[HN Gopher] Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment...
___________________________________________________________________
Intel exiting the PC business as it stops investment in the Intel
NUC
Author : 2bluesc
Score : 120 points
Date : 2023-07-11 13:29 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.servethehome.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.servethehome.com)
| bamfly wrote:
| I always wanted to like these, but they seemed consistently
| overpriced by like 30%. I'd price one out with all the necessary
| parts, and by the end it was always like, why am I not just
| buying a mac mini (or an RPi, for lower-intensity applications)?
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| For at least 12 years, and probably even more I built low-
| powered HTPC with NUCs and Acasa cases.
|
| dn2820fykh was great.
| adrian_b wrote:
| The price depends on what you compare it with.
|
| A NUC with an i3 Raptor Lake CPU and 16 GB DRAM is slightly
| less than EUR 400, a NUC with an i7 Raptor Lake CPU and 64 GB
| DRAM is slightly less than EUR 800, both with all taxes
| included.
|
| If you buy the cheapest MB, the cheapest case and PSU and the
| cheapest Pentium or Celeron desktop CPU, you can get a desktop
| that is cheaper than a NUC, but with less peripheral
| interfaces, i.e. without the Thunderbolt ports included in a
| NUC, and which will not be faster than a NUC.
|
| On the other hand if you compare a NUC with a laptop that has a
| similar number of peripheral interfaces and a similar CPU
| speed, then you discover that the laptops are incredibly
| overpriced and only mobile workstations or top gaming laptops
| of $3000 or more can match a NUC.
|
| None of the laptops available from a major vendor has so many
| peripheral ports as a NUC. None of the laptops that use the
| same CPU as a NUC has a comparable speed to the NUC. The reason
| is that NUCs have much better cooling. In the recent NUCs, the
| CPU can dissipate 35 W indefinitely, without overheating, even
| if the CPUs have a nominal TDP of only 28 W.
|
| Because of this I have stopped upgrading my Dell Precision
| mobile workstation and I have replaced it with a NUC together
| with a 17" portable monitor and a compact keyboard. This combo
| has less than half the price of a comparable mobile
| workstation, it is much lighter, by more than 1 kg than a 17"
| laptop, it needs less volume in my backpack, and because it has
| more peripheral ports I carry less dongles.
|
| I have always used my laptop on a desk, connected to the mains
| power, wherever I have to go in a business trip, so using a NUC
| changes nothing from this POV.
| stemlord wrote:
| I would say there's a huge performance gap between the most
| powerful Pi and even a Nuc mini from 6 years ago. Hard to
| consider them in the same ballpark, use-case-wise.
| hiatus wrote:
| Strange this was downvoted. I put together a VR-capable nuc
| for under $1k, definitely not even in the same ballpark as a
| pi.
| bamfly wrote:
| The NUCs had a pretty wide range of processor options, and
| often fairly-old ones with low core counts from lower-end
| processor lines were still for sale--but never at what felt
| like the correct price to me, especially since they usually
| needed memory and a disk (the ones that came with those
| seemed like an even _worse_ deal)
| debaserab2 wrote:
| They make for nice little quiet home linux servers if you need
| more power than an RPi. A mac mini would be a good choice, too,
| but then you're stuck on macOS.
| GordonS wrote:
| I had the same feelings - I'm sure I would have bought one (at
| least) if they didn't have such a premium price attached.
| greesil wrote:
| I can just put Linux on it and I'm done. I love mine.
| mikerg87 wrote:
| Sad in a way. the classic NUC form factor is all I expect we will
| see going forward. I don't expect we will see anything
| interesting or different like the beast canyon, ghost canyon or
| raptor canyon form factors again
| kylecazar wrote:
| One of those products I've always been on the verge of buying but
| never pulled the trigger.
|
| I'm now looking at the System 76 Meerkat to fill the same void.
| apawloski wrote:
| That's a shame. After building a few of my own computers/servers
| with used parts over the years, I switched to buying used NUCs
| for my last two projects (computer in my shed/workshop for basic
| CAD, and a quicksync plex transcoding box). I've found them more
| meaningfully powerful than a raspberry pi but much smaller than a
| large computer. I was hoping with ARM advancements that we'd see
| some super low power NUCs in the future.
| viraptor wrote:
| Same here, I'm really going to miss that. I've been using the
| discontinued lower-end NUCs from eBay as home servers and
| they're amazing for that purpose.
|
| Does anyone know of a similar deal to be had from another
| brand? (Apart from optiplex - I see the recommendations already
| and they do look nice)
| saltcured wrote:
| This makes me reflect on prior milestones in PC packaging from my
| own POV. There is an almost tidal dance between the various
| thermal and performance measures and how these different devices
| meet use cases. But I think there is also the overall flattening
| trend where machines have exceeded "good enough" for many people
| and so the differences are more subtle, highlighting thinks like
| expansion/upgrade/maintenance versus aesthetics or other
| intangibles.
|
| A long-term shift for me is that my storage needs stopped growing
| with the market. Decades ago, I needed to run multiple HDDs
| whether for mass storage or RAID protection, but now find myself
| satisfied with mostly single-SSD systems. For personal use, I can
| mirror and backup between systems rather than needing so much
| redundancy inside of one. And, any machine I would consider today
| has sufficient desktop graphics to drive one or two 4K displays
| to my satisfaction for reading, writing, web browsing, and
| general software development. The most relevant specs for me now
| are CPU+GPU+RAM vs power consumption, noise, and heat.
|
| You might think the NUC was aimed right at me. But, I ignored
| NUCs as I saw them as just another bookshelf system which I'd
| already dismissed before Intel entered the game. For an
| integrated black box, laptops seem close enough to the same
| specs, while arguably having more versatility and better pricing
| due to their market size and economy of scale. But let me go back
| through my long-term observations here...
|
| A little over 20 years ago, the Pentium-M made a showing that
| seemed to bring laptop performance up to meet desktops, largely
| because it was so much more power efficient and didn't suffer as
| much thermal throttling while competing against the hot-running
| Pentium 4. For a brief period, I thought all I needed was a
| Thinkpad. I also fantasized about a desktop based on one (or
| more!) of these chips. Years before that, the Pentium MMX made a
| similar showing in laptops, but then desktops got into SMP and
| bigger RAM and the MHz wars.
|
| Around the same time as the Pentium-M, mini PCs like the Shuttle
| XPC gained popularity as a format between normal desktops and
| laptops. They usually used desktop chips and heat-pipe cooling
| solutions, with some limited expansion bays for disks and PCI
| cards. But the Athlon64 soon arrived and upset the status quo. I
| was enamored with an XPC running an Athlon64. I later soured on
| this XPC form factor when I realized it was almost as disposable
| as a laptop. Few parts would complement the exact model I owned,
| and most useful upgrades meant a whole system replacement. I
| learned that motherboards, power supplies, and cooling solutions
| also need maintenance or upgrade options.
|
| I reverted to uATX boards and chassis for home systems. I could
| manage these as Ships of Theseus with more modular upgrades over
| a decade or more, including a system that migrated from Athlon64
| to Athlon64 x2 to Phenom. Also following on the Pentium-M was
| Intel's response to the Athlon64---the Core and Core2 eras. I
| left AMD behind and enjoyed long-lived Core 2 systems starting
| starting with the venerable Q6600 and visting Haswell to end with
| Skylake. I still have the Skylake system in cold storage, because
| I've found myself back just running laptops.
