Which Mini PC?

I need to upgrade from on old Lenovo ThinkCentre M93P Tiny Desktop, Intel i5. It is not upgradable to Windows 11 (not going to force it) it does not have built in BT, etc. I am a big fan of ASUS and the ExpertCenter PN52 looks real good but I do not know about any thing else available. It needs to be Ryzen powered with Radeon graphics. I am a long time fan of AMD. My primary computer is a Mac Studio but I need a Windows machine for my Ham Radio Station the software for Amatuer Radio is almost all for Windows based machines. Fortunately that is slowly changing. I am open to suggestions.

transmaster said:

I am open to suggestions.

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You should probably wait to see what @The Pool Man thinks.
He's a MiniPC maniac.

Ghot said:

You should probably wait to see what @The Pool Man thinks.
He's a MiniPC maniac.

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Good! For years I assembled huge honking PC's into cases I could sublet apartments in. My last apartment sized PC had a catastrophic unrecoverable BIOS failure. I purchased the Lenovo to see me through to my next build. This $180 USD refurbished system has been running 24/7 for over 2 years. It does the job. In the meantime I purchased a Mac Studio M1 Max not a very big machine either. I was looking over new Mini PC's and I am amazed how powerful and unlike my Mac, upgradable they are. What amazes me about My Mac is it power draw as I type this it is using 12 watts, looking at the Mini PC with the Ryzen CPUs used in these machines uses about 45 Watts. The AMD 9590 I had in that last full tower PC used 200 Watts plus I had a GPU the used almost as much power.

Ghot said:

You should probably wait to see what @The Pool Man thinks.
He's a MiniPC maniac.

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Indeed.

I've been super happy with the Beelink mini pc that I am using. I'm not AMD on it, it's an 8th Gen Core i5.

pparks1 said:

I've been super happy with the Beelink mini pc that I am using. I'm not AMD on it, it's an 8th Gen Core i5.

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I have 4 BeeLink mini PCs and I'm happy with all of them. One is used in my man cave, one as a media streamer, one as a spare and one I bought and gave to my son. The reason I have a spare is when it stopped working I bought a newer model to replace it. It turned out to be the NVMe drive had died in it. The drive has been replaced and it works great again. I think it was hit with a power surge. The internal drive was completely ruined and the files on the USB drive was kind of corrupted. I lost the ownership of them and they all had to be reset. That's what I get for not using a surge protector.

I have been an ASUS fan for many years, The ASUS Expert Center PN-52 is what I am eyeballing right now. My refurbished Lenovo ThinkCentre M93P mini PC with a dual core i5 intel which I purchased 3 years ago have been trouble free running 24/7. I need to update it.

transmaster said:

I have been an ASUS fan for many years, The ASUS Expert Center PN-52 is what I am eyeballing right now. My refurbished Lenovo ThinkCentre M93P mini PC with a dual core i5 intel which I purchased 3 years ago have been trouble free running 24/7. I need to update it.

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I had for a long time considered buying a Dell Optiplex Micro, which has a comparable form factor to the ASUS model in the quote.

I decided against it because I need more USB ports, so I bought a Dell Small Desktop, which has a comparable form factor as the Lenovo model in the quote. This is the smallest form factor in which I can still install a half-height PCIe expansion card, to provide me with the extra USB ports that I need.

I used to use an external USB hub that needed an external power supply > that's now a hardware backup (and I could reduce cabling)

I am quite happy with my new machine I hope you will be happy with yours

I think only two USB-C ports are needed in a new computer, mini or not. Two USB4 ports if AMD, two Thunderbolt 4 ports if Intel. All the other ports can be added with great flexibility using hubs or docking stations.

What about Zotac mini Pcs? LINK

transmaster said:

I need to upgrade from on old Lenovo ThinkCentre M93P Tiny Desktop, Intel i5. It is not upgradable to Windows 11 (not going to force it) it does not have built in BT, etc. I am a big fan of ASUS and the ExpertCenter PN52 looks real good but I do not know about any thing else available. It needs to be Ryzen powered with Radeon graphics. I am a long time fan of AMD. My primary computer is a Mac Studio but I need a Windows machine for my Ham Radio Station the software for Amatuer Radio is almost all for Windows based machines. Fortunately that is slowly changing. I am open to suggestions.

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I'm sorry I misplaced this thread. Did you try something yet or need a recommendation?

I'm up to 5 mini PCs now, all of them from Ace Magician and Kamrui. They all have varying capabilities. My favorite is probably the Kamrui CK10 because it has great performance with a 12th gen i5 and it can accommodate 3 storage devices (2 x NVMe and one 2.5" SATA).

These little boxes make great NAS servers where you are not relying on some Linux based file system. Windows all the way on the cheap and you can just stuff them in a corner somewhere and forget about them. I use Wake On LAN so I can fire them up anytime I want.

hsehestedt said:

I'm up to 5 mini PCs now, all of them from Ace Magician and Kamrui. They all have varying capabilities. My favorite is probably the Kamrui CK10 because it has great performance with a 12th gen i5 and it can accommodate 3 storage devices (2 x NVMe and one 2.5" SATA).

These little boxes make great NAS servers where you are not relying on some Linux based file system. Windows all the way on the cheap and you can just stuff them in a corner somewhere and forget about them. I use Wake On LAN so I can fire them up anytime I want.

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Beelink also do some good ones -- these are quite useful now cheap 2TB NVME's are available . I tend to run Linux on them anyway and run Windows as VM's -- performance is more than adequate -- the main problem is if you want multi-monitor set ups then it's not easy to get appropriate video adapters in such a tiny space. Most docking stations connect via a USB-C port so whether this is good enough for a 2nd monitor with 4K UHD streaming is questionable if you've also got some external drives on the docking station.

So if you do Stock trading and want four or even 6 screen support then these aren't for you but for typical stuff -- low power and tiny space requirements --what's not to like.

Cheers
jimbo

My Mini PC is used in my Amatuer Radio station to control the radios and take care of various mode and logging functions. I have my computers managed by a Yamaha AVR. It takes the HDMI outputs from the computers and takes care of the sound and monitor functions. In the Amatuer Radio world there is not much software written for Apple machines. This is changing thanks to Apple Silicon. No more trying to get Windows software to run on a Intel based Mac. There are people that are running Windows 11 on a Mac, something I cannot understand. I came from the almost 40 years in the Microsoft world. I maintain a Windows machine to do that. While I have been a AMD man since the days AM386 with this said the reason why I run AMD today is the cost. AMD are more of a bang for the buck. The Lenovo has an old dual core i5 and works quite well. I have always assembled my own PC's and have used nothing but ASUS MoBo's for years. The Expert Center has various Ryzen cpu's, and Radeon GPU's. Because I have always assembled my own machines I am completely out of touch with the Micro PC world.

Looking at the Kamrui Mini Gaming mini pc. except for not having WiFi 6E it has everything I want.

transmaster said:

Looking at the Kamrui Mini Gaming mini pc. except for not having WiFi 6E it has everything I want.

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You could replace the WI-FI card you know

Edit: this one does LINK

These look cool

MINISFORUM BD770i

WAI said:

You could replace the WI-FI card you know

Edit: this one does LINK

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I didn't know about changing out the WiFi card. I am using a eero router that has 6E available. WiFi 7 is just out so not having 6E is not a deal killer.