It wasn’t until 2020 that the “Valorant Champions Tour” was announced. Since then, this international competition has shone a spotlight on some of the most talented players in the world. Whether you’re a Valorant enthusiast or an aspiring esports athlete, maybe it’s time to get in the race. Give yourself the best possible chance by opting for a mini PC to play Valorant. An elegant solution to stay mobile without compromising on performance.
Can you play Valorant on a Mini PC?
It may seem like an e-sports game like Valorant can only be played on an overpriced gaming PC. However, you don’t need a war machine to give your best in Valorant.
Quite the contrary, playing Valorant on a mini PC has its share of advantages. On the one hand, you have a compact solution, custom-designed and optimized to avoid conflicts caused by disparate components and performance issues.
On the other hand, a mini PC to play Valorant is the guarantee of remaining mobile and joining LANs organized by your team or local club. You will no longer have to familiarize yourself with an unknown PC, if you always have your mini gaming PC at hand!
What is the minimum configuration of a Mini PC to play Valorant?
On the official Valorant website, the specifications required to play are provided. Players can always refer to them when buying a mini PC to play Valorant. In particular, the minimum configuration serves as a starting point for anyone wishing to have the best quality-price ratio.
Thus, for a satisfactory mini PC tower, you will need to aim for an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or an Athlon 200GE processor (AMD). In both cases, these are 2-core processors with a base frequency close to 3 GHz. As for graphics cards, the game is even less demanding with a tolerance displayed for AMD Radeon R5 200 and Intel HD 4000 cards.
However, note that the minimum configuration only gives you 30 FPS (frames per second). For impeccable performance in the game, you will need to aim for at least 60 FPS and ideally beyond 144 FPS! Something that is systematically guaranteed if you opt for a GEEKOM Mini PC!
What configuration of a Mini PC to play Valorant in full ultra?
Playing in Full Ultra is a prerequisite for all players who want to surpass themselves. This level of performance impacts both the graphics rendering and the reaction time in the game. By playing in Full Ultra, there is no longer any fear of being overtaken by an opponent in a face-to-face situation.
The hardware specifications required to play Valorant in Full Ultra are as follows. A “multithreaded” processor such as a Core i7 or a Ryzen 7. Ideally, you should aim for processors capable of providing more than 3 GHz of base frequency for 8 cores!
In terms of graphics cards, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 range (with 8 GB of dedicated video memory) or AMD Radeon RX 6800 (with 16 GB of dedicated memory) are more than enough. Also, plan on an SSD drive and at least 16 GB of RAM to eliminate any potential source of slowdown.
Which Mini PCs are ideal for playing Valorant?
Mini FUN9
When it comes to mini PCs for playing Valorant, there are a few obvious choices. If you’re looking for a compact mini PC with a striking design, GEEKOM offers an interesting selection of models.
Indeed, despite their modest size, these mini PCs are designed to offer a robust cooling system, complete connectivity, motherboards that can support up to 64 GB of RAM and even the latest generation graphics cards.
Take the example of the GEEKOM Mini FUN9 which is equipped with a 9th generation i9-9980HK processor, a 1TB SSD hard drive, 32GB of onboard RAM and WIFI 6. It’s hard to believe that such a cocktail of power can fit into such a small case!
XT13 PRO
The GEEKOM XT13 Pro pushes the button even further with options featuring 13th Gen i7 or i9 processors, 2.5G Ethernet ports, PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and the IceBlast 1.5 cooling system. In short, you will have no trouble playing Valorant in Full Ultra with a mini PC that displays this performance.
How to install Valorant on a Mini PC?
- To install Valorant on your mini gaming PC, it’s very simple.
To start, visit the official website to make sure you download a safe and reliable executable. This is crucial to avoid malicious executables that can harm the health of your system.
From the official website, you can find an installation wizard called “Install VALORANT.exe”. After downloading it, you can launch this executable, choose the desired installation location for VALORANT and start the download.
The download time will depend on your internet speed and the size of VALORANT at the time you install. Remember that throughout updates and consecutive seasons, the game gets heavier. In 2024, Valorant weighs around 24 GB.
You can also download it from the “Epic Game Store”. If you already have the Epic Games client installed on your computer, all you have to do is search for Valorant in the library and download it to play Valorant for free on your mini PC.
Regardless of the method used to install Valorant, you will necessarily need to create a Riot account to play.
Conclusion
Having a mini gaming PC capable of playing Valorant in high definition is not a luxury. Today, in a hyper-competitive context where Valorant is starting to establish itself as a benchmark e-sports title, it is almost an obligation. For players who need to play wherever they are, without being disoriented and without being limited in terms of performance, the choice of the mini PC is a real no-brainer.
