Comment on What fun things can I do with an M.2 SSD and 2x4GB ram?
Alto@kbin.social 8 months agoCould you? Probably. Should you? Probably not.
Realistically unless you're up for spending at minimum of a couple hundred bucks, you're not going to get a true mini-pc (unless you want to buy a NUC or something, but that kinda defeats the purpose). Any mini-itx case you'd want (<14L) is going to be around the $100 mark on the cheap end. Unless you really luck out and find a compatible used motherboard on the cheap, youre looking at another $100 minimum. Could get a used 4600g for ~$65, but it's probably not going to come with a cpu cooler if it's used. Add in a power supply that fits, that's another $140 on a good day.
Small form factor PCs are stupid expensive because it's a fairly niche market that very few people absolutely need.
What I'd personally do is find a used dell inspiron or similar for <$150 and toss that all in it
Starglasses@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
I definitely know. I already made myself a small form factor case. My cat is bigger than my computer ;)
I like these niche hobbies and the silliness that can go into it. I think I spent $250 on this case and (k, due to covid) it took more than a year to ship. Now its smallness is so large!
Worth it :D
Starglasses@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Couldn’t post the picture here, sso I posted it to cats. My cat and my PC
Alto@kbin.social 8 months ago
In that case (pun intended), your best bet would probably be to try to find a NUC (or similar) that supports expansion. I think I remember seeing some that did, but it's been a few years since I've looked into that market. I know intel stopped making them first party, so it might be a pain in the ass to find now