comments:
You're conflating "high-end" with "lasting." Your Dell lasted because it was well-built (or you got lucky), not because it was the fastest machine available. Build quality and brand support matter more than top specs for longevity. Sidenote: are you sure your current PC can't be repaired or rejuvenated? Overall, I think your actual workload is pretty light computationally speaking. QuickBooks, Excel/documents, and a few browser tabs is not that much. A midrange CPU with 16GB of RAM is probably enough, 32GB RAM if you want to future proof, but that'll cost you since there's a severe RAM shortage right now that's jacking up prices. In regards to the AMD vs. Intel in mini-PCs, I wouldn't worry about it. It's a lot less meaningful than in laptops due to the lack of battery. Both are fine if you pick comparable CPUs. Just pick the one that gives the best performance for the price. As for storage, a 1TB SSD will handle your needs comfortably, and should be relatively easy to find at the $1K mark. In terms of networking, I'm not really able to help there, because I think those are more or less a solved problem. I've not had a dropped Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection in years myself, but ymmv. As for the malware concern about Chinese brand mini-PCs, yeah that's kind of fair, it's a bit more of a dice roll depending on who you buy from. That said, there's plenty of options from the main name brands that you shouldn't be paying much of a premium for them compared to the lesser-known Chinese brands if you can't take that chance. I think something like a Lenovo ThinkCentre or HP EliteDesk is probably good? They're "business-grade", well-supported, and probably closer in philosophy to what your IT guy originally set you up with. It's not cheap depending on model, but something like this one I found from a google search is well within your budget.