Intel NUC 10 Performance Kit BXNUC10I7FNH1 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10710U Supports up to 3 Displays 5 USB Ports Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: - Small form factor - Blazing fast - Excellent fit and finish - Quiet - Good warranty

Cons: - Pricey - No rear audio jack - Installing the M.2 SSD mounting screw is tricky

Overall Review: I ordered my Intel NUC 10 kit BXNUC10I7FNH1 along with an Intel 660p Series M.2 2280 512GB SSD and CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (2 x 16GB) 260-Pin DDR4 SO-DIMM DDR4 2666 RAM from NewEgg. Delivery was prompt and all items arrived in perfect condition. I also purchased a 2.5” 1TB WD Blue internal SSD as a second HD elsewhere. Installation of RAM and SSDs was pretty much the same as the NUC 8 -- so I was able to follow instructional videos online. I wore a grounding wrist strap to reduce the chance of ESD. The only issue I had was reinstalling the M.2 SSD mounting screw. It is tiny and I kept dropping it. I would recommend using a magnetic Philips #0 (jeweler’s size) screwdriver. That would make the job a lot easier. I opted to install Windows 10 Pro via USB thumb drive. The Windows installer completed but failed to set up networking because it couldn’t find the Intel NIC driver. That was somewhat annoying but not a big problem. The solution was to log on to another PC after Windows was installed and download the NIC driver from Intel onto a flash drive. Then log in to Windows on my new NUC 10 and install the missing network driver. As for hooking up a monitor, I wasn’t sure what type of cable would work with my Dell 27” monitor. I purchased a HDMI to DVI cable and a USB-C to DisplayPort cable. They both work – which proves I think that my NUC 10 will drive dual displays (Intel says it will drive up to 3 displays). My NUC 10 boots in seconds and the Core i7 processor is blazing fast. It is working great with Windows 10 Pro and all the components I selected. I’m very happy with my new NUC. If you are looking for a powerful micro PC, this is a good choice.

Pros: -Quiet -Tiny -Powerful -State-of-the-art -Room for expansion

Cons: -Had to flash new firmware to get it to recognize my OCZ 950 Pro m.2 drive -Takes a bit to boot (~30sec)

Overall Review: I bought this after getting annoyed at my old Skull Canyon nuc6i7's loud fan. This one does the trick. All I had to do was move my existing comonents over (32GB G.Skill, OCZ 950 Pro 512GB) and upgrade the BIOS firmware with a USB stick and I was up and running! Performance is much better than the old nuc despite the older components. Probably due to the SIX CORES in the i7 processor!

Pros: Six cores Max of 64GB memory M.2 and a SATA slot Can drive 3 big monitors Small footprint

Cons: None.

Overall Review: I decided to upgrade from an old NUC5 I’d been using for several years. I ended up ordering the following from Newegg: NUC10i7FNH Corsair 64GB DDR4 2666 (CMSX64GX4M2A2666C18) SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 500GB NVMe (MZ-V7E500BW) SAMSUNG 860 EVO 2.5” 1TB SATA III SSD (MZ-76E1T0B/AM) Parts arrived quickly. Assembly took about 10 minutes. I installed Ubuntu 20.04 also in about 10 minutes. Both hardware and OS worked out-of-the-box. Virtualbox 6.1 also just installed and worked with no issues. My only warning is to others upgrading from an older NUC, I missed that Intel changed the physical display ports from what was used on the NUC5 so my old cables needed to be replaced. Highly recommended.

Pros: Size and speed. Accepted drive and ram from old computer.

Cons: Limited number of USB ports

Overall Review: This is a replacement for my old HP Prodesk 600 G2 that recently died. I swapped out my Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB drive and Corsair Vengeance 32GB from the HP and dropped it in this unit and worked perfectly. Very happy with my purchase

Pros: Fast, looks cool, quiet

Cons: Windows 10 install is tricky and involves messing with the BIOS settings. (go to Intel message boards for help) I found I needed an external USB hub

Overall Review: I would buy it again

Pros: It very small and quiet and supports 64G of RAM. I installed 64G of Corsair DRAM and an Intel 2TB M2 drive.

Cons: The BIOS on this NUC doesn't recognize Fedora Live USBs so it's not possible to install Fedora. The problem is due to the lack of support for EXT4 which is required by livecd-iso-to-disk, I had no trouble installing Fedora on my old NUC but Intel has switched to a new BIOS that's less capable. I was able to install Ubuntu 19. I formatted the USB stick to FAT32 and used unetbootin to put the Ubuntu ISO on to the stick, that worked fine. I tried putting Fedora31 on to a USB drive using unetbootin but that doesn't work, Fedora31 crashed on boot up. Ubuntu 18 LTS does not work either, it's kernel lacks support for the WiFI and Ethernet devices on this system. With Ubuntu 19 everything is working.

Overall Review: Powerful tiny box marred by a bad BIOS. I bought it to run Fedora but it's not possible to install Fedora on this box directly, the only way to do it would be to use a different machine to setup the M.2 drive. Fortunately it is possible to install Ubuntu 19 so that's what I did. Ubuntu is running fine.

Pros: - Size - Simplicity - Powerful

Cons: - Hard to find some drivers for Windows Server OS

Overall Review: I was looking for a small form factor PC that I could run Windows Server on. The hardware is just right. All I had to add was some RAM and storage and it was super easy to install and configure. The one issue I had was trying to get the network adapter driver for Windows Server. I don't count this as a negative because the box isn't intended to run the server OS. Intel doesn't make it easy for you do this. I was able to find work around it with a little help from google. At some point, I will no longer need to use it as a server and intend to convert it to a media PC, which I expect it will be perfect for that use.

Pros: This is my fourth or fifth Intel NUC. Better and better every year. Purchase factory configured or configure memory and storage yourself. This is not for the Big Box computer builder. Nevertheless, gamers, serious computer users, home and business, gain tremendously with the NUC form factor. Installation of memory and storage took less than 10 minutes. Transferring the Windows 10 Pro OS license and installing apps, utilities and connectivity took less than 45 minutes. Reliability of the Intel NUC has been excellent. Not like the days of the early 1980's

Cons: The only major annoyance I have not found a solution for is that if the NUC is mounted on the back of the monitor there is no remote switch to power on or off without getting behind a 28" monitor. So the computer sits inconspicuously on the desktop.

Overall Review: The Intel NUC computers have my full confidence and support. Other than a laptop or tablet I can see no advantage in Tower or Mini-tower computers except for specialize hardware needs. Most certainly I expect to continue using and upgrading my Intel NUC computers for the foreseeable future.