[while_true_]

For $50 you can pick up a used mini PC with say, i5-6500T and 8GB ram, that'll be much faster than the Pi 5. And it'll be compatible with all Linux distros. Really the Pi 3 is good enough as an edge device where you want to hook up things to the GPIO pins.

[JLO64]

But a PC like what you’re suggesting would result in a much higher energy bill compared to a Pi if you leave it on 24/7 to use as a server.

[stordoff]

I've got a i5-7500T box running as a Proxmox Backup Server, and it idles at 6-7W. It runs at near idle most of the time (it's just running PBS and a few network services), so I'm not expecting it to cause much difference to my power bills. Even under full load, it only draws ~30W, so it's not _that_ much power.

[3eb7988a1663]

Those Intel N100 machines sip power. Supposedly with some tweaking, people have gotten them down to idle at ~2watts.

[epolanski]

At a huge boost in power consumption and space.