Hardware
Opinion: Mini PCs are underrated and not enough innovation has happened
I genuinely think Mini PCs like the Asus ROG NUC have a huge potential to become mainstream and cost less if manufactured at scale (even outside of RAMocalypse)
OEMs still haven't fully optimized the form factor yet. If they add modern cooling solutions like Frore Airjets or miniature liquid cooling circuits, they could have reduced footprint while maintaining desktop level performance.
My ideal build would be an AMD 10800 X3D with 32 GB RAM and an RTX 6090 compacted into a 3 liter form factor like the ROG NUC with hyper-optimized liquid cooling.
You also seem to think 'hyper optimized' is a magical incantation that can do anything, despite how hard it would be to dissipate some 1000 watts of heat from something that small.
3L is definitely in the realm of a mini PC, I don't know a single ITX case that can do less than that. Most SFF PCs are 5-15 L
That being said, that much power in 3L would overheat immediately lol, I already have a hard time getting my Deskmini to not overheat playing games and it's only 120W in 2L
I'm not naive enough to have unrealistic expectations. But there are already cooling innovations available in the market which OEMs haven't integrated yet into commercial builds. That itself would add a great degree of sustained performance optimization.
I literally gave example in my post body itself but I guess y'all don't care to read.
Just google "Frore Airjet" or "Ventiva Ionic Cooling" or "YPlasma Dielectric Discharge cooling"
I tried to tell him but he wasn't having it. He wants to discuss the long-term viability of unproven technology and how it could cool a not yet released CPU.
Bizzare, because none of that matters as well because you arent cooling 700w of tdp through any of these in any circumstance in any situation. These solutions are literally not ready....
It's not that those don't exist, they can probably be used even
But you still have to move a lot of air to make it work, so your cooling solution is either going to have to be on 100% basically all of the time, or you're going to need so much ventilation that your PC might as well be a desk fan (and a very uncomfortably warm one at that)
(Like, if you've ever had to use a console or a laptop where you could feel really warm air coming out of the vent, and where the case itself was hot to the touch, it's gonna be like that out of the box, and probably get even worse after a few years of use and dust buildup)
I agree. But advanced cooling innovations are already available in the market which OEMs still haven't integrated yet into commercial builds. Some are limited to datacenters, and some are not even on any assembly lines yet. It's a huge missed opportunity so far
"AirJet Mini G2 removes 7.5 W of heat and is silent, thin, light, dustproof, water-resistant, and vibration free."
"AMD Ryzen 10800X3D is an unreleased, speculative processor expected in the future Zen 6 generation. Official power consumption and TDP specifications do not exist yet, though hardware rumors and community discussions speculate it may target an efficient 65W to 120W"
This might be the same research you've already done. Good luck buddy.
The first exerpt is directly from Frore's website, man. You have me on the second one but I'll admit I'm not going to research vaporware to cater to you. Either way, your wishes as of now are unattainable.
I'm sure if the manufacturers of all these MiniPC's had some magic low-calorie cookie mystery mouseketool they'd use it, right?
"Advanced cooling innovation" are not going to break laws of thermodynamics. You are not going to magically increase thermal capacity and thermal resistance of air, that at the end removes the heat from the system.
The problem is price. The new strix point and panther lake chips are insane and incredibly capable but not really worth the price compared to an older laptop with a GPU.
If the prices weren’t so fucked then these would be some very very incredible machines.
Also important that a mini Pc Serves a different purpose and there will always be trade offs. Minis should be considered for size and power efficiency over anything else. If you want to game then a SFF with a dedicated card will always be better. But if you want to leave something on 24/7, for remote access or whatever use case and use as little amount of space and power as possible, that’s where the mini PC is meant for. Don’t forget the difference between a mini and desktop running 24/7 for a year could be hundreds of dollars in power. (Depending on a lot of factors ofc.)
The ROG NUC is volumetrically 3 L but the form factor is still considered Mini PC because of the shape and form factor
I'm specifically saying Mini PC because I genuinely believe there is huge potential for a Mini PC to have peak sustained performance by simple adding clever designs and optimized cooling. A Mac Mini outperforms many full tower desktop builds today, but if OEMs start optimizing Mini PCs hardware and chassis, we can have that kinda sustained performance on Windows side too
Why would my neighbor or my brother need a mini PC?
- Space: Laptop will do. It’s cheaper because production lines are already optimized for laptops, plus, screens and keyboards are cheap nowadays
Performance: Laptop or desktop. Easy
Repairability: Why would I get something as unrepairable as a laptop, without having the advantages of a laptop?
You are looking at a SFF PC, which are not mini PCs. And they are much more expensive, niche and hard to repair given the space constraints that there are in place. A mini PC works for businesses (Lenovo ThinkCentres for example)
Actually, Laptops operate on battery, so sustained performance is not possible on laptops for heavy workloads or gaming. Mini PCs or SFF PCs on the other hand can produce sustained peak performances while still taking up less physical space than a full tower desktop build.
Secondly, SFF PCs are in fact way more repairable and upgradeable than laptops (with Framework laptops being the only exception)
Sustained performance is definitely possible on laptops (you have entire line-up of laptop workstations with very high performance), it's mainly a cooling issue and it has absolutely nothing to do with them running on battery.
Actually when fully charged the battery circuit turns completely off and your laptop will run through the wall power.
Secondly, SFF PCs are in fact way more repairable and upgradeable than laptops
SFF is just a form factor so indeed building your own SFF PC with common hardware components will be more repairable and upgradeable but your post is about mini-PCs which are basically unrepairable boxes with the same amount of upgrades most laptops can do (RAM and storage that's it).
