Intel BOXNUC8i5BEH1 Bean Canyon NUC Components Other

I bought this to replace a 5 year old 54250WYKH1 NUC (16GB RAM) I had running: - 7 high-def SECURITY CAMERAS - Web server - NODE RED - HOMEASSISTANT in Docker VM - WINDOWS 10 It'd get pretty overloaded at times, especially when performing background maintenance tasks. It was kind of lame waiting a few seconds for the lights to turn on sometimes, with some commands getting dropped altogether. I actually thought some of my home automation hardware was malfunctioning but it was all in the server. For anyone with an older 2 core HT computer you're using for things like this like the older NUC -- this really makes a huge difference. This new one has the same TPD as the 2014 version but literally twice the CPU power (benchmark verified) because of it's 4 core 8 threads (vs 2 +4) and GPU is about 50% faster on benchmarks -- BlueIris server takes advantage of the GPU, by the way. It also holds 32GB, I believe the old one only ran up to 16; though I will say that I don't seem to need more than 16 even with all the junk I'm running. One interesting thing regarding cameras: I'm not sure if has to do with the major upgrades to quicksync over the last 3-4 generations, but the thing appears way better able to offload camera stuff to the GPU, I used to range 50-90% CPU usage on the old one every time I took a look at my home cameras, now it's less than 15%. I bet this would also be pretty awesome as a second box for twitch streaming. I'm totally happy with this thing. I'm actually a bit sad it's in a server closet as it has some pretty great IO that's going to waste. It costs a bit more than a home-built solution like my all my other PCs but that mobile processor runs quiet, cold, and low power with that relatively fat blower fan on the top -- oh yeah, fan's been totally upgraded since 2014 as well. FYI: HDMI 2.0A is compatible with HDR 4k. I bet this would drive that no problem for movie watching. This is a TOTAL overkill for a HTPC though.

So I had an Azule Byte3 as my HTPC to run videos to a plasma HDTV. I recently upgraded to a 4K OLED TV (which then made me decide to upgrade my surround system to 7.1.4 3-D surround). While the Byte3 was a good priced HD video player, it doesn't have 2.0a HDMI and doesn't have the hardware for playing all 4K HDR content. I then debated about what Intel NUC to get. At first I was contemplating getting a preconfigured NUC8i5. Then I priced out getting this NUC8i7BEH base with 16GB RAM, 250GB M.2 SSD, and Windows 10 Pro. Then I read some forums where people complained that this computer doesn't have true HDMI 2.0a (the interface itself is 2.0a, but it's being converted from Display port). I've now run some 4K content on this computer, and I've had no issues: it's probably overkill for any 4K video content. I assume the nay sayers are referring to playing intensive games at 4K HDR...but I always thought serious gamers don't set games to max settings in order to get high frame rates. I can say that after getting everything set up with Windows "HD settings" (available from the Fall Creator's upgrade), Netflix, Vudu, and my UHD files all look as good as from my Roku Ultra or Apple 4K TV. The only caveate I've found is that there's no Dolby Vision support yet. Dolby is only advertising some Lenovo notebooks for having Dolby Vision (and I see that one series, the Yoga C, has hardware that's less robust). So I assume at some point this system will be umbrella'ed into Dolby Vision. The only knock I have right now with the setup is installing Windows. It has been a few years since I setup a computer: my most recent computers have been preconfigured laptops or the Byte3. I bought the regular USB Windows Pro from Amazon, so I assumed it would at least have the drivers for network access. It didn't, so I could only setup my local user folder. The setup itself did go pretty quickly (but another word of caution is that the USB drive is not very good...it was pretty hard to get it in a USB port: you'd think that paying $140+ on the Software, Microsoft could supply a better USB stick). So once I found out Windows didn't have the drivers, I figured most the time would be driver installs and Windows updates. Intel does have a full driver pack that you can download. I thought I'd be able to install all drivers and that would be it. But the graphics driver wound up taking awhile: it kept giving error messages that my computer wasn't the right processor type. It wound up being that I had to keep on installing Windows updates until I had installed the latest Fall Creator's Windows update. That update also gives you HDR options in the display options. For video use, this NUC is very quiet. My everyday Lenovo laptop is much noisier (I've looked inside it and have seen fairly small fans and the ventilation isn't as great). The most intensive tasks I'll do is 3D animation. This NUC does have specs that make it good enough to be some more cores for a network render (since rendering is most about just number of cores you can throw in). The renderer will also push all cores to 100%...so I'm sure by that point I'd hear fan noise (but I'm also sure it won't nearly be as loud as a dedicated server or workstation).

