Yes. The NUC is indeed very nice and seems to fulfill all the requirements I have (and surpass some). Maybe the first firmware versions will be less troubled this time.
I didn’t wait for it mostly due to cost. The base kit is $650. Knowing Europe, that probably means $750/660 Eur here. And is without RAM or storage, which means an increase to maybe 800 Eur at best.
That’s almost twice of what I paid for the ISK 110+6100T+B150N+8GB+120GB setup, which IMHO has better value for money unless you really need to squeeze all the extra horsepower the SK NUC provides.
That’s not a huge TDP difference. I am assuming the load power will be way way higher, which is OK, as this system will be idle most of the time. But the idle power could be reasonably close to the 10W I get on my existing system. I am guesstimating 15W. That’s acceptable, for the huge increase in GPU power – that Skull Canyon box can play modern games at 1080p at framerates comparable to an Xbox One or PS4!
We’ll see when I get mine later in May, I will measure and report back. The only downside is the two 2TB 2.5" media drives will have to hang off it in external USB 3 enclosures, but I think I can live with that.
Results from Skull Canyon NUC in the GRID 2 benchmark, 1280x720, high detail presets:
Max Min Avg
i3-4130T, HD 4400 32 21 27
i3-6100T, HD 530 50 32 39
NUC6i7KYK 96 59 78
And when changing res to 1920x1080?
NUC6i7KYK 71 38 55
Looks like 15w completely idle at desktop – 13w with the display sleeping – and around 70-80w in GRID2 benchmark. So at idle it is only 3w - 5w more power draw, not bad!
@codinghorror Thank you for this entire post, it’s the most informative and up-to-date HTPC piece on the entire interwebs today. I myself was also psyched about the Skull Canyon NUC, figured it would let me have my cake & eat it too.
I considered pre-ordering (shoulda, coulda, woulda) but they’re now all unavailable.
But…
The only concern I had was raised by the Anandtech review saying it creates quite a bit more noise than previous NUCs. See “HTPC Credentials” in the link below, or for convenience:
“The higher TDP of the processor in Skull Canyon, combined with the new chassis design, makes the unit end up with a bit more noise compared to the traditional NUCs.”
It’s no noisier than an Xbox One, really. It’s difficult to subject it to serious load and get the fan all the way up there, as the CPU is so overpowered relative to what games require.
Thanks. That’s a good comparison (I have an XBone also, but share your views on the crappyness of the interface and the general awkwardness of video library playback etc).
The other heartening thing is that load should = sound (from game, movie etc) which will mean it less likely to be noticable.
I’ve been thinking of getting the similar HTPC for a long time. However, I want it also to be running as a storage server that holds 5 drives(4x3.5inch and 1xm.2) as well as 4K playback capable. Do you think picopsu-90 is
good enough for this configuration? Do I need 120 or even 150?
And my TV is 4K with HDMI2.0 port. Is there any DP1.2 to HDMI2.0 that supports win 10?
Many thanks.
Followup: I’m returning the thing Sadly too noisy to sit in home-theatre land. I am going from a external DC PSU Haswell i3 which is only audible under heavy load (usually when unpacking downloads).
Thanks for the DAN case recommendation. Something that size without the discrete graphics would make for a good tiny case.
Hmm, are you exposing it to heavy load a lot of the time? I mostly play 1080p videos (and perhaps mostly 720p to be honest, since that’s what you tend to get from iTunes HD shows that I strip DRM from. Just checked one, 1280x718, 4162kbps) – that’s child’s play for this box. Full bore 1080p video gaming is a different story, of course, but I expect a little fan noise then.
Great info, thanks. I’m interested in an i3-6100T and H110 motherboard for a Plex Server. No transcoding required, but I like having the extra horsepower if I decide to multitask with it.
I have a spare J1800, 500GB SATA 2.5 5400 RPM and tested Plex Server streaming 1080P to a Roku (no transcoding). During initial boot, it draws 18W to 20W total. After it enters the appropriate C state via idle over a 20min or so, my kill-a-watt says it drops to 0.03W. Even when I stream via Plex Server it doesn’t change.
Do you know what your i3-6100T idle W is while streaming video as a Plex Server? I didn’t see your kill-a-watt reference. I’m beyond shocked of the J1800’s efficiency, but love the efficiency and power of SkyLake i3.
Hi, I have been following your builds for a while now and finally about to start mine. how would this build or the skull canyon handle photoshop and lightroom?
Thank you so far for the HTPC build.
Would you still recommend the same setup, for someone who creates it from scratch?
I want to build one, with a bigger case, where I can probably put in 2x 3,5" 4TB WD Reds. (Probably will look up a nice one with Hotswap). But suggestions are welcome.
I would use it as NAS, HTPC and for running some low-games 24/7 and so on. (And Services under Windows 10)
So power efficiency is key here.
Since I got a beast of a PC, but it is running with 100W in idle.
Thanks in Advance.
Jan
Edit: What is your opinion on the 7100U and 7500U?
And what do you think about Kaby Lake or Zen, worth waiting and ditching Sky Lake?
I would wait for Kaby Lake at this point to get the better decoding support.
The case is solid, but if you are planning to put in 3.5" drives you will need more room! I recommend 2.5" drives for power and reliability reasons, but capacity will be more limited, obviously.
I´ll wait and see what comes out in the next weeks.
Maybe you could even do 2017 update of your build, just for the ones, that would create a new build like this.
That would be so awesome.
And I thought the same about Kaby Lake when I saw the decoding support.
I will also think about the drives, maybe new options arrive.
Initially, I wanted to use 3,5" WD Reds since I saw an awesome offer.
With friendly Regards
Jan
Edit: Did you already saw the Intel i5-7200U? That would be a perfect hit. Kaby Lake, great TDP and I think it has the new decoding.
Me too! I’m still using Windows 7 with Media center, which (along with the media browser plugin and the shark007 codec pack) does everything you’ve mentioned. Records live tv, plays blue ray, plays media from the network. The media center remote is brilliant, although it’s starting to fall apart and I’m not sure if I can replace it.
I have to switch to a browser for netflix, but that’s not too bad.
I’ve been looking for alternatives to switch to, but haven’t come up with anything great yet. I was planning on kodi, but your experience makes that seem less of a good option
Thank you for the HTPC build, I needed a low power usage build for my wife’s online teaching job and this works perfectly. She doesn’t need a ton of graphics power, just enough for video. It is burning only 15 watts while using teleconferencing software not including the monitor. And if she ever loses the job I’ll have an HTPC! Total build cost was about $620 including Windows 10, which her job requires.
I am curious if you have updated this build since 2016. I did a search for HTPC but came up with this post as the latest. I have a Dell PC I run in a corner that works fine for Plex, but I would be curious if I could run something like this (more up to date) as an alternative, as the Dell is kinda long in the tooth.
Yes, that is covered in The Golden Age of x86 Gaming and specifically I am now on the Hades Canyon model, which is still great and quite inexpensive now
Sadly too noisy to sit in home-theatre land. I am going from a external DC PSU Haswell i3 which is only audible under heavy load (usually when unpacking downloads).
