What are the best mini gaming PC setups? It seems like everyone is asking. (Not really, but let’s pretend.) Maybe you’re someone who lives in one of those tiny houses. Or, perhaps, you just like the clean, minimalist look of a small form factor PC. Well, you’re in the right place, because here is our list of some of the best mini gaming PC setups money can buy.
The best mini gaming PC setups
Falcom Nortwest Fragbox — The no-compromise mini gaming PC
So, given that the objective here is to find the best mini gaming PC setups, they may not be cheap. They aren’t cheap, sadly. And starting the list off is the priciest of them all.
The Falcon Northwest Fragbox kicks things off, with its configurations starting at around $3,600 USD. You can easily get the Fragbox up to the $5,000 USD mark if you want higher-end gaming performance. And, given that the base model comes with an RTX 3060 Ti, you may still want to upgrade the GPU. For this price, the Fragbox only starts to make sense at the high end.
The Fragbox is a no-compromise little gaming PC that packs the same punch as any full-sized desktop. For its exterior dimensions, it comes in at 14.75″ x 10.75″ x 8″. Falcon Northwest created a custom water cooling solution to ensure that they fit Nvidia 40 Series GPUs while maintaining cool temperatures. It supports GPUs up to 13.8″ long, and three-plus-slots wide.
Image via Falcon Northwest
If portability is something you are looking for, the Fragbox has a carrying handle built in. It’s a handy feature now that LAN parties (like Dreamhack) are back in full swing. The Fragbox only comes as a pre-built PC, however. The website has a pretty in-depth configuration page that lets you pick whatever parts you might want. You can go with Intel 13th gen or Ryzen 7000 series along with DDR4 (for Intel) or DDR5 for RAM.
Falcon Northwest’s reputation for quality is up there with the best. By all counts, we have been able to find their customer service seems to be top-notch.
Intel NUC — The “miniest” mini gaming PC
If you are looking for the absolute smallest form factor, the best mini gaming PC you can get is the Intel NUC. Intel’s NUC comes in at 14.1 x 7.4 x 4.7″ — much slimmer than the other PCs on the list. It packs a punch, especially given its tiny stature. It, while potentially cheaper than the Fragbox, still comes in at a starting price of $1300-$1500 USD, and that is sans a video card. Depending on what you put in there, you could be adding as much as $1,000 USD on top.
A potential drawback is that it, obviously, only comes with an Intel CPU. At the moment ,that should not be as much of a problem given the 13th Gen Intel processors are performing at the top of their game. As for what GPUs the NUC can fit, you’re looking at up to a 12″ double-width card. That’s not bad, though it does preclude you from a 40 Series card. A Radeon 7900 XTX, however, might just fit the bill.
Image via Intel
NZXT H1 Mini — The most customizable mini gaming PC
The NZXT H1 Mini is the best mini gaming PC if you are looking to go fully custom. The reason being that, while you can go to its BLD website and configure a PC and have NZXT build it for you, it also sells just the case. It comes with a 750w PSU, a Gen4 riser, and an integrated AIO, among other things. But given that all the parts are good quality, we take this as a positive thing. They start at $1,549 USD and the just the case is on sale for $199.99 USD as of the time of writing.
However, for those looking for a similar style of small form factor case but with absolutely nothing pre-installed, there’s always the Hyte Revolt 3, which offers a similar experience. However if you are working on a small form factor build for the first time, or want to use NZXT’s pre-built service, we do still think the edge goes to the latter.
The H1 Mini is big enough to house 12.75″ x 2.28″ GPUs (perfect for most 30 Series cards, and the Radeon 7000 series cards should just about fit in that as well). Obviously, since you can put whichever parts you want so long as they fit, it supports both Intel and AMD processors. This also makes it the only mini setup on the list that is really capable of squeezing into the mid-range category for a build. So, for the slightly more budget-minded out there, this is the way to go.
Image via NZXT
Best mini gaming PC setups — The wrap-up
Hopefully this helps guide you in your mini gaming PC quest. We didn’t cover absolutely everything here, but hopefully this gives you what you need to get up and running. We tried to cover some pre-built, semi pre-built and largely open options without getting into build specifics. In the future we might go into a more specific build guide, so keep your eyes on this space.
Published: Dec 19, 2022 04:00 pm