NUC/mini PC help and suggestion

[smokeyjoe]

Hey all,

I'm looking to purchase a mini PC solely for office work. I need it to run dual monitors and possibly a 3rd. I've been out of the pc market for a while and feel rather lost.

As an example I see some NUCs advertised as "dual monitor capable" - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=1VK-004K-00013 - and I'm unclear on this wording. Do I need Displayport monitors to run more than one? Can I just run 2 off of a splitter?

I've seen a few NUCs in the $400 range that I think will be fine but I don't know how the Celeron chips compare with the i3's and above. For my work, I do run several applications at a time but nothing graphically intensive; speed is important so I am leaning to the i3 but just because I think its faster. HD space is not important and I think I could get away with 4GB of RAM.. but 8 is preferrable.

The NUCs seem like the best bet. The Gigabyte Brix's looked more expensive.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for any assistance!

 

[TeknoBug]

You don't need displayport monitors, just get displayport to HDMI cables/adapters if you want, but yes you do need a displayport adapter to use more than one monitor, my NUC won't let me use HDMI and mDP at the same time for multi monitor. Here's an example of the displayport adapter you'd want

NUC and BRIX are usually roughly the same price, but actually BRIX has been cheaper than NUC lately, I got a i3 6100U BRIX for $400 (including 4GB RAM and 128GB M.2) whereas I can't find a NUC with i3 6100U for less than $500 right now (barebones). however the latest BRIX has some glaring issues with Windows 10 so you must have the drivers from Gigabyte's site on a USB stick ready to use after Windows 10 installation otherwise the network won't work and the storage chipset gets unstable.

I'd take the i3 over the Celeron/Pentium everytime now.

 

[smokeyjoe]

Thanks for the info.

I should add that I am looking for a complete system, including Win7 (preferably), and not barebones. I don't want to have to install more RAM or an OS; I need it to be ready to go out of the box. The search continues..

 

[Kartajan]

most of the UCFF/ SFF type boxes that are preconfigured are Win10...

you could try this:
http://www.broadberry.com/intel-core-i5-workstations/cyberstation-intel-nuc-i3

 

[smokeyjoe]

I'm seriously considering buying this refurbished one that I linked at first -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=1VK-004K-00013

I've always built my own pcs and the word "refurbished" scares me.. anyone have any experience with refurbished stuff on Newegg?

 

[JeffMD]

You will probably need to go with at a minimum, windows 8.1. The hardware in NUCs is based on the 8.1 and 10 erra of windows.

Also you can't split hdmi. Digital video does not work that way.

As said above, you can use a displayport to hdmi cable. Most NUCs come with 1 hdmi and 1 display port and are thus limited to 2 displays. that said, you can most likely use a USB based external display adapter (support for 3.0 speeds would be best) and get you a third display.