[HN Gopher] Low Cost Mini PCs
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       Low Cost Mini PCs
        
       While searching for mini PCs for my home server, I figured I'd use
       the eBay API to find the cheapest ones. Inspired by diskprices.com,
       I built a static site using Eleventy and a python script that uses
       regex to parse the data. I tried to include as many filters as
       possible like OS, Wifi, HDMI etc.  I would like to add power usage,
       noise levels, PCIe slots but that data is hard to find.  Please let
       me know if you have any feedback / suggestions.  Thanks!
        
       Author : mjcurl
       Score  : 555 points
       Date   : 2024-08-29 12:03 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lowcostminipcs.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lowcostminipcs.com)
        
       | mjcurl wrote:
       | The coolest ones I found:
       | 
       | https://www.ebay.com/itm/315406551868
       | https://www.ebay.com/itm/386903851995
       | 
       | I one I ended up getting:
       | https://www.ebay.com/itm/296370169192?var=594356150752
        
         | samstave wrote:
         | That one you got is stunning value!
         | 
         | This site is fantastic.
         | 
         | Also - look at CyberPunk 2077 Crawler
         | 
         | https://github.com/itsOwen/CyberScraper-2077
         | 
         | By another HNer.
         | 
         | This site is great!.
         | 
         | Would be cool to use it as a template for any other category of
         | "thing" -- if you could share it.
        
           | xhrpost wrote:
           | Stunning value indeed, they got more RAM than my M3 I use for
           | work. Edit: oh wait there are drop downs to change the specs,
           | subject is max specs but initial price is the min specs.
           | Still good though
        
           | lastofthemojito wrote:
           | It's a shame that people need to use this template to design
           | these sorts of eBay search sites though. Seems like it'd be
           | easy enough for eBay to create a tabular view where one could
           | choose fields applicable to their search - the same table
           | that works for mini PCs could work for smartphones or comic
           | books or collectable coins or whatever.
           | 
           | I suspect that doing so wouldn't be great for eBay's business
           | though - the table is sortable, but eBay wants to sell
           | promoted listings that are at the top of pages. And less
           | dense search result views with big photos probably entice
           | people to buy "shiny" things rather than specs.
        
           | dotBen wrote:
           | _That one you got is stunning value!_
           | 
           | (it was priced for a more basic spec than in the title. If
           | you played with the configuration the spec in the title came
           | to $219.99. You can make your own determination whether that
           | was as good value)
        
         | roshansingh wrote:
         | The one you got is so cool. Can you leave this running 24x7 and
         | is it noisy?
        
       | drcongo wrote:
       | A CPU arch filter would be useful (I've been on the lookout for
       | an ARM based one), as would the ability to choose a different
       | eBay region (I'm in the UK). Nice work though!
        
         | amiga-workbench wrote:
         | A friend of mine has a few Dell Kace M300's which they run
         | Linux on. Would that kind of thing be what you're looking for?
         | It was originally an asset management appliance for businesses.
         | 
         | https://sudos.wordpress.com/2022/05/27/dell-kace-m300-or-fan...
        
       | kyriakos wrote:
       | This is fantastic. Can you add a filter for location
       | US/Europe/Asia?
        
         | rkachowski wrote:
         | seconded, i've been looking for exactly this kind of machine in
         | EU and this would be ideal.
        
           | mjcurl wrote:
           | which eBay marketplace do you use?
        
             | gerardpg wrote:
             | Spain.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Yes, should be easy. Would it work if it used the region's ebay
         | marketplace to get results? The following could be added:
         | EBAY_AT - Austria (ebay.at)       EBAY_AU - Australia
         | (ebay.com.au)       EBAY_BE - Belgium (ebay.com.be)
         | EBAY_CA - Canada (ebay.ca)       EBAY_CH - Switzerland
         | (ebay.ch)       EBAY_DE - Germany (ebay.de)       EBAY_ES -
         | Spain (ebay.es)       EBAY_FR - France (ebay.fr)       EBAY_GB
         | - Great Britain (ebay.co.uk)       EBAY_HK - Hong Kong
         | (ebay.com.hk)       EBAY_IE - Ireland (ebay.ie)       EBAY_IT -
         | Italy (ebay.it)       EBAY_NL - Netherlands (ebay.nl)
         | EBAY_PL - Poland (ebay.pl)       EBAY_SG - Singapore (ebay.sg)
        
           | exacube wrote:
           | yes that'd be great!
           | 
           | and if the price could somehow include the shipping rate to
           | the country, that'd be awesome
        
           | kyriakos wrote:
           | Yeah that works too :)
        
           | inhumantsar wrote:
           | region can help but Item Location is the important one
        
           | prmoustache wrote:
           | ideally you would add regional popular second hand websites
           | too.
           | 
           | I don't know about the USA but in most europe countries ebay
           | is less and less the default place to look for second hand
           | items.
        
             | transpute wrote:
             | What are some alternative EU sites?
        
               | kyriakos wrote:
               | I don't think there's an EU-wide site for used items
               | unfortunately. Each country has a couple of local sites.
        
               | prmoustache wrote:
               | leboncoin.fr in France, subito.it I believe in Italy, in
               | Spain Wallapop.es although wallapop also exist in some of
               | those euro countries, anibis.ch in Switzerland, I am not
               | sure about the rest and I guess they don't have a public
               | api so you would probably have to rely on web scrapping.
        
               | aarroyoc wrote:
               | +1 for Wallapop in Spain. There's also MilAnuncios, but
               | Wallapop is what people say when they say they want to
               | sell second-hand stuff
        
               | JoachimSchipper wrote:
               | marktplaats.nl is the big "eBay-like" for the
               | Netherlands.
        
           | beeboobaa3 wrote:
           | ebay isn't widely used in the EU. Sure the sites exist, but
           | they're just filled with ads, not by listings put up by
           | consumers.
           | 
           | You'd need to support national alternatives, like marktplaats
           | for NL
        
           | RobotToaster wrote:
           | Would be great to have a GB/UK version.
        
           | Daneel_ wrote:
           | Yes please, this would be very helpful (I'm in Australia).
        
           | JohnHammersley wrote:
           | As others have said, a filter on item location would be
           | ideal, but the region might also work. Specifically UK/GB for
           | my use case :)
           | 
           | Thanks for putting the site together!
        
         | prmoustache wrote:
         | I seconds that, without filters it is worthy of ending up on
         | r/usdefaultism
        
         | nolok wrote:
         | Another approach for this if you're in europe (I do not know
         | the market elsewhere) are the quality refurbished resellers
         | (they buy bulk from companies upgrading, refurbish, sell with
         | warranty).
         | 
         | Eg in France https://www.afbshop.fr/PC-Bureau or
         | https://www.tradediscount.com/ordinateur-bureau/unite-centra...
         | 
         | Price might be a bit higher, but eg right now for sub 200 you
         | can get a mini pc with ryzen 2400G and 16GB of RAM, with
         | warranty. That's a great proxmox machine for jellyfin & co.
        
       | transpute wrote:
       | Useful index!
       | 
       | Suggestions:                 1. encode search filters in URL, for
       | sharing/bookmark       2. Add "Intel vPro" as a filter.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Good call, I'll encode the state in the URL.
         | 
         | Did not come across a lot of Intel VPros in my searches. What's
         | the use case for them?
        
           | transpute wrote:
           | Many of the Dell/HP mini PCs with Intel i5 or higher are
           | vPro, because they were used in corporate environments, but
           | it looks like this is rarely part of the eBay item
           | description. Thanks for checking.
           | 
           | vPro devices support Intel TXT (DRTM) to verify firmware
           | integrity on each boot, based on user/OS policy. TXT can be
           | used with QubesOS ("Anti Evil Maid"), Windows Virtualization-
           | Based Security (VBS) or upcoming Linux Secure Launch in
           | mainline Linux. vPro also supports optional remote KVM/serial
           | management over LAN with Intel AMT, which could be considered
           | a feature or anti-feature, depending on use case.
        
       | mdrzn wrote:
       | Add a location filter otherwise it's completely useless from
       | outside USA. I clicked on a $30 Ebay link and the shipping price
       | is US $542.06 UPS Worldwide Saver
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | True, thought of this as a test run. Other locations should be
         | added soon.
        
       | gboone wrote:
       | Would be nice if links opened a new tab. Good job.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Thanks! I think it's a better practice to not open links in a
         | new tab i.e users should have control over their experience.
         | But it can be subjective.
        
           | achow wrote:
           | Opening in a new tab has become some kind of standard UX.
           | Regardless of that, for this kind of site it would be very
           | useful for product spec comparison.
        
             | Scoundreller wrote:
             | I'm a Ctrl-click kinda guy for these scenarios.
        
           | samstave wrote:
           | Always open in new tab. Ill keep track of the 437 I have open
           | in 7 different FF windows, and the couple Edge tabs to hide
           | cookies ThankYouVeryMuch
           | 
           | EDIT: Yes ctrl-click is _too much_ effort. Middle-click even.
           | 
           | ( _Many forget a middle click on a mouse-wheel is also a
           | ctrl-click /new-tab button, and the thumb button MOUSE4 is
           | back_)
        
           | josefresco wrote:
           | Think about it this way: Will the user "lose their place" on
           | your page if they click a link and go back? Will the user
           | lose any filtering or search options? If the answer is yes to
           | either, open in a new tab. I personally make this
           | determination all the time, especially on social media after
           | I've scrolled a lot and don't want my "progress" to be lost.
        
             | mjcurl wrote:
             | That makes sense to me, thank you. I have changed links to
             | open in a new tab.
        
           | nfriedly wrote:
           | I think not forcing links to open in a new tab is the right
           | call.
           | 
           | However, the point about losing one's place is a valid one,
           | and I agree with the other commenter that said it would be
           | good to encode the state in the URL to solve that.
        
       | shmoogy wrote:
       | Being able to filter by CPU (and model i.e. optiplex 3010 or
       | whatever) would be useful here. I'm looking for a sff that has
       | 13th gen intel cpu, supports 64gb ram as an example.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Since there's hundreds/thousands of cpus and models, how about
         | a keyword filter field?
        
