# The 17 Best Mini PCs for a Home Server

> Off-lease office boxes that cost less than a game share the field with 10-gigabit workstations and a Mac. Some sip power under a desk for years; others want to run a whole cluster.

*By YPB Team · Published October 25, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-17-best-mini-pcs-for-a-home-server*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Intel NUC 13 Pro** — score 1000/1000
   The last NUC generation Intel designed itself, a 13th-gen Core mini PC with Thunderbolt 4 and 2.5GbE.
2. **Beelink GTi13 Ultra** — score 927/1000
   Core i9-13900HK mini PC with a built-in power supply and a PCIe expansion dock option.
3. **Beelink EQ14** — score 877/1000
   Intel N150 mini PC with dual 2.5GbE and an internal power supply for always-on duty.
4. **Minisforum MS-01** — score 800/1000
   Core i9-13900H workstation mini PC with two 10G SFP+ ports, two 2.5GbE ports and a PCIe slot, a favorite for homelab clusters.
5. **Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny** — score 709/1000
   Lenovo's one-liter business PC line, bought off lease in bulk as cheap, quiet homelab nodes.
6. **GMKtec NucBox G3** — score 600/1000
   Sub-$200 Intel N100 mini PC with a 1TB NVMe and dual 2.5GbE, a common entry point into Proxmox.
7. **Apple Mac mini M4** — score 600/1000
   Apple's 2024 palm-sized Mac mini with the M4 chip, used as a quiet low-power home server.
8. **Minisforum UM890 Pro** — score 600/1000
   Ryzen 9 8945HS mini PC with dual 2.5GbE, OCuLink and room for 96GB of DDR5.
9. **Beelink SER9 Pro** — score 600/1000
   Ryzen 7 H 255 mini PC with LPDDR5x memory and a vapor-chamber cooler built to stay quiet.
10. **Beelink SER8** — score 466/1000
   Ryzen 7 8745HS mini PC in a compact metal chassis with two PCIe 4.0 NVMe slots.
11. **Beelink ME Mini** — score 466/1000
   Tiny N150 cube with six M.2 slots, built as an all-flash NAS and home server.
12. **Minisforum UM790 Pro** — score 466/1000
   Ryzen 9 7940HS mini PC that set the template for powerful AMD homelab boxes in 2023.
13. **Minisforum MS-A2** — score 0/1000
   AMD Ryzen 9 take on the MS-01 with 16 cores, 10G SFP+ networking and a PCIe slot.
14. **GMKtec NucBox K8 Plus** — score 0/1000
   Ryzen 7 8845HS mini PC with dual 2.5GbE and OCuLink at a mid-range price.
15. **ASUS NUC 14 Pro** — score 0/1000
   ASUS-built continuation of the NUC line on Core Ultra chips, with a tool-free chassis.
16. **HP EliteDesk 800 Mini** — score 0/1000
   Off-lease HP business mini PC with vPro, widely resold for home servers and clusters.
17. **Dell OptiPlex Micro** — score 0/1000
   Dell's one-liter business desktop, sold in huge numbers and resold cheaply for home servers.

Tags: gadgets, computers, mini pc, homelab, self-hosting