Only if you're running it at full load all the time and comparing that to a comparable number of raspberry pis it would take to do the same amount of work. Also, only if you live in a cold climate and the heat generated is not a concern and power is supplied by a renewable source so power isn't a concern.

the 20 year old pc of my grandparents had a graphics card failure, i fixed it but tgey decided i should keep the pc and help them pick a new one (valid after 20 years ngl) now this PC runs debian and hosts my game servers and all

Its all fun and games until the power bill arrives. Performance per watt is important, please look at that first. Don't be me.

Or any compact pc like gigabyte brix, nucs, lenovos , etc. you can get those for 70-200 on ebay and they are amazing for running any homelab projects, including stream services like jellyfin with hardware decoding.

I'm sure silicon valley are stepping on each other, vying to get their hands on these super cheap laptops for their 24/7 AI training.

Add use of gpio to reasons to use pie.

While gpio adaptors are available for pc. The software architecture is not as well rounded and documented.

So for any complex hardware project development. Gpio based SBCs are often essential.

So space, low power and gpio development.

Otherwise yep old laptop or even desktop can be cheaper and more able.

But overall. The wide software support and documentation for hardware connectivity is a bloody good reason to keep pie supported.

I'm setting 2 up to control the hot water and solar dump system on my shared little boat. As I want to link 12v Lifepo4 batt charging with the solar dump and visually impaired control for AC and diesel heating of the water.

Pies really are the best option to play with. While low power and easy to design a unique low vision interface.

Also UK boat safty. Is issuing warning about permanently connected li ion batts on boats. So it is likely setting up a laptop to manage this while not on the boat. Will be banned in the near future.

Only an issue for UK boating but worth considering the risks of leaving laptops to run when not observed.

I personally needed the Pi for its Arm architecture.

damn you all, now I impulse bought an old thin client for 30EUR :-) but, fwiw: I mostly use RPi for my purposes, up to RPi4; RPi 5 I think missed the mark, with its active cooling requirement and power use. (and price...) the only use case where an i86 alternative is justified is my jellyfin setup (where realtime transcoding is needed).

Rockchip boards are way more efficient than Pis

Right? I made the realization a while ago that refurbished mini PCs are a way better fit for most of my homelab needs.

Sure, if power consumption is your #1 priority then you'd want some ARM solution. But for my use cases, I've found myself fighting with software support and the relatively low computational power of even the newer RPis.

Also, T-series Intel chips (the low power ones) have pretty good idle power consumption and don't spin up the fan too much given their lower power. And a lot of uses cases require sticking a fan and heat sinks on an RPi so you lose the quietness benefit.

Also also, you (still?) need proprietary blobs to use a bunch of the hardware on RPis. You can go full open source on a regular old PC.

Look for refurbished elitedesk g5, it runs debian magnificantly! I splurged a bit on the memory and ssd and have a quite nice desktop (developer).

I use old Mac Minis that were cycled out from a company and replaced. An e-waste laptop is still probably cheaper, but you can still find the older model Mac Minis fairly cheap too. I have 2 of them that sit vertically side-by-side in a small rack with my router stationed above them. They both run Elementary OS.

I always prefer getting an Hp 600 g5 for $100 off eBay, you get a Intel 9500, can go to 64gb of ram, and idle at a few watts