Fairly inexpensive PC for Handbrake use?

[flojo]

Sorry yeh, I scratched it because I didn't want to completely erase my post after my mistake. The point is that before buying you can judge how fast Quick Sync is.

[Bsmooth]

No sweat, just couldn't figure out what was going on. Guess I'll find out in a few days when I get it setup and running.

[PapaZhan]

I no little about Macs, but I must say you have me intrigued. Which one would you recommend and what are the best options to get with it. Or just point me in a good direction for using one for MKV and Handbrake use ?
I have an older 22" Samsung that works fine, but its VGA connectors probably won't work with the Mac. Tell me more !

After years of every version of Windows, and dabbling in Linux a bit, I bought my first Mac, a Mac Mini M4 base model. I have to say, this thing makes an amazing Handbrake unit. I see a lot of people building them up for how fast the hardware encoding is. Yes, it is fast, but the quality and size required to maintain decent quality is quite unimpressive in my testing. I almost returned mine after seeing this. But, I did more testing. It is capable of doing 10bit 4K HEVC software encoding at between 18 to 36fps (dependinig on the source video format). During this, the maximum power draw is about 22 watts. 1080p HEVC software encodes are usually around 150fps, give or take some, and draws less power doing it. The quality of software encoding vs size is still superior to everything, despite NVidia and Intel getting much better with their HW encoders recently. An important caveat for those who jump in and buy one after reading this. You MUST install Macs Fan Control, and configure it to ramp the little fan up starting at about 60C, reaching maximum at 80C. The first encodes I did started out blazing fast, and then dropped to about 7fps for the remainder. Turns out Apple in their amazing way of thinking, decided everyone wants a perfectly silent Mac Mini. So they are perfectly content to keep the fan putting along at about 1000rpm, while the performance cores reach upward of 100C (yes, it gets that HOT) and thermal throttle the chip to keep it from melting the aluminum case. After setting this software up in the above manner, temps will never get above 80C, keeping performance at peak, but you will hear it for sure as depending on your ambient temperature, the fan will be between 3500 and 4900rpm. I hope this helps someone out when they've just dropped money on one of these little tin cubes and wonder why it seems to let them down in certain circumstances.