What to consider when buying a mini PC?

Why buy a small PC? They can’t be strong at all, can they? Indeed: a house of only 1 liter can carry a lot of computing power, as evidenced by the small PCs shown in the next article. Modern technology mobile or desktop CPUs with average Thermal Design Power (TDP) from AMD and Intel provide enough computing power for many tasks, such as word processing or image editing, and even for editing a video that is not much needed. Small single-board devices, such as the Raspberry Pi, with power-hungry ARM CPUs, cannot match this. Physics gives us a triangle with three important points: performance, (low) noise level and size, which we can move to the center of gravity. Improving two of these things is not a big problem, but all three at the same time is a challenge.

In practice, this rarely leads to limitations, because when you need a lot of performance, the PC does not have to be silent all the time, and where silence is a high priority, high performance is rarely an issue. However, in situations like audio editing, where you’re at a crossroads, you may need to dig a little deeper into your pockets. For that specific purpose, companies like Cirrus7 offer quiet, lightly cooled computers. Other manufacturers specialize in quiet Digital Audio Stations (DAWs).