         | roger_ wrote:
         | Came to suggest the same thing.
         | 
         | I'd love to be able to filter by CPU and generation.
         | 
         | Maybe using an LLM could help with the parsing?
        
         | someone13 wrote:
         | It'd also be neat if there was a way to sort by the passmark
         | CPU benchmark score:
         | 
         | https://www.cpubenchmark.net/
        
       | voidUpdate wrote:
       | oooo, this is useful! It's a pain trying to search for these
       | kinds of things manually, and it would be nice to get a whole
       | stack of the kind of lenovo I have haha. Just need the UK region
       | support :P
        
       | jasongill wrote:
       | Would it be possible to add a column with some kind of CPU score
       | - for those of us who don't keep up on PC CPU advancements, it's
       | hard to tell if an i3 5th gen is faster or slower than an i5 3rd
       | gen
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | I did plan this, but upon getting the data, found it too
         | difficult for the initial version. There's no standard for CPU
         | (or most fields actually), so sellers write it in a variety of
         | ways. But it could be done, after I compile a dataset of cpu >
         | benchmarks.
        
           | nfriedly wrote:
           | I like passmark / cpubenchmark.net to get a good ballpark
           | idea of CPU performance, because it covers a _wide_ range of
           | CPUs, and because it has both single-core and multi-core
           | scores.
        
             | mjcurl wrote:
             | I prefer that too. Now to get data for all the listed CPUs!
        
       | outime wrote:
       | This is neat, although I have a word of caution (even if it might
       | be a bit obvious): it's possible to find good deals, but you
       | should be aware of power usage. There are modern mini PCs, such
       | as those with Intel N100 processors, that are very cheap and
       | consume very few watts while being useful for many purposes. I
       | personally bought a brand-new CHUWI LarkBox X, and it's been
       | great. It cost around 100 EUR on a deal. If however power usage
       | isn't an issue for you and you don't care about other misc stuff
       | (noise levels etc) then you can disregard this.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Agreed, an N100 mini PC can be a great deal. They also tend to
         | be smaller. I added a separate Intel filter that includes a lot
         | of N100s. But it might be better to buy those new, not used.
        
         | josefresco wrote:
         | For those wondering (like me) the normal price for the CHUWI
         | LarkBox X is about $190.
        
         | bizzleDawg wrote:
         | Does anyone have any useful rules-of-thumb or heuristics for
         | balancing this trade off of upfront cost v.s. power cost? e.g.
         | how much does an N100 cost to run for a year v.s. say a
         | i5-2400s (the CPU for the first row on the linked site)?
        
           | mpol wrote:
           | I used to calculate costs of lightbulbs: 1 Watt running the
           | whole year, at 0,28 eurocent/kWh costs 1 Euro per year. Until
           | someone corrected me and it turned out that every 1 Watt 24/7
           | will be 2 Euro per year.
           | 
           | In the US electric power might be cheaper. And if it's
           | running only part of the time, you should adjust the
           | calculation.
           | 
           | My desktop/server runs 24/7, so I prefer having a CPU with
           | 65W TDP over one that is 125W TDP. That might run up to 120
           | Euro per year difference for me (if it would be running at
           | 100% CPU).
        
             | gizmo wrote:
             | Real world energy use is nothing like what you see on spec
             | sheets. And not just because manufacturers differ in how
             | they compute TPD. And TPD is also not a good indicator for
             | energy use at (near) idle. With underclocking/volting in
             | the BIOS you can get a beefier CPU to outperform smaller
             | CPUs per watt. Because CPUs get really inefficient as they
             | use more power undervolted or capped high TPD chips might
             | be much more power efficient in the real world than their
             | low TPD counterparts.
        
           | mjcurl wrote:
           | I tried to find this out myself. All I could find easily was
           | the TDP of different processors. But I'm not sure if it's a
           | good measure of how much power it will use.
        
             | bizzleDawg wrote:
             | Yeah, exactly! I suppose that it's workload dependent to a
             | great extent
        
             | tfryman wrote:
             | I went down this rabbit hole earlier this year. Best I came
             | up with was to calculate the TDP at max for the whole year.
             | Full TDP is unrealistic, but it gets us a worst-case "max
             | running cost" . Energy for me is roughly $0.12/kWh, so the
             | yearly max running cost for a 35W TDP is $36.79, 65W is
             | $68.33, and the 95W would be $99.86.
             | 
             | I ended up going with a HP EliteDesk 800 G5 Mini I5-9500T
             | (35W) off of Ebay for $100 and it does the stuff I need it
             | to do just fine. According to my current monthly power
             | usage graph, it's averaged 7W which accounts for $0.61 of
             | this month's power bill.
        
             | teamonkey wrote:
             | The only real way of knowing is to measure it. If you
             | already have a system in place an energy monitoring smart
             | plug can help you calculate the current running costs and
             | help estimate the savings of using a lower-power machine.
             | 
             | When I did this I was surprised by how much - or how little
             | - it cost to run various devices. It's quite addictive.
             | 
             | It's not always accurate because a lower-power machine
             | doing the same task will often need to work at its full
             | power more often, so the savings may be less. For example,
             | a Raspberry Pi 5 may often be more power effecient than a
             | Pi 4, despite drawing more power at full capacity on paper,
             | because it spends less time at full capacity than the Pi 4
             | does.
             | 
             | On the other hand, when I upgraded my work PC I found it
             | used less power but I also had to run my office heater more
             | often in winter, as the new PC wasn't as efficient at
             | heating the space.
        
             | bee_rider wrote:
             | No, sadly the TDP tells us every little about the idle
             | power cost, which might be where you spend most of your
             | time depending on the workload.
             | 
             | Just from tweaking my laptop, I've noticed that when it is
             | really idle (or I've intentionally put it in a low
             | frequency mode), the big power drains are the wireless
             | interfaces (don't forget bluetooth) and the screen (OLED
             | helps as long as the screen is mostly black). Gotta tweak
             | the whole thing.
        
           | boredpudding wrote:
           | If a Kwh of power costs $ 0,30, then 1 watt = $ 2,63 a year.
           | (0.001 kwh * 24 hours * 365 days * $ 0,30).
           | 
           | So, it goes quite quickly. Savings of 20 watt save you $ 52 a
           | year.
        
           | kstenerud wrote:
           | My NUC13 with i3 has a nominal 15w TDP, but while idling on a
           | KDE desktop with a browser open to reuters (1 tab) it hovers
           | around 3 - 4w (5% CPU usage). If there's REALLY nothing going
           | on (no desktop even) it's 1.0 - 1.3w (1% CPU usage).
           | 
           | Edit: I should note that there's no fan drawing power because
           | I put it in an Akasa passively cooled case.
        
         | mkesper wrote:
         | Reusing these boxes instead of having them thrown away and
         | getting a new one built is better for the environment, though.
        
         | DCKing wrote:
         | I wouldn't automatically prefer any random N100 mini PC over a
         | nice second hand enterprise mini PC.
         | 
         | In home server use cases, mini PCs stay idle the vast majority
         | of their runtime. So it's idle power consumption that is the
         | most useful metric to look into. The N100 _can_ have great idle
         | performance in theory, but most data I can find about N100
         | boxes is them idling in the 12W-15W range. This is something
         | that older enterprise mini desktops have no trouble matching or
         | beating [1]. Especially since roughly the Skylake era (Intel
         | 6th gen), idle power consumption for enterprise PCs has been
         | excellent - but even before then it wasn 't bad.
         | 
         | Enterprise vendors like Dell/HP/Lenovo have always optimized
         | for TCO and actually usually use quite high quality power
         | supply circuitry, whereas most N100 mini PCs tend to be built
         | with cheaper components and not as optimized for low power
         | usage for the whole system.
         | 
         | [1]: I recommend reviewing Serve The Home's TinyMiniMicro
         | project, which often finds the smallest enterprise PC form
         | factors to idle at 8 to 13W, even older ones. Newer systems can
         | get below 7W! https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/
        
           | switchbak wrote:
           | One can also do things like undervolting to reduce the power
           | draw even more. Modern BIOSs can give a lot of freedom for
           | underclocking/volting, not just pushing things to consume
           | more power.
        
         | SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
         | Power usage on these mini pcs is actually pretty decent.
         | 
         | I have a bunch of SFF computers (Dell 7060, HP 600 G4, etc)
         | with i7-8700 or similar CPUs. They all idle around 12 watts.
         | 
         | Most of the mini pcs use the T version of the processors, which
         | are usually 35w TDP.
         | 
         | Power usage will definitely be higher than an N100 (65W TDP vs
         | 6W), but they're a lot more versatile since you're getting more
         | than double the performance, 2-3x the threads, and an iGPU that
         | can do things like transcoding for plex and accelerate ML
         | models for Frigate/Scrypted.
        
           | some-guy wrote:
           | N100's QuickSync has been good enough for me for Plex
           | transcoding FWIW, though maybe your demands are higher than
           | mine in terms of resolution
        
             | JamesSwift wrote:
             | I think HTPC hardware transcoding is basically the sweet
             | spot use case for the N100. Its less good compared to
             | alternatives for pushing the game emulation performance.
        
         | mdasen wrote:
         | Power consumption is definitely a big deal. I replaced an old
         | PC that I'd been using as an always-on device with a tiny PC
         | (i7-8700T) and it saved a ton of power. Given that power rates
         | in New England are around $0.30/kWh, saving 50 watts means
         | saving $128/year. I went from using around 60 watts to 10 watts
         | at idle (and going from 110 watts under load to 50 watts).
         | 
         | The new computer cost me $240 back in late 2022 (with 32GB of
         | RAM and WiFi) so it'll basically pay for itself in electricity
         | savings - and it's 3x faster than what it replaced.
         | 
         | ServeTheHome has some good reviews:
         | https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/. The tl;dr is
         | just that there's good options from Dell, HP, and Lenovo and
         | the differences are kinda minor, but it's a good source if you
         | care about specific information and teardowns.
         | 
         | It's a great little machine, takes up almost no space, it's
         | almost silent, and it was basically free with the power savings
         | - in fact, once I pass the two year mark, it was cheaper to get
         | the new hardware than to keep running the old.
         | 
         | And you can put Proxmox on it as a hypervisor to run multiple
         | OSs or containers.
        
