Budget 21-30k I3 NUC for Ubuntu Desktop

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dpandey

Adept
Guys, I need some help.

I am thinking of buying an intel nuc for casual desktop usage (browsing/media consumption). It will be connected to a 4k monitor. I am not looking for computing power. I have a mid tower desktop that I will move to another room and access using vnc.

I was wondering if I will experience any slowness on NUC7I3BNH (https://www.amazon.in/Intel-BOXNUC7I3BNH-NUC-Kit-Components/dp/B01N4EOJNG/). I will install a M.2 SSD and 8GB RAM.

Looking for something that can handle Ubuntu releases for next 3-4 years.

The next version (i5) is Rs 8000 more, I would prefer the i3 :)
 
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dpandey said:
Guys, I need some help.

I am thinking of buying an intel nuc for casual desktop usage (browsing/media consumption). It will be connected to a 4k monitor. I am not looking for computing power. I have a mid tower desktop that I will move to another room and access using vnc.

I was wondering if I will experience any slowness on NUC7I3BNH (https://www.amazon.in/Intel-BOXNUC7I3BNH-NUC-Kit-Components/dp/B01N4EOJNG/). I will install a M.2 SSD and 8GB RAM.

Looking for something that can handle Ubuntu releases for next 3-4 years.

The next version (i5) is Rs 8000 more, I would prefer the i3 :)
Click to expand...
Its the same as i3 laptops. If you find a laptop in that range, better to get that since its same power proc with ram and hdd.
You shouldnt face any issues with ssd. But check for ubuntu compatibility. On windows its fast once updates are no longer running in background.
 
NUC is over priced imo. You can use that NUC for Ubuntu 18 without any performance issues. I use a base model Celeron NUC with just 4GB ram for my xubuntu installation for this very purpose of browsing content. Laptop would be better imo. Because for the NUC you end up buying each and everything from wifi keyboard + mouse, to hdd and ram. extra money going in every direction. If you use usb keyboard and mouse, you're blocking 2 of the 4 usb ports and then you end up shelling another 1.2k for a usb 3 hub.

This Dell i3 8130U runs Ubuntu and is 29K.
https://www.amazon.in/Dell-Vostro-3478-14-inch-Laptop/dp/B07H7LBXLR/
 
mayank_asthana said:
NUCs in India are overpriced. You can consider buying from AliExpress, way cheaper. If you get unlucky and get charged customs it is still ending up cheaper. Buy the ones with high number of orders and rating. Also there is a black Friday sale coming up.
Don't buy any SSDs from there though.

https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/bwTLEV32
and
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/bqJ9jvj6
Look like good options.
Click to expand...
NUC comes with 3 yrs warranty and ive never seen one go bad lol
 
Thanks Guys. Appreciate your responses.

Picked up the i3 NUC at 3 PM (+ 8 GB RAM stick + 240GB WD Blue M.2 card). Came to 32k. The plan to go to the market was made in a hurry and I had to take a decision quickly.

I had never thought of a laptop as an alternative to NUC (I was evaluating a uITX+i3 as an alternative). But now that you guys have mentioned it, I will have make up some reasons to justify my choice :)[DOUBLEPOST=1542746531][/DOUBLEPOST]Installed Uubuntu 18.04 LTS. Posting this from the NUC.

This thing is really small. My pentium nuc is 1.5 times this size.

So far ok, but everything seems a little slower. Will see how it performs when I start using it for real work.

The nuc placed next to a 27 inch monitor.

20181121_015356.jpg
 
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dpandey said:
Thanks Guys. Appreciate your responses.

Picked up the i3 NUC at 3 PM (+ 8 GB RAM stick + 240GB WD Blue M.2 card). Came to 32k. The plan to go to the market was made in a hurry and I had to take a decision quickly.

I had never thought of a laptop as an alternative to NUC (I was evaluating a uITX+i3 as an alternative). But now that you guys have mentioned it, I will have make up some reasons to justify my choice :)[DOUBLEPOST=1542746531][/DOUBLEPOST]Installed Uubuntu 18.04 LTS. Posting this from the NUC.

