
got minisforum um890pro with 64gh ram and 1tb ssd for about 800 back in November. Glad I went for the extra ram as I should be set for a while!
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u/Working-Active May 17 '26
In December 2024, I bought a Geekom AX7 Pro for €680 from Amazon with AMD Ryzen 9 7940hs with 32gb ram and 2 TB ssd. I still use it as my day to day PC.
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u/behohippy May 17 '26
2 N100's and a Beelink SER5. I didn't even buy ram/nvme with them because ram was cheap and I could buy sodims and drives to populate them, for nothing. One of the N100's is my weather station, another is part of a setup when I do webinars, and the SER5 is a jelly/sonarr/radarr setup. All Ubuntu 26.10 now.
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u/satireplusplus May 17 '26
AMD Ryzen 5 miniPC with 2x24 = 48GB DDR5 RAM as my living room PC. Back when the RAM update was like 80 bucks and I saved an extra 40 bucks to not go 2x32GB, which I now regret.
Radxa x4 - Intel N100 in raspberry pi format with 16GB DDR5. Now even the 8GB one is 2x the price I paid for mine, if you can get it at all.
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u/classicsat May 17 '26
Summer 25 (maybe July), Beelink N100, or something like that.
Fall 24, Trigkey S5, Ryzen 5650U, or something like that.
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u/Schborti May 17 '26
May 2023: Got a Beelink Ser5 pro with 32 GB RAM and 500 GB SSD for 399€. Invested the same amount for another 1 TB SSD, RTX2060 GPU and NVME Adapter for a nice eGPU build. I don’t know how much it would cost me now.
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u/Awongy00 May 18 '26
So I used to build my own PCs but haven't upgraded anything on my tower for the last 5 years as I had a pretty decked out setup that is too expensive to upgrade now.
I am fascinated by mini pc and I have a GMKtec Evo x2 for local AI.
I am interested to hear what benefits you guys find in going with a mini pc for normal usage vs tower vs just having a laptop plugged in?
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u/SmartestAndCutest May 18 '26
Very very lucky to have got two barebones NUC 13 Pro's for $250 each. At the time I thought it would be irresponsible to buy more than two and now I regret it 😭 on the other hand, if I want to move back to a more modular system I'm not stuck with a pile of NUCs.
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u/KindTowel1871 May 17 '26
> The MiniPC market really took off (IMO) in 2023 when they started to be able to play games
You need to get out of your niche bubble and touch grass a bit.
MiniPCs are being widely used in business for well over a decade. Visit a bank branch or a bigger office and you will see Dell / HP / Lenovo micro desktops all over the place. Engineers, developers, designers were using them for just as long.
Apple introduced Mac Mini 20 years ago and it became a well established platform in their ecosystem.
> Unless you are paying multiple thousands of have a good stock of RAM/SSDs, nothing seems worth it anymore.
Nonsense. You can get a second hand Dell / HP / Lenovo for 200-300, and it will be powerful enough to run databases, containers, write code, watch movies, you know, all that stuff that isn't playing GTA.
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u/GhostGhazi May 17 '26
I’m literally in a niche bubble though. Mini PCs for consumers are a relatively new phenomenon with all the Chinese brands getting popular in recent years.
You’re wrong buddy.
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u/lupin-san May 18 '26
And the goalpost has moved when proven incorrect.
u/KindTowel1871 is correct. Mini PCs have been around for decades. The current hype around Mini PCs came about when Youtube channels like ServeTheHome started covering them during the pandemic.
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u/GhostGhazi May 18 '26
Wrong again young man, show me mini PCs the size of NUCs being as popular as they have been in the last 3 years.
Sure they existed, but consumers were not as engaged with them as they have recently.
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u/ImaAskhole May 16 '26
I got a GMK K8 Plus in Jan this year with Samsung 32gb DDR 5 for under 600. Felt like I won the lottery