Intel NUC 12 i7 Pro Mini PC (16GB+512GB)

Refers to the 16Gb RAM/512Gb drive version. Lovely and fast. I've had this for a month now and I love it.Recommended!NVME drive interface is blindingly fast. I was surprised that the built-in wifi6 module gets me way faster speeds than my old 2 year old PC. It's perfectly usable as supplied but because I wanted to hook up to my existing dual monitors (one HDMI, one DisplayPort) and use for audio production I made a couple of additional purchases.I bought a replacement 2Tb NVME SSD drive - very easy to replace - four screws. You can then copy the existing windows 11 installation across by making a "Win7 image backup" (that is part of the installed Win11) to an external drive then restoring onto the new larger drive of your choice. I also bought a £25 thunderbolt 4 to DP adaptor which also adds a few USB ports. And there's still one thunderbolt 4 free! I didn't know much about this port but its pretty amazing in terms of flexibility and potential data transfer speed - very cutting edge. Maybe I'll find a use. I can imagine anyone doing video production tranferring large files from a DV camera would trip out over this.It's a lot smaller than I thought. Cute. And largely silent. I was alarmed when I first fired it up because the fan was at full blast. You can adjust the amount cooling in the BIOS if you wish. I did this, but even when the fan runs in normal use it's far from distracting. I'd estimate 35-40db.Construction wise, it's solid enough. Inside there's an aluminium frame which I assume is for cooling, but it also makes it pretty sturdy. There are rubber feet which are kind of essential because it is so dinky. It stays put when switching it on with my big fat fingers!What else? No mic input (if that matters to you, but you have USB if you need that). Win11 has a product key but appears to be OEM so probably not transferrable to another machine. But like I said, no problem transferring the drive image to another drive. Haven't tested the graphics capability at all but I expect they're not great for gaming if that's your kind of thing purely by dint of being SOC, not from any evidence of use. RAM provided to me in the 16Gb version I purchased was two 8Gb sticks. There are only two slots so upgrading to 32Gb would involve dispensing with the existing sticks.Yeah happy. The wifi boost thing was a joy I wasn't expecting. Quality! Enjoy!

I have been using the NUC as both a daily driver for remoting into work as well as a local database server and it’s been great in both regards. After one issue in the first two weeks with a problematic OS update it’s been working amazingly well, running for weeks at a time and using up little electricity all the while. When it hits a few of its heavier scheduled jobs it definitely kicks off some fan noise, but when it’s sitting there with little load it’s quiet and cool.Be aware the Intel chip in this is fine for pushing desktop images, I use it on a 1440p ultrawide with no issue at 60hz, but this is not a gaming device. If you want any gaming with an integrated graphics machine (not sure why you would aside from a handheld ROG Ally or Steam Deck) I would definitely look towards an AMD platform.If you are in the market for a mini PC, the Intel NUC is definitely a quality offering.

I purchased the model with the i7 processor and 32GB RAM about 2 months ago and felt that was enough time to be able to give a review.PerformanceHaving updated from a tower PC which had an i3 processor and 8GB RAM, the difference in performance is obviously massive. Applications run incredibly fast, boot and shutdown times are a matter of seconds.It come with Windows 11 pre-installed which is great. Out of the box, it literally took me 10-15 minutes to go through the setup and start surfing the net.Very quiet PC, you only really notice the fans on boot up and when you launch some programs and play some videos.I bought this PC for work and web surfing. Office 365 and Adobe run incredibly fast and having multiple browser tabs and running multiple applications at the same time does not make the slightest bit of difference. This NUC has been able to handle everything I have thrown at it so far with ease. One of the more annoying things in life is setting up a new PC with all your favourite software and files. This was incredibly easy with the NUC as everything installed so quickly and easily including peripherals.I have played a couple of games via Steam and they have been fine. Obviously this machine has only got the onboard graphics so, the more graphically intensive games might need a more powerful more set up with a stand alone graphics card.Size and connectionsIncredibly small, just slightly bigger than the palm of my hand. Currently it sits in the space between my two monitors.Front of machine has two USB connections and headphone socket.Back of machine has another two USB connections, 4 monitor connections (2 HDMI, 2 Thunderbolt)and 2.5GB LAN connection.The machine also come with a separate power supply.Wi-FiIt come with WI-FI 6E which is great of you have a WI-FI 6 router. I have 1Gbps internet and this give me speeds on average of around 600Mbps.Any issues?Only issue I could see is the number of USB ports that are provided. There are only four, which once you have connected, keyboard, mouse, printer, web cam, can leave you a little short. Now, you have to take into consideration the size of the machine, so you can understand that there was only a certain amount of room available for connections. Has not been a problem for me personally, as I have a USB hub, and as long as you don’t mind investing maybe another £10 for an additional hub, you should have no problems.OverallFantastic little machine which so far has been a brilliant update for my work and just in my everyday life.

I bought my new 12th generation NUC as a replacement for my existing 7th generation version, which had given me great service over the previous six years.I use Windows 11 on the pre-installed internal 1TB M2 drive for work (in the main) and also purchased an additional internal 1TB SATA SSD to install Linux on for personal use. Installing the latter was pretty straightforward to achieve, the second drive being trivially easy to fit. Opening the case for access can be easily achieved via four screws on the feet and the board of the PC is laid out in clear and logical fashion for any future expansion and upgrade purposes.The machine is tiny and sturdy, very well built and pretty quiet. It is also very fast for my purposes and I can easily see me getting another five years of use out of this one. Highly recommended.Also, kudos to the seller for the rapid, well packaged delivery.