Intel NUC
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The last time I bought a desktop PC was about two years ago and I did not look at what is currently available until yesterday. Now I find variations of the mini Intel NUC PC everywhere. Looks good, lots of configuration options. Any user comments?
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Wow, I'm guessing the naysayers who have responded so far have NOT used a NUC, or they simply didn't know what to expect or make of it. They certainly have their uses. There's Celeron-based NUCs that can be had for USD$125, but clearly - you can't build any sort of good machine around that, regardless of form factor. I practically spend my entire time working off of virtual machines (running on a physical host in another room, at the office 70 kms away, or on Azure), so the machine I have on my desk doesn't matter all that much. What matters to me is that I have something that's quiet, isn't a huge power draw, and doesn't generate a ton of heat. That rules out a lot of standard machines. My VM host has loud fans and is quite the heat source (bad in the summer), so I didn't want it in my home office. That machine is tucked away in another room so I don't see or hear it, and I remote into it from the NUC on my desk. I bought my first NUC (NUC5i5MYBE) almost 3 years ago when I first learned they could drive 4K monitors. So I have a 40" 4K TV as my main display running off of it, plus a 24" 1920x1200 monitor and a 27" 1920x1080 (both running off of VGA to USB 3 adapters). It boots up ridiculously fast. With an SSD and 16GB RAM, nearly everything I do locally gets an immediate response. This is fast enough to run three 1080p videos on all 3 monitors at the same time without ever dropping a single frame. It's no gaming machine, but that's not what I got it for. I've certainly used much slower laptops - it's an i5, 2.3 GHz, and 4 logical CPUs (2 cores + hyperthreading) so it's really no slouch. Since then I've purchased a second one (NUC7i5BNH) as that newer generation can handle 32GB of RAM, and my main VM host (with 64GB) was getting bogged down, and I had a need to start creating a bunch of Linux VMs. And I didn't want another loud, power-hungry beast running 24/7. While I don't run VS itself on it, given that some people are okay coding on old(ish) laptops, I could certainly see someone doing that on a NUC. And, they support virtualization, so even one with "merely" 16GB of RAM will do if you don't need a bunch of heavyweight VMs. YMMV, but please - nobody will convince me there's no place for them.
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You get what you pay for. A cheap PC with no cooling and a tiny motherboard, which will make impossible to install any good sound card or video card. No cooling means overheating and life-span of a couple of years or so. All you can do is upgrade your hard drive, probably only one and add some memory. Some people use their PCs to browse the internet and to send e-mail. If that is what you need, go ahead. When I buy a PC I go to a custom PC builder web site and select some quality components in a big box with water cooling. Like this per example: [SABRE GTX - 4K Star Citizen Battle Station](http://www.extreme-pc.ca/showproduct.asp?productid=370123&menu1id=10&menu2id=5&menu3id=40) And then stick with it for 5+ years gradually upgrading components as needed.
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
They have a fan. They have USB 3 ports. You can run as many external hard drives as you wish. Who still installs separate sound cards? The built-in Intel video chipset is more than sufficient for a lot of applications. But gaming machines, they are not. You clearly are not drawing a fair comparison. Different purposes.
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The last time I bought a desktop PC was about two years ago and I did not look at what is currently available until yesterday. Now I find variations of the mini Intel NUC PC everywhere. Looks good, lots of configuration options. Any user comments?
73
I have a 1 year old Core i5 NUC with 16Gb RAM / 1 TB SSD running Windows 10 Pro. For the first 6-8 months it hung intermittently (1 in 5 times) upon boot or very soon after. If it made it through the first few minutes it was solid for as long as it remained on. Very frustrating. After a bunch of Intel driver updates a few months back it's MUCH better. I don't want to curse it by saying it's totally fixed. Let's just say I'm cautiously optimistic.
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I have a 1 year old Core i5 NUC with 16Gb RAM / 1 TB SSD running Windows 10 Pro. For the first 6-8 months it hung intermittently (1 in 5 times) upon boot or very soon after. If it made it through the first few minutes it was solid for as long as it remained on. Very frustrating. After a bunch of Intel driver updates a few months back it's MUCH better. I don't want to curse it by saying it's totally fixed. Let's just say I'm cautiously optimistic.
Never had as much of a stutter on either of mine except for music streaming off of my LAN, but that turned out to be a player problem. As you wrote, driver updates might help - but have you also looked at upgrading the BIOS? Intel seems to do a better job of regularly providing BIOS updates than most motherboard manufacturers. That said, avoid the very recent Spectre/Meltdown updates. In this particular case, Intel's actually rolled back one of them (but then, that's not a problem specific to NUCs).
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They have a fan. They have USB 3 ports. You can run as many external hard drives as you wish. Who still installs separate sound cards? The built-in Intel video chipset is more than sufficient for a lot of applications. But gaming machines, they are not. You clearly are not drawing a fair comparison. Different purposes.
The Intel NUC machines are the Microsoft/Intel response to the popularity of the android smart TV media boxes. None of the ones I have seen have a fan, so it's a niche media center/smartTV streaming PC. Some people are happy with what is on the mother board, some are not. And I do install ASUS sound cards on my PCs, there IS a difference if paired with quality headphones.
