Are NUCs and BRIXs my last options??

[4evermetalhead]

Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum.
I am having a big dilemma here and would need some advise from someone that sure knows more about me reading simply specs.

I am in the game for an SFF or USFF. In general i want something small, sure not a full desktop pc or a huge rig.

So i will NOT be using this for gaming so graphics card i guess is not required.
I do need though to have a really big punch for its size. So i am looking at i5-i7 and the likes???!!! 8GB of ram i guess should be my minimum.

The purpose of this pc is for my work. I am using lots of software and once or twice a week virtual machines.
The laptop i bought a year ago with pur performance in mind as well, has the below specs:
Toshiba satellite P50-A-144
Intel i7 4700MQ
16gb RAM
toshiba 1TB HDD mq01abd100
Windows 7 64bit Professional
It has an nvidia gpu but i have no idea which model etc. This alone shows how much i care for GPUs.

This laptop cost about $1100. If i could get the gpu out to lower the cost i would have done it but its a laptop. And gpu cant be removed.

I am quite happy with the performance of this laptop. So i kinda want something close to that or similar???!! I hate pressing a button and waiting for the thing to kick in.

I also need to keep the cost as low as possible. $ to power should be very good.
Am i out of options here??
Maybe a DIY or barebone i should consider hoping to keep it low on $?
Any chance to keep it lower that 450-500$ without sacrificing the performance?
Remember, THIS IS NOT A GAMING PC, it's for pure performance with as low cost as possible.

If NUCs and BRIXs is the only option can you point out any models specifically? I spend about 3 days studying and comparing BRIXs alone and still didn't come up with the "this is the one". NUCs i didn't check them out much as i was busy.
Still i hate been imprisoned in two options.

Thanks in advance for all your suggestions and time spend reading this humongous post.

 

[you2]

Last year nuc/brix might be a cheaper option than building your own system. It certainly will be smaller as the smallest form factor I see for diy is micro-itx thin (btw there is an interesting micro-itx thin system for sale on amazon).
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The brix can be obtain with either laptop processor or desk top (iris pro). The desktop is quite a bit faster as it has 2 more cores.
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One PIA of the nuc is the rapidly changing form factor for storage (m.2, msata, ...) so pick carefully.
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Btw in addition to NUC and BRIX there is also asus and msi solution (same form factor - msi is cubi; I'm not sure what asus system are called).
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Ack hamsing stopped selling their thin-micro-itx system. Still msi (cubi) and asus are reasonable alternative in the i3/i5/i7 range. Brix is the only one I know who currently has a desktop processor in a nuc form factor. Rumour is that intel skylake will provide some interesting options later this year.

 

[therealnickdanger]

1. What software do you use?
2. How many VMs do you run?


If that Toshiba laptop worked well for you, then just about any i7 laptop available today will work better. Unfortunately, I'm not sure you can get a better i7 without spending more than $500. This is the cheapest Skylake i7 (4core/8thread) laptop I could find on Newegg, but it is $700:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6R43RT4737

Many NUC/Brix PCs in that price range use i5 or dual-core i7 models. You may need to build your own mITX machine if your goal is to keep the system small.

Have you considered an AMD A10- or FX-based system? If your software and VMs crave multicore performance and lots of RAM, it's hard to find a better value (low cost).

 

[4evermetalhead]

@you2

Thanks buddy.Will dig in into these options, currently all i could find was NUCs and BRIXs, that was very annoying. Nice to see there are more options. So now we have a new issue. ATX vs ITX there are several opinions on the net. What would one suggest considering i dont care about GPU and just need cpu and ram power?

@therealnickdanger
The software is a custom software made by a company that basicaly loads and unloads info. Is kinda complicated to explain. But is a big one and loved to chew cpu and ram. Minimum i could run this on was on i5 ivy bridge if i recall correctly with 8GB of RAM.
Most of the times i run two VMwares simultaneously. These VMs are images i created from normal pcs as they started to fail. Now both of those PCs are not operating at all so i am forced to use the VMs.

