Hi guys. Need some advice. Looking for a mini pc and need some help. I don’t need anything too high end. I don’t game as well. I just need something that can do basic stuffs like browsing, watching Netflix etc. My main goal is to have something that’s capable of doing 4K HDR for watching and streaming movies since my monitor is an MSI 4K HDR capable OLED. I see some brands like GmkTec, Beelink, Minisforum, Geekom etc. Which one would you recommend that’s reliable and capable. Thanks!
I have a couple of GMKtec units and an older Beelink unit.
The one I use for my workstation needs, for my job that is is the following unit:
The price has gone up due to RAM pricing.
I wouldn’t recommend buying any mini PC whatsoever, unless you have SO-DIMM memory laying around collecting dust.
The whole PC market pricing has gone insane, and that situation is only to go worsen over time.
Thus the only financially responsible decision is to either upgrade what you have, or build something that is upgradeable (PCI-e expansion, socketable CPU) over time.
Buying something that has is cheaply made and has a soldered APU, will not stand the test of time in current world conditions. Both in monetary value, objective value and second hand market value.
Thanks for the advice. GMKtec no issues? I’ve read some complaints about overheating and not so good build quality.
I have the previous gen (AM4) of this:
I really like it. Can’t comment on anything HDR related.
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I’ve got 2 I’m using:
Running proxmox, 2-3 vms, 5-8 lxc, with decent headroom. Not sure about 4k/HDR though.
Running just 4 VMs: opnsense, adguard, unifi controller, and a fileflows transcoding node. This might be worth looking into, since it has Intel Quicksync and can transcode a couple 4k streams simultaneously no problem. I think there’s HDR support, but I don’t use it much myself.
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Ram prices are coming down
@mutation666 Down from what? To what? When? Where? Sounds like hopium.
I’m using a GMKtec for a project right now, and I have no issue vs Minisforum I had 2 dead units before. I prefer Asus mini PCs, but they are generally expensive and hard to find.
If you go with older all equipped models like the GMKtec M6 ultra I have right now, their price seems to have been unaffected by the current ram prices (well at least in Canada they are cheap). So that would be a value option and would fit your needs without being overkill.
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For sure down, not far enough but Ram prices are going down
Random kit from PCpartpicker (2nd one on the list)
GMKtec seems pretty solid have 1 of those, 1 lenovo, 1 gigabtye never had any problems with any of them
Look a bit more to the left of that graph (like a year or two years ago), prices aren’t down at all.
Starting to come down vs are at the old pricing level. With current world events probably wont return to old 2025 pricing anytime soon Early 2026 I could see.