|
| On my employer's budget, I always went with beefy Intel-based
| workstations in the office and Thinkpads for travel and after
| hours or occasional WfH duty. My home systems were mostly for
| entertainment. The Covid lockdown sent me back into using a work
| laptop full-time, as we scurried to full WfH. My first Ryzen-
| based Thinkpad was eye opening as a capable desktop when docked.
| I eventually retired the workstation in my (now vacant) office,
| as I wasn't even bothering to access it anymore. Other work
| things continue on remote access colo servers and cloud
| hosting...
| simmons wrote:
| Oh, I'm sorry to hear this. :(
|
| I've bought many NUCs over the years. I'm literally sitting in my
| office right now with 8 NUCs set up -- 1 as a workstation, and 7
| as servers performing various tasks. I know people have always
| complained that they are a bit more expensive than the
| alternatives, but I'm willing to pay a premium for the excellent
| Linux compatibility and reliability.
|
| That said, I've been expecting this for quite some time. I doubt
| the NUC line made a lot of money for them -- their stated goal
| with NUC was for these machines to be demonstrations of what can
| be done with their hardware. In their current situation, I'm not
| surprised that they decided this was needed to increase their
| focus.
|
| I guess I'll be shopping around for alternatives at some point.
| imtringued wrote:
| >but I'm willing to pay a premium for the excellent Linux
| compatibility and reliability.
|
| Yeah it is quite strange. Even the Vision Five 2 RISC-V has
| better software support than your usual ARM SBC. The big caveat
| is that the opensource drivers only support Vulkan but
| Imagination (tm) has planned on releasing a Vulkan based OpenGL
| implementation. Of course application software support is worse
| than ARM because of recompilation but that is a trivial
| barrier. If the hardware is any good, distros and developers
| will compile their packages for the new ISA.
| nologic01 wrote:
| I guess Intel is not the kind of company that would reinvent
| itself with a "iphone moment".
|
| Granted the idea of a _personal home cloud_ is not exactly
| radical and Intel does not have an OS (though they could adopt
| linux) but its not a stretch of imagination to think _every_ home
| running one or more such devices.
|
| The challenge of navigating the post-Moore's law era clearly
| requires focus as a few more missteps (whatever happened to Xeon
| Phi?) could be terminal.
|
| The best way to survive an uncertain future is to shrewdly
| engineer one to your liking, rather than chase others working on
| their own strengths.
| obscurette wrote:
| I've bought quite a few Intel NUCs through years, because it was
| the only mini PC available here with HDMI CEC support.
| dtx1 wrote:
| These Werke never a good market fit. They couldnt compete with
| normal medium Form factor builds on price, couldnt compete with
| chinese small nuc like computers in the low end (ironically using
| Intel chips) and raspberry pis for the SOC Space.
|
| They ended up being bad competitions for high end gaming PCs
| giving you notebook like power for desktop gaming prices. I'm
| surprised they survived this long.
| pavon wrote:
| Man it's a bad season for small form factor computers. I have
| four small home computers that are all NUC or PC-engine depending
| on needs, and now both are discontinued. The NUCs were difficult
| to justify on price alone, but whenever I looked all the
| reputable competitors were larger and/or louder.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| In theory I liked these things.
|
| ...but in practice I never got one, because they were always so
| expensive. The same hardware can be found in a laptop for much
| less.
| hooverd wrote:
| Same story. I looked at a NUC as a possible SFF PC, balked at
| the price, and ended up buying a Lenovo M93p Tiny off a guy on
| Craigslist for a lot less.
| milsorgen wrote:
| I fell in love with Lenovo and HP SFF/'tiny pcs' a couple
| years ago. It can be tricky to find ample display outs in a
| preferred hardware configuration but otherwise they've been
| cheap, quiet, reliable and efficient. I realized as much as I
| like the tech and even idea of gaming, I don't game much
| anymore at all so without the need for a proper GPU these
| things have really simplified computing in my life to the
| point I have very capable extra hardware for projects and
| experiments ready to just plug in and go. 10/10 will buy more
| again
| inversetelecine wrote:
| Not to mention you can buy off-lease ones usually for
| $200-$300 USD that will do most everything except mid&high
| end gaming or complex 3D CAD.
| hooverd wrote:
| I run mine headless. It's a great little x86 box for
| Jellyfin/home automation/logging/anything I want to run
| inside my local network that doesn't need graphics and
| won't accidentally get turned off.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Same here, I wanted to have a mini desktop to transplant the
| hard drive of a dying laptop, so I was looking into them, and
| exactly because of that I gave up.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Totally. Eventually got a used one for a Roon server for like
| $200 on eBay. Music on a USB stick. Works like a charm.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Ah, classic Intel. Randomly start making/selling X with great
| fanfare, maybe do that pretty well for a while, then quietly
| abandon X later. For any X != "x86 CPU's".
| sounds wrote:
| The whole hardware industry has boom/bust cycles because the
| margins are thinner.
|
| Intel can easily launch a new small form factor line, with a
| new name, next year if the market is looking good.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| That sounds a lot like Google, but Intel doesn't throw as many
| things at the wall to see what sticks. NUCs have been around
| for 10+ years; that's much longer than Stadia or Reader.
| wtallis wrote:
| Intel also developed a track record of only being able to do a
| good job on one x86 design at a time. Doing Pentium M and
| Pentium 4 at the same time didn't work out so well, and neither
| did Core and Atom. And then for a several years the number
| actually dropped to zero as they had to keep recycling their
| existing designs and couldn't get a successful post-Skylake
| architecture out the door. Now that they're shipping both Core
| and Atom lineages on the same silicon, they might do a bit
| better at not leaving one to fall into irrelevance.
| mips_r4300i wrote:
| My greatest fear is when they decide they don't know what to do
| with FPGAs anymore and get rid of Altera (please do this,
| Intel, your website doc format is awful compared to good old
| Altera's)
|
| Funnily enough, Intel did used to make PLDs in the 90s. And
| back then, Altera actually rebranded and sold them!
| [deleted]
| thefounder wrote:
| The price was an issue. Not being fanless was another issue. So
| mac mini is the "best nuc" available.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Is there a mac mini model that hits a sweet spot on price and
| performance? I'd love to run a little cluster of mac minis.
| Maybe one of the intel ones so you could just throw on linux
| and something like slurm or pbs?
| sixothree wrote:
| Zero expandability makes it a nope for me.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Depending on situation, the way NUCs typically needed external
| power bricks also made them less attractive. Mac minis aren't
| as small no, but the size difference for having the PSU be
| internal is minimal and it eases power strip woes.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Price aside, the power brick was always a huge annoyance that
| kept me from getting one. Now that usbc gan chargers can hit
| 100W, I keep hoping for a mini pc option that runs a ~65W
| class CPU with integrated GPU on a non proprietary charger.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Not when I cannot customize it like PC NUCs.
| anotherhue wrote:
| The 100th or so announcement of "Market driven company reduces
| expenditure in non-core business areas due to changing monetary
| environment".
|
| They all start to blend together really, 0%IR BS washing away and
| revealing who's swimming naked.
| mydriasis wrote:
| I'm not on the up-and-up with Intel. I know they're building a
| fab in Ohio... generally, does anyone know what their next moves
| are meant to be? I'm curious to hear about their business plan --
| I know they've been lagging some other producers in recent years.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| "Catch up to TSMC at 1.8nm" is the dream. So fabbing other
| customers' stuff.
|
| On the product side, Intel seems to be doubling down on GPUs,
| in spite of troubling rumors about Arc gen 2.
|
| Of course the question is what will be on time and what will be
| delayed. Previous delays obliterated the product lineups Intel
| meticulously planned before.
| mepian wrote:
| Yes, "5 nodes in 4 years" is the rallying cry of the company
| right now.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Hasn't this been the case for years? "Okay, we didn't get
| this node, but the next one or the one after that is
| totally ours"
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Apparently 18A is ahead of schedule.
|
| If its _not_ , that would be very dire, given the rumors
| that 20A is behind. Intel can only cancel and delay for
| so long.
| TechieKid wrote:
| Any links to said "troubling rumors about Arc Gen 2"?
