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Choosing a mini PC?

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I'll be buying a mini PC for nothing more than streaming to the TV from Netflix etc and playing videos, some in 4K.
It doesn't need much storage at all, but of course the geek in me can't decide on AMD or Intel, but the Ryzen Beelinks do get pricey. I also think that it's never worth buying tech that you can't upgrade later, but again, that's just the way we are, so to speak.
My budget is no more than GB£200 and I was wondering if this should do it. I only ask because I'm not well up on Intel CPUs, mainly because they are expensive down here.
 

tabascosauz

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For a low price point I think that is probably going to be one of your better options.

N100 kinda took the super low end by storm, it's got good efficiency and the E-cores from Alder Lake are roughly competitive with Skylake cores. And the iGPU is pretty much the same config as lower end Alder Lake i5s and i3s, just downclocked to fit the 6W envelope.

There might be some options out there close to that price with Zen 2 fare like Ryzen 4300U/5300U. CPU performance and iGPU performance should be better, but that's expected from a design with 2-4x the TDP. And for media codec support going forward you probably don't want that ancient Vega stuff anyway in the 4300U/5300U.

Athlon 7220U is a slightly more modern 2C/4T Mendocino design (still Zen 2) with a small RDNA2 iGPU with the new bells and whistles like AV1 support (like N100), and lower TDP closer to (but not as low as) N100, might be worth looking for.

But yeah, that's about the extent of your choices.
 
Last edited:

Regeneration

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There are two good options to stream media to a TV:

A cheap streaming device like Xiaomi TV Box S 2nd Gen or Google Chromecast 4K ($40-$60). These run Google TV (Android) with dedicated TV apps for Netflix, Amazon Prime, VLC and more.

https://www.amazon.com/Xiaomi-Box-2nd-Gen-Streaming/dp/B0CHWRX597?th=1

https://www.amazon.com/Google-Nest-GA01919-GA01919-US-Chromecast/dp/B08KRV7S22

Mini PCs as you suggested, cost more ($130-160) the cheapest one is Alder Lake N95, here is a good deal for N100:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CH81C4K3/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=AEA8YYUCQ3SQM&psc=1

Netflix runs better on a streaming device (Android TV) than a PC with Windows.
 
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