Intel NUC Bean Canyon Barebones Mini Computer Kit: i7-8559U Expired

Seems awfully dated and has crummy graphics performance for the price. I think this would be a deal if it either came bundled with some performance parts or a monitor or something. As-is, it should be hundred bucks off to be considered a really good deal because this is going to come out over $450 before it's even reasonably built up, and $500 for something decent. By then though we're into price territory where just about anything is better in a lot of ways. Basic gaming laptops these days are only slightly more & will decimate this.

I've built up almost ten NUC systems the past few years for friends and family, so I'm definitely not hating on them, but I try to be out the door for not much more than this or it's maybe not worth it. Such a niche product, so keeping the total cost for RAM, SSD, a VESA mountable monitor (to attach the system) & sometimes with speakers, sometimes a Creative Pebble set, and keyboard/mouse combo deal. I shoot for $450 max, total, if possible. These are killer little systems, but get really pricey without bundled hardware.

Dunno about anyone here, but my absolute favorite was the Gigabyte model with a Haswell i3 and built-in projector and tripod mountable. I think Newegg had a sale and it was something crazy like $150 or so back in 2015. Talk about an awesome little portable emulator & movie machine!

Anyway, for those considering this, please be sure to get a dual-channel 16GB SO-DIMM kit. RAM is incredibly cheap right now and you'll want to double your graphics bandwidth from 64 to 128-bit. It makes a huge difference and it's literally like $10 more than 8GB as kits can be found well under $50 all over the web. Those with PayBoo also won't have to pay tax from B&H and that will really help too. Money saved there will easily pay for a 240GB SSD or better.

Happy building!

It's a computer. It's small. It can do everything your computer can do, but its smaller. Get it?

Ignore it. It may not match for you. 😊