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
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Never had as much of a stutter on either of mine except for music streaming off of my LAN, but that turned out to be a player problem. As you wrote, driver updates might help - but have you also looked at upgrading the BIOS? Intel seems to do a better job of regularly providing BIOS updates than most motherboard manufacturers. That said, avoid the very recent Spectre/Meltdown updates. In this particular case, Intel's actually rolled back one of them (but then, that's not a problem specific to NUCs).
I was probably too vague in my post. I've done every BIOS update that's come along (not including the most recent Spectre/Meltdown ones). So it could have been one of them that has improved things. BTW - What's the problem with the current Intel Spectre/Meltdown updates?
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The last time I bought a desktop PC was about two years ago and I did not look at what is currently available until yesterday. Now I find variations of the mini Intel NUC PC everywhere. Looks good, lots of configuration options. Any user comments?
73
At my company we have a LOT of them for people who use primarily web-based apps and MS Office. For users like those the NUCs work well. We also have a number of what we call "marquee apps" for the factory floor and we use them for some of those. If you need something that is a step up from an NUC, Zotac has little boxes that are a bit more capable. Some have pretty good graphics chips in them and cost about twice as much as an NUC. We use those when we need a bit more horsepower and connectivity like with multiple monitors and NICs.
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The Intel NUC machines are the Microsoft/Intel response to the popularity of the android smart TV media boxes. None of the ones I have seen have a fan, so it's a niche media center/smartTV streaming PC. Some people are happy with what is on the mother board, some are not. And I do install ASUS sound cards on my PCs, there IS a difference if paired with quality headphones.
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
Sounds like you're thinking of the Intel Compute Stick. That competes directly with the Android TV boxes, and yes, with - what, 2GB of RAM? are rather unappealing to me. Maybe the Celeron-based NUCs don't have CPU fans, but the i3/i5/i7 ones, AFAIK, all do as they, after all, are the same mobile CPUs used in laptops. [Edit] Not to detract the conversion, but: I have a neighbor who calls himself an audiophile (the type who's spent tens of thousands in receivers and amps). Personally, I'm at a loss to suggest a soundcard to him - beyond what's build into motherboards these days. ASUS isn't exactly known as a high-end audio hardware maker. While I have little doubt it's better than onboard audio, I have to ask - have you ever looked at what else is out there?
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I was probably too vague in my post. I've done every BIOS update that's come along (not including the most recent Spectre/Meltdown ones). So it could have been one of them that has improved things. BTW - What's the problem with the current Intel Spectre/Meltdown updates?
Mike Mullikin wrote:
BTW - What's the problem with the current Intel Spectre/Meltdown updates?
Oh, boy, where do I start? Have you been hiding under a rock? :-) Intel's pretty much taken down every single BIOS updates they've published so far because of "random freezes" and "more frequent unexpected reboots". Running joke is that "more frequent than 0" is indeed a very bad thing. I just happen to have installed one of the updates that has been taken down, but I haven't seen a single problem so far...so unless the situation changes, I'm not going to roll it back.
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The last time I bought a desktop PC was about two years ago and I did not look at what is currently available until yesterday. Now I find variations of the mini Intel NUC PC everywhere. Looks good, lots of configuration options. Any user comments?
73
I have a NUC configured as follows: i3 processor 240 GB SSD - O/S + other software 500 GB HDD - TFS database I use it as my TFS server (with a backup configured to another machine), and it does everything that I need it to do. It's also quiet, small, and I use Remote Desktop in order to manage it. As far as I'm concerned, it's an almost ideal solution for my needs. The NUC comes with attachments for a VESA mount. I have seen schools in Israel that use a NUC attached to the back of a monitor as PCs. Their advantage is that you need no room for the system box.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill
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Mike Mullikin wrote:
BTW - What's the problem with the current Intel Spectre/Meltdown updates?
Oh, boy, where do I start? Have you been hiding under a rock? :-) Intel's pretty much taken down every single BIOS updates they've published so far because of "random freezes" and "more frequent unexpected reboots". Running joke is that "more frequent than 0" is indeed a very bad thing. I just happen to have installed one of the updates that has been taken down, but I haven't seen a single problem so far...so unless the situation changes, I'm not going to roll it back.
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Sounds like you're thinking of the Intel Compute Stick. That competes directly with the Android TV boxes, and yes, with - what, 2GB of RAM? are rather unappealing to me. Maybe the Celeron-based NUCs don't have CPU fans, but the i3/i5/i7 ones, AFAIK, all do as they, after all, are the same mobile CPUs used in laptops. [Edit] Not to detract the conversion, but: I have a neighbor who calls himself an audiophile (the type who's spent tens of thousands in receivers and amps). Personally, I'm at a loss to suggest a soundcard to him - beyond what's build into motherboards these days. ASUS isn't exactly known as a high-end audio hardware maker. While I have little doubt it's better than onboard audio, I have to ask - have you ever looked at what else is out there?