         | kjs3 wrote:
         | The N100s are everywhere, but I think the N305 with 8 E-cores
         | is the bomb for a home server at slightly more power
         | consumption.
        
         | BizarroLand wrote:
         | If the system draws 65 watts and you pay 12 cents/kwh, then it
         | will cost you right at $68.377 dollars a year to run it at full
         | tilt.
         | 
         | Math: 1,000 watts /65 watts/hour = 15.384 hours per kwh. 365.25
         | days/year * 24 hours/day = 8766 hours/yr <=(accounting for leap
         | days) 8766 hours/yr / 15.384 hours/kwh = 569.81 kwh/yr 569.81
         | kwh/yr * $0.12/kwh = $68.377/yr
         | 
         | For quick math where accuracy isn't very important, at
         | $0.12/kwh it will cost you ~$1.05/year per watt (65w =
         | $68.38/yr), so every watt you save per year is a dollar in your
         | pocket.
         | 
         | Of course, there are ways to reduce the energy usage of a
         | system, a computer rarely has to run at 100% 24/7/365 unless it
         | is very underspecced for your use case, even things as simple
         | as enabling C states and not utilizing all of the PC resources
         | available will save you many dollars a year.
        
       | molticrystal wrote:
       | It would be awesome if you included shipping in the total
       | price(or at least for certain countries). I know bookfinder does
       | that, as some people add an extra $100 to several hundred dollars
       | to the price which skews the results.
       | 
       | I think ebay technically frowns upon excessive shipping as some
       | sellers use it to get their items higher in certain search
       | results due to a low base price, but ebay doesn't really apply
       | enforcement to their sellers on these soft violations most of the
       | time.
       | 
       | -----
       | 
       | It seems some of your filters like "storage type" are must
       | include and when unchecking it all the results disappear, while
       | others like "OS" seem like a filter and when unchecking the
       | results increase.
       | 
       | ------
       | 
       | I'm not seeing many chromeboxes in the results so maybe they are
       | being filtered out?
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Thank you, I have fixed the "OS" filter to be must include.
         | 
         | Chromeboxes don't come up much for the search I'm using. I
         | think I could try a separate search for them.
         | 
         | Regarding shipping, I'm not sure how to include it, since it
         | requires the user's location, which would take this over the
         | API limits. I'm going to add more marketplaces, and maybe
         | product locations. Which country are you shipping to?
        
           | throwup238 wrote:
           | Maybe just take an average of shipping costs to a few
           | locations (West coast Us, East coast US, Europe) and filter
           | out anything where the shipping cost is greater than the cost
           | of the product itself.
           | 
           | Or just get a shipping estimate to the same city as the
           | seller is in.
        
           | Qerub wrote:
           | Adding product location would be great! As a resident of the
           | European Union I'm unlikely to order one of these mini PCs
           | from the USA due to import taxes and additional shipping
           | costs.
        
         | chazeon wrote:
         | I think shipping costs varies wrt where you live.
        
           | jacky_tuning wrote:
           | A $38 lenovo cost me $633.90 with the shipping costs, from US
           | to Switzerland i guess :D
        
       | smashah wrote:
       | Amazing! A few more filters (e.g location) and this would be an
       | amazing tool for buying locally. bookmarked!
        
       | kylecazar wrote:
       | I had largely written off eBay some years ago after some bad
       | experiences -- but this tool just showed me some pretty insane
       | deals on custom PC builds over there.. Neat.
        
       | j0d1 wrote:
       | This is really neat! I would love to see something similar for
       | laptops. I bought a used Lenovo T80s (8th generation i5 CPU / 8GB
       | of RAM / 256GB SSD) for 150$cad on eBay to work on my product
       | (web app) and it is working flawlessly with Debian.
        
       | iforgotpassword wrote:
       | Maybe consider adding Fujitsu as a manufacturer. At least here in
       | Europe they're fairly common in business environments so get
       | tossed on ebay quite frequently. I've had very good experience
       | with their stuff over the past decade.
        
         | weweweoo wrote:
         | Definitely do that. Old Fujitsu thin clients make awesome DIY
         | routers.
        
       | wan888888 wrote:
       | The joy of living in Australia: $38.00 + $710.23 shipping
        
         | haunter wrote:
         | Don't bother with eBay, you can get refurbsihed ones in
         | Australia too
         | 
         | A$115 example, https://www.australiancomputertraders.com.au/hp-
         | elitedesk-80...
        
       | overcast wrote:
       | Been using a Beelink SER6 Mini PC, AMD Ryzen 5 6600H, 16GB DDR
       | and 500GB NVME for the last year or so with PopOS as my daily
       | driver and loving it. With a portable monitor makes remote work
       | great for $351 and $100 for the monitor!
        
         | InMice wrote:
         | I have a beelink, have had no problems except the original SSD
         | in mine failed suddenly in <1 year. I'd recommend anyone
         | getting a beelink to swap out their SSD with a crucial,
         | kingston, samsung brand etc before putting the pc to use.
        
       | whiterock wrote:
       | Could you add Geekbench scores? I'd love that :)
        
       | eskibars wrote:
       | This is awesome. I used to build a lot of stuff with various
       | single-board computers (Raspberry Pis, etc) but realized I could
       | get _way_ more performance and expandability with these mini PCs
       | if the form factor didn 't require it.
       | 
       | One other thing I'd be interested in: not just mini PCs but used
       | office workstations. I realized that many offices were selling
       | old workstations that were often just a few years old with things
       | like dual Xeon chips and 64GB of RAM or more with support for a
       | few hundred GB for only a few hundred $. Things like 2ish
       | generation old HP Z400/Z600/Z800 series. They make for great home
       | lab virtualization machines and can often support 2+ GPUs and a
       | boatload of additional peripherals. I'd love to see something
       | like this that lets you find those as well
        
       | mydriasis wrote:
       | For reference, I thought I'd outline the baby PCs I use, since
       | we're chatting about baby PCs. Maybe someone will find this
       | useful. I use thinkcentre M92p SFFs for easy server boxes. Some
       | things I like: - Bountiful - Cheap -- they can be had for under
       | $100 each - Pretty powerful considering what you're paying, too!
       | - Use common desktop parts for the most part - Accepts low-
       | profile PCIe equipment ( network cards for ethernet, wifi; GPUs )
       | - Repair & replacement parts are CHEAP
       | 
       | Some things I don't: - I've had to do some ridiculous things to
       | get them to behave after installing Linux, like tricking the BIOS
       | to deal with UEFI correctly - It's basically impossible to get a
       | better power supply, so you're limited with how much each one can
       | do. Don't expect anything better than a very low-power, low-
       | profile GPU for example. - There's not a ton of room in the case,
       | so if you want PCIe stuff you will need low-profile. You can
       | definitely stuff lots of hard drives in there if you work at it,
       | though.
       | 
       | And, maybe someone has advice for me...!
        
         | haunter wrote:
         | > I've had to do some ridiculous things to get them to behave
         | after installing Linux, like tricking the BIOS to deal with
         | UEFI correctly
         | 
         | Strange. I use Dell Optiplex Micros which are pretty much the
         | same. I've never had a problem installing any Linux distros or
         | hypervisors (Proxmox and XCP-NG)
        
           | bitmasher9 wrote:
           | I've bought 3 used Dells, mostly Optiplexes, over the decades
           | for dedicated hardware for Linux based projects. They always
           | seem like a good deal, and I surprisingly never have problems
           | with them. These are fleet computers that get gently used
           | during business hours that have IT departments that replace
           | computers on a time schedule. Outside of one HDD that didn't
           | last a year of heavy file traffic I haven't had really good
           | luck with these machines.
        
             | haunter wrote:
             | >These are fleet computers that get gently used during
             | business hours that have IT departments that replace
             | computers on a time schedule
             | 
             | Yeah these are the ones I'm buying too. Lot of banks have
             | these for example as an all-in-one docked into a monitor.
             | Sometimes they even have a small amount of Dell warranty
             | left, though I've never ever had a problem with them.
        
               | ilikepi wrote:
               | > Sometimes they even have a small amount of Dell
               | warranty left, though I've never ever had a problem with
               | them.
               | 
               | Yes, though technically any add-on warranty coverage or
               | service plans are only available to the registered owner.
               | I bought a couple Dell OptiPlex micros last year that
               | were originally owned by a large organization. They were
               | clearly being resold on eBay by someone who had acquired
               | them in some sort of bulk purchase. Dell has a form you
               | can submit to request that the registration be updated,
               | but it requires you to provide contact information for
               | the original owner. I asked the eBay seller if they for
               | this contact information, but they said they did not. I
               | was able to open a support request with Dell and have
               | their records updated to show me as the owner after
               | showing evidence that I had acquired the machines. This
               | included a photo of them showing their asset tags along
               | with a hand-written note that showed my support case
               | number, as well as a copy of the eBay listings. I believe
               | Dell checked with the original owner (a US federal
               | agency) to verify the machines had been sold.
        
               | haunter wrote:
               | Thanks that's helpful. I still have two with warranty
               | until January so I might try my luck with Dell
        
           | vladvasiliu wrote:
           | Same experience as you with HP Elitedesks. At work we used to
           | use those for people doing regular office things. I have a
           | few G2s (i5-6500) and they work flawlessly with Linux,
           | including using my own secureboot keys.
        
           | mydriasis wrote:
           | It was so bizarre. I'd get a "No Operating System Found"
           | message, and had to go toy with the UEFI config. Eek!
        
         | rjst01 wrote:
         | > I've had to do some ridiculous things to get them to behave
         | after installing Linux, like tricking the BIOS to deal with
         | UEFI correctly
         | 
         | I would suggest going for a couple of generations newer - the
         | M92p is from an era before UEFI became really stable. For
         | automated testing of my startup's product we have a testlab of
         | tens of older USFF desktops and the M700/M900/M910 machines are
         | some of my favorites. They're also just before the cut-off for
         | Windows 11 support so they're still available dirt cheap.
         | 
         | Two things to watch out for - the M700 lacks a PCI-E M.2 slot -
         | the internal M.2 slot supports only SATA M.2 drives. Second,
         | the front USB ports failing is a really common failure mode.
        
