Question Which Mini PC to get?

[Regev]

One of my computers, I use it for office use - emails and some small excel or DOC files. most hardcore use I do is open up 20 or 30 tabs on Brave.
This computer is connected to 2 32" 2K monitors.

It's currently a 12600K, 32GB of RAM, no GPU, on an MicroATX and a big case. I think it's an overkill, and would love to be able to replace it with something ultra small, without noticing any hit in performance (for my use case). I scoured through the internet for a MiniITX case, but then found out there's a million MiniPC computers that seem like they could do the job perfectly, and in much smaller form factors than MinITX cases, such as:

Miniforums
HP ProDesk
HP ProMini
HP EliteDesk
Beelinks
MSI Cubi
ASUS ExpertCenter
Lenovo ideaCentre Mini
Lenovo ThinkCentre
ASUS VivoMini
HP OptiPlex

There's too many of them to go through it all, so I hoped I could save some time by consulting here
Which ones do you recommend? No problem buying refurbished enterprise units on eBay / Amazon as well.

It has to be responsive on day to day activities, has to be able to connect to 2 monitors, and has to not be too noisy, and if possible have an internal PSU.

Thanks!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

One of my computers, I use it for office use - emails and some small excel or DOC files. most hardcore use I do is open up 20 or 30 tabs on Brave.
This computer is connected to 2 32" 2K monitors.

It's currently a 12600K, 32GB of RAM, no GPU, on an MicroATX and a big case. I think it's an overkill, and would love to be able to replace it with something ultra small, without noticing any hit in performance (for my use case). I scoured through the internet for a MiniITX case, but then found out there's a million MiniPC computers that seem like they could do the job perfectly, and in much smaller form factors than MinITX cases, such as:

Miniforums
HP ProDesk
HP ProMini
HP EliteDesk
Beelinks
MSI Cubi
ASUS ExpertCenter
Lenovo ideaCentre Mini
Lenovo ThinkCentre
ASUS VivoMini
HP OptiPlex

There's too many of them to go through it all, so I hoped I could save some time by consulting here
Which ones do you recommend? No problem buying refurbished enterprise units on eBay / Amazon as well.

It has to be responsive on day to day activities, has to be able to connect to 2 monitors, and has to not be too noisy, and if possible have an internal PSU.

Thanks!

Hey there,

TBH, I'd suggest just getting the barebone of a micro system, and stick what you have in there!

Something like this: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/asrock-deskmeet-alder-lake-amd-gpu

Or even smaller?

 

[USAFRet]

I have a BeeLink, as well as a couple of other members around here.

Rock solid little system. It is my HTPC, using it right now.

 

[geofelt]

Do you have a budget?
What are the make/model of the rest of your specs?
cpu cooler for instance.
I would hope that your drives are ssd devices.
Do you need access to dvd drives? mini pc's will not have them.

There is benefit to keeping the guts of what you have.
A new pc will cost you time to get all your apps and settings transferred over.
Where do you now keep this large pc?
What is the advantage to you of a smaller pc?

If you have a MATX motherboard, no doubt it can fit into a much smaller case.

 

[Regev]

No limit to the budget.
I have a Scythe FUma 2 on that PC. I don't intend to move it over; I'll just sell it, or give it to my little brother to put a GPU on and game I'll buy myself something smaller instead. No need for DVD, or GPU.

I'll move the SSD over to the new machine, so it runs with my configuration with day one. I'm using Fedora - so it has to have no known Linux issues.

I looked into the Beelink and the Minisforum cases, but they're a little too 'consumer-looking' for my taste. I noticed a lot of the other ones have a more 'enterprise' look, which I prefer, for instance:

It is sitting in my office (with black glass all over the place, so an enterprise-grade case would fit in better).

I want such a small case because I want to put it on my glass desk, so that I can access the ports more easily, and that I could turn it on without crouching beneath the desk. Currently I can't put my case on it, first because it's too large and tall, and second because its too heavy and I suspect it would bend the glass over time. I even connected the two massive monitors to the wall with a double VESA arm, to remove the load from the glass.

Of course I could just change the desk, but I love it

 

[geofelt]

Why not buy a front panel extension cable?
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-AZM...MI9pW7m4O1hAMVhS7UAR3HgQ1gEAQYASABEgJilvD_BwE

If you need usb or other connections, there are some small units for that.