Anyone know why the Intel NUC has not caught on better?

[capeconsultant]

Was it too hot and/or too loud?

Will this next release late October be the charm?

Seems like with a little tweaking, like the Chenbros case that can handle a 2.5" drive would be very welcome.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us...p-motherboards/cubicom-200-compact-video.html

I am very interested but waiting until they make one powerful and cool.

 

[Hero1711]

Was it too hot and/or too loud?

Will this next release late October be the charm?

Seems like with a little tweaking, like the Chenbros case that can handle a 2.5" drive would be very welcome.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us...p-motherboards/cubicom-200-compact-video.html

I am very interested but waiting until they make one powerful and cool.

Too expensive for what it was made to do (+ 128GB mSATA SSD + 2x4GB RAM + wifi card ~ $500).

1. The NUC's main purpose is to be used as a home theater mini computer, but look at other competitors like the Alienware X51 (sure it's bigger but still small enough to be put in the living room, near the screen), you can get a pretty decent X51 (with i5 3450, 1TB 7200rpm HDD, 8GB RAM, and GTX 645 for $500 at Dell Outlet), yes, you can play more games on it compared to the NUC (also better at H.264 1080p 60FPS play back, I'm sure the NUC will suffer playing H.264 1080p60 or even H.264 1080p48 like The Hobbit - not to mention there's also Hi10 H.264 1080p60).

2. Another purpose is to be mounted on the back of a monitor (an average 24" 1080p LCD is about $120), take Dell XPS 18 as its competitor, you can get the i3 - 3227U config for about $600 from Dell Outlet. NUC $500 + monitor $120 compared to XPS 18 with a decent touch screen for $600, hmhmhm no brainer.

P.S.: The Dell computers come with a free Windows OS. You have to buy an OS license for the NUC (or use linux).

 

[cbn]

Seems like with a little tweaking, like the Chenbros case that can handle a 2.5" drive would be very welcome.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us...p-motherboards/cubicom-200-compact-video.html

That is a nice case. I particularly like the interchangeable I/O panel seen at 1:10 into the video. (Allowing different motherboards to be used.)

With that said, they still need to add an interchangeable panel to the front of the case. (Newest NUCs have additional ports on the front)

Too expensive for what it was made to do

Yes.

More competition is needed. I would like to see Silvermont atom and Kabini motherboards made for this form factor.

 

[crashtestdummy]

It fits into a niche for which there's little market. It'd make a nice DIY HTPC, but it's too expensive for that (I'm personally waiting for the Kabini Brix). It's not a complete system, so casual and business buyers can't use it. It's low voltage, so power users have no interest in it. There's really nowhere for it to go except those who desperately want the smallest system they can find and will pay a premium for it.

 

[Zap]

Too expensive

I agree as well. I think those buying it are the "OMG it is soooooo small" type. Those who look for bang/buck will get an ITX board and case for less money, with better parts flexibility (desktop DIMMs, 2.5" drives).

 

[Kremlar]

It will. Intel is phasing out their desktop boards, which may or may not be a big deal to the Anandtech crowd but is a big deal to the business market. Intel is a big player in the business white label market and they think the typical desktop form factor is dead - and I'm starting to agree.

98% of typical business towers are filled with an unnecessary amount of empty space, and 500GB hard drives are less than 10% full.

For most office users upgrading today even a NUC with a 128GB or 256GB SSD would fly compared to what's on their desk now.

Offices like their desk and foot space, and they like a clean look. The NUC can not only be mounted to the back of a display, but it can also be easily mounted to the bottom or side of a desk outside of view.

 

[Hero1711]

It will. Intel is phasing out their desktop boards, which may or may not be a big deal to the Anandtech crowd but is a big deal to the business market. Intel is a big player in the business white label market and they think the typical desktop form factor is dead - and I'm starting to agree.

98% of typical business towers are filled with an unnecessary amount of empty space, and 500GB hard drives are less than 10% full.

For most office users upgrading today even a NUC with a 128GB or 256GB SSD would fly compared to what's on their desk now.

Offices like their desk and foot space, and they like a clean look. The NUC can not only be mounted to the back of a display, but it can also be easily mounted to the bottom or side of a desk outside of view.

I agree that typical desktop form factor is dying. But in this business environment, the configuration of a server (or several ones) + multiple thin clients is more cost effective and easier for maintenance. RemoteFX is great.

Additionally, volume license for OS is cheaper (Most companies use Windows).

 

[Zap]

98% of typical business[/b] non-gaming non-enthusiast towers are filled with an unnecessary amount of empty space, and 500GB hard drives are less than 10% full.

For most office users upgrading today even a NUC with a 128GB or 256GB SSD would fly compared to what's on their desk now.

Fixed. :sneaky:

Not sure I could use a NUC for myself*. The best one (currently) is a Core i5 1.8/2.8GHz dual core w/HT. I have one of those in my notebook with an SSD. It does not feel as "snappy" as my desktop which is a mildly overclocked 3570K with similar SSD and RAM. But, it is close.

*Of course I play video games, so it is only theoretical. My gaming desktop is an ITX rig with discrete graphics card.

 

[capeconsultant]

It will. Intel is phasing out their desktop boards, which may or may not be a big deal to the Anandtech crowd but is a big deal to the business market. Intel is a big player in the business white label market and they think the typical desktop form factor is dead - and I'm starting to agree.

98% of typical business towers are filled with an unnecessary amount of empty space, and 500GB hard drives are less than 10% full.

