Black Friday is the perfect time to build a retro gaming system

Batocera is a Linux-based gaming OS supporting numerous system emulators. If you have a collection of old console games that you’d like to rip and enjoy on a single device, this is the way to do it in style. To make the most of your retro gaming system, I recommend using a mini PC. These are powerful enough to run emulators without causing too much noise and drawing a lot of power. A desktop PC not doing anything would provide a better experience, especially for more recent platforms, but I still recommend a small, compact chassis for the big screen. Luckily, Black Friday has some great deals on mini PCs.

Why Black Friday is great for building a Batocera PC

Since Batocera is essentially Linux with some fancy tech and GUI, it runs on almost anything, including single-board computers (SBCs). So long as the device you plan to use meets the recommended requirements for the OS, you’ll be good to go. Emulation performance will vary, depending on the chipset, how much RAM you have available, and the configured output resolution. For the best results, you’ll want to consider a desktop PC or a mini PC with an AMD laptop processor. These compact mini PCs are incredibly powerful for their size and can usually be found discounted for promotions such as Black Friday.

I’ve already spotted a few enticing discounts on mini PCs from reputable brands. Let’s start with the Beelink SER5. This compact PC has an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 5800H, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD. It’s an older chipset at this point but the Ryzen 5000 mobile series is still a good choice for emulating games, largely thanks to the full-size Zen cores and integrated AMD Radeon graphics. Having 16GB of RAM available for the GPU and everything else ensures you won’t have any bottlenecks for most emulators. It will struggle when upscaling content on newer platforms.

The MINISFORUM UM890 Pro is a great compact system by a brand I’ve used countless times in the past. Their hardware is solid and once Batocera is up and running, you’ll have no problem running all your favorite games. A cool feature of Batocera is the ability to integrate Steam and run PC games. With an 8-core AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, the UM890 Pro is a monster. This CPU alone is fantastic for enjoying games up to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It’s not cheap, but if you can stretch to cover this configuration, the mini PC is ready to go with plenty of space for games.

MINISFORUM UM890 Pro

$728 $910 Save $182

If you want to enjoy more recent platforms, including PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, or increase the resolution upscaling for older platforms, the discounted MINISFORUM UM890 Pro is an excellent choice.

Regardless of how much you have to spend or what you plan on enjoying on your retro gaming PC, there’s a mini PC deal for almost everyone on Amazon alone. Specific brands such as GMKtec are also running their own Black Friday promotions where you can save by going directly with the manufacturer and picking up a barebones unit. RAM and storage can be bought using Black Friday deals or if you have spares available from other systems.