The silly thing is that Pi5, at least currently, tends to idle at basically the same or higher power than your average Intel N100 NUC-like PC. This might change in the near future with firmware upgrades (just like it has changed for Pi 4). Those N100 PCs can be had for ~200€ with SSD, memory etc - ready to go in comparable form factor.
Pi does still make a ton of sense if you keep it rather basic, but equipping it fully with a nice case/cooling, m.2 SSD and proper PSU does bring it within spitting distance of price of basic NUCs. Against those it loses pitifully in performance department (as well as efficiency!) - which you likely cared about at least somewhat if you went out of your way to add performance-related stuff to the Pi to begin with.
The silly thing is that Pi5, at least currently, tends to idle at basically the same or higher power than your average Intel N100 NUC-like PC. This might change in the near future with firmware upgrades (just like it has changed for Pi 4). Those N100 PCs can be had for ~200€ with SSD, memory etc - ready to go in comparable form factor.
Pi does still make a ton of sense if you keep it rather basic, but equipping it fully with a nice case/cooling, m.2 SSD and proper PSU does bring it within spitting distance of price of basic NUCs. Against those it loses pitifully in performance department (as well as efficiency!) - which you likely cared about at least somewhat if you went out of your way to add performance-related stuff to the Pi to begin with.