• Visitors can check out the Forum FAQ by clicking this link. You have to register before you can post: click the REGISTER link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. View our Forum Privacy Policy.
  • Want to receive the latest contracting news and advice straight to your inbox? Sign up to the ContractorUK newsletter here. Every sign up will also be entered into a draw to WIN £100 Amazon vouchers!

Why go for top of the range desktop v Intel NUC or similar ?

Collapse
X
  •  
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • sal
    replied
    Haven't looked at dimensions of the PCI-x slots, but no way to fit a decent GPU in the case for sure. And no way to power it with the tiny PSU.

    It defeats the purpose of the NUC, it's like buying a small city car only to hitch a trailer on it and try using it as a delivery van.

    As anonymouse said, NUCs serve a niche market - media centres, office PC slapped on the back of the display with a VESA mount fro tidiness, homebrew routers/firewalls locked in a cupboard etc.

    Sure you can bastardise them to work as a high spec desktop PC, but what's the point.

    Leave a comment:


  • d000hg
    replied
    Would you physically be able to fit a decent GPU in one? Aren't they using multiple PCI-X slots these days?

    Leave a comment:


  • anonymouse
    replied
    NUC or desktop

    I have a NUC as a media device in the lounge, it's small, it's silent, it just needs to be quick enough for its job. It does fine.
    It depends on what you are wanting to be running, I have an i5 9 running in a Mini ITX mounted via VESA on the back of the monitor.

    NUC are always more expensive than desktop, I have found.

    Leave a comment:


  • vwdan
    replied
    SATA is going to be faster and more reliable than USB3 for storage, for a start. No option for offboard GPU. Slower CPU's, no real room for upgrade.

    NUCs are fine if you want a NUC, and they have their place, but for performance users a desktop (or even a high spec laptop) will always win out

    Leave a comment:


  • sal
    replied
    NUC is more expensive at the end of the day for high specs. Also uses U series laptop grade CPUs which are slower than their desktop counterparts.

    The only benefit of a NUC is that it's small.

    Also another major disadvantage is that it's limited to Intel. Last 2 generations of AMD CPUs are far superior and will remain so for the next couple of years at least. While Intel gets their tulip together and solve the delays around the 7nm process that is now scheduled for 2021.

    Leave a comment:


  • Hobosapien
    replied
    All depends on what uses it needs to cater for. Most people would likely do fine with a Raspberry PI 4 running Android rather than a relatively expensive NUC, when browsing and basic apps are the most common usage.

    Leave a comment:


  • DimPrawn
    replied
    Under high CPU load it will get hot and throttle.

    If you spec it up it isn't really much cheaper than a similar spec desktop.

    Leave a comment:


  • Why go for top of the range desktop v Intel NUC or similar ?

    Possibly a silly question, but if one bought an 8th generation Intel NUC in what ways would it fall short of a clunking great up-to-date tip-top spec desktop?

    Disk space wouldn't be a problem because one could use external disks, and I would imagine the latest NUC models support a large amount of RAM.

    But there must be some aspects where a desktop would out-perform it. Graphics maybe?

Working...
X