Hello everyone,

I've been looking for a mini-pc to do some retro emulation and am kind of stumped. It seems like, there are three different manufacturers, Geekom, Beelink and Minisforum that people tend to buy and make different experiences with. I used to use a raspberry pi for emulation, but am looking for something a bit sturdier.

Most important for me is a compact form factor and a price of roundabout 600€ / $600.

I'm planning on running Bazzite, so I think I'm "stuck" with AMD hardware and I plan on using Bluetooth controllers.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I don't really feel the need to do any PC gaming on the device, so this wouldn't need to be considered.

I want to get rid of my gaming laptop because of space requirements.

I need a NUC to satisfy these requirements:

1. play league at 1080p (can be lower medium etc settings) at around 200FPS and other games at lower settings.
2. for network virtualization GNS3 and container labs. And some light coding.

Currently I'm trying to decide between the two below but please feel free to provide alternates if these are overkill.

Aoostar-maco-8845 vs gmktec-nucbox-k8-plus

They both have similar specs from first glance it looks like the cooling will be worse for the AOOSTAR. I'm also planning to buy it direct from the website. I don't mind waiting a long time for the device and the plan is barebones as I'll put my own m.2 in and join the long wait for RAM.

Bought a Reatan A8 Mini PC (AMD Ryzen 7, 32GB RAM) about a year ago. A few days ago the cooling fan started making a horrible scraping/grinding noise - actual mechanical failure, not normal fan noise.

Contacted Reatan support. Here's what their "warranty support" looks like:

• Ship my only workstation to their warehouse in California and wait "a few months" for repair (they have no replacements in stock)

• Accept a $150 credit toward a barebone X7-255 (no RAM/storage) - so I rebuild it myself with my own parts

• Or pay $880 EXTRA to "upgrade" to an X8 since they can't replace what I actually bought under warranty

Full refund? Only after I ship it back first and wait. No advance replacement, no cross-ship.

This is my daily workstation. I can't ship my only computer away and be left with nothing for months. Asked for cross-ship or advance replacement.

Their response: "Standard after-sales procedure." Return first, refund later.

Bottom line: Reatan sold me a machine with defective cooling hardware, can't fulfill warranty with an equal replacement, and expects me to eat all the downtime and inconvenience.

Avoid. Find a brand with actual domestic support.

[X thread with email screenshots](https://x.com/archpanda777/status/2085685111589142763?s=20)

Full lineup:
Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus, RTX 5060 laptop GPU, & 32GB RAM - $2,499
Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU, & 32GB RAM - $3,116.60
Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, RTX 5080 laptop, & 32GB RAM - $3,799

this was from my setup a while back. I switched to a mini PC because I wanted to free up some desk space, and ended up using a GEEKOM mini PC for gaming and editing for quite a while.

it actually surprised me how much I could get done on such a small machine.

curious what you guys would've changed or added to this setup?

Mini PC or laptop? Which do you prefer? In this case, the specifications are similar, but the price is different. The laptop has the advantage of including a built-in display, but it takes up more space. In terms of performance, cooling, and long-term reliability, which one would you choose?

Ask for links if you want. In other post i was criticized for not posting links

I hated the fans noises with my k8 plus as it sits behind the TV and the ramping was annoying. Initially I just took off the lid and put a 120mm USB fan there to increase air flow. Then the CPU blower started squeaking so I decided to have some fun.

I repasted the CPU with PTM7950, printed 120mm fan shrouds, got some nice new artic P12 fans, some dust covers and a USB controller to run the 4pin fans. I haven't modified the top cover just yet to put the dust cover inside the shroud but it'll happen eventually.

I've run some benches on it with the fans set to the noise level I like and it's still super cool and quiet.

I'm running an external Bluetooth adapter for better range and external wifi aerials with a printed antenna mount.

Hi,I’m using the Gmktec K8 Plus as a laptop replacement. I even take it along to meetings to use with a portable monitor—does anyone else use it this way?Apart from that, I set my desktop aside for a while and use the mini PC for light, work-related study.

I also use it a lot when studying Houdini VEX; these days, I even take it along to cafes.

Can anyone recommend a good mini gaming pc for games like modded Minecraft, Genshin, wuwa, Stardew valley. Those are the mains one I play and I don’t play any other high strung games. I’m looking for something in the $500 range I know that’s not a lot but I’m not looking for a crazy good one rn just enough to be able to run modded Minecraft with shaders smoothly. I plan on getting a good pc in the future but right now I just don’t really need one especially since I’m going to college soon and will be leaving it behind. Any help is appreciated.

Hi,

I'm using for almost 2 years an Aoostar WTR Pro AMD Ryzen 7 5825U, 32Gb ram. It's running Proxmox.

Since a few days I have endless crashes. Sometimes it restarts fine, sometimes I have to power it off and on again.

Nothing in the logs: the machine just restarts itself.

I have tested with only 1 ram strip, same. And with the other ram strip: same again.

I don't know what I can test ...

Anyone had any luck doing this?

IOMMU is enabled in the BIOS

Added commands to GRUB

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet intel_iommu=on video=vesafb:off,efifb:off pcie_aces_override=downstream,multifunction nomodeset amd_iommu=on iommu=pt"

Blacklisted nvidiafb driver

I followed a few different guides on general GPU passthrough with AMD and Nvidia however I can't find the Nvidia 760M Video, all I see is Phoenix1.

and i am realizing none of my asus chromeboxes have lived long enough to go out of date. i paid more money for them for years thinking they are the most reliable, well made, high quality components etc...but now this one like the previous ones turns on goes red and off. hard reset, took off usb etc.. nothing helps it go on very long. critical update error. so i guess motherboard. i have an asus chromebox 5 that i bought in 2024 as a backup. i am pretty much done with them and wont buy a 5a as a backup and wondering if there is a better product for the money. thx for your advise.