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| The Moore's Law Is Dead YT channel claims the GPU as been
| delayed and "cut back" to a more modest size... But on
| second thought, I regret making that claim, as MLID is a
| unreliable source. For instance, they previously claimed
| Arc was canceled, and die size revisions don't really
| happen this close to release.
|
| This is the last credible rumor I know of:
| https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-next-gen-arc-battlemage-
| gp...
|
| Nevertheless Intel did officially modify and delay Falcon
| Shores (their big server GPU) to 2025, which worrying.
|
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/18756/intel-scraps-rialto-
| bri...
| [deleted]
| rasz wrote:
| Their plan might boil down to distributing subsidies as
| dividends to shareholders.
| Aromasin wrote:
| Considering Intel recently cut their annual payout from $1.46
| per share to $0.50 per share, while simultaneously building 3
| new fabs and expanding 3 others, I somehow doubt it.
| a1o wrote:
| I was admiring my old Intel atom passive cooled boards and an now
| non-working Motorola Smartphone with also an Intel atom. I still
| think fondly about those x86 initiatives.
| blahyawnblah wrote:
| I've had one for about 7 years now that's been my htpc. Nice,
| little, quiet, and it worked great. Was thinking about upgrading
| soon. Guess I'll have to figure something else out.
| electrosphere wrote:
| I wanted one for this purpose to replace a Dell Optiplex SFF
| running Kodi. It's dual-core CPU and cannot decode x265
| efficiently.
|
| The NUCs are a bit too expensive though and plenty of x264
| content still available.
| bamfly wrote:
| YMMV but I've found my watching:fiddling-with-the-system
| ratio to be _way_ higher with Jellyfin than it ever was in my
| years and years of trying and failing to enjoy Kodi /XBMC.
| And it's way more usable for other members of my family, who
| tended to look at Kodi and (understandably) just go "nope,
| not touching that". If they actually tried they'd usually
| need me to rescue them from some weird, useless mode they'd
| gotten stuck in, before they managed to watch anything. Zero
| such trouble with Jellyfin. And the (web) admin interface is
| _so_ much nicer & faster to use, on the rare occasions that
| I do need to go change something. Again, I get that some
| people find Kodi OK, but it might be worth taking a look if
| you're not totally, entirely happy with it.
|
| Similar issue with x265 content though. I've solved that by
| just using Apple TVs for our two TVs--also fixes any worries
| about surround not outputting correctly or whatever, that you
| can run into with hacked-together solutions. Spendy, but
| they've wasted none of my time and have never not-worked. Any
| other devices we connect to it with (laptops, desktops,
| tablets, phones) all support x265, so that's a non-issue.
| Maybe newer Rokus support x265, IDK, but none of mine do,
| which is the only reason I'm not still using those as my set-
| top client devices.
|
| (if you stick with Kodi, though: RPi4 supports hardware x265,
| I think)
| 01100011 wrote:
| I just performed fan-replacement surgery on the one I gave to
| my mom about 7 years ago. Still works great for her other than
| the fan that died. Not extremely easy to replace but not bad
| and it only cost about $15. I looked into replacing it but a
| quick search didn't turn up anything comparable for less than
| $500.
| nateb2022 wrote:
| > I looked into replacing it but a quick search didn't turn
| up anything comparable for less than $500.
|
| Comparable in what way, size?
| xnx wrote:
| I want to like these, but they hit the opposite of a sweet spot
| (sour spot? sore spot?): More expensive than a laptop (which also
| have a screen, keyboard, touchpad, speakers, etc.) and much
| larger than a dongle.
|
| The true "next unit of computing" now would be something like a
| Chromebox the size of a Chromecast.
| arka2147483647 wrote:
| The PC space really needs a new miniaturized case standard. The
| current ATX ones are too large for current components, and
| intel nuc is too integrated. Custom mini PC have odd things
| like long PCI riser cables because the ATX defined connectors
| are in the wrong place for mini pc builds.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| We need a top-to-bottom motherboard and PSU redesign. At
| minimum, I would like to see something higher than 12v rails
| so powering GPUs was less ridiculous.
| antisthenes wrote:
| The dongle is not a sweet spot for anything but low power
| embedded IOT stuff.
|
| Modern desktop computing takes at least 25-35W of consistent
| power, and there's absolutely NO way to fit that power envelope
| in a dongle factor, unless you surround it with a block of
| solid copper.
|
| > The true "next unit of computing" now would be something like
| a Chromebox the size of a Chromecast.
|
| meh.
| xnx wrote:
| Good point. I guess it's more likely that a mobile phone
| "desktop mode" will displays some of what NUC's were used
| for: https://www.androidauthority.com/pixel-8-leak-usb-
| displaypor...
| tracker1 wrote:
| The AMD models from MinisForum, BeeLink etc have been pretty
| competitively priced.
| pipo234 wrote:
| We bought a couple of i7 NUCs every time a new generation was
| launched, mainly to have access to the latest GPU features.
|
| That is, we hoped to use Intel's MFX Media SDK for transcoding
| h264 (or even h265) video. Unfortunately both the SDK and the
| hardware were too much of a moving target, going from software to
| hardware only, Windows only then later linux only on CentOS, then
| only on Ubuntu, then (partially) open source. Dropping support
| for older generations, breaking API changes. Opaque licensing
| policies.
|
| At some point we gave up and simply went with ffmpeg. Works great
| on AMD too, or ARM for that matter.
|
| Still using a NUC as main development machine, extremely fast and
| mostly quiet.
| rx_tx wrote:
| I had a 6th gen and now a 11th gen NUC (both used) as a little
| home server to run docker/plex . (since the intel chips can do
| transcoding pretty well). Runs so well, cool and quiet in a
| closet shelf.
|
| They will be missed, I guess I'll have to look at similar devices
| from non-Intel in the future.
| TheChaplain wrote:
| Sad news. :/ Their NUC's are amazing as home servers.
| drcongo wrote:
| Does NUC stand for something? Is it an Intel sub-brand or a more
| general classification?
| c-hendricks wrote:
| The Next Unit of Computing. Pretty sure it's just an intel-ism
| that caught on.
| gorkish wrote:
| It stands for "Next Unit of Computing"
| giobox wrote:
| It's Intel branding for their SBC efforts - "Single Board
| Computer", I'd argue. While officially it stood for "Next Unit
| of Computing", every Intel NUC was effectively an SBC more or
| less, from designs small enough to fit in an HDMI dongle to Mac
| Mini style units. The SBC architecture is what permits the form
| factors.