This little guy has almost the same cpu passmark score as my old i7 4790 from a few years ago, in this form factor. It's crazy. The new bean canyon 8259u is a little monster of a cpu. I replaced an i5 7i5bnh with this 8i5bek, going from a sata Samsung 850 pro to a 970 evo nvme. Boots crazy fast, use corsair vengeance 8gb at 2400mhz. I use this primarily as a PC when I'm tweaking my main rig and it's out of commission. To be honest, this thing is probably overkill for even that. All I use it for is web browsing, YouTube, and some other work, but this can handle so much more I think I might try to use it as an always on, online music server for a cloud music server app to my cell phone or something. It runs silent, and hasn't touched 80 degrees even with tons of tabs open, YouTube playing, and multiple programs running at once. It just chugs right though all of them. The fact it's a quad core at these clocks, is this snappy and this cool/quiet at this TDP, is insane. The bios is bare bones, and the thunderbolt is a little finnecky to get working, but even now if I wanted to get an external gpu and use it on thunderbolt, I'm sure I'd have a good gaming experience if I tried to ask something crazy for a nuc to do. If you're looking for an overkill tiny form factor pc, check this one out. Honestly, if all you're doing is light browsing and YouTube, look at the 7i3bnh i3, last year's editions which are 6th or 7th gen cpus. They're great for light work. If you are a tab whore though, either kick that habit or get 8gb of ram. They're only dual cores, but if you're not doing much they work just fine. Highly, highly recommend. Amazing little NUC.

Added Samsung 970 Evo NVMe (250GB), 2x4GB RAM, Windows 10 Pro. Use with LG 27" 4K display (with HDMI) Amazing how fast and quiet this little thing is. This is a proper desktop class machine. Easy to assemble and works without issue. Very fast and responsive. I use it for Visual Studio and Azure programming, office docs, internet, and media consumption inc. 4K video. Handles everything with ease. Silent when it boots up and occasionally starts a light humming when under load (balanced setting in bios). Plenty of USB ports including a charging port. Unlike other machines, all the usb ports on this are USB 3.1 Gen2 so you get the full 10Gbps speed. Thunderbolt port also gives it some level of future proofing as well! Only slight negatives are: missing 3.5mm audio port on the rear so speakers must be connected to the front headphone port or to the monitor/tv if it has audio out, also would be nice to have USB Type-C port on the front of the device so can connect type-c usb sticks and phones without an adaptor. Looks nice as well! Disappointed with Amazon shipping though. I paid for expedited shipping with a guaranteed delivery date. It was missed by 3 days. To make matters worse the courier's (UPS) tracking did not update this accurately so I wasted a whole evening waiting for it. I contacted Amazon support who apologised and assured me it would be delivered over the weekend. This did not happen (UPS do not deliver on weekends) so I wasted a weekend too. Still waiting for refund of shipping costs... But this is no reflection of the item purchased hence 5 star!

This NUC is a great little machine, I added a M.2 drive (Crucial 500GB M/N CT500MX500SSD4), 16GB RAM (Crucial MM/N CT2K8G4SFD824A) , and the OS (Win 10 on a USB stick). If you already have a monitor, a HDMI connector, and a keyboard + mouse then you're all set. Assembling it all is relatively easy, and quick - all you need is a Phillips screwdriver. The kit even includes a VESA mount, allowing you to mount the NUC to the back of a monitor. However, I do wonder why Intel does not include important drivers for the NUC. Even a 2GB USB Flash stick could be partitioned to support both Linux and Windows. Instead, the user makes it through the Windows 10 install process only to discover that the NUC is incommunicado because Windows 10 does not include the necessary drivers. Neither ethernet, nor WifI could be enabled, necessitating a trip over to a computer that did have functioning internet access to consult on next steps. Thankfully, Intel offers bundles of drivers and firmware for ethernet, WiFi, etc. on its web-site; all you have to do is search for your NUC and then elect to download a bundle. Then use the manual install process for ethernet, Wifi, and firmware updates. Then, there are a plethora of drivers for other chips. Shortly later, the NUC is fully functional. But it is kind of silly for Intel / Microsoft not to work closely together to include a basic driver for both ethernet and Wifi so that the NUC can at least download the rest of what it needs later.

