intel N100 build

[OhYou_]

Budget (including currency): 800

Country: global

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 1080p medium, emulation, general pc use

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): yes

Would a N100 cpu paired with a gpu beat something like a steamdeck in gaming performance?
I'm tempted to get one and put in a reasonably performant gpu in it because I want a very low power gaming pc. Like 50w max including monitor
I'm torn between this and a steamdeck basically.

I have a picopsu for it already, and a case. maybe ram too. just need to figure out mobo and gpu.
It seems the best option is the asrock n100m.

 

[Likwid]

Where I live that asrock board costs more than  new ryzen 5500 and motherboard

 

[OhYou_]

3 minutes ago, Likwid said:

Where I live that asrock board costs more than  new ryzen 5500 and motherboard

 

I'm seeing like $160usd for it.
Yes it is a bit high, but other options all blow the total power draw budget.

[Likwid]

2 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

I'm seeing like $160usd for it.
Yes it is a bit high, but other options all blow the total power draw budget.

For this part "Like 50w max including monitor" - your putting on artifical limit, I don't know any desktop gpu+ cpu combo that would be usefulat those power levels, just get steamdeck or any other gaming handheld.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 minutes ago, Likwid said:

For this part "Like 50w max including monitor" - your putting on artifical limit, I don't know any desktop gpu+ cpu combo that would be usefulat those power levels, just get steamdeck or any other gaming handheld.

or just go and buy a ryzen mini pc with an igpu maybe even wait for the ryzen maxes to be more widespread

 

are monitors really that efficient? pretty sure itll take up all of the power budget alone so unless you want a portable monitor or laptop display turned into monitor this is just unrealistic

[OhYou_]

3 minutes ago, Likwid said:

For this part "Like 50w max including monitor" - your putting on artifical limit, I don't know any desktop gpu+ cpu combo that would be usefulat those power levels, just get steamdeck or any other gaming handheld.

no im putting a very physical limit on it because it runs on a big battery thing and some solar panels. I'm just wondering if this is better than the handheld because I already have the monitor, the mouse, the keyboard, a psu, ect ect. just need mobo and gpu (i have a gtx 1650 if its a good pair) and the cost is similar to a steamdeck is

[OhYou_]

3 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

are monitors really that efficient

i currently use a asus xg17ahp and it uses ~7w used for just regular computer use, allegedly it does 12w pushing games at 240hz
its just paired with a older thinkpad and the whole thing meets the watt budget, but it isn't very powerful and stresses the budget in games.

[manikyath]

you're not gonna beat a steamdeck using an N100 and dedicated GPU.

 

for a frame of reference, N100 is comparable to a midrange i5 haswell. (that's 2015 for reference)

 

but then again.. if "doing the project" is at least part of the fun, N100 is a great platform to mess with.

[OhYou_]

8 minutes ago, manikyath said:

for a frame of reference, N100 is comparable to a midrange i5 haswell. (that's 2015 for reference)

I researched it beforehand and was seeing the single core performance in geekbench 5 and 6 was very 1 to 1 of the n100 vs the steamdeck. The only key difference is the steamdeck has hyperthreading and higher memory bandwidth(though its shared with gpu)
 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

22 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

no im putting a very physical limit on it because it runs on a big battery thing and some solar panels. I'm just wondering if this is better than the handheld because I already have the monitor, the mouse, the keyboard, a psu, ect ect. just need mobo and gpu (i have a gtx 1650 if its a good pair) and the cost is similar to a steamdeck is

1650 is a 75w gpu

you are literally overunnning the power budget with just the gpu alone

 

resell that old 1650 and jump to am5 with either an 8600g or 8700g with ddr5 8000+ ram prefferably on a 2dimmer like the b650m hdv for easy ddr5 8400+ which does matter quite alot for the igpu and is basically free peformance due to rams not really drawing much wattage to begin with, you can also do some undervolting to the cpu and some uv/oc to the igpu (run at peak v/f before diminishing returns) to fit the low power budget

 

or wait abit for ryzen maxes to become more available and get one of those as they seem to be very efficient whilst competing with desktop cards, literally a <100w soc (cpu + gpu) demolishing 4070m and afaik competing with the likes of the desktop 4060ti at that wattage

[Electronics Wizardy]

29 minutes ago, OhYou_ said:

no im putting a very physical limit on it because it runs on a big battery thing and some solar panels. I'm just wondering if this is better than the handheld because I already have the monitor, the mouse, the keyboard, a psu, ect ect. just need mobo and gpu (i have a gtx 1650 if its a good pair) and the cost is similar to a steamdeck is

Why not use a laptop? Those are generally much more efficient that seperate parts.

[OhYou_]

15 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

you are literally overunnning the power budget with just the gpu alone

I understand this, which is why I would set power limits. I never considered the 1650 much anyway.

anyway, I was looking around and saw something kind of insane, some custom card which is a rtx a2000 laptop gpu put onto a sff pci-e card with 8gb of ram. it should be GA107.
It gets 5477 in 3dmark timespy at 70w tgp. even if it gets 1/3 that power limited to 35w, its going to completely obliterate the steamdeck score of 1709.
I kinda just immediately bought it because I absolutely want it regardless of using it in this build or not..

so now there's that uhh, option.

Like i'm open to other cpus but the 6-7w power draw in games reported by people with N100 sbcs is drawing me in, because when I'm not gaming, the entire system will pull like 20-25w and half that if I switch to integrated gpu. not really going to get that with am5

[OhYou_]

I decided that actually yeah the n100 is stupid purchase in 2025. I just thought it because it was cheap it must be good

I went with a Ryzen 8840U in a ITX motherboard. Screw steam decks, similar cost handhelds, they seem like slow garbage in current year.
I'm not sure if I will use the rtx a2000 in it, the radeon 780M should be quite good.