|
| > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-board_computer
| toast0 wrote:
| Intel coined NUC as "Next Unit of Computing" in 2012. I don't
| believe they claim a trademark on the term, but I've not seen
| any other company use it. There's plenty of other products with
| a similar footprint, it's about as small as you can shrink a
| board with a mainstream laptop chip with modular memory and
| storage, and a decent amount of ports.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| The NUC was a great idea delivered by a company that was totally
| opposed to it by design. You had big fat inefficient Intel cores
| crammed into low TDP applications and to make matters worse they
| wanted massive margins. Could've been a fantastic product
| delivered by ARM or some smartphone manufacturer.
| yyyk wrote:
| $#@! Intel NUCs were great small boxes with _excellent_ Linux
| support (the only thing that doesn 't work in Linux - custom fan
| control). In retrospect, NUCs were always the red-headed
| stepchild for Intel, last to get processor availability, so may
| that should have been expected.
|
| Any comparable brand with good Linux support?
| yair99dd wrote:
| nuc board pc lineup is great, we used dozens of those in our
| multi camera rigs. Hope to find a replacment.
|
| https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html#@PanelLabel...
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| They only targeted enthusiasts but there's incredible competition
| above and below.
|
| Down market, there are way cheaper 1L business PCs which are mass
| produced for businesses but work great for consumers wanting
| small quiet (or not, 65w options also available) systems.
|
| Up market, there's all manner of small form factor gaming PCs and
| others.
|
| Intel did have a knack for having interesting twists &
| innovations, but they rarely were must have advantages. Building
| the whole PC on a card was an interesting & useful move, for
| their gaming Extreme series. Skull Canyon back in 2016 showed a
| power density and level of integration that the world didn't know
| had been possible. The price has always been high, too high for
| critical success, but I thanks Intel for pushing new things &
| pushing the market. https://www.anandtech.com/show/10343/the-
| intel-skull-canyon-...
| inversetelecine wrote:
| I buy 2-4 year old Dell (or similar) micro desktops just for
| this reason. Just enough upgradability (SSD/RAM, sometimes even
| CPU) and just enough power but runs cool and quiet.
|
| Recently bought a lot of 10 Dell Optiplex Micros for around
| $1,200 USD all ready to go (9th gen / 16GB DDR4 / 512GB SSD,
| Win10 Pro) for a small business that works on spreadsheets and
| basic data entry all day. Replaced old desktop towers and
| employees were happy to have more free desk/working space.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Every time I looked at getting a NUC when I wanted a SFF system
| I ran into this problem. If I just needed a low power Linux box
| I could get a cheapo Atom device or even just a Raspberry Pi.
| If I needed more power a SFF PC, a laptop, or even a Mac mini
| was usually an overall better buy accounting for my time
| invested.
| gorkish wrote:
| Of all the NUCs they ever made; there is one singular model with
| 10G ethernet. And yeah good luck getting it.
|
| The lack of any significant IO to the outside world crippled
| these things massively.
|
| I tried to order 3 NUCs once; after waiting 6 months for stock, I
| gave up.
|
| Seems nothing will actually be lost.
|
| Anybody make ANYTHING that is nuc-like and has 10G+? HP Elitedesk
| 800 mini has a flexio option for a single 10g port, but it's the
| only similar thing I have discovered.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Looks like there's some stuff on aliexpress like [0]. 2x10G SFP
| + 4x2.5G + 6 SATA ports for $343 bare seems like a pretty great
| NAS box on paper, assuming the processor and internal IO can
| actually handle everything. There's also [1] with 2x10G SFP and
| 3x2.5G for $276. Personally I'm hoping for something with 10G
| SFP + 6xSATA + an N305 processor, which I think doesn't exist
| yet. On paper, the N305 is almost 2x as good as the i5-6600 I
| have in my desktop, and these things use almost no power, so
| that'd make for a killer home server/NAS.
|
| [0] https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805527368249.html
|
| [1] https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803996127706.html
| stefan_ wrote:
| 10G Ethernet is just not a great standard, and a terrible fit
| for something like a NUC at 5W of waste heat in just that one
| port. Lots of SFP and 2.5G around, though.
| rx_tx wrote:
| The modern ones have thunderbolt 3 or 4, so you have to get a
| dongle, but you can get a lot more IO going (including 10G)
| rnk wrote:
| Great point. But also I think a company like Intel
| deliberately segments aka removes useful functionality from
| cheaper systems, wanting to protect the very profitable, more
| expensive systems with better ethernet or whatnot.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Mac mini? It's a BTO option though. You can also just get a
| mini PC with Thunderbolt and add a 10gb nic that way.
| sleepydog wrote:
| That's a shame. I remember reading about the P14e laptop chassis.
| For me, it looked like the perfect laptop: 3:2 screen, ethernet
| port, trackpoint, decent battery. I didn't really care about the
| modularity. I could only find them for sale in bulk, or from a
| German company that re-branded them. I came _this_ close to just
| buying a lot of 5 and trying to sell 4 on ebay, but I had a
| suspicion I would never be able to find parts for it if it broke,
| so I ended up buying a used T480 instead. It 's over twice as
| heavy, but I think I made the right choice.
| ortusdux wrote:
| This could be good news for Framework. For me, the ability to
| upgrade a laptop's main board and then use the old one like a NUC
| is a big selling point. As their userbase grows it will be easer
| to pickup used boards for cheap.
| user_7832 wrote:
| If you have space, sure. But if I'm not mistaken, NUCs are
| 4"x4". For some folks (like me) that's unfortunately a bummer.
| ortusdux wrote:
| The stock framework case is 36 in3 vs. a NUC's 31.4 in3, so
| it is about 15% larger.
| smileybarry wrote:
| Right, but it's blade-shaped instead of cube-shaped (with
| ports on both sides IIRC), which in some cases means it's
| harder to find room for it.
| paulrpotts wrote:
| I guess? I mean, I would happily consider a Framework mini-PC,
| but buying literal laptop boards when I don't actually want a
| laptop, and then having to, what, cobble together a power
| supply and case, etc? I found it a lot more convenient to buy a
| barebones NUC, put in some Crucial RAM and an SSD...
| considerably cheaper too.
| ortusdux wrote:
| They sell a case for $40 on their site. Assembly is about as
| complex as adding Crucial RAM and an SSD to a barebones NUC.
| For power, you can use just about anything that will deliver
| 60W+ over USB C.
|
| https://frame.work/products/cooler-master-mainboard-case
| paulrpotts wrote:
| Interesting... thanks. I was not aware these existed. Also,
| the mainboards are expensive, but not as expensive as I
| thought.
| dharmab wrote:
| The main use case is for users who upgraded their
| mainboard and want to reuse their old board for a home
| server or something
| thefz wrote:
| Gutted. I run an i3 bought in 2014 as a mini Tailscale router and
| Plex music server, along as other servies like PiHole. That thing
| has never been shut off and is still performing well at its third
| or fourth os upgrade!
| smileybarry wrote:
| I _just_ bought a Raptor Lake NUC. The box is physically
| sitting on my desk, unopened.
