Size Matters in Computing: Mini Vs. Desktop Decisions

Quick Links

• Performance Comparisons
• Productivity and Ease of Use
• Is a Mini PC Upgradeable Compared With a Desktop PC?
• What Is the Cost of a Mini PC vs. Desktop?
• Mini PC vs. Desktop: Which Type of PC Should You Buy?

Key Takeaways

• Mini PCs offer competitive performance, often with better cooling and more powerful AMD APUs than found laptops and some desktops.
• They also provide easy access to ports, and their portability makes them convenient for productivity and use in different settings.
• Mini PCs are cost-effective compared to desktop PCs due to simpler construction and reduced components, but have limited upgradability.

Mini PCs have proved powerful enough to work and game on as hardware components become more powerful each generation. As more games are optimized, and hardware output becomes more efficient, a mini PC could be your best PC hardware purchase in 2024.

Performance Comparisons

Jhet Borja/MakeUseOf

Desktop PCs will always be significantly more powerful than mini PCs because they have better cooling and full-sized graphics cards. However, you shouldn’t underestimate the performance of an AMD APU.

APUs have integrated graphics, and AMD has been putting a lot of effort into developing those for portable devices like laptops, handheld gaming PCs, and, of course, mini PCs. This makes these APUs designed to handle loads bigger than what we’d expect them to.

Putting these chips in mini PCs with better cooling than laptops and handhelds allows manufacturers to extract more performance from them, making the performance per dollar quite competitive compared to full-sized PCs of the same specs.

For example, compare the $499 Beelink SER5 MAX’s Ryzen 7 5800H APU to an equivalent desktop with a Ryzen 7 5700G APU.Nanoreview benchmarks show they’re quite close in performance, with similar single and multi-core performance. Prebuilt PCs on Amazon and Newegg go for over $600, even up to the $800 mark. With comparable performance, it’s hard to deny that the mini PC wins in the low-to-mid-range performance bracket.

Productivity and Ease of Use

Kannon Yamada/MakeUseOf

Mini PCs are functionally the same as a desktop PC. However, what the mini PC has over the desktop is its easy access. You don’t have to fuss around the back of your heavy PC with plenty of cables plugged into the back of it, and you have access to all you need right on the tiny PC on your desk.

Mini PCs don’t even have to be limited to IO and interfaces compared to full-sized motherboards. The MINISFORUM UM780 XTX (around $630-640) with a Ryzen 7 7840HS and 32GB of DDR5 RAM has more interfaces than you would expect from a similarly priced desktop PC build. For a $650 desktop build with a Ryzen 7 7000 and 32GB of DDR5 RAM, you’ll have to settle for an A620 motherboard. A-series AMD motherboards are the lowest-spec and usually don’t even have DisplayPort.

If the UM780 XTX’s ports aren’t enough, you can plug in a high-speed USB-C hub . USB hubs are usually a pain to use on desktop PCs as they have very short cables, but with a mini PC that sits right on your desk, the short cables are actually welcome to add more IO without increasing cable clutter.

If you need to get work done quickly while needing to take your system with you, you can easily plug in your mini PC to your office setup and get to work. You can just as easily bring it home and plug it into your home setup, do some work there, or play some games by plugging it into your TV.

Is a Mini PC Upgradeable Compared With a Desktop PC?

Upgradability is the mini PC’s weakest point. Desktop PCs have near-infinite upgradability where you can easily replace every major component. You won’t be able to upgrade a mini PC’s CPU/APU, but in many cases, you can upgrade the RAM and the storage with an SSD.

While you cannot upgrade the APU, many mini PC users have experimented with adding powerful external GPUs with varying success. This opens up so much more potential as your mini PC can act as a “work” PC while being a powerful gaming device if you plug in an external GPU at home.

External GPU enclosures are expensive, but they might be worth it if you want one PC to do everything for you.

What Is the Cost of a Mini PC vs. Desktop?

Ste Knight/MakeUseOf

Surprisingly, mini PCs don’t have as much of that “portable tax” compared to laptops, bringing their price-to-performance ratio quite close to desktop PCs in many instances.

Granted, you’re missing key features like a trackpad, display, and keyboard if we’re comparing a mini PC to a laptop , but we’re comparing between mini PCs and desktops.

We’ve taken the $359 Beelink SER5 Mini PC with a Ryzen 7 5700U with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 500GB SSD and compared it to the same parts we can find on PC Part Picker , and the mini PC won by about $128, with the desktop costing $487 (at the time of writing—hardware prices do fluctuate).

This is because a mini PC has a much simpler case; it already has a motherboard, doesn’t need additional fans, and doesn’t need a large power supply. The reduced cost does come with some sacrifices, like the aforementioned limited upgradability and a power-limited mobile-class APU instead of a desktop-class one.

Mini PC vs. Desktop: Which Type of PC Should You Buy?

If peak performance or upgradability isn’t your biggest concern, then a mini PC is one of the easiest ways to buy a PC and have it working immediately. Mini PCs have smaller footprints than laptops, making them easy to bring around in a smaller bag—so don’t gloss over mini PCs when it comes to your next hardware upgrade.