This mini PC is definitely worth my money as it delivers more power than I expected. It is easy to install and has various IO ports and runs smoothly. Note that the i5 8259u used in this model is even more powerful than i3-8100! I noticed that on the benchmark websites before I made the purchase. And there has been a YouTube video comparing this NUC 8th gen i5 with hackintosh build against the i3 Mac Mini 2018. It shows that this smaller intel PC is even more powerful than the Mac mini! In some applications the NUC is almost 35% faster than the Mac mini. The cooling is ok. You can’t expect it to be as cool and quiet as a custom PC with a high TDP cooler. But it does a good job and the temperature looks reasonable. It is around 36 Celsius when idle, around 55 Celsius when running light weighted applications. And the highest temperature is around 80 Calcius for intensive computation tasks (when the fan noise becomes significant). I don’t see an obvious throttling issue, and usually it runs at almost full turbo boost speed (3.7GHz). In one word, I really love this mini computer and find it really capable and competent for my need. The only pity is that the price dropped by $40 one week after I bought it.

This thing has been a royal pain. I ordered the first one and discovered the CPU was bad right out of the box. Sent it back still hoping I can get a refund. Ordered a second and it is super fast but it will not display a second monitor. I have lost so much productivity trying to get this thing to work, but I cannot function with only one display. Total waste of money. The lightning port is worthless. ***update*** We received a second unit and the thunderbolt port did not work at all, so we could not hook a second monitor up. We received a third unit and it will not support my two new Samsung monitors. I was able to connect these two monitors to my old dell machine, but thunderbolt couldn’t handle it. We ended up having to hook one new Samsung and one old Samsung (which is sadly smaller). I have wasted so many hours trying to get this to function. I will never buy this product again! Such a HUGE waste of time and money. **Another update** After less than a week in service, the video card is gone. No output. Totally lost 90% ability to function in my business. My monitors are well below the specified resolution that the machine specified it can handle. We ordered the particular cabling that intel specified as well. This thing is garbage. After three tries, I will never purchase a prefab again.

Having owned an Intel i5 NUC since 2015, I was looking for an i7 model to attach to the back of a monitor in my office. At first I considered only small-form-factor (SFF) computers with discrete graphics cards: Intel's Hades and Diablo Canyon NUCs, PCs from Shuttle, Zotac, etc. Ultimately, the issue came down to whether it was worth an additional $1000 to have a discrete graphics card on a VESA-mounted-to-the-monitor PC. The cost of a small-form-factor PC with a discrete GPU is high. You'll spend $2000-plus for a moderately powerful PC . So do you need a discrete graphics card? If so, and cost is no object, consider Intel's Hades Canyon or one of the lesser-known manufacturers. For most gamers a smaller gaming desktop will serve better at much lower cost. If you're looking for a tiny PC to run as a home media server, this could be your machine. There is a bit of intermittent fan noise, but it's almost unnoticeable. Initially, I wanted a PC with discrete GPU for photo editing. Photoshop is one of the few non-gaming applications to benefit from fast graphics. But the cost of a small-form-factor PC with a discrete graphics card finally turned me to this little machine, and I'm happy with the purchase. When I bought this, Amazon had it on sale for $360. In addition to the NUC, I bought a 1TB M.2 SSD for one slot, a second 1TB SATA SSD for the second larger enclosure, two 16GB sticks of RAM (for 32GB total ) and Windows 10 Pro from an online source. Total cost was under $900. I attached the NUC to my monitor via a VESA mounting bracket (included in the package from Intel). It's a fast little machine--seemingly as fast with Photoshop as my SurfaceBook with discrete GPU. The m.2 drive blazes, and because there's a Thunderbolt 3 port, I was able to transfer files with blazing speed. Honestly, at the price I'm not sure I could have done much better in a desktop with equivalent specs. One final note: I considered the Apple Mini, but it's not in the same ballpark as this cost-wise. A Mac Mini i5 with 8Gb of RAM and a 256GB SSD is $1099. That's a lesser processor, one-quarter the RAM and one-eighth the storage for $300 more. Add the options necessary to make the Mac Mini equal to the machine I put together (8th gen i7, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD) and the price on the Apple Store is $3299! Don't believe me? Check it out yourself--and that's a Mac Mini with Intel's UHD630 graphics rather than this computer's Iris Plus Graphics 655.