           | mydriasis wrote:
           | Ooo that's _gotta_ be what it is. Just the most bizarre UEFI
           | issues. I luckily found an incantation that works in a pretty
           | general way for M92ps, but had I not I'd have some bricks
           | laying around.
           | 
           | Those M900s look REALLY nice!
        
             | swills wrote:
             | I have some M910q that I am very happy with. UEFI is well
             | supported, I was able to upgrade them to 32gb of RAM, i7
             | 7700t and both a 512gb SSD and NVMe for mirrored storage.
             | Highly recommended. Sure, it would be nice to get something
             | newer than 7th gen, but it's still highly capable, small,
             | quiet and fairly low power usage.
        
       | gizmo wrote:
       | That's very cool. I ultimately concluded that those mystery brand
       | Chinese fanless mini pcs from Amazon (essentially laptop hardware
       | in a tiny enclosure) offer a better deal. Minimal power usage,
       | fast networking, real USB-C, and NVMe drive support. Old hardware
       | is bulky, makes noise, and outputs too much heat. Even the truly
       | tiny mini pcs -- the kind that fit in your back pocket -- are
       | fast enough for a NAS or TV media player.
        
         | kyriakos wrote:
         | They are usually a lot more expensive because they come with
         | newer CPUs.
        
       | sodimel wrote:
       | This is cool!
       | 
       | It reminds me of when I got my own web "server"; I purchased it
       | (for ~50EUR) after reading this post[0] back in 2017. The
       | optiplex fx160 is still running to this day.
       | 
       | [0] http://thesizzlewo.webflow.io/blog/get-a-dell-optiplex-
       | fx160...
        
       | bArray wrote:
       | For UK shoppers looking for a cheap laptop, the Dell Latitude
       | E7240 is a solid machine [1]. For about PS50-PS60 delivered you
       | can get a 12.5" machine with a ~4th gen i5, 4-8GB of RAM and an
       | SSD. It's great for Teams/Zoom and the keyboard is very nice to
       | type on.
       | 
       | My personal one has 12GB of RAM (4+8) and two SSDs (there is a
       | spare slot for a half size M.2. inside). You can abuse the hell
       | out of them and they take it.
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Dell%20Lati...
        
       | xhrpost wrote:
       | I've been loving the recent attention to mini PCs here. I've had
       | hobby projects put off for a while as I tried to find the best
       | R-Pi clone, only to buy one and struggle just to get it to boot.
       | Then I pick up a used mini PC on ebay for like $42 shipped, power
       | cord and everything and even a 500gb SSD. Now I have a server
       | running at home and am actually working on projects again, oddly
       | for probably less than what a Pi clone costs after you buy enough
       | accessories to use it.
        
         | roflmaostc wrote:
         | difference might be that a Raspberry Pi consumes < 10W.
         | 
         | An old PC draws easily 5-10 times more energy.
         | 
         | Depending on your location, the yearly cost of running a Pi is
         | around ~10$. The big machine then 50-100$. So energy wise, a
         | small power efficient machine might be more expensive but the
         | running cost could be lower.
        
           | throwaway984393 wrote:
           | Not only excess power draw, but excess heat, which then needs
           | more power for the AC to cool the home
        
             | switchbak wrote:
             | I have a little Intel i5 behind me all year long, and I
             | don't notice any effect on the temperature of this (small)
             | room. 12 watts is not a lot of heat to be dumping.
             | 
             | This is really small fry compared to other HVAC efficiency
             | concerns, and definitely not an issue outside of summertime
             | temps in most locales.
             | 
             | My Threadripper on the other hand - I had to move that into
             | the crawlspace as it was: a) loud as hell, and b) basically
             | a space heater that also does useful compute. 160w idle,
             | ~280w full tilt - that thing is very noticable.
        
             | declan_roberts wrote:
             | This is exactly why I upgrade my old 2012 server. I was
             | able to cut the power usage (and heat generation) by over
             | 90%.
             | 
             | It makes a big difference in the summer, but I miss it
             | during the winter.
        
           | cdaringe wrote:
           | Agreed. Related, disappointingly, the new pi5s don't have
           | much in the way of running in a lower power state. I gather
           | it's mainly the cpu, but my new pi5 runs hot doing a whole
           | lot of nothing. Cooling solution is pretty much required. I
           | am very content with perf, but it actually brings too much
           | juice to the table for the tiny apps im running. Sure,
           | another soc would be a better fit power wise, but the
           | ecosystem keeps me locked in!
        
             | dkasper wrote:
             | I agree, might buy another pi 4 for my next project. The
             | new chips are interesting though.
        
               | bloomingeek wrote:
               | You might consider a pi 5. I'm using it after I installed
               | the NVMe top mount hat. (Where I loaded Raspberry OS.) It
               | really speeds everything up!
               | 
               | BTW, I'm using a M.2 2280 drive, even though the hat is
               | designed for shorter drives. (I just tied mine down.) I
               | installed it over the CPU fan and it works great.
        
           | SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
           | As noted in my other comment, my SFF computers with i7 CPUs
           | idle around 12W. Roughly $20/year with my usage in a home
           | server setup.
        
           | auspiv wrote:
           | mini PCs are < 10W also.
           | 
           | I have a full on Dell Optiplex 3070 (i5-9500, 1x16GB memory,
           | 512GB NVMe) running windows 10 that idles at 8W.
           | 
           | I have a lenovo m92p tiny (i5-3570s, released 2012) that
           | idles at 6W.
        
           | xhrpost wrote:
           | It's a fair point but as others have noted, these mini PCs
           | can be very power efficient. I still need to hook up a meter
           | to mine to see what the wattage is but I'm sure it's far
           | below a typical desktop PC.
        
           | vel0city wrote:
           | My mini PC I use as a router with an N3710 CPU uses like 5W
           | idle with a SATA SSD. It's a 6W TDP. Running full tilt is
           | like 10W.
        
           | vladvasiliu wrote:
           | As others have said, this needs to be qualified. My HP
           | Elitedesk 800 G2 SFF qualifies as "old" I think, yet it draws
           | 14-15W at idle, measured at the outlet.
           | 
           | It has an i5-6500, 32 GB RAM, 2 SATA SSDs and a 4-port i350
           | NIC (all ports up). Idle means OpnSense and HomeAssistant
           | running inside KVM on top of whatever kernel version was
           | current in Arch at the time, but with no traffic.
           | 
           | Does the raspberry pi draw 1-3W only? It should be noted that
           | old pcs like these can be had extremely cheap, so the
           | difference in price should take this into account. Moreover,
           | if you need extensions of any kind (NICs, drives), getting
           | them running at all on a PI is somewhat more involved than on
           | a standard PC.
        
             | j45 wrote:
             | I have owned gen 5/6/7/7 devices, Gen 8 delivers the idle
             | power much more honestly and it can be measured quite
             | easily.
             | 
             | In either case, USFF is an order of magnitude less energy
             | than desktop so it's still a win most of the time.
        
           | weweweoo wrote:
           | Here's examples of idle power consumption of second hand
           | mini-pc's i've tested, running Ubuntu, measured from the
           | wall:
           | 
           | Dell Wyse 5070 with Pentium Silver J5005 ~ 5W
           | 
           | Fujitsu Futro S940 with J5005 as well ~ 7W
           | 
           | Dell Optiplex 3080 Micro with i5-10500t ~ 12W with two SSD's
           | 
           | In comparison, my Ryzen 7 server build consumes about 22W
           | idle (before I added GPU), has 4x SSD and 4x RAM sticks. I
           | like raspberry pi, but for most purposes an used mini-pc is a
           | better choice.
        
             | sangnoir wrote:
             | The RPi Zero 2 W consumes ~ 0.6W when idling, and costs $15
             | new, or in the $25-30 range with a case and USB power
             | adapter.
        
               | 42lux wrote:
               | Talking about building a server with a Zero 2 W is a bit
               | of a stretch. I have some running as airplay and Spotify
               | connect clients + some environmental sensors but much
               | more would be pushing it...
        
               | sangnoir wrote:
               | No where in the thread was the "building a server" use
               | case defined - the subject was always-on costs. That
               | said, an RPi Zero works perfectly fine as a pihole (DHCP
               | + DNS server), WireGuard node, a git mirror (running
               | Forgejo), and many more use cases that are not CPU-bound.
               | 
               | Obviously, Raspberry Pis, SFF boxes, workstations and
               | rack mounted servers all occupy different niches (with
               | some overlap). Anyone confidently stating that one could
               | fully replace anther with no context of the workloads is
               | wrong.
        
               | 42lux wrote:
               | The OP of the comment you answered was pretty much
               | talking about how he uses his mini PC as a server and
               | doing projects on it... and ofc a zero can do everything
               | but at what speed? IOPS is disturbingly slow. I like the
               | Zero for what it is but it's just not a good server fit.
        
               | sangnoir wrote:
               | I mean, I do projects on mine too. Without OP describing
               | what the projects are; you're assuming they are CPU-
               | bound.
               | 
               | Speaking of my projects - the RPi is perfectly capable of
               | working as a web crawler (at a page rate that may
               | surprise you) as well as a media download client &
               | transcoder (again, simultaneously transcoding a number of
               | streams that may surprise you).
        
               | 42lux wrote:
               | It's fine that it's enough for you and I applaud you. I
               | was also not only talking about CPU but also IOPs some of
               | us have more demand on what we call a server. I don't
               | understand how you can be so defensive about a piece of
               | hardware it's actually rather concerning and my zero w 2
               | does have problems with FullHD streams with high
               | bitrates. It doesn't even have the io bandwidth to push
               | more than one stream.
        
               | sangnoir wrote:
               | I'm defending "right-sizing' the compute to match the
               | workload; and the RPis are entirely capable to handle
               | most "ambient computing" batched tasks.
               | 
               | My homelab includes 1L PCs and 1 U rackmounts (actual
               | servers) - I appreciate what each brings to the table.
        
