I have been into audio since my father bought me my first amplifier - a monaural tube amp - when I was a high school junior in 1958. I have been into personal computers since I bought an IBM PC with two 360Kb floppy drives in 1984. I worked my way up to senior network administrator in the 90's and was an independent contractor hired to do the desktop computing Y2K mitigation at the Pacific [Stock] Exchange, which took all of 1999. I stopped working in desktop support and network administration in 2001, but then - and now - I was never as astute and proficient as many of my colleagues over the years, especially the younger ones. And now, nearly 20 years later, I am living as a expat/retiree in a small mountain resort/agricultural town in Western Panama - with 160Mb internet. Below is my computer setup which includes a decent, bass-limited audio system. I hate to admit it, but I am an Intel NUC fan-boy (fan-geezer?)
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Case Size and CPU Speed: My Intel NUC8i7BEH with a 1Gb M.2 SSD boots in 15 seconds and benchmarks faster than my previous - and much bigger - Lenovo M900 SFF, also an Intel i7-powered PC. (Click the below image to enlarge it)
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Fan issues: With a slight breeze outside my window and the refrigerator running in the next room, I cannot hear the NUC fan - but it would likely be audible during very quiet passages of music or video in the evening with the window closed and the fridge not running.
USB Ports: NUC's are notorious for not working with Logitech unifying receivers for mice and keyboards that are plugged into a front or back USB port unless you use a USB extension cable. To eliminate that inconvenience, but I just installed an aftermarket "Gorite" lid with two rear USB ports that connect to the two internal auxiliary USB 2.0 connectors - works great and does not take up one of the five USB 3.1 ports (two in front and three in back).
NUC8's also have a HDMI 7.1 digital (HDMI mDP) port, and one of the USB 3.1 ports is a Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C port providing DisplayPort 1.2 or USB 3.1 connectivity.
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I transferred an old copy of Windows 10 Home from a dead laptop to my NUC8i7, but if you want a "free" non-Microsoft OS, you can run any of several Linux flavors. I do a lot of A/V (MP3, MP4, FLAC, MKV, M4V) re-encoding, subtitle extraction, translation and manipulations - all with a collection of excellent freeware that is currently available. My NUC is pretty fast at encoding and re-encoding.
When 4Tb SSDs drop to a price point that I can live with, I will get two of them - one to install in the NUC, and an external one that I can first back up to, and then afterwards sync to via the high-speed USB ports. My experience with 3.1 USB flash drives is that they are at least 10 times faster at transferring data than USB 2.x storage devices. I now own a few 32-128Gb USB 3.1 flash drives for transfers and daily use, and periodically back up any media files that cannot be easily replaced to my older, slower mechanical 4Tb external drives. With the high speeds available using the latest USB formats, I will probably eliminate my ethernet-based NAS in the near future.
NUCs vs applications: Unless you are a serious gamer or a 4K/8K, 16-channel videophile needing slots to plug in power-sucking monster video cards, I believe that NUCs are excellent PCs for everyday use.
I really, really like my desktop computer/audio system (see the top photo). Combined with an excellent I.AM.D DAC/amp (probably 40wpc and not the laughable 150wpc that is advertised), and a USB audio connection that was instantly recognized by my Win10 NUC, everything runs flawlessly - and the NUC is fast and cool running.
I also have an old NUC5CPYH, an Intel Celeron-based unit that I use as my HTPC - but I only do two-channel 1080p video and up to FLAC audio. I dual boot the Celeron NUC - to Daphile on the internal SSD, or LibreElec/Kodi on a USB stick, and it plays any of my A/V files with no issues. Just be aware, that as Intel explicitly states,
"Intel® NUC products don't allow you to boot directly from SD cards". But I don't care, because they boot just fine from a tiny USB drive.
I am retired and don't travel, and do not want or need a laptop - my relatively new Lenovo 10" Android tablet works perfectly for the rare occasions that I want to use a "computer" away from home. I decided a few months ago that I wanted to miniaturize my primary working computer/desktop audio. Since the prices for new hardware had come down a lot, I spent a bit to modify and upgrade my system last year, and I think that I have succeeded magnificently. My biggest desktop computing component is now my HP 24" monitor - with 1920x1080 resolution and a bezel on the top and sides that is less than 2mm wide.
For anyone who can afford it, I recommend an Intel NUC8i5 (or 8i7) or later with high speed USB 3.1 ports and Thunderbolt-Displayport compatibility for 8K/60fps video. And a $20-30 Gorite aftermarket lid if you need a couple extra ports of any kind. You can use your old 2.5" mechanical HDD, and add a small SSD for super-fast booting - or do like I did, install a tiny 1Tb M.2 SSD and be done with it. I suggest 8Gb of RAM, 16Gb gives you a bit more performance, but except for rare applications, more than 16Gb will probably not do much.
I did a lot of research - and a bit of trial and error - to finally get to a computer and desktop audio system I have no desire to "upgrade". I hope that this information will help a few others on their own personal paths to a similar goal.
Edit: I put a copy of this post in the
dedicated NUC thread I started on November 2, 2019