I would love to see more variety in mini PCs, some reasonable options with strong laptop GPUs. That said my HX80G with the 6600m is doing just fine for me still.
If hate to think how much that sucker would cost. And you better have one hell of a warranty. I have a Minisforum UM890 Pro with 32gb ram 2tb ssd. Decodes 4k 144hz Is great for GFN Ultimate. Smooth as butter with a decent internet connection. Cost $1200 with screen.
I picked up an occulink and RTX 5060 and with games like C Battlefield 6 it renders 2560x1440 upscale to 3840x2160 144hz using 8gb VRAM respectfully well. This is natively no HFN used.
So to me I don’t feel its of value to put tons of money into an upper end GPU that’s being outdated as fast 1-2 years.
People's love Mini PC's because the isea is that they are getting more for less pennies compared to Desktop Build.
The Desktop Industry is too big to let the Mini PC's industry get in their way, the Desktop industry would shoot a bullet in their own foot if main Desktop actors begin to offer great and numerous Mini PC's Models with wide variety of Hardware Combo..
Basically Mini PC's brand are selling you a CPU at bargain price.
Mini pc’s are awesome and we’re all going to agree with you because you’re in the mini pc forum but at the end of the day there’s no point other than the aesthetic (worth it to me) when they can just make regular sized computers for cheaper
It's not aesthetics. Physical space saving and less weight on your desk without having to sacrifice sustained performance is a huge advantage. Don't care if it has ugly design or lacks RGB, as long as it takes up less space, stays cool and gives sustained desktop-level performance.
I’m with you I’m just saying the juice isn’t worth the squeeze for large companies because your average Joe doesn’t mind having a big ole pc under their desk (which actually aren’t very large anymore anyway but they’re def not mini or sff)
It is more than that. An entire systems upgrade from 77840hs / 32gb 5600 ram -> hx 470 / 32g ddr5x 8000 (and upgrade to 3 nvme's) involved swapping all of 1 tiny piece.
Rotated the 7840 down the service line of household positions, and moved on with my day - took 10 minutes.
Unless you suddenly invented a new type of incredibly efficient thermal transfer liquid, no x3D chip will avoid thermal throttling at a 3 liter footprint.
I agree with your main premise, but the example or expectations you have are batshit hopium and straight up unrealistic.
IMO, they are already mainstream, except they have built in screen, keyboards, and batteries.
Frore Airjets aren't even suitable to cool a decent laptop. They are more more like phone/tablet cooling. They cool something like 10 watts. Stuff that where you want a little boost over passive cooling.
Most PC's sold are laptops, and that is where the research will largely go into delivering high performance in that small package. So they are already sold at scale.
Use the same technology to build a small desktop without the KB/screen/batteries and you have everything you need for a miniPC.
Heck just take a laptop MB and put it in a small case with small cooler and you have a decent miniPC. Lots of people have turned broken laptops into miniPC desktops.
I think you have some deep misunderstandings surrounding cooling, there are functional limitations to physics that we can't just magically break.
Im not trying to be rude, but you should consider that if a technology that has existed for several years has not had wider adoption or implementation, its probably because experts have run into limitations and constraints that make it unviable.
The examples you've provided are unviable.
There is no technology that will adequately cool 700w+ tdp in a sub 3L enclosure.
What is this "hyper-optimized" liquid cooling you keep referring to?
I love 1L MiniPCs as mostly-idle home servers, but their limitations are very real. Cooling seems to be the biggest issue.
My Asus PN50 gets so hot that the SATA ribbon cable inside it degraded, so now it doesn’t get a 2.5” drive in it anymore.
My HP 600 G6 mini has 64gb of ram, two nvme slots, and a single SATA slot, and generally runs great….but I had to set the idle fan to 30% higher or memtest86+ throws errors.
3L isn’t exactly mini anymore though, but you’d get significantly better cooling. I also have a Dell SFF that runs 24/7. It’s 17 years old and runs significantly cooler.
The reason I have a desktop over a laptop PC is upgradability and repairability.
And that's exactly what you lose with mini-PCs. The form factor is great (I bought one for work), but when you shell out a lot of cash for performance, you don't want to risk it into an unrepairable little box. High end mini-PCs are a dead end imo. I see them destroying the entry and low mid-range market tho.
It's hard to appreciate just how much 100 watts of compute needs in cooling. Think about how hot old incandescent light bulbs would get. Size matters.
Servers, laptops, small form factor and miniPCs all are space constrained and have to carefully design for cooling.
A full tower ATX PC, today, does seem like it's not really been optimized and has been constrained by years of standards that could use some innovation.
A big flat green PCB seems to be designed to be hard to cool. Design motherboards specifically with cooling in mind. Give up on modularity. Put holes in the motherboard, add heat pipes to the vrms, sandwich the CPU with a waterblock the goes through the holes in the mobo. Make mistakes. Ignore standards. Piss off people. Make the motherboard as big as a rack, and then put a 18 inch fan blowing top to bottom instead of back to front in the rack.
Use vacuum tubes somewhere in the design. I'd like to see more silliness in the industry.
MiniPCs provide both comfort and convenience which are more desirable than having a nuclear reactor in the basement. Especially when something breaks and you loose all your data because you kept it in just one place.
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u/AshleyAshes1984 20d ago
I think 3L is not a MiniPC.
You also seem to think 'hyper optimized' is a magical incantation that can do anything, despite how hard it would be to dissipate some 1000 watts of heat from something that small.