Cheapest Mini-PC to run Civ4?

[Absolution]

My PC is dying and I'm looking for Mini-PC alternatives.

If I give up on running Civ 5 and 6 (which I rarley play) I can be possibly satisfied with a very simple and cheap computer.

My needs are:

• basic Word usage, web browsing, etc
• Basic music editing tools, for which I have an external audio interface
• Civ 4

Would any new Mini-PC be okay for these uses?

For music recording and editing - if I have an external audio interface, does it still matter what are the computer's abilities? In what ways then?

Oh and will any new Mini-PC be not compatible with the upcoming Window 11?

I've seen a recommandation for Intel NUC NUC8i5BEK, in case you know anything about this one.

Thanks!

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Most importantly, what is your budget?

 

[leif erikson]

This is, unfortunately, not a simple question. So here are some resources to consider:

Tom's Hardware recommendations for best mini-computers.

Logical Increments is a computer build recommendation site.

And here are the requirements for Windows 11. Biggest problem is that your system must have a Trusted Platform Module 2.0 chip to operate. It is a hardware chip that has to be included on the motherboard, unless this means manufacturers will provide it as an upgrade, although I still do not know if that is possible?

For what you want, might want to consider building a PC with a CPU with integrated graphics and a motherboard with a TPM 2.0 chip?

Whatever you decide, best of luck as things are expensive these days with chip shortages.

edit - After some research, it appears that both the latest Intel and AMD Ryzen cpu's have trusted platform modules built in but are turned off by default. They can be activated in the UEFI (BIOS), so that becomes a non-issue.

 

[Ranger0001]

• basic Word usage, web browsing, etc

• Basic music editing tools, for which I have an external audio interface

For these two you could run them on a Raspberry Pi which is incredibly cheap. Not sure about civ 4 on it right now though. I can test it and update this if you want. (Let me know) Yeah, but as Aiken said, the most important thing is what is your budget?