If you’re looking for the best mini PC for gaming then read on, as we’ve manually selected the top mini PC’s for every type of budget!
Some might think that mini PCs are a funny concept, after all, they’re not laptops, so why not go for full ATX PCs that utilize optimal airflow and cooling solutions to get better performance? Well here’s the thing, they are indeed not laptops, and that’s a good thing. If you’ve ever bought a “gaming laptop” you know that they’re incredibly expensive, run so hot you couldn’t possibly keep it in your lap when gaming, they thermal throttle (meaning performance drops quickly after it gets warm), and need to be plugged in at all times both for performance and because the battery lasts about as long a politician’s promise otherwise.
True a laptop is more portable than a mini PC, but they’re not THAT portable so it really doesn’t make as much of a difference. You need to be plugged into game on them and you need a desk because they get too hot to keep in your lap so at that point why not just get a small PC that you can easily carry in a backpack or carry-on? Another reason people like mini-PCs is that they save a lot of space, look sleeker, generally cost way less, and have better performance than a laptop.
Of course, a gaming laptop has the benefit of coming with a screen, keyboard, mouse, and speakers all in one suitcase-sized package, so if you really need to game on the go and won’t be able to source those things from wherever you set up, then a laptop will always be the best choice, but if not, read on to find out what the best mini gaming PC on the market right now is. Because the small form factor does come at a cost, for this guide I won’t be limiting the options to under $1000, unlike both my best gaming PC and best gaming PC parts guides.
Best budget mini PC
HP Victus Gaming PC
The best mini ITX gaming pc that’s under $1000. Okey so I said I wouldn’t limit this guide to PC’s under $1000, but when a deal is good its good. This baby has 32GB of DDR4 RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD, a relatively powerful (for its price) CPU in the Ryzen 7 5700G, and another price-to-performance gem in the 6600XT graphics card. Standard of HP Victus models it also comes with a mouse and keyboard, and sleek and compact case coming in at only roughly 13x12x6 inches. You could easily fit this little guy in a backpack or carry-on suitcase.
Best low-end mini PC
Lenovo Legion Tower 5i Gaming Desktop
If you were to start your own mini gaming pc build, this would be pretty close. Lenovo’s offering is a bit pricier than HP’s Victus, and a bit larger at roughly 16.5x8x15.5x inches. But for the extra cash and bulk you get a vastly superior GPU in the RTX 3070, and a more powerful CPU in the Core i7-11700k (though only by a smidge), and let’s not forget that it doubles the RAM and Storage at 64GB and 2TB respectively. But the real advantage afforded by the bigger size is the fact that the Lenovo Legion is a fully modular kit, meaning it uses all standard and widely available parts and components, so should anything break or you want up upgrade into more powerful parts you can do so without needing to send it in and pay hefty upgrade fees.
Best mid-range mini PC
Kinupute Mini PC Gaming
A bit of an odd inclusion in this list, as it’s neither the cheapest, the most powerful, and it doesn’t have the price to performance, what the Kinupute is however, is the smallest. And not only is it the smallest, but it’s also got a form factor more reminiscent of a DVD player or audio receiver, and this is by design. Perfect if you want a mildly capable gaming PC that also doubles as a media server to put in your entertainment center. It’s got a respectable RTX 3060 graphics card, a very capable Core i9-12900F processor, 64GB of DDR4 memory, and 2T of fast NVMe storage. It’s not going to run the newest games at the highest settings, but should handle medium just fine, and is comparable in performance to a PS5 with some spare CPU juice left over.
Best high-end mini PC
Intel NUC 13 Extreme Mini PC
Now we’re stepping up quite a bit in price and down in customizability, even the dimensions aren’t that different at roughly 14×7.5×4.7 inches. But Intel takes a way more optimized and custom approach to their mini-PC solution in the NUC series which I for one appreciate. The Nuc series has a much more custom board and cooling design when compared to other mini gaming PCs and this is reflected both in performance and the level of hardware, they’re able to jam into this thing. The 2023 version packs a Core i9-12900 CPU, a beast in the RTX 3080Ti graphics card, 64GB of high-performance DDR4 ram, and a 2TB NVMe drive for storage. And, despite being a custom setup, the memory, CPU, and GPU are all user-replaceable.
Best premium: Empowered PC Stratos Mini
While we’re going up in price, why not go nuts? The Empowered PC Stratos is pretty much the best PC money can buy right now, AND it’s still small-ish at 12.4×14.7×5.9 inches. It’s also the only PC in this list that has a fully custom water cooling loop for the CPU (which you’ll need, trust me), and it’s the only PC in this list that uses the latest generation CPU and ram combo by coming with the insanely powerful (and hot) Core i9-13900KF, and a downright silly 96GB of DDR5 memory running at 5600MHz. If you’ve clicked the link and seen the price you already know what I’m going to mention next, the GPU is of course the cream-of-the-crop RTX 4090. Besides that, it comes with 2TB of NVMe fast storage, and 4TB of regular SATA6 SSD storage…so really, price to performance, this is also kind of the best deal in this list.
Those are the most relevant, most affordable, and best-performing mini-gaming PCs on the market right now. A great alternative to laptops or for those who don’t want huge bulky towers cluttering up their space, it is important to mention that mini PCs, while more performant than laptops, will still suffer when compared to their full-tower big brothers. If you think are fine with that tradeoff, however, any one of these incredible machines would be a great choice.