|
| And it seemed like they finally hit a good price-to-performance
| balance with the Alder Lake + Raptor Lake P-chip NUCs.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Given how common embedded/box PCs are ( _so_ many display boards
| and digital signages - at the restaurant /every kiosk, operating
| the dozens of automated processes we take for granted - or not,
| given it's HN) - I can't imagine the market not _existing_. Intel
| making poor business decisions /cost cutting, sure. But the
| market of box PCs is _huge_. And Intel is likely the best company
| on Earth to be able to leverage their knowledge and bring niche
| products to market that most companies can 't even dream of
| designing (unless you're AMD/Apple/Nvidia - and _even they don 't
| have fab + design capabilities_.)
|
| As someone who was hoping to use a NUC as a computer/laptop, I am
| dissappointed in Intel.
| antisthenes wrote:
| There are too many copycats in this space.
|
| Although I am thankful to Intel for starting the NUC trend, at
| this point they no longer provide good value in this segment.
|
| Their units are generally higher price than competitors at the
| same hardware level (even using the exact same Intel CPUs).
| adrian_b wrote:
| This is sad, because the Intel NUCs were some of the last
| computers with adequate technical documentation.
|
| For most modern computers you cannot be 100% sure about what you
| get for your money, until you have them in your hands and you can
| run tests yourself. By then, if you discover that the computer is
| not exactly what you want, it is too late. You cannot get your
| money back because the computer is not defective, it is just
| different from what you expected. There are helpful published
| product reviews, but those do not cover all products, especially
| not most of the cheaper versions.
|
| In recent years, many small Chinese companies have introduced
| various small computers that are much more innovative than the
| latest Intel NUC models, but they have little or no documentation
| (at least in English) and they frequently have manufacturing
| quality problems, so the Intel NUCs will be missed.
|
| Moreover, until now nobody has made good computers with 35 W CPUs
| and with a volume of less than 0.5 L or good computers with 45 W
| CPUs and with a volume of less than 0.7 L, except Intel. All the
| alternatives use either bigger cases or less powerful CPUs.
| wtallis wrote:
| I had the same feeling of disappointment when Intel exited the
| consumer motherboard business. I bought one of their _Ivy
| Bridge_ generation motherboards for my PC build at the time
| because it was the only one that I could _confirm_ had the
| features I wanted. The motherboard manual listed details like
| the part numbers for the SuperIO, Firewire and audio chips, the
| location of the temperature sensors on the board, the current
| ratings for the fan headers. I knew exactly what I was getting,
| and knew there was no reason to shell out for a more "high
| end" motherboard because there wouldn't have been any
| improvement to any functionality I cared about.
| cududa wrote:
| Man do I miss the days of DFI motherboards when their
| engineers would pop into the overclocking community and share
| code snippets of relevant BIOS firmware. The things were so
| well documented there were something like 3 or 4 third-party
| BIOS distributions.
|
| Then there was their community and RMA manager Dona. That
| woman had to be one of the hardest working people I've ever
| encountered. She must have slept like 5 hours a day. People
| could post on some obscure forum about a defect and she'd
| find the post and make it right. One time, when I was around
| 16 in 2007, I broke a very niche and specific overclocking
| record on DDR2 latency that still passed Memtest x86, and
| Dona hooked me the hell up. Suddenly started getting all
| sorts of companies sending me heatsinks, RAM, PSU's, etc to
| "review" if I wanted to. Sidenote to this tangent - I have to
| say, the ultra-fine grit sandpaper kit with 12 sheets in
| increasing grit, was absolutely my favorite. Learned how to
| sand a heatsink down to a near mirror finish and shaved a few
| degrees celsius off my de-capped AMD Opteron 165.
|
| DFI BIOS were famous for exposing the most settings for
| regulating RAM/ CPU/ Chipset/ GPU/ SATA/ PCI-E/ IDE
| communication and lanes. This guide/ participating in the DFI
| overclocking community probably taught me more about the
| fundamentals of computer science, and how all those electrons
| move around to make the sand think.
| https://forums.overclockersclub.com/topic/100835-the-
| definit...
|
| Fun trip down memory lane.
| Aromasin wrote:
| Funny enough, I predicted this in a previous HZ comment 3 months
| ago when they cut their server systems business.
|
| > "My guess is that they're cutting the portfolio down to feature
| only chipsets and add-in cards. Just CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, ASICs,
| networking. It makes sense if anything - it really focuses on
| their core business. No more side-projects with questionable
| profitability. In the last 2 years since Pat Gelsinger took over,
| they've cut RealSense, Movidius, Optane Memory, IPO'd MobileEye,
| and now exited the Server Systems business. The only odd-ball
| left are their NUC business."
|
| If any hedge funds are looking for analysts, I'm always open to
| offers...
|
| It's sad to NUCs go, but it was inevitable. They made products
| for customers, while simultaneously competing with said
| customers. It's hard to build any decent partnerships on that
| premise. I'm currently typing this on a Serpent Canyon NUC
| though, so it's certainly bittersweet.
| nextos wrote:
| Sad news. NUCs could have been an excellent platform if they
| had tried to work a bit more on cooling.
|
| On third-party cases, NUCs were great. But on stock cases, some
| models were too noisy. Still, they provided great value.
|
| Nonetheless, I agree it's better for Intel to focus on their
| core business and leave this market to others. Some niche PC
| makers such as Cirrus7 offer great NUC-like systems.
| gowld wrote:
| Apple worked hard to make cooling work in the Mac Mini, and
| now the M series of CPUs.
|
| Intel just slapped a chip in a generic case.
| rcme wrote:
| Isn't this basically the innovator's dilemma? You can call it
| focusing the core business, but you can also call it dropping
| investment in long term cash flows.
| anonylizard wrote:
| That's not the innovator's dilemma.
|
| The dilemma is when you have tech A: Profitable and large.
| Tech B: Unprofitable and small, but the tech itself improves
| at a faster rate than tech A.
|
| GPUs were their true dilemma. GPUs were only good for gamers,
| who are picky and extremely value sensitive. Whereas CPUs
| could be sold to datacenters and enterprises, very high
| profit margins. Hence CPUs were core at intel, no one has the
| balls to bet on GPUs and go all in.
|
| But CPUs ran out of performance improvements, GPUs continue
| to scale up because of parallelism. Then suddenly, new
| valuable applications started to be based on GPUs, first
| Crypto, now AI. Now CPUs are completely commoditized, and
| Nvidia dominates the money-printing GPU market, and worth 8x
| of intel.
|
| NUCs are not some rapidly improving tech, they are just some
| minor market that is profitable but never that large.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The NUC was never going to be a mass market product.
|
| Sure Apple sells the Mac Mini. But the entire Mac line is
| only 10% of Apple's revenue and most of that is laptops. But
| Apple has to support its ecosystem as its only supplier.
| Intel doesn't
| kfinley wrote:
| > If any hedge funds are looking for analysts, I'm always open
| to offers...
|
| How did you invest based on this prediction?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It's sad to NUCs go, but it was inevitable.
|
| No business decision is inevitable and we should stop acting
| otherwise.
| touisteur wrote:
| A bit off mark on networking, looking at Tofino there. Could
| have maybe left barefoot alone, but no, buy it, hype it,
| actually tape out and start delivering nextgen, then cancel
| before people rack them.
