There are plenty mini-PCs in the $200 range.

$530 for performance I can buy elsewhere for $250

Thats not “affordable” in my world…thats called a premium.

What are people doing with these mini PCs?

I have one as a media server

mini PC things.

…or PC things, but mini.

Anything else?

Super helpful, thanks

I use 4 of them. 2 run services, one being primaries (DNS, Mail, etc), and the other secondary services and backups of the first. 2 more are CARPed OpnSense boxes.

I needed to replace my old server which was my old desktop, and I grabbed some deals from Aliexpress for cheap. Now I have redundant disks and machines, which is nice.

Edit: And I chose low power options, so all 4 use less power than my old server.

So no one is actually gaming on them, right? Because that sounds really dumb.

Actually, we use an Intel n150 miniPC for playing Zwift with the bike trainer. So I guess I have 5.

I didn’t realize you could run Zwift on your own PC…

Ah I see the problem now, it’s full of affiliate links

I’ve got one running Batocera, and it works just fine as a little emulator console. Not something I would want to do any kind of modern PC gaming on, but good for my specific use case

Proxmox server, *arr stack, Jellyfin, dns filtering, reverse proxy, home assistant, plant management, file server, archive warrior …

Want me to continue?

There’s low resource games that would do fine. You aren’t gonna be able to run a graphics intense FPS, but I’ve seen people run Minecraft, stardew valley and the like on minis.

how does this compare to a $100 used elitedesk G3 mini off FB marketplace, though?

Not that great?

The ones listed on our local second hand platform have no 3D capabilities (beyond monitor output), Ivy Bridge/Sandy Bridge CPUs that are slowly entering the “not good enough for even basic tasks” zone and miniscule SSDs (120 GB) by modern standards.

They are cheaper of course, but these two options don’t seem comparable.