Alright I don't want to drive this too far but here: [Intel® NUC Ecosystem Enabling Specification](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/desktops/nuc-ecosystem-enabling-technical-spec.html) Virtually all of them state Cooling: Passive (fanless) with very few exceptions.
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
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Alright I don't want to drive this too far but here: [Intel® NUC Ecosystem Enabling Specification](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/desktops/nuc-ecosystem-enabling-technical-spec.html) Virtually all of them state Cooling: Passive (fanless) with very few exceptions.
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
"Provides the technical specifications for the Intel® NUC ecosystem, including specs for tested hardware, design-ready and design-in-progress chassis, and peripherals" So, it's a spec, probably for OEMs, but it seems to me like the ones they sell themselves tend to include a fan regardless.
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You get what you pay for. A cheap PC with no cooling and a tiny motherboard, which will make impossible to install any good sound card or video card. No cooling means overheating and life-span of a couple of years or so. All you can do is upgrade your hard drive, probably only one and add some memory. Some people use their PCs to browse the internet and to send e-mail. If that is what you need, go ahead. When I buy a PC I go to a custom PC builder web site and select some quality components in a big box with water cooling. Like this per example: [SABRE GTX - 4K Star Citizen Battle Station](http://www.extreme-pc.ca/showproduct.asp?productid=370123&menu1id=10&menu2id=5&menu3id=40) And then stick with it for 5+ years gradually upgrading components as needed.
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
You do know that you can build your own PC with superior specs for a little more than half the price than the one in your link and it can be done in less than two hours right? The markup on those machines is unbelievable.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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dandy72 wrote:
Have you been hiding under a rock?
A little. My NUC is in my basement... which is being remodeled... so I haven't done much of anything with it in a few weeks and probably won't for another few weeks. Good timing I guess.
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You do know that you can build your own PC with superior specs for a little more than half the price than the one in your link and it can be done in less than two hours right? The markup on those machines is unbelievable.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
Price is in canadian pessos, not sure if you considered that. Edit: $2,384.00 US vs $3,125.33 CAD for that particular PC I actually did once a calculation based on prices from newegg, including delivery for each component and the markup was around 100-200 dollars with one year warranty.
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
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At my company we have a LOT of them for people who use primarily web-based apps and MS Office. For users like those the NUCs work well. We also have a number of what we call "marquee apps" for the factory floor and we use them for some of those. If you need something that is a step up from an NUC, Zotac has little boxes that are a bit more capable. Some have pretty good graphics chips in them and cost about twice as much as an NUC. We use those when we need a bit more horsepower and connectivity like with multiple monitors and NICs.
Rick York wrote:
connectivity like with multiple monitors
I use a pair of [these](https://plugable.com/products/usb3-vga/) with mine. They predate the NUC in fact, and I have a spare one - I can confirm it'll run all three simultaneously at full 1080p resolution.
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Price is in canadian pessos, not sure if you considered that. Edit: $2,384.00 US vs $3,125.33 CAD for that particular PC I actually did once a calculation based on prices from newegg, including delivery for each component and the markup was around 100-200 dollars with one year warranty.
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
Not including the video card since coin miners have driven up the prices to absurd levels, you can still get a better rig for that price. My latest build: Case - $130: Thermaltake Core V71 Full Tower CPU - $330: Intel Core i7-7740X MoBo - $350: ASUS ROG STRIX x299-E RAM - $181: G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB (2x8GB) SDD - $204: Intel SSD 600p M.2 512GB SSD fast as hell, BTW, Win 10 boots in seconds Total - $1195 w/free shipping I salvaged a EVGA GeForce 970 and several SSD's and spinning disks from the old rig so that helped. The 1070's now are running like $950 so that drives the price up for new.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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Not including the video card since coin miners have driven up the prices to absurd levels, you can still get a better rig for that price. My latest build: Case - $130: Thermaltake Core V71 Full Tower CPU - $330: Intel Core i7-7740X MoBo - $350: ASUS ROG STRIX x299-E RAM - $181: G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB (2x8GB) SDD - $204: Intel SSD 600p M.2 512GB SSD fast as hell, BTW, Win 10 boots in seconds Total - $1195 w/free shipping I salvaged a EVGA GeForce 970 and several SSD's and spinning disks from the old rig so that helped. The 1070's now are running like $950 so that drives the price up for new.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
For the record the list you provide is NOT the PC I have linked. Not by a long shot. Only the ASUS ROG GeForce GTX 1070 STRIX is $754.99 ok? here some of the actual components: Intel 7th Gen Core i7-7700K Desktop Processor (BX80677I77700K) by Intel CDN$ 398.00 ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero $340.99 IN WIN 805 BLACK Black Aluminum $225.99 ASUS ROG GeForce GTX 1070 STRIX $754.99 If we add the rest, it will be pretty close to what they charge. Anyway, every 5 years or so I order a completely new PC and I kinda prefer the assembly to be done by a pro :)
throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
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The loud heat generators are those that belong in the basement. A NUC is what you keep on your desk. :-)