NUC 15 Pro

I tried asus nuc 15 pro 225h. It was inaudible for my workload. You can adjust fan curves, thermal targets in bios. I also disabled e cores in bios, effectivly lowering power consumption by a lot and also improve thermals. For my workload it was ideal.

ASUS NUC 15 Pro Slim U7-255H NUC15CRKU7 - supports 128gb ram. works great for vmware etc

ASUS NUC 15 Pro Slim U7-255H NUC15CRKU7 - supports 128gb ram. works great for vmware etc

Just in case some wants a tip, last summer I bought an ASUS NUC 15 Pro Tall Kit RNUC15CRHC7000021 and it is my best Proxmox homelab experience.

Yeah my ASUS NUC 15 Pro has gotten like 10 BIOS updates since I got it earlier this year. And I'm very glad, because it sorted out instability issues I was having with Proxmox.

Asus NUC 15 Pro with Intel Ultra 5 225H CPU. It has all the ports you need, durable, and full X86 compatibility.

I installed that RAM kit in an Asus NUC 15 Pro+, no problems at all, works like a dream. Kingston makes good gear. Related to the others, dunno why wouldn't be compatible.

For your budget and photoshot needs, go with Asus NUC 15 Pro barebones with Intel Ultra 7 255H. The single core CPU works great for photoshop. Also, similar drivers as your Asus Zenbook laptop. You can add 2 sticks of DDR5 RAM and 1 TB of SSD storage later. You will need to download your OS to a USB

Thank you so much for the detailed suggestion! I hadn't looked into the Asus NUC 15 Pro but it actually sounds like a great fit, especially since I already have an Asus Zenbook and would probably feel at home driver-wise. That Ultra 7 255H looks very appealing for Photoshop and general multitasking,

Beelink SER8 should be decent at $500 to $535 for livestreaming. Better options are the M4 Mac Mini and Asus NUC 15 Pro due to better encoders. The latter option cost a lot more, between $900 to $1,200 USD.