Buying a mini pc to install Delphi

[Alberto Paganini 3]

Hello,

 

I am thinking of buying a mini PC and installing Delphi CE. I chose the mini PC mainly because of its small footprint.

I am not a professional programmer, so I would not use it for 8+ hours every day. What do you recommend in terms of CPU, RAM, SDD size, etc.? Is it a good idea?

 

Many thanks

Alberto

[Tommi Prami 130]

7 hours ago, Alberto Paganini said:

Hello,

 

I am thinking of buying a mini PC and installing Delphi CE. I chose the mini PC mainly because of its small footprint.

I am not a professional programmer, so I would not use it for 8+ hours every day. What do you recommend in terms of CPU, RAM, SDD size, etc.? Is it a good idea?

 

Many thanks

Alberto

It depends quite a lot.

But would go for I have and budget of xxx in my currency, what I can get with it. Ask people opinions about that, is it enough. And then decide to save more or purchase.

I've been thinking of, if Company will get one, for my work computer.  Mainly because I need laptop as laptop (the screen) maybe once or twice a year. Also with price of decent laptop, you get way better mini-PC (in terms of performance etc...). Problem being, for corporate use, that there are no good options usually from popular brands, and brands that make good models don't have support and service options that companies need. I think... IF someone has better info, I would be more than happy to stand corrected on this...
 

-Tee- 

[dummzeuch 1493]

I am using a Fujitsu Esprimo Q920 (released in 2014!) with an i5 mobile processor, 16 GB of RAM and an SSD running Windows 10 for Delphi development (all versions from Delphi 6 -blindingly fast - to Delphi 12 - rather slow but usable). I bought it cheap in a refurbished deal on Amazon.de. It's far from being a rocket, but fine for my hobby software development needs.

 

I also installed Proxmox on a cheap mini PC with an Intel N95 processor, 16 GB of RAM and an SSD I got from Geekbuying (came with Windows 11). I am running a Windows 10 virtual machine on it on which I'm testing GExperts on Delphi 12. That setup is definitely not what I would want to use at work, but again, for hobby software development it is kinda OK. If you leave out the virtual machine part but run Windows directly on the hardware it is faster than the Q920.

 

So: Given enough RAM and an SSD I think basically any current mini PC is OK for that purpose. This may depend on whether you want to use some third party tools and components though. These can slow down the IDE quite a bit.

 

And of course you may think I'm crazy for using such a low powered setup. 😉

 

Regarding Geekbuying: Beware that that's a platform like Amazon market place. So there are black sheep there. I bought a BMAX mini PC with pre installed Windows 11 from them and it turned out that

• The pre installed Windows 11 came with some rather dubious software additions, so I tried to do a fresh install. Which turned up that ...
• the computer does not meet Windows 11 minimum requirements (no TPM, unsupported processor). They must have installed it using the tricks you can find on the web. Which means that it would have had problems with the next major update. But even with these tricks ...
• the license cannot be used to do a fresh Windows 11 installation.

I tried to get a refund but they kept on sending demands for proof (pictures and even a video using some Chinese service) and then simply ignored me. So I definitely don't recommend buying there. (The hardware is rather nice though, if you don't want to install Windows on it.)

Edited 12 hours ago by dummzeuch

[Lars Fosdal 1786]

@dummzeuch - I think it is commendable to do your testing on a low powered setup.  If it works satisfactory there, it will rock on higher end gear.

[Sherlock 661]

@Lars Fosdal What good are developer machines that run faster than light, when the average customer has the software running on what can only be described as a steam powered abacus? To test on a low end machine is the minimum, IMHO.

[Angus Robertson 572]

But that low end testing may also be done in a virtual machine with minimal resources, at least for applications that don't need specific hardware resources.

 

I still have my ancient Windows 7 development PC that I mainly use for burning DVD off-site backups.  But also for some backward testing, don't power it up very often.

 

Angus

 

[Tom Chamberlain 47]

If your daily machine, PC or MAC has 16GB of RAM, is a multi-core CPU and has 100-150GB of free space go with a virtual machine.  There are free options like Hyper-V and VirtualBox even VMwares Workstation/Fusion is free for personal use.  Delphi will run in a VM with 4-6GB of RAM and a 2 cores, not speedy but it will run.   You can get a real copy of Windows 10/11 for cheap online and it's easy to backup with just a file copy.

[Anders Melander 1763]

23 minutes ago, Tom Chamberlain said:

go with a virtual machine

How does that address "I am thinking of buying a mini PC"?

[dummzeuch 1493]

3 minutes ago, Anders Melander said:

How does that address "I am thinking of buying a mini PC"?

The Mac Mini could qualify as a mini PC. But yeah it doesn't really answer the question.

[Anders Melander 1763]

14 hours ago, Alberto Paganini said:

I am thinking of buying a mini PC and installing Delphi CE. I chose the mini PC mainly because of its small footprint.

This might sound crazy, but hear me out 🙂

1. Buy:
   • A nice Mini-PC mainboard with integrated graphics.
   • A CPU, some RAM, NVMe SSD.
   • The smallest fanless PSU that meets the power requirements of the above.
2. Put it all in cardboard box (or whatever). Remember to make some holes for airflow.
3. Profit!

You can do this really cheap and I can testify, from personal experience, that it is a possible setup. I once worked on a system a bit like this for six months. I didn't implement the luxury version with the cardboard box though. Instead I just placed the mainboard (which was full AT size) on a wooden breadboard and bolted all the components to it. Why did I do this, you ask? Well, my wife had a meltdown over something related to time spent with her vs. time coding (Women, pfft! 🙄 Amiright?) and completely smashed my full tower case with a rolling pin, I shit you not.

 

Anyway, of course you still have to decide on the specs for the components but you will have to figure that out for yourself. It's impossible to give any clear recommendations as the specs will depend on what and how you use the system. Just get the best you can within your budget.

[Rollo62 529]

38 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

The Mac Mini could qualify as a mini PC. But yeah it doesn't really answer the question.

Why not? 
If there is a change that he wants to create CrossPlattform Apps, this will be a good choice.
With Parallels Desktop, it runs Windows, and as far as I know Delphi runs nicely on an M1 MacMini.

I only use MacMini for XYCode purposes, so never tried to install Windows + Delphi there.

 

It depends, depends, depends, on what you need.

 

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Rollo62

[Anders Melander 1763]

1 hour ago, Rollo62 said:

M1 MacMini

It's a very nice system but the refurbished ones I have been able to find are a bit expensive for what you get. I couldn't find any with more than 8Gb RAM although the max is 16Gb.

[Rollo62 529]

5 minutes ago, Anders Melander said:

It's a very nice system but the refurbished ones I have been able to find are a bit expensive for what you get. I couldn't find any with more than 8Gb RAM although the max is 16Gb.

Right, but its the cheapest way to start M1+ development and even reasonable local AI expermiments ( Llama3 8B runs on M2+ not so bad, much cheaper than Nvidia GPU ).
You can purchase an older, refurbished x86 machine maybe cheaper, but then you are stucked on x86, as fas as I can say will Apple hardly kill development any time they want.