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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).
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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?
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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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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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The loud heat generators are those that belong in the basement. A NUC is what you keep on your desk.
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The desk is in the basement. Upstairs I have my iPad and Chromebook!
I'm very near the point where I don't need the PC...
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Not coding on these devices, I take it?
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Nope. I don't code at home at all anymore.
Hell, I'm at that point in my career where I don't code very much at work anymore. 
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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.
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Rick York wrote: connectivity like with multiple monitors
I use a pair of these 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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I use something similar but much better, in my opinion. It's a device from StarTech and it has DVI and HDMI outputs with very high resolution support. I try to avoid analog displays whenever possible. For the NUCs or Zotac we deploy we do not use display splitting devices. If we need multiple monitors then we use the Zotac boxes.
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So...my NUC only has two DVI outputs. Does StarTech have an adapter that can connect to an arbitrary number of monitors?
At least, going through USB, I can have as many monitors as I have ports, and even then I can use a hub to add more.
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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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Well, I have been using a Gigabyte Brix Pro for lo these 5 or six years, and have not seen a need to upgrade yet.
Intel i-7, 32GB RAM, 2 1TB SSDs, builtin Intel graphics card, Wifi, bluetooth, 4 USB ports (3 USB2, 1 USB3). It is mounted on the VESA rack on the back of my monitor, so no desk space wasted.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, navigate a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects! - Lazarus Long
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Your 5 year old Brix has two 1TB SSDs? 
/ravi
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Yep - one standard 2.5 inch form factor SSD, and one mSATA SSD
(Not what it started out with, but - upgrades, you know)
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, navigate a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects! - Lazarus Long
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Yes, I will wait for these fixes. When Win7 support stops (2020?) I
want to have a compact Linux box ready. Maybe the price will drop
later as well.
73
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If you want to go afer a low foot print (or even mount it behind your monitor in a VESA mount) and don't mind that they're pricier, than comparably powerful less-compact hardawre, go for one! I had one a while ago as a HTPC and should I ever need a HTPC again, a NUC would be my first choice.
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I have used an NUC as my main development machine for 2 years now and its fine. It has 3.1ghz i3, 8gb ram and 240gb SSD. I use 2 1920x1080 monitors with no problem.
I run Windows Server 2008 R2 and have never had any hardware issues apart from it wanting to reboot when you shutdown, but that went away and never came back. I expect it was patched.
I run 3 copies of VS2015/VS2017, multiple tabs of Firefox, Chrome, SSMS and 4 flavours of Sql Server without issue. In fact the only thing that makes it get out of breath is Umbraco, or Episerver.
I wanted something i could take to the office that was very small and robust and its fine. Not only that but it only uses 20-25w of power. For games i have my games machine. For vmware instances i have my vmware server (an old dell workstation with scsi disks).
I think the NUC is great.
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Would the hardware requirements for primary Facebook site usage be higher or lower than general "internet" usage?
Conversely, if internet usage but avoidance of facebook, would a lower spec machine suffice?
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I quite like the idea that NUCs can be mounted on the VESA mounts on the back of your monitor. That's kind of cool.
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We use three NUCs NUC6i5SYK for software development, Windows 10, Visual Studio.
Of course the NUCs have fans. Once I had to clean a fan (it was full of dust).
Samsung 8GB DDR4 PC4-17000 (or 16GB)
Samsung SM951 128GB (or 256GB)
BenQ GL2450HM
Video card completely sufficient.
They are incredibly quiet and they use practically no power.
Plus great customer support. One NUC had a hardware problem and was immediately replaced at no cost.
We are absolutely satisfied with NUCs and can only recommend them.
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I'm a bit late to the party for this thread, but I bought a Celeron semi-DIY NUC (BOXNUC6CAYH) some time ago and I have to say that they're pretty capable machines if you go into it with the right mindset. The specific one I'm using is currently ~$125 but I bought mine when it was $149; the total cost ended up being somewhere around $300 for 2 sticks of 4gb DDR3 RAM and a 2.5" 7200rpm hard drive, up that total cost to somewhere around $410 because I bought an external HDD to supplement it a week or two in. I can't say anything else without repeating what others have already said (USB 3.0, SD Card reader, M.2 SSD support, etc), but I've been putting it through its paces as a media server and so far I haven't been disappointed but with caveats:
- I'm not streaming anything above 1080p
- I'm using Plex as an intermediary media service right now
- The screens I've used it with have had max resolutions of 1920x1080, not trying to run 4k
- I'm not putting it through its paces with things like MadVR
I recommend it if you know that you have a proper use case for it and don't overestimate what a passively cooled CPU - specifically Celeron if you decide to get the BOXNUC6CAYH I did - can do. I actually messed around with running older games on it (Stronghold, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, Quake 1, UT99) and was convinced enough by the performance that a friend and I have been considering making a group investment in a few NUCs (most likely i3s instead of the Celeron boxes) and gear if we want to have a decently-sized LAN night with our other friends without much hassle.
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I installed one in a conference room for a video conferencing solution about 3 years ago, and it's still working great. I had to buy RAM and an SSD separately, but Amazon offers a lot of packages that include them. It also doesn't come with an OS, so budget that separately if you're planning on running Windows on it. The internal video has been fine for playing 1080p video as well as video conferencing using GoToMeeting and Zoom with a 1080p camera. Dell Optiplex also has a micro form factor. It's a little bigger than the NUC, but has more USB ports, full size HDMI, and comes with RAM, SSD, and an OS.
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