Computers

Five mini PCs, ranked

All of them fit behind a monitor. Only two of them stay quiet doing it.

By Hazel Kirkbride · August 2, 2026

Every machine in this test hangs off the back of a monitor and draws less power at idle than a floor lamp. That is the appeal. The catch is that a small case gets a small fan, and a small fan spinning fast makes a worse noise than a big fan spinning slow.

So we measured. All five sat on the same desk in the Gazette's back office, one at a time, for about two weeks each. The sound meter went on a short tripod 12 inches from the front of the case at ear height, which is where the thing ends up if you bracket it behind a monitor. The room floor is 21.8 dB, measured at six in the morning before anyone comes in.

Idle numbers are a ten minute average with nothing running. Load numbers are a twenty minute average during a video export with a compile job going at the same time, which is meaner than most people will ever be to one of these. Case heat is an infrared reading at the hottest spot on the top shell at the end of that run. Prices are what we paid this spring, mostly at Valley Tech Exchange in Amherst.

1. Beelink SER8

$529 with 32 GB of memory and a 1 TB drive already in it. Idle 22.6 dB, load 27.4 dB, top shell 41 C.

At idle the fan drops to a crawl and the meter reads the room. Under load it comes up to a low even hush with no pulsing and no whine, which is the part that matters. Fan noise that holds one steady note disappears into a room. Fan noise that ramps every fifteen seconds makes you look up every fifteen seconds.

Ports are generous for the size: two USB-C, a stack of USB-A front and back, HDMI and DisplayPort, 2.5 gigabit ethernet and a headphone jack. The VESA bracket is in the box. Four screws hide under the rubber feet, which are glued on and come back off crooked, so plan on the feet looking worse afterward. Past that, the memory and both drive positions are right under your thumb. This is the one to buy.

2. Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Tiny Gen 5

$549 as we configured it. Idle 23.1 dB, load 30.2 dB, top shell 44 C.

Quiet, built like office furniture, and $20 more than the machine that beat it. The steel box has more mass than the Beelink and soaks up heat before the fan has to do anything, so it stays silent longer. Once it is running you can hear it from the chair in an empty room. Two machines in this test stayed under 30 dB under load. This is not one of them.

The cover comes off with one captive thumbscrew and a slide, no tool at all, which is the best access in the test. Ports run heavy on USB-A, with DisplayPort and HDMI, gigabit ethernet and a headphone jack. One USB-C on the front is stingy in 2026. The VESA bracket is a $30 accessory, which is petty on a machine shaped like that.

3. Apple Mac mini

$599 for the base M4. Idle 22.1 dB, load 26.9 dB, top shell 39 C.

The lowest numbers in the test, and it is still third. Nothing we did made it audible and the shell never got warm enough to care about.

Then the rest of it. There is no USB-A anywhere on the machine, so every mouse and every label printer in this office needs a dongle or a new cable. There is no bracket in the box. And you cannot open it in the sense that matters: the memory is soldered and the storage is not a part you go buy. The base 256 GB is thin for the money, and moving up costs more than the whole drive we put in the Beelink. A computer you cannot add memory to in nine months is a computer with an expiration date on it.

4. Minisforum UM870 Slim

$479. Idle 25.4 dB, load 42.9 dB, top shell 49 C.

The cheapest one here, and it sounds like it. At idle there is a constant low hum you notice in a quiet room around 9 p.m. Under load the fan ramps in steps, so you get a hum, then a louder hum, then a whir, then back down, over and over. Two people in the office asked what the noise was. Nobody asked about the Beelink.

Ports are good: USB-C, four USB-A, two display outputs and 2.5 gigabit ethernet. The bracket is included, the screws are plain Phillips, and the inside is roomier than the price suggests. If this machine is going under a desk rather than behind a monitor at ear height, the noise stops mattering and $479 buys a lot of computer.

5. ASUS NUC 14 Pro

$699 for the kit, near $850 once we added memory and a drive. Idle 26.4 dB, load 47.2 dB, top shell 58 C.

The most expensive machine in the test is also the loudest. The fan is a small blower with a whine sitting somewhere around 4 kHz that carries through a closed door. At 58 C the top shell is warm enough that we stopped putting paper on it after the first week.

The bracket is in the box and four captive Phillips screws get you inside. It is a fine machine to own and a tiring one to sit next to, and for the price of the kit alone you can have the Beelink with the parts already in it.

What we would actually buy

The Beelink, without much thinking about it. It is quiet, it has the ports, the bracket is in the box and the screws are ordinary. If this is going into an office where somebody else will have to open it in three years, buy the ThinkCentre instead and pay for the bracket.

Owen Prisk, who sells these at Valley Tech Exchange, said the noise question almost never comes up until after the sale. "People ask about speed and they ask about price," he said. "Then they call me in March because the thing is screaming at them during a video call, and there is nothing I can do about it then."

One practical note for anyone mounting one behind a monitor: measure your desk clearance first. The ThinkCentre wants about two and a half inches once the bracket is on it, and on a shallow desk against a wall that pushes the monitor forward an inch and a half.