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Budget <4L SFF Barebones Build: Intel NUC vs AMD Chinese Mini PCs

Ariolander
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22 minutes ago, Ariolander said:

Budget): $500~ for Barebones Kit

Country: USA

Games & Other Details: Home Office Build to be VESA strapped behind a monitor as a DIY All-In-One solution, that I can pack into a bag with a USB monitor if I need to work remote.

 

Primary apps include Adobe Creative Suite, primarily Photoshop/Illustrator, a lot of chrome tabs.
Mild gaming to include League of Legends, Starcraft II Arcade, and 4x Strategy Games.

 

Doing my own research, I am leaning toward either a NUC 13, or one of those super budget Amazon-brand Chinese Mini PC makers with latest gen AMD APUs.

 

From my reading the AMD build from sussy (but not worst) brand will be 20% cheaper and much more powerful but the Intel one will have better build quality, QA, and Thunderbolt/USB4 accessory compatibility (I am planning to use a docking station).

 

I already have a 2TB M.2 2280 SSD so only need the barebones kit and RAM.

 

I briefly considered an InWin Choppin based ITX build but I dismissed DIY ITX iGPU SFF builds due to cost/performance ratio not making sense vs mobile-based barebones kits.

 

Two sample carts I was considering NUC 13 i5-1340P vs AMD 735HS barebones kits:

 

msedge_KTBqK51rJi.thumb.png.66ecd988c7b51f21d464c2ca72c7a96c.pngmsedge_aZIUuzshEw.thumb.png.1b5e40794c868b023b83e51e1c2cb105.png

Another option that comes close in price is using Asrock's Deskmeet barebones kit. Its a motherboard+case+power supply for $200, so the rest can come out to a similar price when adding a a dGPU like an Intel Arc A380 or RX 6600. You could also just go with a 5700G with the AM4 version too.

 

The smaller option would be Asrock's Deskmini series, which is about the same size and uses somewhat standard hardware. They're the same setup but slightly cheaper and the size of a mini ITX motherboard.

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Budget): $500~ for Barebones Kit

Country: USA

Games & Other Details: Home Office Build to be VESA strapped behind a monitor as a DIY All-In-One solution, that I can pack into a bag with a USB monitor if I need to work remote.

 

Primary apps include Adobe Creative Suite, primarily Photoshop/Illustrator, a lot of chrome tabs.
Mild gaming to include League of Legends, Starcraft II Arcade, and 4x Strategy Games.

 

Doing my own research, I am leaning toward either a NUC 13, or one of those super budget Amazon-brand Chinese Mini PC makers with latest gen AMD APUs.

 

From my reading the AMD build from sussy (but not worst) brand will be 20% cheaper and much more powerful but the Intel one will have better build quality, QA, and Thunderbolt/USB4 accessory compatibility (I am planning to use a docking station).

 

I already have a 2TB M.2 2280 SSD so only need the barebones kit and RAM.

 

I briefly considered an InWin Choppin based ITX build but I dismissed DIY ITX iGPU SFF builds due to cost/performance ratio not making sense vs mobile-based barebones kits.

 

Two sample carts I was considering NUC 13 i5-1340P vs AMD 735HS barebones kits:

 

msedge_KTBqK51rJi.thumb.png.66ecd988c7b51f21d464c2ca72c7a96c.pngmsedge_aZIUuzshEw.thumb.png.1b5e40794c868b023b83e51e1c2cb105.png

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22 minutes ago, Ariolander said:

Budget): $500~ for Barebones Kit

Country: USA

Games & Other Details: Home Office Build to be VESA strapped behind a monitor as a DIY All-In-One solution, that I can pack into a bag with a USB monitor if I need to work remote.

 

Primary apps include Adobe Creative Suite, primarily Photoshop/Illustrator, a lot of chrome tabs.
Mild gaming to include League of Legends, Starcraft II Arcade, and 4x Strategy Games.

 

Doing my own research, I am leaning toward either a NUC 13, or one of those super budget Amazon-brand Chinese Mini PC makers with latest gen AMD APUs.

 

From my reading the AMD build from sussy (but not worst) brand will be 20% cheaper and much more powerful but the Intel one will have better build quality, QA, and Thunderbolt/USB4 accessory compatibility (I am planning to use a docking station).

 

I already have a 2TB M.2 2280 SSD so only need the barebones kit and RAM.

 

I briefly considered an InWin Choppin based ITX build but I dismissed DIY ITX iGPU SFF builds due to cost/performance ratio not making sense vs mobile-based barebones kits.

