To NUC7 or not to NUC7? That is the question.

[mrcorbo]

Newegg has the M.2-only i5 NUC7 bundled with one 4GB stick of DDR4 for $329.

I want to upgrade from an upgraded HP Mini I am using in a second room. The primary uses are web browsing, video streaming and ripped movie playback from a NAS. Any heavier lifting that needs to be done will be done via remote desktop and Steam in-home streaming from my main PC. Beyond the obvious SSD and Windows license I would also be adding a second 4GB stick of DDR4.

If I do this am I going to regret not waiting on the inevitable 8th-gen NUCs and their quad-core CPUs? Or is this price good enough that by the time that becomes an issue I will be OK with upgrading to a new unit?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

You don't need a nuc7 for that.

I got a NUC i3 that runs Kodi and Emby. A pfsense vm and another vm consuming half the ram (my NUC has 8gb). There is some other stuff running in the background as well.

Sometimes I remote into it to do some web browsing while everything is running and it all runs perfectly fine. Maybe not if you want to open 100ths of tabs but for normal use it should be fine.

Streaming from my NAS is no problem at all either even with all the stuff running at the same time.

These nucs really are powerful little things. You would probably be fine with a i3 or you can get a i5 to be safe but a i7 seems overkill for what you plan to use it for.

Edit: misread. You meant the 7th gen and not the i7. Anyway doesn't change things, a i5 should be more than fast enough.

I got the 6th gen i3 for reference. Things like browsing and booting actually seem faster than on my i7 4770 desktop with double the ram and the same SSD (though twice as large).

 

[mrcorbo]

Just read that the 7th gen NUCs are having problems with 4K60 output and don't yet support HDR. Those are two requirements for me, so I will need to wait for those problems to be resolved. I know better to buy on promised, but not yet delivered, functionality.