Best mini gaming PC 2025: top small form factor PCs

The Geekom AX8 Professional packs a number of energy into a really small bundle, with a few of the finest specs you’ll see in a mini gaming PC. Small, however mighty, the AX8 Professional is formidable sufficient to make it your major PC, particularly should you’re extra of an off-the-cuff gamer, and it manages to look nice doing it, too, in a gorgeously glowing silver design.

Did we point out that it’s small? The Geekom AX8 Professional is among the smallest mini PCs which you could purchase, measuring simply 4.6 x 4.37 x 1.51 inches in measurement. That’s nearly sufficiently small to slot in your pocket, and at 1.21lbs, it’s gentle sufficient, too. Inside, nonetheless, are some severe elements, with two highly effective AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS or AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS gaming CPUs from which to decide on.

This can be a powerhouse machine for the 9-to-5, however gaming efficiency isn’t too unhealthy both, with the AMD Radeon 780M GPU dealing with 1080p gaming surprisingly properly, so long as your expectations are in the appropriate place. Throughout our personal checks, and with a 1,920 x 1,080 decision and low presets, video games akin to F1 2024 are greater than playable, managing 73fps on common. Extra intensive video games akin to Cyberpunk 2077 struggled, nonetheless, hitting solely 43fps. 

The fantastic thing about the Geekom AX8 Professional is its design, although. This can be a good-looking, moveable, well-built mini PC with nice specs that informal players will love, so long as they’ll cope with some noisy airflow throughout heavy hundreds. If you happen to can afford it, the Geekom AX8 Professional will make for an excellent PC for every day use, though severe players might want to search for a machine with a extra highly effective GPU.

Learn our full Geekom AX8 Professional overview.

“Built-in graphics?” we hear you cry, and we reply with a powerful sure. This sub-$400 Minisforum UM773’s AMD 680M sits between the built-in graphics of Valve’s Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally which as everyone knows by now are very succesful little machines.

The 680M is allowed to carry out at its finest due to the inclusion of very quick DDR5 which AMD’s CPUs and iGPUs work properly with, and there’s 32GB of it no much less. Although it isn’t as succesful as its youthful sibling the 780M, it manages to be barely extra environment friendly as a result of its decrease energy draw so these working with constrained energy budgets will probably be served right here.

Esports titles will run properly at 1080p and emulation will probably be no drawback in any respect. Older titles too will, in fact, return nice efficiency so should you’re not too fussed in regards to the newest AAA video games, you’re certain to have a good time with this critically useful little machine, particularly when paired with the perfect gaming monitor to get probably the most out of this mighty field.

Whereas the Minisforum Venus UM773 doesn’t supply the identical portability because the Deck or Ally, it makes up for it in connectivity with a plethora of ports making this a really sensible little machine.

Additionally it is surprisingly upgradable with two SODIMM slots, a PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot, and room on the underside for a 2.5-inch exhausting drive. You can additionally join an eGPU by way of the USB4 port should you needed some further GPU down the road because the CPU will age extra gracefully than the iGPU.

The Corsair One has turn into a PC design icon because the unique debuted in 2017, and we’ve been followers ever since. As our knowledgeable reviewer places it, “If you happen to’ve dreamed of proudly owning a high-end mini gaming PC, however didn’t need the trouble of constructing one your self, the Corsair One i500 successfully does this for you after which some.”

Though tall, the Corsair One i500 has a footprint of simply 187 x 300mm, and it’s beautiful, with picket panels flanked by strips of RGB lighting and very good construct high quality. There’s a severe PC inside although, with as much as an Intel Core i9 14900K CPU and a selection of both an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Tremendous or RTX 4090 GPU.

Regardless of the compact sizing, there’s no sacrifice in gaming efficiency. We examined the RTX 4080 Tremendous model, which ran Cyberpunk 2077 at 2,560 x 1,440 with the Extremely ray tracing preset at 106fps, because of some assist from the frame-generation tech in Nvidia DLSS 3. F1 23 at 4K with Extremely Excessive settings averaged 94fps in our checks.

On the downsides (of which there are few); the 120mm AIO cooler on the CPU doesn’t have sufficient energy to allow the Core i9 14900K to hit its peak increase speeds, and it may possibly make numerous fan noise when working video games at full load. It’s additionally an costly machine when absolutely specced up. In any other case, that is probably the most lovely mini gaming PC on our listing; excellent if design is your precedence regardless of the fee.

Learn our Corsair One i500 overview.

Properly-established customized PC builders Origin have up to date their CHRONOS line to make use of father or mother firm Corsair’s svelte 2000D case whose vertical design makes us suppose that it’s some supercharged Xbox Sequence X with its cuboid design.

At $2,806 it isn’t the most cost effective, however Origin PC has been within the enterprise a very long time for good cause so that you might be certain you’ll be getting a top quality product that gained’t be supplying you with any complications.

With an AMD Ryzen 7 7800 X3D and Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti, you’ll be able to you’ll want to be taking part in the newest AAA video games for some time, particularly with extra video games supporting DLSS 3 body era launched with the RTX 4000 collection.

Being owned by Corsair, you’ll be able to very often get good offers on peripherals should you want a brand new monitor, keyboard, mouse, and streaming goodies. Remember to take a look at our greatest gaming headsets should you want a sonic resolution in your ears.