 

Two sample carts I was considering NUC 13 i5-1340P vs AMD 735HS barebones kits:

 

msedge_KTBqK51rJi.thumb.png.66ecd988c7b51f21d464c2ca72c7a96c.pngmsedge_aZIUuzshEw.thumb.png.1b5e40794c868b023b83e51e1c2cb105.png

Another option that comes close in price is using Asrock's Deskmeet barebones kit. Its a motherboard+case+power supply for $200, so the rest can come out to a similar price when adding a a dGPU like an Intel Arc A380 or RX 6600. You could also just go with a 5700G with the AM4 version too.

 

The smaller option would be Asrock's Deskmini series, which is about the same size and uses somewhat standard hardware. They're the same setup but slightly cheaper and the size of a mini ITX motherboard.

Ryzen 7950x3D PBO +200MHz / -15mV curve CPPC in 'prefer cache'

RTX 4090 @133%/+230/+1000

Builder/Enthusiast/Overclocker since 2012  //  Professional since 2017

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39 minutes ago, Agall said:

Another option that comes close in price is using Asrock's Deskmeet barebones kit. Its a motherboard+case+power supply for $200, so the rest can come out to a similar price when adding a a dGPU like an Intel Arc A380 or RX 6600. You could also just go with a 5700G with the AM4 version too.

 

The smaller option would be Asrock's Deskmini series, which is about the same size and uses somewhat standard hardware. They're the same setup but slightly cheaper and the size of a mini ITX motherboard.

Yea the DeskMini is more of the form factor I am looking for. With the current sales/promos that's a really good price!

 

msedge_hpwG7lzOt2.thumb.png.eadb77517779bc22d2278fca139417ca.png

 

I would pull the trigger right now if I wasn't concerned about the motherboard BIOS.

I don't have a previous generation APU to do the BIOS upgrade for the 5600G support.

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7 minutes ago, Ariolander said:

Yea the DeskMini is more of the form factor I am looking for. With the current sales/promos that's a really good price!

 

msedge_hpwG7lzOt2.thumb.png.eadb77517779bc22d2278fca139417ca.png

 

I would pull the trigger right now if I wasn't concerned about the motherboard BIOS.

I don't have a previous generation APU to do the BIOS upgrade for the 5600G support.

For the price, you could always get a previous generation APU like the 3400g or 4600g, or do the loaner kit from AMD.

Ryzen 7950x3D PBO +200MHz / -15mV curve CPPC in 'prefer cache'

RTX 4090 @133%/+230/+1000

Builder/Enthusiast/Overclocker since 2012  //  Professional since 2017

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4 hours ago, Agall said:

For the price, you could always get a previous generation APU like the 3400g or 4600g, or do the loaner kit from AMD.

The Q&A on NewEgg stated that new versions of the DeskMini come with updated BIOS sometime in late 2022 and they even added a sticker advertising 5600G/5700G support so gonna take the risk and give it an order, will figure out something later if it needs an update.

 

Otherwise also found the 5600G super cheap on Amazon. All in all, not counting the M.2 SSD which I am recycling from another build I was able to get the entire PC: Case, Mobo, CPU, RAM, and PSU for $275~. Damn if this isn't a fine super budget-friendly build if I seen one. Really happy with this.

 

Thanks for suggesting the DeskMini, I totally forgot that AM4 barebones MiniPC kit from Asrock existed.

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On 9/29/2023 at 9:00 PM, Ariolander said:

The Q&A on NewEgg stated that new versions of the DeskMini come with updated BIOS sometime in late 2022 and they even added a sticker advertising 5600G/5700G support so gonna take the risk and give it an order, will figure out something later if it needs an update.

 

Otherwise also found the 5600G super cheap on Amazon. All in all, not counting the M.2 SSD which I am recycling from another build I was able to get the entire PC: Case, Mobo, CPU, RAM, and PSU for $275~. Damn if this isn't a fine super budget-friendly build if I seen one. Really happy with this.

 

Thanks for suggesting the DeskMini, I totally forgot that AM4 barebones MiniPC kit from Asrock existed.

I'm no Asrock fanboy or anything, but I've bought a few of their niche products over the years. They even used to have FM2+ mITX motherboards with an HDMI in for your cable (that I still have), and even DIY server motherboards. They're usually who I go to if I need some weird feature, like even dual LAN on a mITX motherboard, which they have with a LGA1700 socket Z690 chipset board.

 

Example: ASRock Z690M-ITX/ax LGA 1700 DDR4 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

Ryzen 7950x3D PBO +200MHz / -15mV curve CPPC in 'prefer cache'

RTX 4090 @133%/+230/+1000

Builder/Enthusiast/Overclocker since 2012  //  Professional since 2017

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