This thing is really small. My pentium nuc is 1.5 times this size.

So far ok, but everything seems a little slower. Will see how it performs when I start using it for real work.

The nuc placed next to a 27 inch monitor.

View attachment 77554
Click to expand...
Congrats mate!
Update firmware and ubuntu too. Check on amazon.com reviews for any tips on making ubuntu faster on it. Could be drivers or something. Its a good machine provided no background tasks are going on. Since its just a dual core, it will be slow. You could have got a samsung evo at that price though. Why green :|
 
Party Monger said:
Congrats mate!
Update firmware and ubuntu too. Check on amazon.com reviews for any tips on making ubuntu faster on it. Could be drivers or something. Its a good machine provided no background tasks are going on. Since its just a dual core, it will be slow. You could have got a samsung evo at that price though. Why green :|
Click to expand...

Thanks man. I am probably making an unfair comparison. The machine I was using before this was a i7-4770 on a Asus gaming mobo. It is quite usable. Just that the apps dont pop out fast enough; or the boot takes about 30 secs (as opposed to 12-13).

As for SSD, WD's warranty support made the decision. The last time my Samsung evo failed, I had to travel 50 km (25*2) on two days to get a replacement.

1440p videos from Youtube play smoothly. Still don't have a 4k monitor, so can't say about 4k playback.

The CPU usage is about 25-30%. Browser open with six tabs with one running youtube.
 
Go to Intel site and download latest bios. The boot is slow because of systemd and snap packages that come pre installed. Every one of them makes a loopback device before the desktop is started. Another reason is some journal cache or something taking time. If you run "systemd-analyze" in terminal, you'll get a list of services that make the boot times suck.

on my slow poke pc with 2.5 hdd
Code: 
Startup finished in 22.581s (firmware) + 12.392s (loader) + 28.233s (kernel) + 45.063s (userspace) = 1min 48.271s
graphical.target reached after 45.033s in userspace

Quite slow. So I don't shut it down at all. Up time is in days for me till the next firmware update or ubuntu base which will make me restart the pc.

"systemd-analyze blame" will give top time hogging services during boot. Mostly its apt-daily for everyone since it waits for the network service to start.

For me -
Code: 
 31.702s apt-daily.service
         26.144s dev-sda2.device
         12.943s dev-loop8.device
         12.811s dev-loop5.device
         12.799s dev-loop4.device
         12.785s dev-loop3.device
         12.781s dev-loop0.device
         12.504s dev-loop2.device
         11.151s dev-loop7.device
         10.776s dev-loop9.device
          9.822s dev-loop10.device
          7.922s snapd.service
          7.091s snap-gnome\x2d3\x2d26\x2d1604-74.mount
          6.928s apparmor.service
          6.876s systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
          6.555s plymouth-read-write.service
          5.696s snap-gnome\x2d3\x2d26\x2d1604-70.mount
          5.433s snap-gnome\x2dlogs-45.mount
          5.411s snap-core-5662.mount
          5.409s snap-gnome\x2dlogs-43.mount
          5.388s snap-gtk\x2dcommon\x2dthemes-701.mount
..........
 
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dpandey said:
Thanks man. I am probably making an unfair comparison. The machine I was using before this was a i7-4770 on a Asus gaming mobo. It is quite usable. Just that the apps dont pop out fast enough; or the boot takes about 30 secs (as opposed to 12-13).

As for SSD, WD's warranty support made the decision. The last time my Samsung evo failed, I had to travel 50 km (25*2) on two days to get a replacement.

1440p videos from Youtube play smoothly. Still don't have a 4k monitor, so can't say about 4k playback.

The CPU usage is about 25-30%. Browser open with six tabs with one running youtube.
Click to expand...
Haha 4770 is a quad core man :p
Wow you're literally the first person who i heard had a samsung ssd go bad. The problem with WD is the terrible performance. Samsungs are miles better. But ofcourse, it will give 90% of the performance anyway.

Even 4k will play smoothly. There wont be issues with stuff like videos etc.
 
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