               | antisthenes wrote:
               | The RPi zero 2 is nowhere near powerful enough to be used
               | for multiple purposes as any of the above machines.
               | 
               | It could probably run a single-task relatively well, like
               | PiHole or something, but otherwise it's in a completely
               | different performance category. Like an order of
               | magnitude.
               | 
               | So 6W idle for J5005 would put it on the same level of
               | efficiency.
        
               | sangnoir wrote:
               | You're right, the RPi zero 2's CPU is slower - but that
               | doesn't matter for non-interactive tasks. I don't care
               | that my cloud backup export cron job runs 5 minutes (or
               | hours) longer on the Pi than on a Nuc; I only care it
               | happens daily. For the CPU-/GPU-heavy workloads, the RPi
               | Zero W is works as an orchestrator for the > 10W
               | computer: powering it on and off as needed.
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | Pi 4 is the smallest thing that would be remotely
               | comparable to even a 14nm-era atom NUC in terms of
               | usability as a fileserver etc
        
               | xhrpost wrote:
               | Add an SD card to that cost as well as an ethernet
               | adapter, maybe wifi too? I'm not trying to bash on the Pi
               | as option in all cases, just trying to note that in some
               | cases, particularly hosting local services, it's likely
               | not the simplest choice. Uses where I can see needing a
               | Pi over a miniPC? Maybe 4k video playback, I'm not sure
               | how well these x86 systems from 2011 can do that while
               | some Pi's IIRC have onboard hardware for h265 decoding.
        
           | notpublic wrote:
           | Have a used HP Prodesk 600 G3 with 16GB RAM running idle
           | around ~12W. Bought it last year and its been running solid
           | so far.
        
         | fud101 wrote:
         | I've switched to a minipc as my main computer. I'll never go
         | back. Went from a 16 core monster to whatever 4 cores this
         | thing has and it's just as nice.
        
           | fossdd wrote:
           | I wonder why you switched and not use your 16-core PC? did it
           | somehow broke or do you just like the benefits of a minipc?
        
             | bityard wrote:
             | Not who you are replying to, but likely: 1) heat 2) fan
             | noise 3) power consumption.
             | 
             | I recently (8 months ago) replaced my 10 year-old laptop.
             | The only reason I retired it was because the display was
             | starting to go.
             | 
             | So I bought a second-hand workstation-class laptop with 6
             | beefy CPU cores and kinda wish I hadn't. Overall I want to
             | like it but the battery life is abysmal, it makes a lot of
             | heat even when fairly idle, and is a bit heavy due to the
             | large heatsink inside. (And that's without a dedicated
             | GPU.)
             | 
             | If I had to do it over again, I would trade it for one with
             | a weaker but more power-efficient CPU.
        
               | dmonitor wrote:
               | Laptops are notorious for poor thermal management. I have
               | no doubt that just about anything would be better than a
               | "powerful" laptop.
        
               | sangnoir wrote:
               | Depending on your needs, Chromebook + headless
               | workstation tucked away in a different room or garage
               | could also work (with WoL/smart plug)
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Is it possible to run Linux on all of them (so remove existing
       | Windows)?
       | 
       | If not, maybe add a checkbox for it.
        
         | bityard wrote:
         | Linux will run on basically any x86 box.
         | 
         | The question of "how well?" is mostly down to the fact that
         | some GPUs and wifi chips have substandard support due to their
         | manufacturers' refusal to document their driver interfaces.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | > I would like to add power usage, noise levels, PCIe slots but
       | that data is hard to find.
       | 
       | Maybe you can use an LLM to extract that data from reviews?
       | 
       | Anyway, I'd like to know if I can use the system for a home
       | cinema, so it should be able to decode 4k resolution in real time
       | (and shouldn't be too noisy). It would be nice if there was a
       | checkbox for that usecase.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Reviews aren't common due to many listings having 1 item in
         | stock.
         | 
         | What would the requirements for your decoding be?
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | > What would the requirements for your decoding be?
           | 
           | Well, it should just play 4k content from various sources
           | (and so various formats), using Vlc.
           | 
           | > Reviews aren't common due to many listings having 1 item in
           | stock.
           | 
           | I suppose you could use a (Google) search to find reviews
           | elsewhere on the internet, based on the product name. Then
           | feed them to ChatGPT, and ask it to summarize various things
           | and build a JSON structure out of its findings. Maybe ChatGPT
           | can even do the search for you.
        
       | preciz wrote:
       | Probably GMKtec is cheaper and better. I own one.
       | https://www.gmktec.com
        
         | bloomingeek wrote:
         | Yes and Yes! I have two of them and just ordered a third, great
         | machines.
        
       | phkahler wrote:
       | I really want a new motherboard form factor that gets rid of the
       | graphics card slot and assumes integrated graphics. It should
       | also aim to reduce the height of the back panel a little bit.
       | Maybe allow 4 DIMM slots (ECC preferred).
       | 
       | I just upgraded my Mellori-ITX to 64GB RAM and have a 5700G to
       | drop in there. This is possibly the best SFF config you can do in
       | an AM4 socket:
       | 
       | https://github.com/phkahler/mellori_ITX
       | 
       | BTW we need USB ports ON TOP so you can plug stuff in without
       | pushing the PC around the desk. Storage, not permanently attached
       | stuff.
        
       | indigodaddy wrote:
       | The eBay sellers who do the customization/price thing makes some
       | of your price results misleading/unreliable as the price will be
       | more on those than the base you have listed.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | I found that to happen sometimes, so I marked customizable
         | listings. But I think I was able to parse most of them to show
         | the specs for the selected variation, not the parent or the
         | title.
        
       | riledhel wrote:
       | I've recently bought this Intel N100 mini pc
       | https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005006727722225.html and it's
       | amazing. It even came with win11 preinstalled, an unexpected
       | surprise for me. 16G RAM and 512G SSD for 100 euros, great deal.
        
       | mech422 wrote:
       | Gotta throw in a mention of my fav: Odroid H2/3/4(1) $125ish for
       | an SBC with Intel N/J series CPU, DDR4/DDR5, up to 32G RAM, SATA,
       | Dual Ethernet etc. I have the old H2+ series and LOVE them :-)
       | 
       | 1: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h4/
        
       | haunter wrote:
       | You can probably find better deals from PC shops selling
       | refurbuished enterprise PCs (Lenovo, Dell, HP)
        
       | breakds wrote:
       | I am currently using a Beelink SER8, a very decent powerful mini
       | PC for its price. It is also the most quiet mini PC I have used.
        
       | nashashmi wrote:
       | I have been looking into mini pcs. The niche I want is a USB c
       | powered hand sized pc. I have only found two on Amazon so far,
       | one has a small screen and another close to the size of a small
       | dock. But they are both underpowered with Celeron processors.
       | 
       | I just need something that i can take from one desk to another
       | that carry docking stations.
        
         | universa1 wrote:
         | I wanted to recommend Minisforum, as I have a um560, that is
         | powered through usb-c. But that is not available anymore... So
         | those kind of machines exist...
         | 
         | You could get a frame.work laptop in an external case, slightly
         | larger than hand-sized, though.
        
       | sulandor wrote:
       | YES!!!! Usable ebay interface - very nice!
       | 
       | would be great to have a filter for country of origin/shipping
        
         | InMice wrote:
         | Makes you think about how most website are just junky
         | interfaces atop relatively simple tables of data.
        
           | mjcurl wrote:
           | Oh, how I wish I had better access to the eBay data ..
           | currently they limit you to 5k requests per day.
        
           | sulandor wrote:
           | "value added and removed here"
        
       | steeleyespan wrote:
       | Would have loved to see this site a few months back. I ended up
       | buying Dell optiplex refurbs thinking they were minis, but they
       | were big lol.
       | 
       | Edit: Nevermind - mine are the same size as many of the listings
       | here with DVD drives. I was thinking of micros.
        
       | simplecto wrote:
       | Websites like this talk to my heart. Strong early 2000s vibes of
       | nerds just putting it out there.
       | 
       | Love this, thank you!
        
       | agg23 wrote:
       | This is really nice, and I just did this analysis myself.
       | 
       | It seems like the tool is missing some of the better deals, like
       | Optiplex 3070 with 9th gen i5s for ~$100, entire working system
       | included (this is what I ended up buying).
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | eBay uses a 'best match' sort on the results, perhaps that's
         | why it was missed. What did you search for when you found this
         | one?
        
           | agg23 wrote:
           | I believe I looked up common machines with good prices, then
           | searched for those individually, which obviously isn't going
           | to work very well for this tool.
        
       | darkstar_16 wrote:
       | the data needs a bit of a cleanup. I see N100 showing up with
       | "Intel 100", Intel Alder Lake N100" and just "3.4 GHz" in various
       | places.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Is this for the CPU column? That's actually one I spent the
         | least time on, since there was so much variation with how
         | sellers entered processors. I'll take a look at it, thanks.
        
       | davidjade wrote:
       | Cool. It would be great to be able to filter Intel vs AMD. Or
       | perhaps even by processor family.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Sure, how about a keyword filter instead? That way you can
         | filter by whatever instead of big filter lists cluttering the
         | UI.
        
           | davidjade wrote:
           | That would be good. Easy enough to filter Intel vs AMD that
           | way as well as a particular CPU.
        
       | heraldgeezer wrote:
       | I love it. But its been a bit of a "secret" that office PCs that
       | are 3 years old are still very very good. I hope tech bros dont
       | ruin this. Also lol at power consumption voes.
        
         | tracker1 wrote:
         | There are some refurbers that will take office PCs and put a
         | modern-ish GPU, upgrade the PSU etc. That said, Mini PCs don't
         | offer PCIe expansion most of the time, so a GPU upgrade isn't
         | an option. Less appealing compared to new options.
        
           | heraldgeezer wrote:
           | I mean those optiplex typ desktops. Now everyone gets laptops
           | or big workstations anyways. Mini PCs are for POS and
           | singage.
        
