Reviews - Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) review

[HEXUS]

Small in size but big on potential.

Read more.

[DDY]

I'm cautiously optimistic, I hope manufacutres will make a harder push for NUC than previous attempts at other small form factors, such as Nano and Pico ITX. Both of which I thought had great potential but were massively overpriced yet in most cases featured hardware which was far too slow, at least this NUC board has got the performance bit right.

[jimbouk]

I don't know, in my mind there is a very big "why?" floating around wrt this. There are plenty of form factors around, I'm not sure we need to go much smaller for a general purpose computer. Cost is up, flexibility is down, and Intel just don't have the right system balance compared to AMD to pull it off atm.

[Phage]

Interesting. Commoditisation proceeds apace.

[cptwhite_uk]

There will come a time when bringing your PC to a LAN will consist of taking your phone out of your pocket and wirelessly teethering it to your monitor and input devices, maybe sitting it on a wireless recharge pad.

That's when we will have the fully mobile desktop. I just don't really see a need for these, if you want portabilty you have a laptop or tablet. You can't get portabilty and desktop power yet. The only reason I see these being useful is for space saving. But when you can get so much more power and customisation on slightly bigger (but still considerably smaller and ATX) form factors I would struggle to justify something like this, and intel certainly don't have the product yet.

If AMD did this they might have more success - puncher graphics capability and cheaper pricing, but even still I can only imagine you'd choose something a little bigger, but considerably better, for the same cash.

[Phage]

I agree with Captain <ahem>
We're not there yet, but we are certainly moving towards the SF Slate that does everything.

[scaryjim]

... I hope manufacutres will make a harder push for NUC than previous attempts at other small form factors, such as Nano and Pico ITX. ...

Seems unlikely, AFAICT this is a proprietary Intel platform. I'm actually quite the opposite - I really wish Intel had just gone for pushing one of the existing single board form factors: it's not like there's a shortage (Nano- and Pico-ITX, 5.25" and 3.25" embedded platforms, and other more esoteric industrial designs). After all nano-itx is only a couple of cm larges in each direction, and pico-itx is smaller overall. Then we could have an open standard that everyone can follow, rather than everyone doing their own integrated boxes at ridiculous prices.

The problem is as long as the case they provide for it looks cute enough, thousands on thousands of people will buy it, just because it's a small cute computer instead of a big ugly box. If anything, this is Intel finally accepting that even low-end CPU and GPU performance is enough for modern computing needs. AMD really need to get partners putting ULV trinity on pico-itx motherboards in nicely integrated cases.

[DDY]

snip...

I wouldn't want modern computing to gravitate towards low power and low performance, although the NUC platform does more for the low power/performance side of things, I still want the freedom to choose between form factors and the NUC can give us another option. For example, there are times where I'd rather stick a discreet machine to the back of TV rather than have a ATX behemoth sitting under it, similarly I wouldn't want to play BF3 on a NUC... and so on.

EDIT: I totally agree with AMD getting in on the SFF front, it again gives us freedom to choose, and cheaper gear because of added competition , having said that, I'd like to see more from VIA because they're going to be drowned out at this rate.

And don't get me wrong, I would have preferred manufacturers to stick to existing form factors because the more form factors there are, the more difficult and expensive it is to build a machine to the desired spec due to format differences, something which can be avoided by standards like the Nano ITX.

[Wozza63]

perhaps they could standardize a raspberry pi sized PCB which is less than 50cm^2 compared to this one being 100cm^2, im sure if a company like intel invested a lot of cash into something that size they could make something pretty impressive

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems quite expensive TBH!!

For example you can get this entire A10-4600M HTPC which includes the Windows license for around £460:

http://www.morecomputers.com/extra.a...erer=FroogleA1

It looks a nice system TBH:

http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/ht...centre-review/

Edit!!

Does seem to get hot!!

Zotac also does other SFF boxes,which also seem to be cheaper too.

[Savas]

You can play BF3 and the latest games on this. Just search 'external GPU' on Google. I forgot whatever the correct term for these things are, but anyway the concern here is bottlenecks and if there isn't then there is no difference. In fact Hexus needs to do a review and comparison on external GPU's and see what difference there is in performance.