| pengaru wrote:
| It's amusing how glacial the crumbling process is for behemoths
| like ibm and intel
| Covzire wrote:
| I wish Intel or someone would get into the enthusiast firewall
| market. Very High GHZ 2 to 4 core CPU, 2 to 4 NICs, x86, <$250,
| 1-8GB soldered RAM, Simple M2, very basic video out, would be
| very popular for home firewalls and maybe even businesses with a
| decent IT department/person as a Firewall/VPN appliance.
| jrockway wrote:
| I've been looking for such a home firewall, but the power usage
| of an Intel box isn't competitive with the dedicated devices.
|
| Something like this seems nice: https://www.tp-
| link.com/us/business-networking/vpn-router/er...
|
| But I don't actually have >1Gbps service yet, and haven't
| needed to use my backup connection, so I have so far not taken
| the plunge.
| giobox wrote:
| Devices similar to what you are asking for are out there now,
| in recent years the market for these devices seems to have
| exploded. I recently built something similar to this one with
| i7 of some generation or other and quad 2.5gbit NICs etc. They
| are available in all sorts of neat fanless configs and a range
| of CPUs, and generally have no issues saturating all 4 ports at
| peak speeds etc. I just pulled the first hit from Amazon for
| "vpn appliance":
|
| > https://www.amazon.com/SENSTUN-Firewall-Appliance-Fanless-
| Ba...
|
| Being that they are just PCs, you can install pfSense or
| whatever solution you want. They are silent and no larger than
| a typical network switch. If anything, the enthusiast firewall
| market has been well served recently - there are well over 20+
| models on amazon alone right now intended for homemade
| firewalls or routers.
| Havoc wrote:
| There are loads on aliexpress. 2.5gbe and powerful enough to
| virtualize a firewall and run a couple other light VMs.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Those things were cool. I wanted to buy one for years, just
| couldn't find one in person. I was going to screw it to the back
| of my monitor to get a Linux all in one like setup going
|
| Man. Maybe I should grab one before it's too late. Why do
| companies keep killing their coolest products?
| Saris wrote:
| There are tons of USFF / Micro form factor PCs from Dell, HP,
| and Lenovo on ebay, they're often a lot cheaper than the NUC
| too because they're usually old business hardware being sold
| off in bulk.
|
| The NUC is neat but it's certainly not the only PC in that
| style out there.
| Svetlitski wrote:
| The only place I ever encountered these was in the computer labs
| in Soda Hall at Berkeley. They're a great fit for an environment
| like that so there's one machine for each person without needing
| the extra space for a traditional tower. But I imagine outside of
| situations like this where you need something that's not locked
| down for programming, Chromebooks have probably taken the lion's
| share of the education market.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I tried a few different SBCs for my HTPC before biting the bullet
| and shelling out the $500 for a 11th generation NUC. It was worth
| every penny, as I've had zero issues with it since.
| ugh123 wrote:
| I believe System76's Meerkat line is rebranded NUCs. Other brands
| out there might be using it too. What's their alternative?
|
| https://system76.com/desktops/meerkat
| a13o wrote:
| I thought these might eventually have their day with a GaN PSU
| and a touch screen, running Windows 10+. Kind of like the
| Continuum vision Microsoft had for Windows Phone; carry a little
| brick around and dock it as needed. But we have cell phones,
| tablets, and SoC, so NUC doesn't really excel at anything
| teekert wrote:
| Shame, I love NUCs, I have several. They always felt like high
| quality, energy efficient, silent and quite beautiful mini PCs to
| me. Never even considered another brand. They all always just
| worked with any Linux I put on them.
| MongoTheMad wrote:
| Dell Optiplex 5050. Cheaper, bundled, and free year warranty.
| Power draw is about 6w.
|
| I have one as a k8s node and thinking about another.
| xgbi wrote:
| The form factor is way bigger than a NUC that fits on a vga
| mount!
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| There's a bunch of different models of the 5050 (poor
| branding on Dell's part IMO). OP is probably talking about
| the micro version.
| pipes wrote:
| "If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will" Steve Jobs
| DesiLurker wrote:
| I call BS on them being not good market fit, Apple does totally
| fine with mac mini. also these are just laptops w/o screen and
| battery. IMO the real reason may be worries around minipcs
| finally getting good enough that they may cannibalize higher
| margin PC market. BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that
| make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my
| teenage kids pc,works just fine.
| squokko wrote:
| The Mac Mini is a totally different market: it 1) runs macOS 2)
| has Apple Silicon 3) has no competitors for running macOS 4) is
| the cheapest entry point into iOS development which is a high
| paying job
| user_named wrote:
| So you listed macOS three times, and then your last point is
| sort of not relevant
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| I'm not sure what your point is, but my Mac Mini M1 runs
| Linux. Asahi Linux.
| anthk wrote:
| In the US, maybe. Android rules the rest of the world and
| Europe, Japan and China.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > Europe
|
| definitely not
| jtwaleson wrote:
| Definitely does not rule so absolutely that you can ignore
| iOS development. In Western Europe my anecdata is that
| iPhone is winning with high frequency users.
| hiatus wrote:
| > Apple does totally fine with mac mini
|
| How do you know this? I personally decided against a mini when
| I specced one out and a MBP wound up cheaper. The pricing
| strategy certainly made me _feel_ like they were pushing me
| away from the mini.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| TBH I dont own a mini but I have used it and it seems fine.
| online reviews are also decent if you go above baseline 8Gb.
| but thats targeted towards mac users which are already in
| higher price bracket so not too bad. plus its better if power
| consumption and noise level.
|
| overall I feel that there is enough integration density in
| processors that the laptop form factors will be good enough
| for most common (& semi advanced) uses. so this seems like an
| odd decision to move out of that market (technically) but if
| you factor in business then it starts to makes sense.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Intel nucs are fine too. The question isn't if they're
| fine, the question is if they make good business sense.
|
| Also, apple's crazy profitability means they may offer
| something like the mini that doesn't sell as well as their
| laptop, while intel is ruthlessly cutting out things that
| aren't part of their core business because of their
| monetary issues.
|
| If Intel can't compete with cheaper manufacturers and its
| not hitting their internal required rate of return then it
| may no longer justify having that business unit at all.
| wenc wrote:
| I always have 3 external displays so Mac Mini is my go to.
|
| I haven't owned a laptop in years. I travel with my iPad pro.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| Huh? A QHD display for 200, a hand-me-down keyboard and
| mouse, and I have a better machine with a mini.
|
| Besides, I'd use an external display anyways, not working at
| caffees.
| stevezsa8 wrote:
| How is the beelink? I'm really tempted by the price and what
| you get. But I've never bought anything that wasn't a well
| known brand like Dell.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| the one I have for my daughter is okay. gets the job done but
| wont use for gaming etc. I do however want to get the Beelink
| GTR7 [1]. that seems amply powered and decent build
| quality/noise level.
|
| 1. https://www.bee-link.com/beelink-gaming-pc-
| gtr6900hx-1994384...
| adrian_b wrote:
| Based on specifications, GTR7 and GTR7 Pro are the best
| computers with a volume less than 1 L.
|
| The only worries are the quality of the cooling and the
| noise.
|
| According to this review:
|
| https://www.servethehome.com/beelink-gtr7-changes-the-
| mini-p...
