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Thread: PC equivalent of Mac Mini

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    Dark side super agent
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    PC equivalent of Mac Mini

    Is there a comparable PC equivalent of a Mac Mini? I can't seem to find anything in a comparable price range.

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    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: PC equivalent of Mac Mini

    Acer revo L80 http://www.ebuyer.com/395462-acer-re...c-dt-sm4ek-002
    it's only a i3 not an i5 but does have a bluray drive, it's a powerful nettop, so more designed for basic internet browsing and media centre duty, but the current mini-mac's aren't that much more

    The simple equivalent would be a laptop with a broken screen, i.e. just remove the top and run it off a monitor.
    It's basically what the current mini mac's are, a laptop cpu on a custom motherboard with a 2.5" hard drive some so-dimm ram and a power brick and as with most laptops they are not really designed for sustained heavy workload, but few people actually use them that way anyway.

    Most other manufactures have moved away from non-standard components now, to keep costs down, but that has meant that smaller form factors are not as common now.

    One area where small form factor is still big is the new all-in-one pc's where the pc is built into the back of the monitor much like the current normal mac's, this does push up the price as they'll include a monitor and often a touch screen which pushes it even higher.

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    Re: PC equivalent of Mac Mini

    Just stick a MiniITX mobo into a cheap case and add an i3, RAM and an SSD.

    Cypher AK-ITX-04BK Case (w/ 120w PSU) - £53.98
    Gigabyte Motherboard GA-H77N-WIFI - £83.72
    Intel i3 3220 - £90
    120GB Corsair Force Series 3 - £74.54
    Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 (2x2GB)

    Bingo, a £320 build with wifi and an i3 core. You could quite easily pick up a Seagate 750GB MomentusXT for slightly more if you want a home server setup with additional storage.

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    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: PC equivalent of Mac Mini

    Here another couple
    Lenovo ThinkCentre M92p Tiny USFF PC http://www.misco.co.uk/product/Q5735...-Year-Warranty it's a pretty small box with a standard monitor mounting plate so it can be attached onto the back of your monitor as long as the monitor stand doesn't use it.

    Fujitsu Esprimo Q510 Mini PC http://www.misco.co.uk/product/19759...-Year-Warranty

    both i3 and just over £500 (shop around you might find them cheaper) which makes them slightly more than a mini-mac i5 at £500

    cheaper option Shuttle XH61V http://www.ebuyer.com/394672-shuttle...-chipset-xh61v that's a barebones system, ie a case + psu + motherboard, so you have to buy ram + cpu + hdd/ssd + slim optical drive (optional) + OS + mouse & keyboard
    CPU support list http://global.shuttle.com/main/produ...productId=1628

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    Re: PC equivalent of Mac Mini

    There is also the Sapphire EDGE VS8 which comes with a 19W TDP A8 4555M:

    http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...85&subcat=2253

    You will need to buy a copy of Windows too.

    Here are some reviews:

    http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/za...ini-pc-review/

    http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...roduction.html

    There is also the ARCTIC MC101 which uses a A10-4600M:

    http://www.kikatek.com/P273062/DPALI...source=froogle

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