       | pjc50 wrote:
       | Site is currently timing out. If it's actually static, stick it
       | behind free Cloudflare. But still - nice idea, thanks for the
       | Show HN.
       | 
       | Does anyone know what the right searchplace is for media storage
       | PCs? I'm considering getting something in this area that's a bit
       | more sophisticated than a NAS but not a huge project to maintain.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Actually I did stick it behind Cloudflare..not sure why it
         | would time out, since it's just an html page.
        
           | pjc50 wrote:
           | Huh, turns out to be a problem at my end, probably due to
           | corporate firewall.
        
       | eternauta3k wrote:
       | Are you the same guy from https://diskprices.com ? Awesome tools!
       | Would be nice to have ebay.de as well.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | No, just was inspired by diskprices, thought it's great UX. I
         | will be adding more marketplaces, .de included.
        
       | thelastgallon wrote:
       | An option to filter by ECC RAM would be super helpful.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | I wanted to add this, but that data is almost never entered by
         | sellers.
        
       | pdimitar wrote:
       | Instant bookmark, thank you!
       | 
       | Wishlist: please allow filtering by Intel / AMD CPUs and Intel /
       | NVIDIA / AMD GPUs. It's IMO important to know how many open
       | drivers can the buyer use on Linux / BSD.
        
         | mjcurl wrote:
         | Another person mentioned this, so I will add this as soon as I
         | can.
        
       | skadamat wrote:
       | I love how simple this site is. It's fast, no navigation, etc.
       | Kudos!
        
       | bloqs wrote:
       | Cant recommend anything based on intel N100 enough. Power draw is
       | about 13w but absolutely excellent performance. Bought several
       | "Firebat" ones from AliExpress
        
       | Tepix wrote:
       | Very cool. Can you add support for eBay Germany (ebay.de)?
        
       | eterps wrote:
       | I would love to see something like this but being able to sort on
       | price/performance ratio (f.e. based on a CPU performance index in
       | comparison to the price).
        
         | calvinmorrison wrote:
         | seconded. I cant keep up with all the variants on intels naming
         | scheme.
        
         | buescher wrote:
         | What I'd really like to see is the curve! There's usually two
         | "sweet spots", right? The minimum you should spend, and what
         | you should expect at that point, and the point of diminishing
         | returns, and what you should expect there.
        
         | jll29 wrote:
         | ...and MIPS/Watt!
        
       | FloatArtifact wrote:
       | sorting based on the processors, release date, or by performance
       | single slash multi-core would be interesting.
        
       | DownrightNifty wrote:
       | This is super cool! Now if only my ISP would give me a static IP
       | address so I could expose port 51820 on one of these things and
       | life would be perfect.
        
       | baggachipz wrote:
       | Very cool. It would be helpful to allow search on processor
       | architecture and power draw as well.
        
       | whywhywhywhy wrote:
       | You should have a filter for processor, feel the difference
       | between ones like N100 and usual low end Intel processors is
       | huge. Might be cool to list them with benchmarks too for people
       | who don't want to do research.
        
       | wscott wrote:
       | On the website itself, "OS" "Included" and "Not Included" is
       | strange. I don't see that I need "Not Included", unchecking
       | "Included" should show you everything but instead it shows you
       | nothing. I don't see the value of "no os included" verses a copy
       | of Windows that I will overwrite.
       | 
       | So I would just have an "OS Included?" checkbox.
        
       | chazeon wrote:
       | Core count is something I would add to the table. These mini PC
       | are good for hobbyists, they are cheaper, stable, faster and
       | easier to maintain than Arm SBCs I have get four of them since
       | pandemic. I can't wait to see what happen when hyperscaler retire
       | their A100s/H100s.
        
       | layer8 wrote:
       | This is only of limited usefulness if you want to buy a new mini
       | PC (rather than specifically a used unit from eBay). For example,
       | many current fanless models are not listed. Just searching for
       | "fanless mini pc" on Amazon.com gives many more (and some
       | cheaper) results.
       | 
       | This might be a task for an LLM-supported scraper looking at a
       | number of online marketplaces, retailers, and manufacturer sites.
       | Then, conversely, you could link to matching eBay listings. It
       | would also need a mechanism for users to submit spec corrections.
        
       | botro wrote:
       | I have found that laptops with cracked or scrached screens offer
       | a much better value in terms of newer hardware. The battery acts
       | as a built in UPS.
       | 
       | For example this laptop:
       | 
       | Dell Latitude 7400 Intel i7-1165G7 16GB 256GB NVMe SSD
       | 
       | Is $180 shipped.
       | 
       | https://www.ebay.com/itm/266969891671?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid...
        
       | distant_travelr wrote:
       | Dude, why are the filters not url encoded??? This makes sharing a
       | specific config to my mates so annoying
        
       | VikingCoder wrote:
       | ETA Prime has some advice on making a gaming machine out of cheap
       | old PCs:
       | 
       | "You Can Build This Powerful Ultra Low Cost SteamOS 3 Gaming PC
       | For Only $150"
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFIgQ9zgXOk
       | 
       | Optiplex 7020 with a tower - not a "Small Form Factor."
       | 
       | "This Super Low Cost PC Runs SteamOS 3 Better Than The Steam
       | Deck!"
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myye5o0y2Jw
        
         | detritus wrote:
         | Thanks for this! I've been meaning to get back into games but
         | only keep a laptop at home and I had no idea that I could make
         | a machine that could capably serve my needs for <PS300 (32Gb
         | Win10 i7 6700 with 256gb SSD (!), OK 2nd hand GPU) I spent my
         | younger years always having The Best Machine I CoUlD afFord,
         | but fifteen years later I just want something 'good enough' and
         | it's nice to know I needn't spend over a grand to do so.
         | 
         | Thanks again!
        
           | VikingCoder wrote:
           | Yeah, to be honest, I followed one of these build guides, and
           | got a second hand GPU, and it didn't fit in the case. I tried
           | to "make" it fit with some shears. It died. No surprise. So
           | then I bought a new cheap GPU, and the machine seems to work
           | pretty well. My kids play Minecraft and StepMania on it.
           | 
           | https://www.newegg.com/dell-7020/p/N82E16883165773 - $160
           | 
           | https://www.amazon.com/Power-Express-Video-Cable-
           | Adapter/dp/...
           | 
           | https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3QSCLR4?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_.
           | .. - $101 - this one fit!
           | 
           | But I found more videos I had bookmarked:
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTAzwKiQ7Ns
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLQ8NDbMEUw
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97enzfkRg2o
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvNS4M3o85o
           | 
           | ALSO, while we're chatting - I picked up this Chromebook:
           | 
           | ASUS Chromebook Plus, CM3401 14" 2-in-1 Laptop with Google AI
           | - AMD Ryzen 3 7320C - 8GB Memory - 128GB SSD - Ponder Blue,
           | Model CM3401FF-R3128BLX.
           | 
           | I got it in "Open Box Good" condition for $199.99.
           | 
           | https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-chromebook-plus-
           | cm3401-14-...
           | 
           | I kind of love it. Convertible to tablet (keyboard folds
           | under.) Runs Android apps, including Disney+, can download
           | Disney+ shows. HDMI out. I believe the HDMI out works for
           | Disney+ which is a surprise and a treat. Runs Linux. I
           | installed Visual Studio Code, .Net Core, etc. Because it's a
           | "Chromebook Plus," it has an App Shortcut to install the
           | Steam Installer. (!!!) I installed Balatro, and the
           | touchscreen works awesome. I installed both Android Minecraft
           | (works well on the built-in screen but for some reason has
           | frame rate problems on the external display?), and also
           | Minecraft Java through the Linux.
           | 
           | Haven't tried too many other Steam games yet. I tried to
           | install Path of Exile, but it seems to completely not work.
           | 
           | For $199.99, the thing's a beast.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | This is cool. I frequently have a need for this. I also would
       | love if there were a site for low power PCs.
        
       | bluepuma77 wrote:
       | It would be great if it would support other eBay sites than just
       | .com, not everyone is in the US :)
        
       | guelermus wrote:
       | Nice. Could you please add also the postal costs to the sort? My
       | very first trial showed me a 38$ PC with 500$ postal cost. I'm
       | located in Europe, but still ???
        
       | ethanpil wrote:
       | This is wonderful i'll be using this a lot. Would be great to see
       | a filter for Tiny vs Mini as well as CPU. AMD/Intel and i3 i7 i9,
       | etc, maybe even generation, etc
        
       | bflesch wrote:
       | now do the same for europe with EUR prices...
        
       | RobotToaster wrote:
       | data on ECC ram support would be helpful, since it's needed for
       | ZFS.
        
       | SoftTalker wrote:
       | A bit meta but nice job on the site design. Dense but very
       | readable, filter controls are clear and with a minimum of
       | unnecessary decoration. I wish more people still designed
       | websites like this. Reminds me a bit of McMaster-Carr.
        
         | jd3 wrote:
         | Had the same initial thought; the site design is simple and
         | straightforward, but info dense and easy to navigate, similar
         | to craigslist.
        
       | atentaten wrote:
       | This is great. I wish there were something similar to find
       | hardware to run AI models locally.
        
       | NelsonMinar wrote:
       | Neat! I'd love a column for external disk I/O type. I've been
       | trying to build a NAS on a new N100 miniPC but am foiled by the
       | fact that the devices all only have USB ports for I/O. And USB is
       | not reliable enough to run ZFS with a heavy load (kernel errors).
       | I'd love to have something with eSATA or some sort of PCI option.
        
       | ck2 wrote:
       | Are old capacitors still a problem on modern PC motherboards?
       | 
       | A decade ago they would only last a decade which would make some
       | of these boxes near EOL
        
       | yegle wrote:
       | It would be great if the results can be filtered by the CPU
       | generation. I'm specifically interested in replacing my 8th Gen
       | mini PC and won't want to buy anything older than 8th Gen.
        
         | ilikepi wrote:
         | Seconded. You can do this on eBay by choosing specific CPU
         | models, but it would be really helpful to filter more broadly.
         | "Intel 8th gen" for sure, but it could also be useful to be
         | able to combine that with, say, "Intel -T series" or "Intel
         | i5".
        
