Intel's Latest NUC Costs $232 Including Windows 10

Intel started offering Next Unit of Computing (NUC) mini desktop computers back in 2013 when we got a Sandy Bridge Celeron model using HD Graphics 2000. Things have moved on quite a way since then in terms of performance, connectivity, and even the size of more recent NUCs.

But one thing NUCs have always been is a little bit expensive when compared to similar tiny PC offerings from other manufacturers. The latest NUC may change that perception somewhat.

As The NUC Blog reports, listings have started appearing for the Intel NUC6CAYS, which is a preconfigured NUC using a 10W Apollo Lake quad-core Celeron processor running at 1.5GHz with HD Graphics 500. It is paired with 2GB of DDR3L-1600 RAM, a 32GB eMMC flash drive, and a copy of Windows 10 Home. The price? Only $232.

Considering Windows 10 Home typically costs around $85 when bought separately, that's quite a cheap NUC. Yes, the storage and RAM is lacking, but then both are upgradeable. RAM can be increased to a much more respectable 8GB (a cost of roughly $40), and there's a 2.5-inch drive bay which will hold a 9.5mm hard drive or SSD and connects via SATA (6GB/s). So that's around $60 for a 1TB hard drive or maybe spend $70 and get a 240GB SSD depending on your needs.

Other key features of this NUC include a Gigabit Ethernet port, 802.11ac dual band wireless, HDMI 2.0 and VGA, four USB 3.0 ports, three USB 2.0 ports, and a stereo microphone/headphone jack.

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Intel will also be releasing a barebones version of this NUC, which will obviously be cheaper. How much cheaper we don't know ($170 maybe?), but if you plan on running Windows 10 anyway, the preconfigured NUC6CAYS may end up being the cheaper option.