|
| it seems that from the point of view of the cooling and
| noise they are significantly improved over earlier Beelink
| models, so any of the two variants seems like a good
| choice.
|
| An alternative is Minisforum UM790, which is configured for
| a lower CPU power and which has slightly less peripheral
| interfaces.
| Patrick-STH wrote:
| I am not going ot post our own links, but last week we
| did the UM790 and we have the GTR7 Pro review coming as
| well.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I've deployed about two dozen of them for small business
| clients who needed the form factor.
|
| Everyone has loved them. I wound up getting one to manage my
| print farm, and no complaints there, either. Knock on wood,
| but they Just Work, so far. Noise and heat have not been an
| issue, even with the oldest units.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Will vary from model to model.. most have been pretty good.
|
| ETA Prime and ServeTheHome do regular reviews of these on
| YouTube.
| kiawe_fire wrote:
| I bought one with an AMD 4800U in early 2022 to be used as a
| cheap, dedicated Linux device for work (mostly Remote Desktop
| plus some local docker development environments) and it's
| been rock solid for me.
|
| Your mileage may vary, but I've been happy enough with mine
| for the price that I had already decided I would be choosing
| Beelink for my next mini PC over a NUC.
|
| That said, I have seen some mixed reports of some issues
| around thermal throttling and eGPU support for some of the
| newer gaming focused ones, but I think if you have realistic
| expectations given the form factor (and especially if you're
| not going for gaming) then they are fairly reliable and
| sturdy little devices.
|
| * Also note, I bought mine barebones and added my own ram and
| SSD. I can't speak to the quality of what they ship with, but
| I also haven't heard any complaints from others with that
| regard.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| My guess would be they can't compete with the hundreds of cheap
| AliExpress/Amazon clones, they are good enough for a lower
| price.
| answiftydev wrote:
| I would bet the majority of Mac minis sold are used as ci/cd
| servers for iOS and Mac development. I would also bet the Mac
| mini is the third lowest selling Mac with the Mac ultra and Mac
| Pro being the least.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I'd take that bet
| paganel wrote:
| I do my day-to-day work on a Mac mini, people are losing out
| if they're only using them for testing purposes. They're not
| terribly expensive (when compared to other Apple products),
| really good form and volume factor, i.e. a Mini can do a lot
| of stuff even though is, well, not that big, plus a Mini
| doesn't consume all that much power, to the contrary.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| anecdotal evidence: that's the exact purpose of all of our
| mac minis at where I work.
|
| It's also the exact purpose of my home mac mini
| solardev wrote:
| The Mac Minis are a great value compared to the rest of
| Apple's lineups. The NUC is overpriced, like why would I get
| that instead of a generic laptop? It was just a poor value
| for what it offered.
| jychang wrote:
| I strongly suspect the iMac sells less than the Mac mini.
| pavlov wrote:
| Just from anecdotal observation, the iMac seems to have
| several niches where a fashionable desktop is called for:
| at least higher-end shops and lobbies, and musicians and
| other artists who dabble in production enough to need the
| larger screen but not enough to invest in a more expensive
| setup.
|
| The Mini seems more specialized. I've bought many of them
| over the years for things like video installations, but I
| never see them in "regular people use".
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > "regular people use".
|
| For quite some years I just said "buy a notebook and (if
| you really need it) monitor with keyboard/ mouse".
|
| With an SSD and a decent amount of RAM any notebook is
| fine for 95% of what people want from the home computer,
| with a small exception of gaming with a better settings
| than low/middle.
|
| At this point nor Mini, nor any other SFF 'desktop'
| doesn't make sense, because you can't take it with you if
| you need.
| worrycue wrote:
| An iMac is easier to setup though and seem to be more
| aligned with Apple's main market - people who want a
| computer with as little fuss as possible.
| chazeon wrote:
| If you go to NYC, you will find a lot of iMacs on front
| desks.
| [deleted]
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Apple does totally fine with mac mini.
|
| Is there data on how well they actually sell? I always vaguely
| assumed it was a pretty low-volume product that they couldn't
| actually get rid of due to niche customer applications. They've
| historically often been very slow to _update_ it; they
| definitely don't treat it as one of their more important
| products.
| alwillis wrote:
| > Is there data on how well they actually sell? I always
| vaguely assumed it was a pretty low-volume product that they
| couldn't actually get rid of due to niche customer
| applications. They've historically often been very slow to
| _update_ it; they definitely don't treat it as one of their
| more important products.
|
| The Mac mini has always been Apple's low-cost trojan horse
| product for existing PC users who already have a keyboard,
| mouse and display. The issues with keeping it updated in the
| past had more to do with the Intel processors available to
| Apple.
|
| In the short Apple Silicon era, the Mac mini has been
| upgraded multiple times. It's remains an important product.
| dangus wrote:
| I don't think a lot of people still buy desktops outside of
| the gaming segment.
|
| I would make a bet that the MacBook Air outsells both the
| iMac and Mac mini by a ratio of 10 to 1.
| synergy20 wrote:
| Building systems(phone,pc,laptop) is Apple's core business,
| it's not Intel's.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I don't think it's the form factor, I think it's more about
| competing with their own customers. There are similar offerings
| (including AMD based) from several other vendors. I've been far
| more interested in the AMD based ones the past few gen...
| currently using a MiniForum model with a 5900HX for home server
| duties.
| glimshe wrote:
| There are some great Chinese mini PCs on Amazon, many of them
| using Intel processors. Some of these are very compelling
| against ARM mini PCs such as the Raspberry Pi 400.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| > _BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi
| decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage
| kids pc,works just fine._
|
| The issue is, Intel's aiming more upmarket (based on their
| pricing) for something that doesn't offer a lot more. Intel's
| done interesting/fun things, such as building the entire
| motherboard into a single slot sized unit, but going out and
| buying a Beelink is a better proposition for most people.
|
| If anything, I think Intel can exit this market because they
| succeeded. They lead the way, they begat a new form factor, and
| it's won. But the market has grown much more competitive, and
| it's hard to see what Intel would do to remain relevant &
| important in this market. Their current efforts are
| interesting, and even good, but not really enough to clearly
| differentiate, not enough to command a huge lead in this
| market, and certainly not at the somewhat above average prices
| Intel has been asking.
|
| This follows a lot of other Intel examples. Intel left DRAM
| market in 1985. Intel left SSDs in 2020, in a similar situation
| to NUCs here: they basically created the mass consumer market,
| by pioneering NVMe & creating amazingly high-value products
| that used to be ultra-expensive proprietary botique items.
|
| This seems like a classic Innovator's Dilemna situation, of
| Intel having a strong hand creating mass-market products that
| define the industry, but then being chased out by down-market
| competition, once the offerings really become a true everyday
| commodity. I'm not sure if there even is another way Intel
| ought to behave here.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > If anything, I think Intel can exit this market because
| they succeeded.
|
| They lead the creation of a market but failed to maintain any
| competitive edge in it. That's a story of initial success
| that ultimately ran through their fingers, like so many other
| examples you've presented. Calling this fully "a success"
| seems very generous.
|
| > If anything, I think Intel can exit this market because
| they succeeded.
|
| You could spin the entire unit off so it could compete on
| it's own terms. There's plenty of success stories to be found
| this way, and Intel's habit of doing this time after time
| means that I have very little confidence in any new product
| they bring to market outside of CPU cores and view them
| mostly as a consumer electronics company now.