       | bschmidt1 wrote:
       | I've been using a $35 rpi4 for years, it's been a significantly
       | better experience and cost ($0 after initial purchase) than any
       | abstracted PaaS/IaaS I ever tried, and performance is
       | significantly better than the free or hobby tiers. With no need
       | for regional deploys or to have devs contributing from all over,
       | there's not a huge need for cloud. Also kinda nice knowing all my
       | customer data and other PI is at my house instead of at Google's
       | or Amazon's house. Remember when Twitter and GitHub were storing
       | passwords in plain text for years? So yeah... the peace of mind
       | of knowing a 22 y/o at their first job is not making security
       | decisions with my data and infra! Let alone the fact these
       | companies sell your data including your IP - you agree to it in
       | their terms.
       | 
       | Beyond this stuff, I always found the UX of IaaS like
       | AWS/GCP/etc. to be a nightmare, particularly the IAM experience.
       | Not just navigating their awful dashboard pages, but learning
       | their brand-specific jargon, managing service accounts, staying
       | up-to-date on latest marketing and service breakdowns for every
       | little thing - it quickly takes over your attention (and budget).
       | Not to mention, using IaaS feels like devolving from a modern
       | developer to an early 00s IT specialist. AWS feels less like
       | "infrastructure" and more like a modern take on cPanel but with
       | far less visibility/control over the server.
       | 
       | I digress... in 2021 I copy/pasted my "mono-server" setup from
       | Heroku over to the Pi 4 with vanilla Raspbian and it's been
       | running 24/7/365 ever since. It powers 15+ APIs/backends
       | including a booking engine for a local business in SF, some real-
       | time socket servers for games, and there's both a SQL (postgres)
       | and NoSQL (mongo) server running too. I attached a touch screen
       | that shows the console output in fullscreen, and I velcro it to
       | my wall. It looks like a smartphone charging on my wall or a
       | smart thermostat or something, but it's nice to be able to walk
       | up and see how things are doing. Feels better than checking any
       | dashboard.
       | 
       | I've had to restart it only twice over the years. A couple times
       | it just stopped responding to requests, though didn't appear to
       | be frozen. I could stop it and npm start again but nothing. When
       | this happens, have to fully restart and run IPTABLES stuff again
       | to put it back online. However - that's mere minutes spent each
       | year rather than spending significant time every single day in an
       | IaaS or PaaS.
       | 
       | Thanks for sharing this awesome list, I'm due for an upgrade
       | pretty soon and I am so glad to see so many low cost options. My
       | hope is that more developers get into these mini PCs around the
       | world, and I imagine a future where the Big Cloud providers play
       | a much smaller more specific role (government data, public domain
       | computing) rather than being the de facto platform for
       | hobby/startup projects. Even things like regional deployments and
       | distributed/"serverless" computing can be accomplished with
       | networks and proxying without giving it all away to a major cloud
       | provider.
        
       | martin_a wrote:
       | Are those boxes powerful enough and a sensible solution to get a
       | little NAS up and running?
        
         | bityard wrote:
         | Depends on what "a little NAS" means to you, and what
         | interfaces you need. But in general, most any PC made in the
         | last 20 years would work for as simple and small storage
         | server.
        
           | martin_a wrote:
           | Well, something like network mounted 4 TB of space for
           | photos, some movies, stuff like that?!?
        
       | gkfasdfasdf wrote:
       | Very nice! Would be nice to filter by NVMe as well. Also, one of
       | the listings didn't come with a power adapter which was some
       | custom lenovo thing. Finally, you totally should include your
       | affiliate link.
        
       | jll29 wrote:
       | I like your prototype, and people are already giving fantastic
       | hints to make this even better; information about the geographic
       | location of the offer would be my priority (EU).
       | 
       | This is particularly useful from an environmental point of view -
       | all these machines can serve a good purpose for decades to come.
       | Mini PCs use less energy, and every used machine re-used means
       | one PC less built, saving minerals and energy.
       | 
       | I recently installed a DELL Micro-PC, which I intended as an
       | X11-Terminal. It turns out that it's also a fine machine for most
       | local work like editing and email (except machine learning and
       | heavy development work), so more beefy machines can stay off.
        
       | tracker1 wrote:
       | A lot of these things are pretty great for general use, home
       | server, game emulation and htpc duties. From the N100 at the
       | relatively inexpensive, to the Ryzen 8000 series at the mid-range
       | with top tier cpu capabilities and decent igpu to the relatively
       | high end monsters.
       | 
       | Except for gaming duties, if someone wants a desktop experience,
       | monitor, kb, mouse then mini pcs are awesome.
        
       | htk wrote:
       | I had a laptop running Windows for 12 years as my home server,
       | hidden in a closet. It ran a couple of c# apps as a service and
       | was an ftp server as well. Last month I decided to buy a
       | raspberry pi (4B 2GB) to scratch multiple itches (arm processor,
       | linux, low power consumption) and it replaced the server without
       | a hitch, and better than I thought!
       | 
       | No weird splash screens from windows after updates, 2GB is vast
       | for me when running headless, dotnet apps ported with minimal
       | effort, and the list goes on. Only downside is the USB can only
       | power one external 2.5" hdd, and I didn't want to add a powered
       | usb hub.
        
       | shortformblog wrote:
       | Given how dominant AMD-based options are from a new machine
       | standpoint (you can get a pretty good 5000-series U-grade
       | processor for less than $250 on Amazon) I'm kind of surprised by
       | the lack of AMD options on the list. This is a useful idea
       | though, but I wonder if the lack of AMD may be hinting at some
       | variable that hasn't been considered?
        
         | supertrope wrote:
         | Most used PCs for sale started off as business machines. They
         | usually buy from the big brands that can provide enterprise
         | warranty support and volume discounts. AMD released Ryzen in
         | 2017. Add up the time for AMD to convince Dell/HP/Lenovo to
         | design, qualify, and release an AMD model. Add the time for
         | significant uptake into the market. Finally add three years for
         | the AMD PCs to get retired from office use.
        
       | windexh8er wrote:
       | This is great! The one thing I'd say is that the market is rife
       | with non-mainstream brands. As an example "Beelink" [0] and
       | "Minisforum" [1] are very commonly referred to and have a lot of
       | great models, but they're not well represented here and often
       | times offer better value depending on what the buyer is looking
       | for. My recommendation would be to expand the vendors into the
       | popular non-mainstream brands. Easy ask, but harder to execute on
       | your side - so I get it.
       | 
       | Also, AMD is crushing this market - but AMD is pretty under-
       | represented here. There are also some great N-series Intel
       | machines that are highly popular and you can get on AliExpress
       | [2]. Or even more US focused brands under this umbrella like
       | Protecli [3]
       | 
       | [0] https://www.bee-link.com/ [1] https://www.minisforum.com/ [2]
       | https://www.servethehome.com/fanless-intel-n200-firewall-and...
       | [3] https://protectli.com/
        
         | tonymet wrote:
         | I took a risk on a Beelink and so far it's been the best piece
         | of hardware I've owned. Affordable, quiet, reliable, excellent
         | performance, versatile for development & light gaming.
         | 
         | I did a thorough audit for bloat- spam- & mal-ware due to their
         | reputation, and it came up much cleaner IMO than my HP.
         | 
         | Given that they compete in price with Raspberry pi with far
         | more capability, everyone should have one.
        
           | sam2426679 wrote:
           | Agreed! Using a beelink as an htpc, and its been phenomenal.
        
           | biomcgary wrote:
           | The daily driver I am using to write this post is a Beelink
           | with Linux installed. Very happy with it. Switched out the
           | original 128GB SSD with a 1TB SSD. FFMPEG and light gaming
           | run fine. My only minor regret is not starting with more
           | memory, but I could probably switch that if I was motivated
           | enough.
        
             | windexh8er wrote:
             | I've got both Beelink and Minisforum units running Linux as
             | daily drivers. Great platform for my kids to learn Linux on
             | as the hardware is well supported. Also great for SFF
             | gaming rigs and platform emulation - especially with the
             | graphics horsepower native to the newer AMD procs.
             | 
             | But, yes - smart to just max these systems out right away.
             | Most easily support 64GB which is more than enough for
             | almost all use cases. I'm hoping that AMD continues to
             | develop for optimizing local model usage. Currently that's
             | the only area that Apple's Unified architecture really
             | shines over these. If I could run reasonably sized models
             | on these that would open a number of additional use cases.
        
           | pks016 wrote:
           | I'm using Beelink SER 6 pro from the last couple of years. It
           | has been great; no issues so far. Got it for cheap in one of
           | the sales.
        
           | snowAbstraction wrote:
           | Two months in and I'm a happy Beelink customer too. My kids
           | mostly use it for Minecraft.
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | > The one thing I'd say is that the market is rife with non-
         | mainstream brands.
         | 
         | Brands in the far east are quite different and less important
         | than in western markets; to me it seems there are say 5
         | manufacturers that build OEM products that 30 will relabel with
         | their brand and put into their box, then give to 1000 sellers,
         | each one running like 30 shops on Aliexpress, Ebay and Amazon.
         | Numbers are totally made up of course, the point is that the
         | name isn't that important over there as the very same product
         | can be (and often is) rebranded in many different ways.
        
         | kjs3 wrote:
         | I have a Protecli 4-port firewall. It's the second one I've
         | bought for this. It's really been excellent from a
         | cost/performance standpoint.
        
           | windexh8er wrote:
           | It is! I manage a bunch of these running Proxmox with
           | virtualized firewall and edge compute via containers and LXC.
           | Great platforms for the job and can manage them effectively
           | via Tailscale without having to open anything up or leverage
           | legacy VPN.
        
         | JamesSwift wrote:
         | Had good experiences with a few beelinks, but recently picked
         | up a minisforum and have had a bunch of weird BIOS issues (and
         | their BIOS is a really bizarre custom UEFI thing).
         | 
         | Waiting to RMA now, but I've seen a lot of similar "weird BIOS
         | bugs" after searching for help on my issue.
        
