Looking at a NUC8I5BEW -are there better options?

Edgar Montgommery · 27 Nov 2019 at 23:31

Hi guys,

Was an active member here a few years ago when I built my first PC (5820k/980- also needs upgrading!) but login lost or gone!

Looking at a smallish form-factor PC for the man cave. Would like it to run 4k video, streams etc without issue. The potential to upgrade GPU (even if external enclosure) would be nice.

The NUC8I5BEW has caught my attention as something that might be suitable. I definitely don't need anything that small though.

Any better options to look at?

Budget of £500ish

Cheers!

Emlyn_Dewar · 28 Nov 2019 at 10:59

Missing the nice to have GPU upgrade, have you thought about the Asrock Deskmini and one of the AMD APUs? Good bit more GPU horsepower.
Other than that, you could probably get a decent enough build done for £500, especially since you don't need anything mega small.

I like the NUCs, and it'd do what you need, if you don't need it mega small though. I'd go for something else.

KraniX · 1 Dec 2019 at 15:41

Emlyn_Dewar said:
Missing the nice to have GPU upgrade, have you thought about the Asrock Deskmini and one of the AMD APUs? Good bit more GPU horsepower.
Other than that, you could probably get a decent enough build done for £500, especially since you don't need anything mega small.

I like the NUCs, and it'd do what you need, if you don't need it mega small though. I'd go for something else.

Thanks for the heads up on the Desk Mini, looking at getting a NUC but this might be a nice option for me.

What APU would you recommend? Looking for best bang for buck, mostly office work etc.

The AMD Ryzen 5 3400G was recommend when I was looking at the case, price was about £120, anything better on the horizon?

Emlyn_Dewar · 2 Dec 2019 at 08:05

I would choose the 2400G over the 3400G just to save some cash. The performance difference just isn't that interesting to justify.
The 2200G would work well for the tasks described, but always nice to have more CPU/GPU cores.

NUC10's are due soon, so it could be worth holding out just to get the newest specs.

Uncle_Gravy · 2 Dec 2019 at 15:44

I'm kinda looking similar here, I like the idea of the Dell Optiplex of Micro PCs (I'm using a 3050 in work) but they don't have thunderbolt to run to an external GPU Exclosure.

KraniX · 3 Dec 2019 at 19:41

Emlyn_Dewar said:
I would choose the 2400G over the 3400G just to save some cash. The performance difference just isn't that interesting to justify.
The 2200G would work well for the tasks described, but always nice to have more CPU/GPU cores.

NUC10's are due soon, so it could be worth holding out just to get the newest specs.

The 3400G seems cheaper in a few places oddly.

Good shout on the NUC10s though, worth seeing what they offer.

Avalon · 26 Dec 2019 at 01:00

I know I’m late to the party here, but as you’re waiting for the NUC 10’s and with a mainly streaming/4K workload I’d throw a curve ball into this - The Nvidia Shield. It’s relatively inexpensive, appliance like boot times/UI, reasonable control options, supports 4K along with the usual media front ends such as Plex/Emby/JF, IPTV is well catered for, has the usual Netflix/NowTV/iPlayer etc. access, will stream games from steam via Steam Link and via Nvidia’s own game streaming Nvidia Games/GameStream (was GeForce Now) and includes a bunch of free titles that are actually pretty reasonable for casual gaming - you also have an Nvidia GPU that’s perfectly adequate to play AAA titles comfortably at 1080p, may as well get that to do the heavy lifting.