News - Intel NUC teeny-weeny PC coming in October

[HEXUS]

$400 for base model.

Read more.

[M_Taylor40]

Nice article, I was thinking this could be a nice HTPC as I'm looking at a smaller, more efficient replacement for my old one.

But then I came to the $400/£300 price tag, that's way to steep for a barebones setup!

For around £300-350 I can build an ITX based HTPC running on a Core i3/5, 8GB DDR3 and 60GB SSD! Fair enough my build is larger in size, but it's still small enough for the living room.

If Intel can shave some money off, down to say £250-300 using a Core i3 including HDD & RAM (I don't need WiFi), I'll give it a look, but not until then! For now, I'll just keep playing with my RaspberryPi and XBMC lol.

[cjs150]

It looks almost exactly like a Zotac Nano Box which costs about £300 (or $450). The key issue (which from reviews I do not think Zotac have craked) is whether it requires a fan to cool it and if so how noisy.

Obvious potential for an HTPC

[gagaga]

Maybe a little faster, but no smaller than the smallest Zotac AMD boxes and twice the price.

[scaryjim]

What I don't get is why they feel the need for a new form factor. Nano-ITX is only 1cm larger in each direction, and PicoITX is smaller, so what benefit does this provide? Lining Intel's already deep pockets, sure ... anything else?

Thought not

All we really need is for a couple of enterprising OEMs to stick ULV Trinity on a Nano or Pico ITX form factor. Job done

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Intel NUC



Zotac ZBox Nano



I wonder if the NUC case is designed by Zotac??

Also,it seems the NUC uses mSATA too which pushes the price up even more.

[kingpotnoodle]

I wonder if the NUC case is designed by Zotac??

It definitely looks like a Nano, they haven't named the OEM who did the case but I would wager it was either Zotac or the same faceless Chinese company that makes stuff for Zotac.

The NUC looks good, powerful and small, but I've not had good experience with Zotac boxes they were too noisy. In the end I bought an ITX system in an Antec ISK case.

http://store.antec.com/Product/enclosure-itx/isk100/0-761345-15170-2.aspx

Quite a bit bigger but the mesh top panel allowed me to attach a IR receiver to the header on an Intel ITX board and the CPU fan breathes so well it's basically silent for a Celeron G620T. Supports 2 regular 2.5" drives as well. Great case.

[gagaga]

Intel NUC



Zotac ZBox Nano



I wonder if the NUC case is designed by Zotac??

Also,it seems the NUC uses mSATA too which pushes the price up even more.

aaaaah. rememeber now. There was a video on here a few months back where they were talking to zotac about an update, and zotac refused to confirm/deny it was based on ivb....

[Ciber]

Nice idea but can't they make it fanless? My shuttle XS35 manages that. Also 300 is too much IMO unless it includes ram, SSD etc.