         | internet101010 wrote:
         | Love my Minisforum MS-01. 3x m.2 slots, supports 96gb ram, 2x
         | 10g ports, 2x 2.5g ports, and has a pcie slot for things like
         | external hba or small gpu.
         | 
         | A lot of people buying mini pcs would rather go with AMD but
         | are stuck with Intel due to the need for Quick Sync in order to
         | transcode Plex.
        
           | windexh8er wrote:
           | Exactly this. I'm stuck on Intel QuickSync for home media and
           | local NVR. The N200 is also packaged up nice for home
           | firewall / edge compute. I'm running Proxmox on one with
           | hardware passthru of NICs for OpnSense firewalling. Supports
           | 32GB of RAM and allows for a ton of containers or LXC on the
           | edge.
        
           | metadat wrote:
           | Does AMD really not have anything comparable?
           | 
           | This is the first I've heard of Quick Sync (and admittedly I
           | could always be clueless, I'm surprised to only encounter it
           | now).
        
         | LeoPanthera wrote:
         | I have a Beelink and the build quality is impressively good,
         | but my word their website is terrible. They recently redesigned
         | it and it somehow actually got worse.
         | 
         | They make no attempt to explain the difference between the
         | various model names, leaving to you go through them one by one
         | until you figure things out. It's so bad.
        
       | ornornor wrote:
       | Pretty neat! Any plans to make it work for people not living in
       | the US too?
        
       | blueferret wrote:
       | What a great idea! I love checking DiskPrices; the structure does
       | lend well to mini-PCs (another interest of mine). Bookmarking
       | this for my next shouldn't-grab-this-but-price-is-too-good
       | impulse buy.
        
       | bityard wrote:
       | I'm guessing this was inspired by https://labgopher.com?
       | 
       | A lot of these are not what I would call "mini," but I like the
       | idea.
       | 
       | Is it a static list of manufacturers/models? If so, I feel like
       | it would be worth putting that on GitHub so that the community
       | can help maintain it. For example, I know there many fanless PCs
       | on the market but the site is only showing me three and they are
       | all fairly expensive.
       | 
       | Any plans to add websites besides eBay? When I am hunting down a
       | SFF PC for a project, I generally try to at least look over what
       | is on offer from AliExpress, NewEgg (clearance), Dell
       | Refurbished, Lenovo Refurbished, Microcenter, and a variety of
       | websites for second-hand business IT recyclers.
        
       | ensignavenger wrote:
       | This is great, but the prices aren't accurate for the products
       | listed. As an example, I filtered by the cheapest 64GB model,
       | clicked on the link, and found that to actually get the 64GB it
       | was multiple times the cost listed on the site. This was because
       | if ebay's "variant" option, which is often misused by vendors.
       | 
       | I don't know if the ebay API allows you to check for variants to
       | ensure that the price you are listing is the price for the actual
       | variant listed or not?
        
         | inversetelecine wrote:
         | Also in my quick glance, it didn't account for shipping costs
         | either.
        
       | atlgator wrote:
       | A filter on socket/gen would be useful. Otherwise, it's a great
       | tool! Thanks for sharing.
        
       | winrid wrote:
       | I've always wanted to do something like this but for laptops too,
       | and allow sorting by passmark score to find the best values.
        
       | dbs wrote:
       | Neat. Can you add a filter for international buyers? Non-us
        
       | catchmeifyoucan wrote:
       | This looks great! I love the Cragislist like UI for this!
        
       | otterpro wrote:
       | I'm waiting for next year, when the prices for old (intel 6th gen
       | and below) mini-pc are expected to plummet, due to Windows 10
       | becoming obsolete. It would be sad to see them becoming e-waste,
       | but hopefully some of us will grab them as they make great linux-
       | based home servers.
       | 
       | Also, I have bought a lot of mini-pc and those with Intel 6th gen
       | CPU seems to offer the best bang for bucks, at least for my
       | needs. (I don't really need powerful system, since I"m mostly
       | using them for dedicated obs streaming or light video encoding or
       | homeassistant).
        
       | rmac wrote:
       | can we get a highcostminipcs plz
        
       | j45 wrote:
       | This is a great idea. I ahve a similar set of searches on eBay
       | for when I was buying these things.
       | 
       | You should consider putting some affiliate links in so this
       | continues to exist and grow.
       | 
       | You are helping people save money, which doesn't cost them
       | anything, and if anything makes ebay make less.
       | 
       | I have a ton of ideas for htis that I use to narrow it down even
       | more - starting with the CPU can be a good place. Generation,
       | wattage, etc.
        
       | whall6 wrote:
       | + $45 shipping :/
        
       | bloomingeek wrote:
       | I wonder if this is kind of a semi-panic selling because of
       | Windows 10 supposedly going away next October 2025? (Except MS
       | holding us hostage for a yearly fee!)
       | 
       | Fantastic gathering of used PC's, but buyer beware, there are a
       | lot of options that are worth studying before purchasing.
        
       | styfle wrote:
       | I haven't bought a Windows PC in 10 years so I thought it was
       | time to upgrade the old tower I had in the closet.
       | 
       | I stumbled across Mini PCs and was surprised at how cheap they
       | were so I brought one.
       | 
       | Turns out they were lying about the clock speed, citing 3.4Ghz
       | when it was actually 1.7GHz.
       | 
       | I contacted their support to say the description was wrong but
       | they said it was right. Don't buy from KAMRUI.
        
         | art-not wrote:
         | refund/chargeback?
        
           | bloomingeek wrote:
           | On eBay, always check each individual seller for their
           | return/refund rules. Most give 30 days, you pay return
           | shipping, but not all.
        
       | throwaway4220 wrote:
       | I'm fascinated that a static site generator makes this! Is this a
       | new concept?
        
       | mikeocool wrote:
       | This is great --- my world has mostly been Mac laptops and cloud
       | servers for the last 15 years, and recently decided I wanted a
       | physical server in my office to use as a dev box.
       | 
       | I ended picking up a 5 year old Dell Optiplex SFF on eBay for
       | $75. I added a few sticks of RAM and a new SSD, installed Ubuntu
       | server, and it's been great. Super fun and easy to pop open and
       | work on.
       | 
       | I sort of want to start grabbing these for anyone I know who
       | needs a basic computer.
        
       | squarefoot wrote:
       | I still didn't move my main PC to a mini one because it's not
       | that old and I don't feel like relegating it under a table, but
       | migrating everything else to mini PCs (music, servers, firewalls,
       | media players, ...) was the best choice ever; even the FreeBSD
       | based NAS runs wonderfully on one of these small boxes. Unless
       | one needs specific interfacing capabilities (GPIOs for instance)
       | or serious performance which would need optimized airflow that
       | only a bigger case could allow, the Mini PC form factor wins
       | almost everywhere.
       | 
       | Great site, I'd love if it also took data from EU countries Ebay
       | sites too, as buying from the US from here would inflate costs
       | too much when adding overseas shipping and taxes.
        
       | butz wrote:
       | It would be very helpful to know which PCs support power over
       | USB-C and video, e.g. I can connect it to display with single
       | cable.
        
       | dotBen wrote:
       | Lenovo ThinkCentre M Series (minis) are an absolute sleeper and
       | way better value than Raspbery Pis. I run one in my home network
       | closet with a bunch of docker containers on for home networking,
       | crawler projects that need to run from a non-datacenter IP
       | address, homelab experiments, etc.
       | 
       | Cost me $100 'used' (open box), SSD, decent RAM and even a copy
       | of Windows I didn't need. Install *nix, run it headless, good to
       | go.
       | 
       | You can go cheaper but at a certain point who cares if it's $80
       | for an unknown brand or $100 for Lenovo, etc.
       | 
       | Small form factor, it can tuck in with wherever you store your
       | router, or buy an aftermarket rack kit if you run rackmount
       | network components like I do. OR 3D print one
       | https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4769452
       | 
       | Eg https://www.ebay.com/itm/186591932407 - this is a great
       | project server that can probably run tons of docker containers
       | (depending on what you are doing).
        
         | BizarroLand wrote:
         | Just know that Lenovo has set up a bootlock on these systems if
         | a non-branded wifi card is detected in them. If you're just
         | plugging in an ethernet cable and tossing it in a closet,
         | you're fine, but upgrades are very limited.
        
       | rpcope1 wrote:
       | It would be nice to see which if any of these support coreboot.
       | There's a big hole that was left behind when PC Engines left the
       | market for a reasonably open low power x86 system that runs
       | coreboot and has a much lower possibility of baked in back doors
       | while sporting the sort of hardware that you can just plug in and
       | leave alone for years on end.
        
         | hnuser435 wrote:
         | Yes! I'd love to be able to filter by systems capable of
         | running open source firmware.
        
       | pmlnr wrote:
       | I've been running my services on a single Lenovo M600 tiny for
       | years now. Low power, fanless, runs great.
        
       | brk wrote:
       | Why is PC BIOS still such an absolute shit show? Seemingly
       | similar products from the same brand will have wildly different
       | BIOS options and functions. Want to auto power on? Good luck with
       | support for that being documented anywhere, and even if it is
       | documented, the odds that the actual unit supports it is 50/50 at
       | best it seems. Want to customize boot options? You may or may not
       | get the options you need. Fan speed controls, clocking options.
       | Every unit seemingly has been shipped with its own unique set of
       | BIOS options supported, no two are ever the same.
        
       | Peaches4Rent wrote:
       | Any chance this can have a country filter?
        
       | bhelkey wrote:
       | The main place I wanted a small PC is in my entertainment stand.
       | 
       | I tried using such a PC in my living room as a media console. My
       | plan was to use steam's 'Big Picture Mode's along with an Xbox
       | controller to give a console like experience.
       | 
       | Instead of buying console games, I would get access to my
       | extensive steam library. Games not on steam can be manually added
       | to the steam launcher.
       | 
       | In practice, I ran into enough problems to abandon the idea. The
       | controller experience didn't have enough support. A Bluetooth
       | keyboard/mouse combo helped but eventually I just went back to
       | using a Chromecast.
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-29 23:01 UTC)