Low power consumption VirtualBox PC

[Ziphikai]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a small form factor PC with low power consumption that would be capable of running windows 7 smoothly in VirtualBox. I have no interest in gaming on this machine as the purpose is simply day to day usage (mostly webbrowsing).

Although from a security standpoint it may seem overkill I'd like to be able to smoothly run a webbrowser in seamless mode (VirtualBox) in order to browse the internet via a VM guest. From my experience with an i7-3770k I'm assuming this may stress out many lower power CPU's, especially streaming video from youtube etc.

If anyone has any suggestions that would be great. I'm currently looking at the NUC line up and wondering if the skylake i5 may fit the bill. Also interested in the Lenovo ThinkCentre M900 Tiny but not sure I trust Lenovo given their recent history. The Gigabyte BRIX is another option but I've heard bad things about fan noise on them.

Thanks.

 

[Outlander_04]

The lowest spec pentium or apu can do this . Or it can do it if its not in a VM

Since chrome runs each tab in a VM and firefox can also run in a VM , and most of the security software that exists can run your browser in a VM anyway I cannot see why you would do what you are doing

 

[Ziphikai]

The lowest spec pentium or apu can do this . Or it can do it if its not in a VM

Since chrome runs each tab in a VM and firefox can also run in a VM , and most of the security software that exists can run your browser in a VM anyway I cannot see why you would do what you are doing

Thanks for the quick reply Outlander. I think you may be confusing VM's with sandboxing? In any case I'm not too worried about how overkill the solution is as previously mentioned, I'd have other uses for virtualbox beyond just browsing.

This machine in general would have other uses but I think the most demanding task would be running VirtualBox which is why I focussed on it.

 

[Outlander_04]

Im aware of the difference but for just a browser then there is no effective difference , except its harder to reinstall a VM .

 

[Ziphikai]

It takes 5-10 seconds to restore a snapshot in VirtualBox which removes all changes to the OS. In the event that your web browser is compromised and the sandbox bypassed it's much easier to restore a snapshot than reinstall your main OS.

Also there's a big difference between a browser sandbox and a VM.