This is indeed the future of desktop computing and I don't mean this Intel thing, but the size. These little boxes need to just increase their performance so there is no bottlenecks and then simply plug in your external GPU whenever you feel like playing graphic intensive games and you won't be able to tell the difference between a tower PC and this.

I don't understand why the GPU market (AMD/Nvidia) haven't invested in this already. If I could purchase an external GPU, I would have no need to have such a large case. There would be no need to worry about case size when upgrading your graphics. Then people would actually buy these things, forget about it looking cute.

Cooling would obviously improve too. Power supply is also a concern, whether your current PSU can supply the new one when you upgrade. These things stop people from purchasing new graphics/hardware.

Here, check this:
http://youtu.be/nkoMgsb_ETo

My next build will focus on having an external graphics, for sure!

Hexus why have you guys not already done a review or performance comparison?!

[DDY]

snip...

I wouldn't want to play BF3 on the Intel HD4000 IGP even if I could. A graphics card can help, but what's the point of having a tiny low power static computer ala Intel NUC, if you're then going to hook up a hulking great big power hungry graphics card to it?

AMD is on the right tracks by integrating a reasonably powerful GPU with the CPU, it's the most space efficient method of building a very small gaming computer.

External graphics cards have their place, mobile devices can be connected to faster GPUs when mobility and power consumption factors are not essential, e.g. when docked on your desktop. In such a setup Thunderbolt can be useful, but I think a passive PCIe connection would be a better approach, it's just a matter for manufactures to implement it, preferably at a decent link speed.

There is also a case for SFF gaming machines equivalent to towers in performance, I'm a big fan of that idea, what we need are motherboards along the lines of mini ITX with better layouts, not external graphics cards, anything smaller than ITX limits expansion capabilities too severely IMO. Take the NUC for instance, it doesn't even have SATA ports but rather mSATA to conserve space.

But, what if I wanted an even smaller gaming machine but was not concerned about the bells and whistles? Then I'd be after somthing like the NUC with an AMD Fusion APU on it.

[Oswald]

I don't see any need for this either. Sure, the fact that all of this technology can house in such a small box is cool, but who really needs it?
In my experience, small computers give a lot of problems. I used to work at a service desk and we had a lot of small computers failing because of overheating. Same thing happens with gaming consoles getting smaller. A lot of problems with overheating.
A laptop can do more for the same price as this little box.

[devBunny]

£300+ NUC - 'Next Unit of Costliness'.

I'd throw a custard pie at it. Or a handful of Raspberry Pi's.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,the next generation AMD Jaguar CPUs and the next generation Atom CPUs will probably be worth looking out for IMHO. These could form the basis of reasonably fast and low cost SFF boxes.

[will2]

It could potentially be an improvement on the NETTOP/small HTPC type product typified by Zotac, Asus, Acer Nettops - but £500 for complete system is way above that market !!!

For example, my Acer Revo 3600 4-thread Atom 330/nVidia 9400 with 6 USB2, WiFi, SDslot in attractive 19x19x4cm box, with Linux on a 250GB HDD sold for £180 in 2006

It stutters on some hi-def MKV's and with a 11-27W consumption is hotter than I would like, so want to replace with a faster, less energy-consuming, maybe smaller model, BUT this has half the USB2 ports, no USB3, SDslot or SATA, yet over DOUBLE THE PRICE !!!

Judjing by near weekly announcements of 'pendroids' and other sff pc's for connection to a TV, there is a big market for a tiny HTPC for the lounge. That location requires a SDslot to allow moving the SDcard from camera to the htpc to quickly view todays photos. Smaller than the Revo is better in the sitting room for less clutter -yet with a BT keyboard, can double-up as a non-heavy pc.

I was hopeful a 17W Ivy i5 ULV would consume less than a Atom 330/Geforce 9400 combo, but you state the NUC consumes upto 35Watts - 8 Watts more than the Revo resulting in a noisy 41dB.

My Revo is inaudible.

As the Ivy Bridge takes a max of 17W it would appear the NUC motherboard takes the remaining 18W - which doesnt add up, as you say the NUC takes 11W at idle.