Downsizing PCs

[ringrain_78]

which pi u gonna use? Is it seriously gonna be enough as a PC?

I am using a RPI 4 - 4gb, it has Libre Office suite which I can use for simple word processing and excel spreadsheet.

Otherwise, all online access for Outlook, calendar, Spotify, youTube and it is OK for me.

There are limitations, I had not found a good way to use zoom, microsoft team and Webex other than via the website which I found to be laggy, also no camera.

Other than that, for $80 - really cannot complain.

I got a 2nd hand RPI 2B from carousell for $10, deploy it as a pihole ad-blocker.

 

[Entry Level PC]

for 4k tv getting a $25 h313 tvbox is sufficient.

triangle for torrebting. deskmini is main pc. larkbox put at work for web surfing

I just grab laptop nowadays.
Small form factor are expensive and I don't really need the space saving.

My Ryzen 3500U cost only $500 during Sale last year and comes with Win10, 8GB ram, 2TB HDD.

Tan gu gu for Ryzen 4300U during Sale this year.

 

[ilte2377]

Why not game anymore? so sad
game is life

Dear Sexperts, need your opinion/suggestions.

I’ve always been a gamer, and have always built gaming rigs, with mid-full tower setups and the latest GPUs etc. I run a NAS at home for all of my music collection etc. And have data on my SSD’s in my desktop that I can transfer over.

As I’m not gaming anymore and I seriously only use the company laptop for work (connected to my x34), otherwise I mainly use my iPad, I’m thinking of downsizing my rig... Wondering what would work best, a micro-ATX setup, or one of those mini-PCs?

I don’t do much, occassional word processing/MS Office stuff on the desktop, YouTube, Netflix, music etc, so I wouldn’t need to maintain an overkill gaming setup. Any suggestions on setup? Thanks!

 

[Koenig168]

Why not game anymore? so sad
game is life

when you grow up, you will understand

 

[Entry Level PC]

Why not game anymore? so sad
game is life

1) Time Sink - Most Game Range from 20-60h on Average
2) Family - Hard to find 1h of uninterrupted gaming
3) Age - Old liao no endurance to game long

 

[alamakazim]

I am using a RPI 4 - 4gb, it has Libre Office suite which I can use for simple word processing and excel spreadsheet.

Otherwise, all online access for Outlook, calendar, Spotify, youTube and it is OK for me.

There are limitations, I had not found a good way to use zoom, microsoft team and Webex other than via the website which I found to be laggy, also no camera.

Other than that, for $80 - really cannot complain.

I got a 2nd hand RPI 2B from carousell for $10, deploy it as a pihole ad-blocker.

I guess if one is pampered by decent pc... raspberry pi is very slow

 

[alamakazim]

when you grow up, you will understand

I also pretty sure... we have overkill pc rig that does not do gaming

 

[kimsix]

b550i + zen2 apu + cm nr200
z490i + 10400 + cm nr200
just add ram, ssd and sfx psu?

 

[elmohootbigbird]

I guess if one is pampered by decent pc... raspberry pi is very slow

$100 over for this performance is really not so ideal.

 

[Entry Level PC]

Pi still long way to go.
They need to use Flagship ARM CPU.

 

[ringrain_78]

$100 over for this performance is really not so ideal.

Really cannot compare like this because raspberry pi is not built to be full fledge PC. It has its limitations.

But in terms of downsizing, it's small and needs very little wattage. It fits what I need which I cannot accomplish with and iPad or phone.

I experience 0 lag in office productivity software or streaming youTube in 1080p. I can't watch 4k since my monitor is 1080p only.

 

[elmohootbigbird]

Really cannot compare like this because raspberry pi is not built to be full fledge PC. It has its limitations.

But in terms of downsizing, it's small and needs very little wattage. It fits what I need which I cannot accomplish with and iPad or phone.

I experience 0 lag in office productivity software or streaming youTube in 1080p. I can't watch 4k since my monitor is 1080p only.

on the topic of youtube 1080, i just saw a video review on it. seems like on 1080, there are quite alot of dropped frames.

 

[Napalm]

then i found triangle mini pc for $120. i replaced my itx torrent machine with this. very solid runs many days to download and upload 1000GBs. cpu can run fanless

May I ask where you got the triangle mini pc for $120? I've been searching around and this is mostly quoted at around S$260.

I'm looking for a pc to do basic MS Office work and to watch Youtube and Udemy videos.

Preferable a (somewhat) portable PC and hoping to keep costs as low as possible.

TIA!

 

[yusoffb01]

May I ask where you got the triangle mini pc for $120? I've been searching around and this is mostly quoted at around S$260.

I'm looking for a pc to do basic MS Office work and to watch Youtube and Udemy videos.

Preferable a (somewhat) portable PC and hoping to keep costs as low as possible.

TIA!

it was so cheap in lazada last nov i bought 5...

 

[Napalm]

it was so cheap in lazada last nov i bought 5...

Ah, thanks. I guess prices have gone up since then. Pity...

If anyone has any other recommendations (around $200 or less, good for multi-tab web surfing, MS Office, Youtube videos), that'd be most appreciated!

 

[yusoffb01]

Ah, thanks. I guess prices have gone up since then. Pity...

If anyone has any other recommendations (around $200 or less, good for multi-tab web surfing, MS Office, Youtube videos), that'd be most appreciated!

this seller has $10 voucher, so u get $178 with ssd and 8gb ram
https://s.lazada.sg/s.vD9G

 

[Entry Level PC]

Personally,
I don't recommend any mini-pc without at least Quad Core
i5-8250U or Ryzen 2500U

 

[wwenze]

Pi has two main userbases

1) Those who actually use Pi for the I/O i.e. what it is supposed to be used for
2) Those who don't realize it is actually slower than a smartphone and want to use it for desktop stuff just because it is famous

And nothing really beats raw CPU power when it comes to that. I had to dig out a dual-core Ivy Bridge and it still played x265 1080p at 30fps. Faster than my Cherry Trail tablet lol. And AV1 is starting to get used nowadays and H/W support is still limited so good luck if you don't have CPU power lol.

On September 1, 2020, Nvidia announced that their Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs will support AV1 fixed-function hardware decoding. [124]
On September 2, 2020, Intel officially launched Tiger Lake 11th Gen CPUs with AV1 fixed-function hardware decoding.[125]
On September 15, 2020, AMD merged patches into the amdgpu drivers for Linux which adds support for AV1 decoding support on RDNA2 GPUs.[126][127][128]

 

[Gymrat76]

1) Time Sink - Most Game Range from 20-60h on Average
2) Family - Hard to find 1h of uninterrupted gaming
3) Age - Old liao no endurance to game long

True. I buy many games but haven’t the attention span nor the endurance to play through it. Most games in the past 2-3 years have been between 1-4 hours before I stopped. Work and late night calls then tired just want to lie in bed with my ipad and surf brainless things until I sleep (like Edmw lol)

Last game I played through and spent >100 hours on was Witcher 3

 

[ceestudent]

Personally,
I don't recommend any mini-pc without at least Quad Core
i5-8250U or Ryzen 2500U

Mini pc with this spec usually not so cheap. Really top up a bit can get laptop.

Is intel N3450 processor capable of doing office and chrome browsing? Say open 2 tab max.