Budget 0-20k Looking to buy a mini pc

I will recommend the 8th gen i5 version of this NUC. It can be bought for 21K from Lamington Road. Amazon is selling the same thing for 26K which is too high. I bought 2 NUCs yesterday and paired them with Kingston A2000 1TB SSD + 16GB Kingston DDR4 2666mhz ram. It costed me 70K all inclusive for 2 systems. I am very happy with the performance.

I won't recommend the ASRock deskmini as the pricing is poor compared to this NUC and it takes a lot more space on the desk. Thunderbolt port makes the NUC more future proof.
 
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Which store did you buy from Lamington Road? I was looking for a NUC possibly to use as a server that runs 24/7 - ability to run multiple docker units and with some ability to backup the machine from SSD to HDD regularly
 
pguy said:
Which store did you buy from Lamington Road? I was looking for a NUC possibly to use as a server that runs 24/7 - ability to run multiple docker units and with some ability to backup the machine from SSD to HDD regularly
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It is available at most stores. I bought from Maxworld. It's the shop on the right when you enter the lamination road. PrimeABGB is selling for cheaper but I bought from Maxworld since he was ready to give same day delivery to my home.
 
Chaos said:
Buy the i3 nuc (NUC8I3BEH). It is around 20k and far better bang for the buck than the apollo lake based NUCs as it is a proper SoC and not an excuse of an SoC which lacks basic features like AVX and virtualization.

The performance difference between them is immense. The i3 NUC (8th gen Bean Canyon not 10th gen Frost Canyon) is the best one out there as it has 2 cores, 4 threads and a very usable iris plus GPU with 128 megs of cache memory.

I use one for network monitoring, vpn etc and it works really well and is reasonably quiet even at full load. For 19k now on amazon

Amazon.in: Buy Intel NUC Kit - BOXNUC8I3BEH Online at Low Prices in India | Intel Reviews & Ratings

Buy Intel NUC Kit - BOXNUC8I3BEH online at low price in India on Amazon.in. Check out Intel NUC Kit - BOXNUC8I3BEH reviews, ratings, features, specifications and browse more Intel products online at best prices on Amazon.in.
www.amazon.in

Edit: @tech.monk : Deskmini isn't a bad option either but it is a much larger form factor compared to a nuc. Also power consumption is way higher.
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Why did you buy i3 8th gen against i3 10th gen or i5 8th gen? Any particular advantage over the other two? I'm also looking for a Mini PC.

Gigabyte also has Mini PC but no idea about availability in India.
 
Titokhan said:
A couple of queries:
  • Their site doesn't show an actual contact number, while their Facebook page seems to be offline as well. Any other way to contact with them?
  • Any idea regarding the availability of the ASRock DeskMini X300 or the ASUS PN50 in India?
Tagging @msankadi as well.
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Try Calling the Contact number of Devraj Computers - they have Deskmini product but only sold over the counter not sure of PN50 though.

In case if you finalize with Devraj Computers for Deskmini - you will have to work with them or someone else to ship you the same as their office is @ Chennai
 
Parv said:
Why did you buy i3 8th gen against i3 10th gen or i5 8th gen? Any particular advantage over the other two? I'm also looking for a Mini PC.

Gigabyte also has Mini PC but no idea about availability in India.
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Probably bcoz the 10th Gen CPU is not much of a jump, but the IGP is a BIG downgrade.
 
Parv said:
Why did you buy i3 8th gen against i3 10th gen or i5 8th gen? Any particular advantage over the other two? I'm also looking for a Mini PC.

Gigabyte also has Mini PC but no idea about availability in India.
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The i5 8th gen gets very hot and gets very noisy at load. It almost sounds like a jet engine.

The i3 10th gen has HD620 instead of Iris Pro Graphics which is less than half the gpu performance.
 
Chaos said:
The i5 8th gen gets very hot and gets very noisy at load. It almost sounds like a jet engine.

The i3 10th gen has HD620 instead of Iris Pro Graphics which is less than half the gpu performance.
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And btw just want to thank you again for your recommendation.

It has been a great experience over the last month and no hiccups...played many 4k raw Blu-rays and the system is able to handle it flawlessly...

Torrents dont even realize it is running in background hardly lower digit cpu usage for 400+ torrents

Using Microsoft edge, much better optimized than chrome now (based on chromium) - Easily use 20 odd tabs without reloading while keeping ram around 1900 mb and cpu usage <20%

Even some basic games from Epic like FM 2020 worked well to my surprise, that wasn't one of my use cases for this machine. I use my ps4 and xbox for gaming though.
 
delhiboy1 said:
Probably bcoz the 10th Gen CPU is not much of a jump, but the IGP is a BIG downgrade.
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Thanks for clarification.

Chaos said:
The i5 8th gen gets very hot and gets very noisy at load. It almost sounds like a jet engine.

The i3 10th gen has HD620 instead of Iris Pro Graphics which is less than half the gpu performance.
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Thanks. I have placed the order for the i3 8th gen NUC from Amazon Appario Retail for 17k yesterday.

Now please suggest RAM and SSD for balanced performance with this CPU/iGPU.
 
Parv said:
Thanks. I have placed the order for the i3 8th gen NUC from Amazon Appario Retail for 17k yesterday.

Now please suggest RAM and SSD for balanced performance with this CPU/iGPU.
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Just put whatever you feel like. I have s Kingston a2000 500GB and crucial value sodimm 2666 as these were the cheapest nvme and laptop ram available then.
 
Chaos said:
Just put whatever you feel like. I have s Kingston a2000 500GB and crucial value sodimm 2666 as these were the cheapest nvme and laptop ram available then.
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Thanks.

Kingston A2000 500GB is 5.7k while WD Blue is 5.4k and also seems faster. Isn't WD better?

Crucial 2 x 8GB 2666 is 6k.
 
Parv said:
Thanks.

Kingston A2000 500GB is 5.7k while WD Blue is 5.4k and also seems faster. Isn't WD better?

Crucial 2 x 8GB 2666 is 6k.
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Either is fine - whatever is cheaper. Same with RAM. This platform supports only 2400 so even 2400 will do of whatever brand you can get.

When I bought it, these were the cheapest things I could buy.
 
@Chaos Thanks for the recommendations.
@msankadi Thanks for starting the thread and your experience as well.
I got the 8th gen i3 NUC and paired it with 2x8 GB crucial value ram and A2000 500GB Nvme. It is a replacement for my Dad's 13 year old desktop. Doing great so far.
It can do some decent gaming as well - fired up GTA-V (low settings) and it worked.
 
Elessar said:
@Chaos Thanks for the recommendations.
@msankadi Thanks for starting the thread and your experience as well.
I got the 8th gen i3 NUC and paired it with 2x8 GB crucial value ram and A2000 500GB Nvme. It is a replacement for my Dad's 13 year old desktop. Doing great so far.
It can do some decent gaming as well - fired up GTA-V (low settings) and it worked.
Click to expand...
Remember to buy a usb hub any cheap one will do to use with the Bluetooth keyboard mouse dongle to avoid interference and lag issues
 
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