Intel NUC, Zotac, Akasa cases etc

[Drael646464]

My next PC I'm planning on a fanless mini-pc. I'm targeting in life in general towards a solar offgrid lifestyle, and I want a PC that takes up minimal space and uses minimal power.

But I do a few things that require a little power. Namely fruity loops, and some classic style top-down rpgs.

So basically I'm just curious about others who have gotten into mini-pcs. Or find the area interesting.

Just to share any of your experiences, or whathave you.

 

[Drael646464]

Two jobbies I'm interested in are the upcoming Zotac CI660, the already existing i7-8650U and the akasa plato x7d and also the upcoming whiskey lake Core i7-8565U (and whatever case akasa might make for it - that lovely boost of 4.6 single core, and 4.1 quad core, as well as DDR4-2666 is pretty nice on a 15 tdp chipset).

I like the idea of being able to "tune" the power consumption, so I can put it in TDP down mode for lower power use, or up mode for performance. Be super cool of there was a case with passive cooling powerful enough to cope with a persistant boost, that would be a power flexible device and a half.

 

[Drael646464]

Unfortunately there's no external GPUs that run low power or even close, but I reckon 620 is probably good enough for the limited/casual gaming I do.

Will be running some kind of USB HD DAC, perhaps something from soundblaster.

 

[Drael646464]

Anyway, anyone got any cool mini-pcs? The skull canyon? Anything a bit interesting? Cool thunderbolt or usb peripherals? Mods? Overclocks or thermal mods?