I had been trying to strike the balance of a small form pc that was capable of 2 x 4k monitors at 60hz that didn't buckle under video encoding. This is certainly it. Video decoding in hardware allows playing 4k videos a breeze. Further more its a powerful little monster that burns about 6 watts on idle, less than an led lightbulb. I feel at ease leaving this on 24/7 knowing on average its going to cost me roughly $10/ year in power. Perfect as an always on HTPC, or plex server.

I wanted to replace my old Windows XP desktop and so did my research and found the Intel NUC family of computers. I really liked the small form factor so decided to give the NUC8i5BEH a try. I fitted 2 x Crucial 8GB SODIMMs and a Samsung 970 EVO 500GB SSD. I was tired of Windows and had heard that recent Windows 10 updates had caused a lot of problems for people, so decided to give Linux a try. I opted for Linux Mint since its Cinnamon desktop looks and works a lot like Windows 7. Everything installed and worked first time. The fast CPU in the NUC, 16GB of RAM and SSD make this machine run like the wind; I've very impressed with the speed of...view more

Installed Linux distro Mint 19.1 with 16 gigs of Ram and a Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus - I couldn't be happier, with ease of use, speed and stability. BTW 1: Everything I plugged in worked first time: HP printer, LG monitor, WD HDDs, even a slide copier from 1998. BTW 2: All the software is free...