What Is the "Smallest Desktop Size"?
The smallest desktop computers today are palm-sized mini PCs, thin clients and fanless industrial PCs that occupy roughly 0.3 to 1.5 litres of volume — often smaller than a paperback book and light enough to mount behind a monitor. Instead of the traditional tower under a desk, these systems shrink the motherboard to a compact board format (typically 3.5-inch, Pico-ITX or a custom carrier), use a low-power processor soldered directly to the board, and rely on passive cooling rather than a fan. The result is a desktop that takes up almost no desk space, runs silently, and can be hidden entirely with a VESA mount.
How Small Can a Desktop Get?
Size is driven mostly by form factor and cooling method. A fanless chassis with an external 12 V adapter can be far smaller than a unit with an internal power supply, and a thin client — designed only to run a remote session — can be smaller still because it needs less storage and fewer ports. The table below shows typical industry size bands so you can compare categories rather than a single model number.
| Category | Typical footprint | Typical volume | Cooling | Typical mounting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nano / stick PC | Wallet-sized | Under 0.2 L | Passive | Direct to display |
| Mini PC / thin client | 100–130 mm square, 25–50 mm tall | 0.3–1.0 L | Passive or small fan | VESA 75/100 behind monitor |
| Fanless industrial PC | 130–200 mm wide, 40–60 mm tall | 0.8– |
