this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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My budget is ~500 Euro.

I haven't built a PC in 10 years, I gave no idea where to start.

It will mostly be used to run Nextcloud, Minecraft Server and some future homelab projects.

I'm thinking of using this for the case https://www.the-diy-life.com/introducing-lab-rax-a-3d-printable-modular-10-rack-system

Where do I start? What CPU or motherboard would you recommend? I want it to be somewhat future proof and also act as a NAS

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[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

I run a J5040 ITX board for my homelab needs, which has been released a few years ago and has served me well, even through I run it with more RAM than the board specs allow. The natural successors of that are the Atom N100/N105 and the i3 N300/N305 (all 1 Gen newer than J5040) and AFAIK the Atom N150 and i3 N350 (2 Gen newer), all of which are available on ITX boards. Models for the latest chips might be a but rare though, and you might have to go to AliExpress to get one, but for the N100/105/300/305, there's a wide variety available. Just make sure to get one with enough SATA ports for all your disks, so you can use it for NAS as well.

Disclaimer: I'm quite sure this is enough for your homelab/NAS use-case, but I'm not familiar with Minecraft requirements, and you might need beefier hardware for that. However, the above boards leave enough room in your budget for RAM, NVMe and HDDs, should deliver quite some bang for the little buck you have, and will barely sip energy, making cooling easy.