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Yeah you can get a refurbished Dell Optiplex for about $100 w/ keyboard, mouse, and wifi adapter, and should have a passmark score of around 6k (for reference the i7 in thinkpad x1 carbons from 2018 has a passmark score of 8k). I got one of these setup for an event organizer that wanted to drive three displays w/ timing software on a budget.

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Yes. I have got a "used" HP 800 G4 DM on the cheap, which looks brand new still wrapped with plastic skin, as my camera NVR machine. It barely uses 2%~3% CPU processing 8 camera feeds and pumping out videos to 3 monitors. The mini PC did the same thing with 80%~100% CPU and got overheat easily. The HP is slightly bigger but flatter than the current mini PC form factor. I believe the design is great for heat dissipation.

+1! -- I use Optiplexes in my homelab for client/misc/fw duty, and I have a pair of Supermicro mini servers with Xeon-D chips for slightly heavier stuff. Both bulletproof and small/innocuous/inexpensive to run.

I keep wanting to upgrade to something shiny or attempt to consolidate since my Dells are on some hilariously old chips (4th gen LTS "T" series i7s) but man they just keep chugging along, it's hard to justify.

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