If you're after a completely silent computing experience, Zotac has a new and relatively cheap barebones desktop mini PC to tempt you with.
While definitely not a powerhouse thanks its use of a six-watt Intel Celeron N4100 processor, the Zotac edge CI341 is tiny, fanless, and therefore completely silent when running. Inside there's room for two DDR4-2400 SODIMM slots and an M.2 SATA SSD (2242/2280), allowing for up to 8GB of RAM and gigabytes or terabytes of storage.
The Celeron offers four cores and four threads running at 1.1GHz (boosting to 2.4GHz) along with Intel UHD Graphics 600. The case measures 5.8-by-5.8-inches and is only 1.26-inches thick. Cooling is made possible by the fact the case doubles as a heatsink, according to FanlessTech. On the back of the case you'll find a HDMI 2.0a port, DisplayPort 1.2 port, one USB 3.0 port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, and a DCIN power port. On the front there's USB 3.0, USB 3.0 Type-C, headphone/mic combo jack, and a Micro SD card slot. It's also possible to get eight channel sound through HDMI.
The CI341 is setup for use with Windows 10 64-bit, includes 802.11ac wireless as standard, and ships with a Wi-Fi antenna and VESA mount for hiding the PC on the back of a monitor. You will have to hide a power brick as well, though.
At $179.99, this is definitely a cheap way to grab yourself a silent mini PC that's good enough for every day tasks. Adding 8GB of DDR4 RAM and a 256GB M.2 SSD takes the price up roughly $100 to give you some idea of cost, plus you need to add in the price of a Windows 10 license, too.
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