| gwd wrote:
| > They lead the creation of a market but failed to maintain
| any competitive edge in it. That's a story of initial
| success that ultimately ran through their fingers, like so
| many other examples you've presented. Calling this fully "a
| success" seems very generous.
|
| The thing you're missing is that they sell the chips
| _inside_ the product. I think the idea is that it goes like
| this:
|
| Intel: Hey everyone, we made this chip we think could be
| really cool in a new form factor.
|
| OEMs: Uum, I dunno -- if that's such a cool thing, why
| isn't anyone else making them?
|
| Intel: OK, I'll just make one myself. <makes NUC>
|
| OEMs: Oh hey, people do seem to really like those NUCs.
| <makes things like a NUC with Intel chips>
|
| Intel: There we go, you get the idea! <stops making NUC>
|
| I don't know this is what happened, but at least it's a
| plausible definition of "success".
| biomcgary wrote:
| I completely agree with your analysis. I'm writing this on a
| Beelink (running aftermarket Linux) and couldn't be happier
| about the value proposition. I started my shopping looking
| for a NUC, but they were all too pricey for what I
| wanted/needed.
| MisterTea wrote:
| They're overpriced for what you are buying. I'm not interested
| in paying $400 for a bare bones i5 with no ram or disk which
| adds another $150-200.
|
| I bought a quad i5 nuc on sale off Newegg for $300. I also
| ordered parts to build a little AMD 6 core APU itx setup for 50
| bucks more. If the Nuc wasn't on sale I would not have bothered
| to even look at it. And for 50 bucks more got waaaaay more
| compute power. The only reason I even bought the Nuc and not
| another itx was simply the very small size.
|
| The hardkernel odroid h3 with a quad Celeron, dual 2.5 GbE and
| m.2 M key costs $130 without the case/PSU. Intel can do better
| on pricing.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi
| decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage
| kids pc,works just fine._
|
| Serve the Home has an entire series on small systems:
|
| * https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/
| Patrick-STH wrote:
| Yes. I think that is a solid NUC alternative with one
| exception: the lack of USB4/ Thunderbolt as standard. Intel
| was very good about including TB on its NUC line and also did
| a better job upgrading to 2.5GbE.
| toast0 wrote:
| Do we need _Intel_ to release these, or can they just sell the
| chips to integrators like they do with other desktops and
| laptops?
| fatfingerd wrote:
| I wish they had stayed out. People are talking about how they
| started this great market segment but mini-ITX was a real
| standard motherboard size started by VIA and thin mini-ITX
| would be more popular if Intel didn't just make whatever they
| wanted and set a precedent of consumer trash instead of
| components for this size class.
| toast0 wrote:
| Mini-ITX is still alive, but it's a lot larger. Nano-ITX is
| more comparable, but I don't think there were very many
| systems based of it?
| synergy20 wrote:
| mini-itx, esp the low profile format, really should be
| way more popular, as you can manually upgrade it so
| easily yet it remains to be small in size, small but not
| smaller.
| gowld wrote:
| Intel did it because, for 10 years now, integrators refused
| to.
| paulrpotts wrote:
| This is disappointing - I own four of these. I deliberately
| bought the older new-old stock units that were on clearance
| prices. One sits on a shelf in my basement next to my Synology
| NAS, and is a headless Ubuntu box I use as a very low-end build
| server for my blogs and writing projects. It mounts a server
| directory, I VSCode into it and run Makefiles. It works
| wonderfully... plenty fast. One is a media server machine in our
| family room, mostly for streaming TV shows. One is currently
| waiting on a replacement fan. One is a Windows box for those rare
| times I need to run Windows specific programs for work.
|
| These were the perfect sweet spot for me between abusing low-end
| laptops and shelling out real money. My kids put them together
| with me and it was a nice learning experience for them, too.
|
| I was hoping I'd be able to upgrade/replace these piecemeal as
| needed. I guess I'll have to look into other replacements for
| when these give out.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| NUCs seemed like they pushed too far along the price/size curve.
| People are generally okay with a midsize tower (or even a laptop
| with an external monitor). Maybe if they used actual laptop
| mainboards they could have reduced cost.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Cloud Compute.
|
| Seems like a huge lost opportunity for by Intel not targeting the
| "consumer" cloud compute market with NUC's, because they wanted
| to protect their high margin server chip business.
|
| There's huge classes of workloads that a NUC would do just fine
| on for the cloud, and cloud operators would love the lower power
| & physical size of these NUC compute devices.
|
| AMD has embraced it, and you'll see 7000 chips at various cloud
| compute companies like OVH & Hetzner.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| For that kind of use case, you'd want a blade server or
| similar, not a NUC. In particular, you'd want _something_ that
| works with a rack.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Something like this?
|
| https://hackaday.com/2012/12/09/160-mac-minis-one-rack/
|
| 160 Mac Mini's in a rack.
|
| That's ~4-nodes / 1U. And you don't have the added expense of
| the blade enclosure.
| bri3d wrote:
| There are other SFF PCs available which were more competitively
| priced than NUCs to start with: Minisforum and Geekom are two
| popular brands I've used. There are also various SFF desktop PCs
| from major manufacturers like HP EliteDesk Mini which can be
| found dirt cheap at corporate auctions.
|
| I have an Intel 11th-gen/Tiger Lake Geekom IT11 running as my
| "home server" with Frigate, HomeAssistant, and so on. It works
| great, and using OpenVINO for object detection inference and
| QuickSync for video leaves a ton of headroom for other uses too.
| The only disadvantage to these, which was shared by NUCs, is that
| you need to use Thunderbolt for >Gbit Ethernet connectivity.
| silisili wrote:
| I switched from NUC to Minisforum. I will say that the NUC is
| vastly more stable/better QC, as I've gotten a bad Minis and
| read others have as well.
|
| That said, the UM790 is probably the best machine I've owned of
| any type. An absolute steal compared to NUC.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Second-hand HP Elitedesks with Ryzens offer much better bang for
| buck - and are quieter & less power hungry.
| missblit wrote:
| My NUC Phantom Canyon is completely 100% silent after adjusting
| the fan curves to not turn on the fans until they're needed. It's
| awesome as an HTPC.
| petercooper wrote:
| I've always been a fan and have owned a few, but this market is
| being absolutely flooded with options right now, so I'm not
| surprised. ETA PRIME is a good YouTube account to follow if
| you're interested in such things as he seems to review a
| different mini PC each week (in between all the handheld PCs and
| SBCs).
| klardotsh wrote:
| I will caution against ETA PRIME. Dude never has a single
| negative word to say about _anything_ , his channel amounts to
| a marketing department for Beelink/Minisforum/etc.
|
| His GTR6 review (I own one of these machines) didn't talk much
| or at all about the notorious noise or stuttering problems that
| plague this machine, for example. I have little reason to trust
| many of his other reviews in light of that - he puts reviews
| out quickly before the device hits the market, which is
| certainly a niche (no real competition to his reviews), but
| then the devices come out and it's a grab bag as to whether his
| experiences will match your own (the /r/minipcs subreddit had
| various accounts of this before I quit reddit)
| influx wrote:
| I loved using these for dev boxes or even servers, everything was
| compatible with Linux straight out of the box. Damn. :(
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