Now, like January 2023 numbers, you can get a brand new mini micro PC from a no-name brand with twice the memory and a large SATA drive and vastly faster CPU and probably a pirated win10 or win11 installation for 10% to 20% lower price than a ARM SBC supplied without storage, and usually the slightly higher electrical power is more like double.
Although, if you have twice the ram and a huge SATA and huge amount more CPU power, that just means it spends a higher percentage of time in sleep mode, so its probably about same total energy consumption, just higher peak power consumption.
Its worth pointing out that prices have gone up somewhat but "generally" "away from overinflated areas" you pay a bit more than a buck for a watt-year of wall outlet power, so trying to spend an extra $50 upfront to go ARM and save four watts will take a VERY long time to pay off, perhaps infinity depending on inflation and interest rates, if you're plugged into a wall; battery applications have stranger financials of course.
> Now, like January 2023 numbers, you can get a brand new mini micro PC from a no-name brand with twice the memory and a large SATA drive and vastly faster CPU and probably a pirated win10 or win11 installation for 10% to 20% lower price than a ARM SBC supplied without storage, and usually the slightly higher electrical power is more like double.
NUCs and the like are about twice the cost of Beelink and the like.
You can search on Amazon and pay about 10% to 25% premium to the dropshipper or get a general gist of the market and then order off the website (where it'll cost like 20% less but then you have to pay for shipping, no such thing as a free lunch). Sometimes old models will be cleared off cheaper on Amazon, you really need multiple tabs open while you're shopping. Usually you get a windows 10 pro or win11 installation of questionable genealogy installed on a fraction of a TB SATA for the price.
Its hard to keep track of who's drop shipping from the factory for you on Amazon vs who's just entering orders for you on AliExpress vs who's selling natively from stock (like traditional retail). Unlike the ARM SBC marketplace they actually have stuff in stock for sale when they advertise a MSRP, I haven't run into any issues like that.
I'm pretty happy with the ultra low end of the Beelink products. Their numerous competitors are likely pretty similar.
NUCs and the like are more expensive than buying ARM SBC boards, but they are probably more reliable. Probably. Of course for twice the price you could buy 10% or 20% more devices for a project.
I set up, well, am currently setting up, a medium sized Rancher and Elasticsearch cluster for reasons that are hard to explain, so I needed an odd number around half a dozen. So far, so good.
Ah ok, I thought you were talking about mini PCs in the same form factor as RPis (very small, credit-card sized). Yeah I have a great no-name mini PC as my primary desktop. But it's still 4x bigger than a RPi I think.
Although, if you have twice the ram and a huge SATA and huge amount more CPU power, that just means it spends a higher percentage of time in sleep mode, so its probably about same total energy consumption, just higher peak power consumption.
Its worth pointing out that prices have gone up somewhat but "generally" "away from overinflated areas" you pay a bit more than a buck for a watt-year of wall outlet power, so trying to spend an extra $50 upfront to go ARM and save four watts will take a VERY long time to pay off, perhaps infinity depending on inflation and interest rates, if you're plugged into a wall; battery applications have stranger financials of course.