Yeah, you can get a little Beelink with AMD's new chips and a boatload of RAM for around the price of a mac mini (cheaper if you are trying to max out the mini). The Ryzen AI 9 can run at about 28W I believe, it's not too bad.

I’m running the mini on 7w (averaged over a month). It’s networked at 10gb, which is hard to do on mini pc/nuc without using a lot more power. My other Nucs use 70ish (nuc 9 extreme) or 35 (nuc 10 with thunderbolt dongle).

The mini is also much more powerful.

The is was a bit of a nightmare to tame but I’ve got it sorted now.