Quiet PC Sentinel Mini i10

The Sentinel Mini i10 is our smallest high-specification compact PC that comes fully-built and ready to go. It is perfect as a general purpose machine or a dedicated media PC.

Beauty, power and silence

The Sentinel Mini PC offers great performance thanks to Intel’s 10th generation processors. The selected processors in the configurator below produce low power consumption allowing for a very quiet running noise level. At only 77mm high and 197mm wide, this Sentinel Mini i10 is functional, attractive and unintrusive. The machine is supplied in a shot-blasted finish and its fascia is clean, elegant and uncluttered.

Intel 10th Gen and 11th Gen differences

The 500 series motherboard available with this system is compatible with both the 10th gen and 11th gen Intel processors, which is good as it gives flexibility and choice. The down-side to this is that the motherboard limits its features if a 10th gen processor is installed. We have therefore produced the table below to give you an idea of the what those differences are. This will hopefully allow you to gauge the best suitable processor for your needs. Do you go for the feature rich 11th gen, or opt for a 10th gen with limitations, but more attractive from a price point of view.

PCIe Version - As you can see from the table above the PCIe port, which is generally used for a graphics card, changes from PCIe 4.0 to 3.0 if a 10th Gen CPU is installed. In regards to performance of the graphics card and PCIe 3.0, you will not notice any major difference in frame rates running at PCIe 3.0 speeds.

M.2 PCIe 4.0 port - A M.2 drive offers extremely fast transfer rates and this is bolstered by PCIe 4.0, which gives speeds up to 64Gb/s (8000MB/s), compared PCIe 3.0 which is 32Gb/s (4000MB/s). This means using an 11th Gen processor along with a Samsung 980 Pro will allow you to achieve the maximum transfer speeds the drive can achieve. Please also note that the PCIe 4.0 M.2 port will be disabled if a 10th Gen CPU is installed. If you do opt for a 10th Gen CPU you will still be able to populate the other M.2 ports on the motherboard but the transfer speed is 32Gp/s, so the Samsung 970 EVO Plus or a slower drive is recommended.

HDMI Version - This is self explanatory, an 11th Gen CPU supports HDMI 2.0 which provides resolutions up to 4096 x 2304 @ 60Hz. A 10th Gen processor supports HDMI 1.4 which provides resolutions up to 4096 x 2304 @ 30Hz. The DisplayPort resolution is not affect by the CPU. Therefore if you 100% need a 60Hz 4K resolution from the motherboard then the best choice would be an 11th Gen CPU.

Storage considerations

When specifying your new PC’s storage options using our system configurator below, you will be offered a choice of drives which vary by price and capacity. There are two primary types of storage. A conventional hard disk drive (HDD) offers huge storage capacity for a low price, but it won’t be especially fast and it will generate a certain amount of running noise since it contains a constantly-rotating spindle. A solid state (SSD) or a M2 drive on the other hand, offer tremendous speed and absolutely silent operation, but they cost more than an HDD for any given capacity.

So if you need a lot of storage space (for videos or large quantities of digital photos for example), then we would recommend an HDD. On the other hand, if you prefer silence and speed (especially boot-up speed), then an SSD or M2 drive would be a better choice. Of course you can have more than one drive, so you could have the best of both worlds by choosing one of each! We recommend that customers chose an SSD or M2 drive as a boot drive that contains the operating system and important programs and a conventional HDD to store other data, but remember that if you intend to have a totally silent PC you might want to forgo the HDDs all together as they will make some noise due to their moving parts.

Clean Build™ Promise

The price of many pre-built PCs these days is often supported by cash kickbacks from software companies who pay hardware manufacturers to pre-install limited or trial versions of their software and then hope that the customer pays to upgrade to the full version. The downside to this approach is that the new PC comes pre-loaded with a lot of “junkware” which bloats the operating system and can cause severe performance degradation.

Here at Quiet PC we believe that customers have every right to expect the best possible performance from a brand new PC, so every system we build comes with our Clean Build™ promise. We install the operating system (if you order one), motherboard drivers, OS updates and Windows Security - that’s it. You won’t be pestered by pop-ups and nag screens and you can get on with using your new PC immediately without having to uninstall lots of junkware first. Your new machine will boot in super-quick time and will stay running quickly for many months and years to come.

Free hardware support and fully inclusive warranty

We offer free hardware technical support for as long as you own the machine. This support covers any hardware query or problem, including advice on maintenance and upgrades. We regret we can’t offer software support or training so we would recommend contacting the software vendor in this instance.

Our hardware warranty runs for at least two years and is “collect and return” meaning that you don’t need to worry about getting the machine back to us - we will instruct our courier to collect it from you on a day of your choosing, then after we have checked and repaired it we will send it back to you by express courier at our expense. In addition, unlike many other PC suppliers, we have an “open-case” policy which means you are free to open the machine and perform your own minor modifications or upgrades without worrying that your warranty might be affected.