MiniPC £750 help please

Bibab

New member
Help me put together a mini PC for around £750 please. I have no idea at all (don't even know what components I will need). Less would be better, a little more I may also be able to push.

I will be using it for some gaming, for home cinema and music, for general day to day use, occasional casual photo editing, running machine learning algos (just for self learning) and some casual crypto mining (not really a priority though).

It is going to sit in the livingroom/study area, so would like the case to be simple in design, i.e. no flashy red or purple lights, or skull shaped patterns.

I would really appreciate some suggestions for spec/components.

Thanks.
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I'd make 2 points:

1) mini PCs are often not that mini. e.g. a Fractal Define S Nano (mini PC) has a footprint of 203mm x 400mm. An NZXT S340 (regular size PC) has a footprint of 200mm x 432mm, while a Solleron 620 has a footprint of 220mm x 416mm.

2) mini PCs are a lot more expensive, and have older hardware. They are a bit more expensive at the best of times, but Intel have just released a new batch of CPUs which PCS aren't offering in the mini systems yet - so you get a huge value difference.

e.g. this mini system:


Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 130 CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-7400 (3.0GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® H110I-PLUS: Mini-ITX, LGA1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER

Price £781.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-sff-gaming/xw8DdpCwXU/

VS this regular size PC:

Case
PCS SR-620 MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i3 Quad Core Processor i3-8100 (3.60GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z370-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Extra Case Fans
1x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)

Price £752.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-pc/GueUM!AVYX/

Mini PC has a footprint of 240mm x 378mm, vs the 220mm x 416mm of the SR620. So they're pretty similar in size - SR 620 is 38mm longer but 26mm thinner.

With the "mini" system you're:
- paying £30 more
- getting a weaker CPU
- getting an older CPU and motherboard
- have far fewer upgrade options
- fewer PCIe slots
- no M.2 slots (full size system can support 2 NVMe SSDs)
- the mini system is going to be significantly louder.

The last point - I have a CM120 Elite and it is quite noisy. The case fans are relatively loud, the *GPU is pressed up against a side vent panel to feed it air so that it doesn't overheat - and likewise the PSU is facing up and pressed against a mesh panel to feed it air. So you get all the unmitigated noise of the fans.

With the Z370 system you could also get 3000MHz RAM and still have it cost less than the mini system.
 
Last edited:

Bibab

New member
I forgot to thank you for your advice. I think I am going to wait for new gen chips to be released for the mini and then compare prices/specs. I appreciate that the tower footprint is not that different to the mini, but the height difference seems to be significant. I want to get something as non-intrusive as possible. Cheers.
 
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