 

[Kaido]

If you don't need a strong GPU, but you do need a powerful CPU, then I'd suggest checking out the fourth-gen Gigabyte BRIX Pro line:

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GB-BXi7-4770R-Ultra-Compact-Graphics/dp/B00I2L2II6/

It uses a desktop-class i7-4770R processor rather than the typical laptop CPU that most NUC's use, so you get 4 cores with hyperthreading for a total of 8 threads. The drawbacks are that it's more expensive than you want ($550 barebones) and it's fairly noisy (recommend using the wall-mount bracket to stick it under your desk). You need three things to make it work:

1. Memory
2. Boot drive
3. Operating system

16 gigs of RAM is very cheap right now. $60 shipped from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LTBJFW

That brings the price up to $610. For the boot drive, you can either use an mSATA drive or a 2.5" SATA drive. mSATA drives only come as SSD's, but 2.5" drives come as SSD or HDD. I recommend the Samsung EVO 850 series. You can get a 250gb model for $90:

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-850-mSATA-2-Inch-MZ-M5E250BW/dp/B00TGIVTP2/

mSATA SSD's go up to 1TB, 2.5" SSD's go up to 3.84TB, and 2.5" HDD's go up to 2TB. They also make 2.5" SSHD's, which are SSD/HDD hybrids. And you can do both if you want...a small, fast mSATA boot drive with a larger 2.5" storage drive. Operating system is whatever you want - Windows 7, 8, 10, Linux, etc.

 

[4evermetalhead]

@Kaido
Wow thanks buddy for pinpointing the links and the great info.
Specs look pretty good to me but unfortunately is set out the budget i am after. I dont actually have a fixed budget for this but trying my best to keep it on as minimum as possible.

I spend my pc money on the Toshiba and i dont like wasting money all the time on PCs. One every year is what i do. I still have an extra 6 desktops (normal configurations nothing special) so if i could sell one of them i could up the budget i guess.
Still the desktops cause a lot of heat and noise for not much power etc. I think they are pointless with these new lovely small ones that can punch harder.

 

[Kaido]

@Kaido
Wow thanks buddy for pinpointing the links and the great info.
Specs look pretty good to me but unfortunately is set out the budget i am after. I dont actually have a fixed budget for this but trying my best to keep it on as minimum as possible.

I spend my pc money on the Toshiba and i dont like wasting money all the time on PCs. One every year is what i do. I still have an extra 6 desktops (normal configurations nothing special) so if i could sell one of them i could up the budget i guess.
Still the desktops cause a lot of heat and noise for not much power etc. I think they are pointless with these new lovely small ones that can punch harder.

If that's the case, then scaling back on the hardware performance will let you fit your budget. Like you2 said, the MSI Cubi would be a good way to go. With a $500 budget:

$100 for a Windows license
$40 for 8GB RAM
$90 250gb mSATA drive
$230 for an i3 MSI Cubi
=$460 total

Here's a link to the i3 Cubi:

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Computer-Components-CUBI-004BUS-936-B09611-004/dp/B00UK3L998/

The earlier $550 BRIX Pro unit from Gigabyte has a desktop Core i7; this unit has a laptop Core i5 (half the cores). I also cut the RAM in half, but kept the SSD the same because 120gb is too tight these days. If you already have a Windows license, you can cut that cost out & move up to the $330 i5 Cubi model, which would keep the grand total at $460. Unfortunately, you pay more to go small, but saving electricity over the long run makes it worth it!

 

[richierich1212]

Check out an Alienware Alpha. Small form factor but uses desktop Haswell processors.

 

[you2]

Fyi: if you live near fry about once a month fry has the msi cubi on sale for a day. I think the I3 version is typically below $200 (then you have to add memory and disk). Occasionally they also have the i5 version on sale for less than $300.

 

[therealnickdanger]

@therealnickdanger
The software is a custom software made by a company that basicaly loads and unloads info. Is kinda complicated to explain. But is a big one and loved to chew cpu and ram. Minimum i could run this on was on i5 ivy bridge if i recall correctly with 8GB of RAM.
Most of the times i run two VMwares simultaneously. These VMs are images i created from normal pcs as they started to fail. Now both of those PCs are not operating at all so i am forced to use the VMs.

Given your need for many cores and RAM to feed VMs and your need for a low budget, I would recommend maybe building a configuration like this:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/k2wPMp

MicroATX Slim case with 300W power supply (plenty of power)
AMD FX-8320E Black Edition (8 physical cores)
FM3+ Motherboard
16GB RAM (8GBx2 plus two more open slots)
AMD 5450 graphics card (unless you have a spare graphics card sitting around, you only need something to plug a monitor into)

$322 (before hard drive or SSD and operating system)

For what you're doing an SSD would probably be best. A good 1TB SSD will add $300-400 to that price, but a good 500GB SSD will add $150-200 and be within your budget. Any normal hard drive will be within your budget too and likely be faster than your notebook hard drive currently is. It all depends on how much storage you need.

If you really need something tiny like a NUC or Brix, then this would be too large for you, but it's hard to find a Micro-ATX case smaller than this... and I couldn't find a Mini-ITX option for AM3+.