Hi,
I use Rhino 7 and I wonder myself if can I buy a Mini PC for it?
I think I need a mini PC with:
1 - 64 Gb RAM,
2 - Intel or AMD of 2,5 GHez,
3 - for SSD I think that’s enough 512/1,024 Gb.
I open to receive your points of view.
Thanks
Germano Pecoraro - Italy
I’d recommending starting here:
Thank you John Brock
Minisforum.com just lanched a mini workstation with a gpu slot. Look nice
From their website:
Memory expansion
1* PCIe 4.0 x16 slot (Half-height, single-slot, supports up to PCIe 4.0 x8 speed)
You won’t get a very powerful GPU in there…
and they suggest:
It supports PCIe 4.0 x8 (128GT/s) and is compatible with up to RTX A2000 Mobile.
Which is odd, because that is a chip, not a card…
I’d take this with a pinch of salt.
maybe its worth considering using a mac mini or studio? these have quite a bit power. even the cheaper mac mini is fit for rhino by far and really compact and hey lets not forget that thing still looks nice 
That is a good Idea. didn’t think of that.
The only thing I can think of is the Matrox Intel Arc A310, which is newish, and 4 GB of VRAM. You can get a blower card edition with it. They should come with a half-height PCI-e bracket. It has a whopping 6 ray tracing units.
The PCI-e won’t matter, as there is no GPU on Earth that size that would saturate those lanes. 
Maybe an Asus NUC would work. But the integrated graphics is Iris Xe on thier Meteor Lake CPU. Really, as a minimum, you would want the Arc specification integrated GPU. It’s utterly daft you can buy a Meteor Lake with an older Iris Xe; what a waste of development.
Why do want a mini PC? They’re toys for computer nerds, fine for not-demanding office tasks. Rhino is not that. Half the support questions here are “why is my junky laptop crashing?” And that’s all a mini PC is minus the screen.
Why do you say that mini PCs are suitable for nerds and not for professional use?
Various computer guides say that mini PCs are suitable for start-ups.
How are things?
Thanks to all answers
Ciao Germano.
Correct question. … Why?
100% disagree.
I think mini pc can be really useful in some context.
A Ryzen 5700U performance is not that much far from of a Mac mini with M2 (roughly, 5 min google search, correct me if you differ…)
But these 2 mini pc cost less than half than the cheapest Mac mini but have twice the storage and memory.
https://www.amazon.it/NiPoGi-Desktop-Computer-Business-Bluetooth/dp/B0CKF7VRF4
https://www.amazon.it/ACEMAGICIAN-Computer-Triplo-Display-Ethernet/dp/B0C7Q3JMKN
I wouldn’t advice a Mac mini for Rhino use unless you are full “dived” in the Mac ecosystem or have a strong specific reason.
This thread is tagged “Windows Hardware” …
A mini pc will likely give you very decent CPU performance (if you avoid trash CPUs and pick a decent one like a 5700U or a Intel equivalent), but also some “serious” under average GPU performance.
If you know what you are about to do, it can be really worth… just don’t expect to work on big projects.
(but for small projects you will see no difference from a workstation…)
Because the best hardware buying advice I ever got was “wait as long as you can, spend as much as you can, and don’t look back.” If the horsepower of your PC actually matters–as it does for Rhino–goofing around with these things that are more money for laptop or 5-year-old-server specs is just a waste. It’ll be a cute box for a few weeks then it will just be obsolete.
… few reviews, difficult to tell if that model is “safe”. But this is a general shopping principle…
That CPU is strong, stronger… but the integrated GPU is weaker than the one on 5700U.
Intel offer good CPU for laptop/minipc, but their integrated GPU is weaker than AMD ones…
In an office where I work I’m using a desktop PC from 2011 … it is worse in every aspect from a modern decent MiniPC (just avoid the re-re-re-branded celeron CPUs) … but I’m still being productive and earning my living with that!!
Maybe your opinion is from first generation mini PC , where they all sucked bad…
I think miniPCs are worth if you need to combine:
If you don’t need it to be small, or are about to going high with prices… yes, go build/pick a desktop.
AMD, for istance like this
https://www.amazon.it/Windows-HISTTON-display-Computers-Piccolo/dp/B0CBVCP8YL?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1
I would add to that list, that you are willing to compromise Rhino performance; particularly rendering speed, to get those benefits.
Everything is a trade-off.
It comes down to balancing your budget and needs, tempered with your past experience.
You’re the one taking the risk and spending your money.
“…It’ll be a nice box for a few weeks, then it’ll just be obsolete. …”
Let’s not exaggerate!
My goal is to have a PC at a lower cost but with high performance and RAM.
If a mini PC costs me €300-800, a laptop of that level costs around 2000-3000 or more euros (tear)!
exactly… If you need rendering just pick a desktop/workstation with a high-count threads CPU or a big GPU.
But, modern mobile CPU are excellent, for normal modeling in Rhino (that is mostly single threaded) a good quad-core is enough. Problem is the GPU, only AMD offer APUs (CPU+GPU in the same chip) with decent GPU performance.
that one have the same GPU of the 5700U … i guess. It’s hard to check those info.
Generally 5900HX is not that much better than 5700U, see the linked document here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDLaptops/comments/o16d6z/5900hx_vs_5900hs_vs_5800h_vs_5700u_percent/
spending 2x money for… ?
also, for that price I would start considering a desktop.
See the 820$ build here:
https://www.tomshardware.com/best-picks/best-pc-builds-gaming
CPU and GPU both LARGELY outperform any mini PC.