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$450 NUC Mini outperforms 2018 i3 Mini

Tom80112

Tom80112

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 14, 2010
70
37
Check this review out, it just came out today:

Looks like you can run MacOS faster on a i5 NUC for less money.

For the same money as the MacMini I3/128GB SSD you could get
this NUC i5 with a 1TB Samsung 970 PRO M.2
 
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I would have considered this but upgrades to MacOS are going to be iffy with a hackintosh. In addition, bluetooth, FaceTime, etc can be difficult to get working. I realize I paid an extra $1000 and got the i5 6 core version with 1 tb drive but for me it is worth not having to deal with hassles over the next few years (I also go the 3 year warranty).
 
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I bought a Mac Mini I5/8GB/256GB from Best Buy this week because that's the
only model they sell other than the I3 so I thought I'd try it out for a week.

The NUC is way smaller in size and I can put in a 1TB Samsung 970 PRO M.2 SSD
where as with the Mac I am stuck with the 256GB SSD. The NUC could sit right
under my monitor and it has (4) USB 3.1 ports. We'll see how I get on with the
Mac but I am tempted by the NUC now. The tiny size is so desirable to me.
 
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I bought one step up of the NUCs mentioned (NUC8i7BEH). Nice for a compact Windows 10 machine - not into Hackintosh. The fans spun up a lot initially but are good now even with CPU at 100%. I don't know if that is due to updated BIOS or the thermal paste settling in. Nice that the TB3/USB-C port uses same Apple adapters. As mentioned, too bad it only has one.
 
For me, I wanted to get a decent desktop running Mac OS X before Apple switch to Arm and/or starts designing worse PC product. I didn't want iMac because of screen being tied to the internals.

I knew cheaper mini PC with better spec was available, but then, I wasn't looking for a Windows machine.
 
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So a mac has always been more costly then the pc equivalent, so this isn't too surprising.

However, as you get to the higher spec mac minis, the value does improve a bit. I don't see too many videos bragging about i7 mini pc builds being significantly cheaper.
 
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harriska2 said:
Man, my Skull NUC with i7 and 32 gb memory is loud. I’m converting ABBYY finereader scanned docs to PDF and the fan is constantly on.
Click to expand...
That one is notorious for noise. Marketed for higher horsepower gaming so not really a direct mini competitor.
 
harriska2 said:
Man, my Skull NUC with i7 and 32 gb memory is loud. I’m converting ABBYY finereader scanned docs to PDF and the fan is constantly on.
Click to expand...

if youre willing to put an hour or two of work i to it you can significantly reduce noise and temps by undervolting. i was able to undervolt by -.1 and drop temps by almost 10c without loss of performance
 
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The NUCi7 I have spins up the fan when Windows 10 does stuff which is often. I hate noise. The lack of functional BT and wifi is my personal dealbreaker. There are not happy wifi solutions and I don't run ethernet cables in the house. Yeah, all those are excuses to say I'm happy with the 2018 Mini i5 I bought V that NUC :)
 
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For me, I skipped the mm2018 and bought the NUC8i7BEH running Windows 10 instead. The main reason being not so much on the cost but the wattage require to run it or have it on 24x7 with the mm2018 using desktop CPU.

Hackintosh has been pretty unreliable for me in the past and updates will always seem to break something (wifi, bluetooth, sleep/wake etc). I have read and heard good things with the recent clover and might give it another try since I got the hardware for it.
 
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m_LA said:
if youre willing to put an hour or two of work i to it you can significantly reduce noise and temps by undervolting. i was able to undervolt by -.1 and drop temps by almost 10c without loss of performance
Click to expand...
Not really willing to touch it because it is a dedicated security system that I am temporarily using for moving scanned documents from windows to mac. Turns out Mac ABBYY Finereader can’t read PC ABBYY Finereader documents. When it’s done converting, it will go back to just running Blue Iris. Interestingly enough, the i7 NUC could run the security system in the background AND crunch finereader docs into PDF at the same time without any performance hit. I do think it likes the 32mb of memory though.
 
dogslobber said:
The NUCi7 I have spins up the fan when Windows 10 does stuff which is often. I hate noise. The lack of functional BT and wifi is my personal dealbreaker. There are not happy wifi solutions and I don't run ethernet cables in the house. Yeah, all those are excuses to say I'm happy with the 2018 Mini i5 I bought V that NUC :)
Click to expand...

I have the older intel nuc i7-5557u and for whatever reason, a couple of chrome or firefox windows make the stupid CPU fan kick on like a jet. I debated replacing the chassis to a fancier fanless one but then got lazy.
 
All depends on your use case. Like others have said, the Mac mini has it beat bad on TB3 ports.

I really dont like that "snazzy labs" guy. Irritating.
 
AppleHaterLover said:
This belongs in the "Oh God I Can't Believe That Similarly-Or-Cheaper-Priced PC Hardware Beats Macs and This Hasn't Been The Case Like Forever Like Literally Since 1984 and You're Buying Something Else Other Than Raw Performance When Buying a Mac" section.
Click to expand...
Why are you angry?

That's why there's the sub forum for the precise reason you mentioned.
 
I specifically bought the MacMini for integrated 10G and T3. I am not an outside use case. MacMini is aimed at professional media creation.
 
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