It’s on the cusp of being a mini PC nonetheless as it’s fairly giant nonetheless, however is definitely smaller than your common ATX case. You’ll be able to go smaller with different choices however given Origin’s credentials, customer support, and suppleness, we’ve included it as our greatest general choose.

Intel’s NUC (Subsequent Unit of Computing) collection has been round for just a few years now however for the primary time, they’ve up to date their designs with their very own Arc collection of GPUs for a true-blue all-Intel system.

That is all packaged in an exceedingly good-looking and small case that places the PS5 and Xbox Sequence X to disgrace in relation to a performance-to-size ratio because the NUC 12 Serpent Canyon is so small that we’re stunned there’s even a GPU in there. It has an air of “That is what the Xbox 720 will appear to be” about it which we’re fairly keen on too.

The Serpent Canyon has an Intel Arc A770M with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM so that you shouldn’t run into any limitations with the current spate of resource-heavy AAA video games. The Arc playing cards have wonderful ray-tracing efficiency for his or her value level, eclipsing AMD on this regard.

Additionally included is a really succesful i7-12700H so CPU workloads will probably be breezy and can sustain with the performant A770M.

While the CPU and GPU aren’t upgradable, there are many drive choices with 2 M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots and an M.2 PCIe slot. The RAM can be user-replaceable.

One thing to think about is how the Intel Arc playing cards have fared since launch. They’re leaps and bounds higher than had been with DX9, 10, and 11 efficiency seeing large enhancements however Nvidia and AMD have higher legacy help for older titles. Intel’s upscaling know-how XeSS isn’t as broadly supported however it’s being more and more built-in by builders.

Latest AAA titles which have VRAM points have influenced our resolution to incorporate the Serpent Canyon because the 16GB of VRAM and good DX12 efficiency see the NUC punching above its weight right here. That is at a excessive price, however we predict it’s price it given the distinctive design and improved efficiency.

AMD’s built-in graphics make one other exhibiting right here with the Beelink SER6. The SER6 has an AMD 660M that’s barely much less highly effective than the iGPU of the Steam Deck, however the SER6 has two further CPU cores and extra energy out there to it so you’ll be able to count on your video games and basic computing to really feel slightly snappier. To maintain the Ryzen 5 6600U working candy there’s 16GB of DDR5 RAM and older and lighter titles akin to Minecraft and League of Legends will hum alongside properly.

You even have good choices for increasing your storage and RAM with consumer two SODIMM slots and a PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot that are user-replaceable. Equally to the Minisforum, there’s house for a 2.5” drive on the backside of the SER6 if you wish to get foolish with the storage and dump all of your (legally owned) ROMs for an excellent little emulation machine. If the included 512GB isn’t sufficient, you’ll want to take a look at our greatest SSD for gaming roundup.

An unlucky flaw right here although is the twin fan design. As a result of the person followers are smaller, they’re much greater pitched than a bigger singular fan can be so when issues warmth up, it may be slightly loud. It’s additionally solely slightly cheaper at $429 (£539) than a 680 M-equipped mini PC so you might need to spend an additional bit of money for the extra CPU and CU cores.

The Blackview MP200 is the perfect mini PC for individuals who need to spend as little as doable. Its aggressive pricing makes it our high low-cost choice, however that value does imply limitations with efficiency.

Contained in the MP200, the Intel Extremely-HD Graphics hinder gameplay considerably, to the extent that you just’ll must play most within the lowest settings. It’s not not possible to play the perfect PC video games, however you might battle with triple AAA releases.

There are sufficient ports so as to add three shows with USB 3.2 connectivity, and the storage and RAM can each be doubled if you wish to add second modules and improve the machine additional down the road. We’d suggest the Blackview MP200 if you’d like one of many most cost-effective Home windows 11 PCs in the marketplace, but when gaming is your precedence then lack of graphics card and cooling will allow you to down.

Learn our Blackview MP200 overview.

The Asus ROG Ally might have a show and a built-in controller however it’s by all accounts, a mini gaming PC that simply so occurs to be extraordinarily moveable. We had been mightily impressed by the $699 (£699) Ally in our overview.

It’s eeked out the Steam Deck for the perfect moveable mini gaming PC due to its further grunt within the GPU and CPU division which lets us play video games on the go at 1080P.

When plugged in at dwelling, you’ll be able to go for the utmost energy envelope that will usually rinse your battery and have a really succesful little laptop that you are able to do just about something on. With the XMG connector, you’ll be able to plug in one among Asus’ exterior GPUs with out dropping any efficiency as a result of limitations of USB 4 as you will have full entry to the PCIe lanes.

You’ll want gaming keyboard and gaming mouse setup to make full use of the desktop atmosphere although, modifying the Excel spreadsheet is likely to be slightly tough with the joysticks.

Any hiccups in efficiency will probably be smoothed out by the VRR display too so except you will have some very heavy 1% and 0.1% lows, you shouldn’t discover any dips in body price permitting for a easy and constant expertise.

Sadly, Asus’ Armory Crate overlay paired with Home windows 11 doesn’t shine a candle to Valve’s SteamOS when it comes to performance, however this may little doubt enhance with time and you’ve got the additional benefit of figuring out that video games akin to Fortnite and Roblox will work out of the field.

Learn our ASUS Rog Ally overview.