I am thinking about to replace my (very) old i5 macmini5.1. My first choice was the not released macmini M5, then macmini M4 when it cost around 600 euro, now that i costs 980 euro I am thinking to a different hw.
My current macmini5.1 equipped with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is performing so nice so I’d like to replace it with a PC fanless with Ubuntu.
I’d prefer not a custom solution, I am not so skilled, so I am not thinking to a top choice.
Which is your opinion? And which are your choices?
I would say first question is whether you use a NAA and whether the computer is running within your listening space. If you are using a NAA, you can technically locate it outside of the listening space. This way you don’t need to worry whether cooling fans make some sound or not.
Another aspect is if you have size restrictions. If you can host a full size PC, you can get more powerful machine that is quieter for less money.
And then one question is what kind of HQPlayer settings you’d prefer to run to what kind of output format. As the settings have a huge impact on how much processing power is needed.
I cannot use NAA. I live in a very small home and I do not have space for a separate listening room. The almost all space is occupied by my wife and I think she would be a little hangry if I put some audio equipment outside my listening space. All audio equipments run in my listening space.
I could use a full size pc my I’d prefer a mini pc.
At the moment I am still experimenting the different HQplayer settings in order to understand the specific sound profiles of each of them. I cannot exclude to use in the future different settings for different music.
I’d like also understand if HQplayer desktop performs better on mini pc with Ubuntu with respect to Apple macmini M4.
Mini PC means small cooling fans, which means loud cooling fans. And no space for sound proofing or large heatsinks.
I’ve built very powerful and pretty quiet HQPlayer servers around Fractal Design’s Define R series cases, Seasonic passive/hybrid PSUs and Noctua and beQuiet cooling solutions. On my latest build I used beQuiet’s AIO water cooling and large slow rpm Noctua fans. And also ASUS Strix-series Nvidia GPUs with large heat sinks where cooling fans are normally stopped and only start up spinning slowly under higher loads. This is similar to Seasonic hybrid PSUs, where the fan is stopped until about 50% load. So a 1400W PSU can work as passive cooled up to around 700W draw. Although they also have fully passive cooled PSUs up to 700W.
If you need a quiet mini PC, then Apple’s Mac Mini M4(Pro) is probably best, since it has a very good performance per Watt rating. However, it will certainly have it’s limitatations compared.
So this is area where you’d need to choose between different trade-offs. I would recommend to begin by defining which settings you actually want to run.
I’ve felt in love for MINISFORUM AI X1 Pro. Well equipped should run about 1000 euro (barebone 735 euro on Amazon it), more or less the same price of M4, and should outperform mac mini m4.