The PC market is a hot mess right now, with GPUs priced at up to $5,000 and 32GB of RAM going for, at minimum, $400 (DDR5).It's not a good time to buy ...well, basically anything, including SSDs and RAM (obviously).
But this is when unexpected purchases start making more sense.Not too long ago, I said it was a good time to buy a prebuilt instead of building your own PC.Now, I'm taking this experiment one step further and telling you that you might get a whole mini PC for less money than you'll spend on the SSD and the RAM inside it.
The math seemingly doesn't make sense But there's more to it than it seems at a glance Close Right, let's get one thing out there right off the bat: There are thousands of mini PCs, sticks of RAM, and SSDs in the world, and this doesn't apply to all of them.But I've done some extensive research before writing this, and sure enough, there are plenty of mini PCs out there that make more sense to buy as a "package deal" than if you were to just buy the RAM and the SSD alone.Yes, there are caveats.
I'll discuss them below.For the sake of this article, I'm going to focus on a mini PC that's a good example of this: the Geekom A6.This tiny PC comes with a Ryzen 7 6800H CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD.
It's currently discounted down to $549.The Geekom A8 is a similar deal with a better CPU for a little more money.At a glance, it's a super good deal, because 16GB of DDR5 memory alone can run you around $250 (thanks, I hate it).
The SSD is a Gen 4 drive, so you're not paying the premium for one of the most expensive SSDs, but it'll still cost $170 to $240 (and up).Assuming you're paying $550 for the PC, the RAM and the SSD alone can account for as much as $400-$500 of that.That gives you a whole PC for, let's say, $150.
A great deal.But there are those aforementioned caveats we need to talk about first.Related RAM is $400 and GPUs are $3,700: The PC market has officially crashed The next PC crash is already here, and none of us are prepared Posts 3 By Monica J.
White That RAM inside your mini PC may not be as good a deal as it seems Mini PCs aren't exactly full-on desktops The thing is that the RAM you're getting in this particular mini PC, as well as many other mini PCs, isn't going to be the same RAM you look for on Amazon.Mini PC manufacturers have to make some adjustments, both to fit the small form factor and to turn a profit, and RAM is one of those corners that gets cut a little bit.In this case, the spec sheet is a little vague, but we know that the RAM is SO-DIMM, meaning laptop memory.
Beyond that, knowing the Rembrandt chip inside, the RAM tops out at DDR5-4800.That's on the lower end of the scale for DDR5, and definitely doesn't add up to the $250 kits we were looking at above.This is standard across the entire category.
Cheap mini PCs equal cheaper components, so generally expect laptop RAM (often) of the budget kind (most of the time).Don't expect a fancy SSD Expect the opposite, in fact I'm a PC builder of around 20 years, so you'll have to forgive me for this, but I am generally mostly anti-prebuilt.To an extent, that includes mini PCs, as I enjoy building an SFF PC myself (although those are still bigger than the Geekom we're looking at right now).
But even I know that not everyone wants to build their own PC, and that's A-OK.However, my biggest pet peeve with prebuilts and mini PCs alike is a vague spec sheet.I'm not even blaming this particular brand for this, as that is just the state of things when it comes to prebuilts; you don't know which exact components you're getting.
The Geekom A6 reveals that you get one M.2 2280 SSD (NVMe x4 Gen 4 or SATA).What about the brand, the speeds, the TBW, or anything else? It's a mystery, but in a budget PC, I'd always assume we're looking at the affordable end of that scale.Prices make zero sense anymore We're embracing the nonsense, I guess, because what else is there to do? After these RAM and SSD reality checks, our math has shifted yet again.
While the SSD is a full-fledged PCIe Gen4 drive, the RAM won't be usable in a desktop, for instance.So would this mini PC be worth buying just to harvest those parts? Not really, but that doesn't make it less of a good deal.Ultimately, you spend more on a mini PC than you would on just buying some cheap RAM and an equally cheap SSD.
But buying a mini PC gets you, well, a PC.All those other things around these two overpriced components in a small, backpack-friendly form factor.Better still, if you look into options with 32GB DDR5 RAM, you're getting closer to that "components are literally cheaper" goalpost.
For instance, this GMKtec mini PC gives you 32GB of DDR5 ($400+).It's loads in this current climate, but these are SO-DIMMs, and the SSD is a Gen3, so we're not quite there—but it's a good deal.Desperate times, desperate measures, etc.
Should you buy a mini PC just to tear it apart? I wouldn't, but there's no reason not to buy one, give it an older SSD you have zero use for, and steal the newer drive for something else.Ultimately, the prices are wild right now, and premade PCs are often a much better deal than putting something together by yourself.GEEKOM A6 $549 $879 Save $330 Brand GEEKOM Geekom's A6 may not exactly be cheaper than its parts, but put together, it's just about the best deal you'll find.
CPU AMD Ryzen 6800H $550 at Amazon $549 at GEEKOM Expand Collapse
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