Help with picking a low power PC.

[SteveLy]

Why not have a high-performance games machine for playing games and a regular low power PC/laptop for less demanding applications? I assume you'd spend the bulk of your computer time with the latter.

I just got a Raspberry Pi 2 and I'm impressed with what under 5W of computing power gets you (not that impressed with the on-board audio though). Not saying go to that extreme, but a capable laptop will do fine with a few 10s of watts.

[ivan747]

Will WoW run on a NUC with i7-5557U w/integrated GPU? That is a low power solution? If so, go get one.

I use the i5-4250U NUC to serve as a NAS and compiling platform, and it served me for over a year, and is currently running well. Easily saturates GbE bandwidth with AES encrypted file sharing.

Rock solid reliability and stability. Till now, it only unexpectedly shut down for 3 times, both due to mains power loss or severe fluctuation.

Even the Iris Pro graphics are a bit of a stretch for gaming, they are widely outpowered by even a 60W GTX 750. I don't know about WoW, though, if it's light enough, well, it could run fine.

[ivan747]

Why not have a high-performance games machine for playing games and a regular low power PC/laptop for less demanding applications? I assume you'd spend the bulk of your computer time with the latter.

I just got a Raspberry Pi 2 and I'm impressed with what under 5W of computing power gets you (not that impressed with the on-board audio though). Not saying go to that extreme, but a capable laptop will do fine with a few 10s of watts.

That's not a bad solution. I'd recommend an HP Stream 11 for a laptop. It's got like a 5W SoC, x64 Atom processor. A Chromebook minus Chrome OS.

I still like the idea of a Mini ITX gaming computer, though. I've toyed with the idea of building one.

[crispy_tofu]

That's not a bad solution. I'd recommend an HP Stream 11 for a laptop. It's got like a 5W SoC, x64 Atom processor. A Chromebook minus Chrome OS.

I still like the idea of a Mini ITX gaming computer, though. I've toyed with the idea of building one.

Having personally used the HP Stream 11, it's very slow and really doesn't have the power to run Windows.