Mini PC for transcoding

[gamecaptor]

I am looking at picking up a mini PC to do my handbrake transcoding on. I want something small, fast and quiet that I can throw in a corner and forget about.

What I have been eyeing so far:

Intel® NUC Kit NUC6i5SYK
http://ark.intel.com/products/91160/Int ... o-2_90-GHz
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... i5syk.html

Intel® NUC Kit NUC6i7KYK
http://ark.intel.com/products/93341/Int ... o-3_50-GHz
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... tions.html

Beebox-S (Kaby Lake)
http://ark.intel.com/products/95443/Int ... o-3_10-GHz
http://www.asrock.com/nettop/Intel/Beeb ... x.asp?cat=

Speaking generally, I would assume the i7-6770HQ is going to be the fastest of the bunch simply due to it being a quad core (and the fastest)?
Would the i5-7200U be a good enough close 2nd even though it's only a dual core?

[rollin_eng]

The i7 should beat the i5 hands down due to CPU speed and cores with x264.

I'm not sure about which would do better using the intel encoder.

[Woodstock]

Remember that mini-PCs are going to have cooling issues when run at 100% CPU for long periods of time. Their target market is people who need momentary bursts of speed.

When you're doing QSV decoding AND encoding, that's not really critical, because the QSV hardware is quite efficient, power-wise. But doing CPU-based encoding offers better compression levels at the cost of a LOT of heat.

[JackNF]

Theoretically the Kaby Lake unit should have a "better" QSV encoder then the two Skylake options simply because every new generation Intel puts out has incremental improvements to their QSV engine. How much of a difference one generation to the next actually makes in practice I've no idea...

[gamecaptor]

Remember that mini-PCs are going to have cooling issues when run at 100% CPU for long periods of time. Their target market is people who need momentary bursts of speed.

When you're doing QSV decoding AND encoding, that's not really critical, because the QSV hardware is quite efficient, power-wise. But doing CPU-based encoding offers better compression levels at the cost of a LOT of heat.

Ya, that thought crossed my mind. That said I feel as though the NUC6i7KYK will probably handle that the best as it's designed as more of a "gaming" mini PC so it will handle heaver loads for longer.

The Beebox-S is appealing based on the price point.

[Woodstock]

Have you read any of the reviews on the NUC6i7KYK? The first one on Amazon ends with:

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UPDATE: 6/01/2016
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The NUC has some issues with heat. It runs HOT (80c - 90c) just by playing a Facebook game (Thunder Run: War of clans - @ level 44). This is a basic online game. It should handle it without any issues... So why the heat? Even if you lower the performance mode in the BIOS to low, it still runs hot. In Idle most times runs at 50c-60c and 70c+ when using normal windows applications. In basic online games it jumps into the mid/upper 80's. At one point it hitting 93c

[gamecaptor]

I did see that, but it will be set in an open space and out of the way of obstruction. I'm assuming they are built well enough to handle the heat.

[Devon Malcolm]

Even if you build them nicely, if they run in 100% cpu use, say for some gaming, they will generate heat which will cause cooling issues.

[Orikson]

I did see that, but it will be set in an open space and out of the way of obstruction. I'm assuming they are built well enough to handle the heat.

Let's say it that way: They propably won't get damaged due to the heat, but they will reduce the CPU clock and therefore encoding speed to stay below their maximum temperature.
For comparison: My Xeon, 4 cores, 8 threads, 3.4 GHz takes around 24 hours to transcode a full HD movie to x265, with average bit rate 9 MBit/s and two pass encoding. The NUCs will likely take four times as long, as they have only half of the cores and less core clock. Have you had a look on AMD Ryzen based Mini PCs? Theses usually offer more cores for less money