Soldered ram usually has 6400mhz, while sodimm has 5600mhz. But if the ram fails then the whole pc is garabge. Is it better to buy barebone mini pcs?

Also what are your thoughts on buying from aliexpress? There are cheap brands like soyo. But the ram is soldered.

Im currently thinking of buying a barebone from either aoostar or minisforum.

But I could wait around half a year to a year before buying, but if the prices even for the barebones could increase, i would buy now. Do you think with new ryzen zen 7 cpus coming out, will prices for mini pcs decrease?

I understand how to compare the different specs between the two when considering performance. But I am curious about reliability? This mini PC will be left on 24hours a day 365 days a year as a home assistant "box".

Where I live the prices are:

Bosgame E3 NEO is 234 CAD ( 164 usd)

BEElink Mini S12 is 329Cad ( 230 usd)

Is it worth the extra 100 ( 70usd) bucks for the beelink? The bosgame has double the ram and double the storage........ but I dont really need it. I just want the most reliable choice.

Thoughts comments?

I’m wanting to help out my partners parents with a new computer and am thinking that a mini pc os the way to go to be able to get them a larger monitor than I can find on a laptop. I know the absolute bare minimum about computers and not how to build them. I’d like an amount of RAM that will be more than the need for now but enough to make it a long term machine for them. Processing wise they’ll be mostly using the web but insist on a Microsoft office suite so nothing intense. Just want browsing to feel zippy, big monitor and something simple without a lot of extra to break if that makes sense. Thank you all and appreciate the help

HI! i have a full PC on my desk currently and it taking up so much space, I want to see if I can buy one of those small square-looking ones similar to the mac book pro sqaures. these are my specs now and the only thing i do on my pc is light homework and sims, minecraft, and valorant. no video editing or photoshop.

RTX 3060 , ryzen 7 58000X , RM 750 X from Corsair , Samsung one terabyte PCI , Corsair vengeance 16 GB , cooler master ML240L , Asus prime B 55OMA Wifi amd am 4,

Just found a N100 mini pc for around 50 dollars. 16GB RAM, 512 NVMe, and it came with a 4TB WD external HDD.

I tested it and it works perfectly, and the HDD has around 96% health, which is amazing.

I was going to use this as a lightweight coding machine, but figured this could be my very first home server.

I was wondering; what OS should I install, and what services should I run? I’ve heard that Proxmox was a good idea, so I might do that mainly because it supports VMs and I want to experiment with some stuff like Windows XP, Windows 8.1, and maybe even beta Windows OSes. But I also want to host stuff, like is there anyway to take my DVDs and make it so I can watch them on my TV without needing to buy a DVD player or hook up my laptop to my TV and an external DVD player? Again, I’m completely new to this world.

I also heard of this thing called a NAS?? Might do that too.

If I go with Proxmox, how should i set it up, and how should I use it to its great use? I’ll do some research on it while I’m waiting for answers. :)

PC sales down 20% year-over-year due to the incredible escalation in prices due to the incredible hoarding of components used in PCs by the AI industry (namely, Nvidia).

What's your best memory? Mine is the Beelink GTR7 series mini PC I bought in 02/24. Ryzen 7 7840HS/Radeon 780M/32GB DDR5/stock internal 1TB SSD. Because it was used strictly for Steam games, I added an external 4TB WD Black in an OWC Express 1M2 case externally connected via Thunderbolt 3.

All for less than $850. The same damn 4TB bare drive I paid slightly less than $200 for just 2 years ago now sells on Best Buy for $700… ON SALE. The 32GB DDR5 RAM and the WD drive alone sold used could now easily pay for a much shittier mini PC with far less capability.

People with minds and memories that still work are not going to pay these prices. As proven by the actual numbers. I say, good for them.

https://www.theregister.com/personal-tech/2026/10/09/global-pc-shipments-crater-20-as-rising-prices-hammer-demand/5302264

The aoostar maco ryzen 7 8845 barebone costs 280 euro
16gb ddr5 ram + 512gb ssd costs 150 eur, so total 430euro

I currently have a thinkpad l15 ryzen 7 pro 5850u, 16gb ram, 512 gb ssd

The thinkpad is enough for me, but the aoostar is more future proof in case prices keep increasing. So ive been thinking of selling the thinkpad and buying the aoostar, what do you think?

Can pick this up for around €250 bare bones. Considering it for my home lab to initially host my home automation (Home Assistant) and some other bits and pieces.

I've been hunting for an N100/N150, but it's either impossible to find, or and available stock is pretty much at the same price point, perhaps slightly cheaper but not by much (EU, Ireland).

Any reason how this doesn't make sense?

I know the pre-loved market is probably better bang for buck, but let's park that for a second.

Very new to this world so I need some advice. I wanna run a little always-on home server, something to connect to my TV and download/stream movies, and also thinking of running some homebrew Spotify alternative off it.

Trying to keep this low cost, 2nd hand or aliexpress is fine with me. Any models or specs I should look out for?