I'm planning my first serious home lab setup and I'm torn between going with a mini PC that has solid integrated graphics (like recent Intel or AMD Ryzen processors) when I compare that with a dedicated GPU. My main goals are running Proxmox for virtualization, hosting a few Docker containers, and experimenting with local LLM inference without relying on cloud APIs.
The thing is, most mini PCs with dedicated GPUs seem to come from brands like Minisforum, Geekom, and Beelink, but they add a lot of cost and power consumption. On the other hand, newer iGPUs have gotten a lot better. I'm curious whether the performance trade-off is worth the savings, especially for someone just starting out with self-hosting.
Here's what I'm wondering: Have you found that a dedicated GPU actually makes a difference for home lab workloads, or does integrated graphics handle most virtualization and containerization tasks just fine?
I'd love to hear if anyone has real-world experience or suggestions on this setup, especially if you've tried both. What about power efficiency? does a GPU-equipped mini PC draw a lot more power during idle or light loads? And if you're running local LLMs, what hardware did you settle on and why?
Also, I'm curious if anyone has experience with upgrading RAM and NVMe storage on these compact little pcs. That seems like a smarter investment than GPU power for my use case, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something important. Share your thoughts and help me make the best decision i can...