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Comment by pedrocr | Hacker News Reader

At that point you probably want a NUC style computer like the Lenovo M75q. Up to 4 core 8 thread, 32GB+ RAM (two slots), AMD graphics and an M.2 slot.

https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkCentre/ThinkCe...

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Also noteworthy is the upcoming ASUS PN 50 with the new Ryzen Renoir CPUs with up to 8 cores and 64GB RAM.

When this will be available in Europe I’ll get that to replace my MacBook for a developer machine.

https://liliputing.com/2020/06/asus-pn50-is-a-mini-pc-with-u...

The 8 core 16 thread version looks very promising. Wonder what the prices will be?

x64 doesnt excite me as much as Arm does at the moment, for power draw.

The DeskMini series has two M.2 slots AND two 2.5” slots in a tiny enclosure. Here’s mine:

Noctua NH-L9A-AM4, 37mm Premium Low-profile CPU Cooler for AMD AM4 (Brown) £36.17 incl. VAT https://www.amazon.co.uk/Noctua-NH-L9A-AM4-Premium-Low-profi...

ASRock USB 2.0 Header to 2 x USB 2.0 Cable for DeskMini Series Chassis £10.93 Incl. VAT https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-Cable-Deskmini-Mini-Stx-Chas...

AMD Ryzen 5 3400G Processor (4C/8T, 6MB cache, 4.2GHz Max Boost) with Radeon™ RX Vega 11 Graphics £139.99 incl. VAT https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SXNDKNM/?tag=pcp0f-21

Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-1TB) £109.99 incl. VAT https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07LGF54XR/?tag=pcp0f-21&th=1

ASRock DeskMini A300 Mini PC Barebone for Socket AM4 £146.94 incl. VAT https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07P9GL1LN/?tag=pcp0f-21

ASRock Wi-Fi Kit for DeskMini Series Chassis, includes 2 x Antennas £29.42 incl. VAT https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-Wi-Fi-DeskMini-Chassis-Anten...

2 x ADATA AD4S2666316G19-S 16GB DDR4 2666 MHz Memory Module - Memory Modules (16GB, 1x 16GB, DDR4, 2666MHz, 260-pin SO-DIMM) 2 x £73.12 incl. VAT https://www.amazon.co.uk/ADATA-AD4S2666316G19-S-16GB-Memory-...

Price a few months ago - £619.68

Note that you don’t need the noctua fan but the provided fan that comes with the case is a bit whiny.

It's also possible to fit the fan included with the 3400G into the deskmini with slight modification (removing the plastic shroud from the top, it's just clipped on).

For a better fit I also had to cut off two plastic fingers that were left after taking the shroud off. Does not affect the functionality in any way and works well to this day.

Ooh, that does sound good.

DeskMini A300's dimensions: 155 x 155 x 80 mm

From the specs: https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini%20A300%20Series/i...

I find the NUC's way overpriced unless you really need a high end CPU. I love my H2s[0]- good mix of cpu, RAM, storage (m2 + sata), and low power usage. Plus, they run standard x86_64 Linux/windows. Tricked out with 16G RAM, and a couple of cheap SSDs mine came in at $250.

[0]https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/

How fast does that setup run in practice? I have an odroid hc2 (which is a wholy different chipset than the h2plus, I know), and that's about as pokey as my pi4.

I haven't benchmarked them - the h2plus is celeron quad core at 2.3Ghz, with on-board Intel graphics.

I find them fine for light interactive use, and running network services for the home network. Also gradually moving my lab machines over to them.

None of this is particularly CPU intensive, but does benefit from being x86 compatible. Also having M2 NVME + 2xSata on-board is nice :-)

That's a sick machine, to bad it's not running Intel Nics otherwise I'd consider it for firewall/NAT-uses.

I really like them - here are some photos of putting it all together: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23744973

Used SFF PC (like Haswell i5) is cheap, powerful for this context, and also nice for power consumption.

being 3-4× the size, weight, price and power consumption, it really doesn't compare. I'm sure pi4 SATA/NVMe enclosures/hats exist

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