I just got done transferring my weather software over to a new PC. Knock on wood, everything went fairly well.
I thought I would share my experiences and my considerations on why I chose what I did. I work for a state government IT office. In my normal duties, I can across a Dell Optiplex 3020 Micro PC. These units are 6 inches by 7 inches by 1.5 inches. Really small. Basically a laptop hard drive and memory. They can be bought with a i5 or i3 processor. The Optiplex 9020 can do a i7 as well. The kicker for me is this small unit can have an add on $20 card that adds are REAL serial port. Out the back there is a dongle for 2 PS2 ports(I don't need), and a DB9 serial COM1 port.
I was going to wait for the new Intel NUC PC's to come out this spring. But Dell had these 3020's on sale for 30% off. Since VWS and the other software I'm running isn't truly multi-processor capable, an i5 is overkill. i3 is a dual core with hyper-threading, so Windows sees 4 processors. The i5 is 4 2.0 Ghz processors, and the i3 is dual 3.0 Ghz. Since only one proc is really used at a time for VWS, a single 3.0 Ghz is better anyway.
The Intel NUC is sold no memory, no HD, no OS. After I would buy all of those, and add a potentially problematic USB to serial converter, I decided to not wait and buy the Dell instead.
The 3020 uses a 65 watt external power brick like a laptop. The i3 is only 35w TDP for the processor, lower than my old Core 2 Duo of 65 watts. The new PC has 4 Gig of RAM and a 500 Gig hybrid drive, with a copy of Windows 8 Standard for $500. For me, it was the right deal. My old PC only had a Futuremark processor score of 1647, new i3 is rated 4431 for the i3 4150t processor. So 4x the processor.
I have to wait yet and find out what my Killawatt says, but I'm betting this new unit will be 1/4 the electricity of my old mini-tower PC.
Anyway, I just thought I would through this out as another option for the weather enthusiasts like myself as another option. Oh, and BTW, they also have a slot inside to take the standard mini-PCIe card needed for Wifi, like a laptop. Or you can buy it with on already in there.
Picture of the micro PC:
http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/OptiPlex-3020.pngDell page on the PC:
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/optiplex-3020m-desktop/pd