For most office users upgrading today even a NUC with a 128GB or 256GB SSD would fly compared to what's on their desk now.

Offices like their desk and foot space, and they like a clean look. The NUC can not only be mounted to the back of a display, but it can also be easily mounted to the bottom or side of a desk outside of view.

Small office is the market I see for this for reasons mentioned. Small, neat, fast, low maintenance (pop out RAM, SSD, etc.) for the businesses around me, they all are about 5-10 computers and all go online to cloud based proprietary software and maybe a quickbooks file locally (5 users). Their dusty, old, space hogging slow spinner disk"desktops" (really they are floor sitters) simply need to be replaced.

My Mac mini which I bought because it was the closest in size to NUC and had good power has an i7. Not sure I would want less than that, so maybe Intel could do a haswell i7. I think that would be a game changer.

I am getting way too old to be crawling around under someone's desk with cable mess, dust and big clunker of a computer

Which is one big reason I refocused on websites as well

 

[Mushkins]

Too expensive for what it was made to do (+ 128GB mSATA SSD + 2x4GB RAM + wifi card ~ $500).

1. The NUC's main purpose is to be used as a home theater mini computer, but look at other competitors like the Alienware X51 (sure it's bigger but still small enough to be put in the living room, near the screen), you can get a pretty decent X51 (with i5 3450, 1TB 7200rpm HDD, 8GB RAM, and GTX 645 for $500 at Dell Outlet), yes, you can play more games on it compared to the NUC (also better at H.264 1080p 60FPS play back, I'm sure the NUC will suffer playing H.264 1080p60 or even H.264 1080p48 like The Hobbit - not to mention there's also Hi10 H.264 1080p60).

2. Another purpose is to be mounted on the back of a monitor (an average 24" 1080p LCD is about $120), take Dell XPS 18 as its competitor, you can get the i3 - 3227U config for about $600 from Dell Outlet. NUC $500 + monitor $120 compared to XPS 18 with a decent touch screen for $600, hmhmhm no brainer.

P.S.: The Dell computers come with a free Windows OS. You have to buy an OS license for the NUC (or use linux).

What? That's absolutely *not* the main purpose of the NUC. They just happen to make pretty awesome barebones HTPCs.

The NUC and most of these other ultra-smalls were designed with business in mind. They have VESA mounts specifically to attach them to the back of monitors for things like advertisements and interactive kiosks. They're great for things like train station track monitors and the little mall stands.

We don't hear much about them in the consumer space because they're not marketed to the consumer space. You won't see them on the shelf at Best Buy. But just because we don't hear about them doesn't mean they aren't doing well with the demographic they're targeted at.

 

[86waterpumper]

I like them, amazing how small they can make a system like this. The reason I didn't get my parents one, is they wanted a internal optical drive still. Most businesses want this too, alot of software still comes on disks especially the case with some businesses who use certain older software than a home user would. Alot do not want to fool with a external drive. I agree for certain kiosks or setups they would work well.

I went with a 300-150 isk case. One thing I see is that these ultra small systems once they are out of warranty if something breaks you are pretty well screwed or at least it is alot harder to work on no option to change cpu etc. It all boils down to whether people want something tiny at the expense of everything else. I figure most people here would rather build a little bit larger itx form factor system that is capable of alot more.

 

[cbn]

Small, neat, fast, low maintenance (pop out RAM, SSD, etc.)

Yep, that is a definite advantage.

But then that price.....

Example: NUC Celeron 847 is so much more expensive than what I could build using Celeron 847 and Mini-ITX.

Anyway, I see a lot of NUC chassis are being made (Most, if not all, are fanless). With that level of enclosure support you'd figure ECS, Biostar and all the other mainboard guys would release something compatible (and cheaper)?

Or maybe we still need "The NUC" enclosure that is modular enough that it can accommodate a wider range of mainboards. (Not sure if NUC has standardized CPU location like thin mini itx, etc etc etc.)

 

[Hero1711]

What? That's absolutely *not* the main purpose of the NUC. They just happen to make pretty awesome barebones HTPCs.

The NUC and most of these other ultra-smalls were designed with business in mind. They have VESA mounts specifically to attach them to the back of monitors for things like advertisements and interactive kiosks. They're great for things like train station track monitors and the little mall stands.

We don't hear much about them in the consumer space because they're not marketed to the consumer space. You won't see them on the shelf at Best Buy. But just because we don't hear about them doesn't mean they aren't doing well with the demographic they're targeted at.

Read again on my business post, the NUC is still too expensive for that purpose. Thin clients are around $200 (fully configured, not barebone) from Dell/HP/Zotac/... And yes, you can use these for digital signage.

I still think the NUC's main purpose is for consumer usage, simply because it's too overpowered for digital signage. Designed for business in mind without a competitive price? Hmhm...

 

[Torn Mind]

Just like its older and slightly larger siblings with E-350s haven't caught on yet. Lack of awareness is one thing. The trend in which many consumers are giving up discrete monitor setups in favor of tablets, smartphones, and/or laptops is another. It is also expensive to build the whole system as well. RAM, hard drive, OS(Windows costs money, Linux costs time for the uninitiated).

 

[Kremlar]

I like them, amazing how small they can make a system like this. The reason I didn't get my parents one, is they wanted a internal optical drive still. Most businesses want this too, alot of software still comes on disks especially the case with some businesses who use certain older software than a home user would. Alot do not want to fool with a external drive. I agree for certain kiosks or setups they would work well.

For small/medium-sized business I'll typically load up installation media onto the server. Much easier and quicker to install when needed anyway - but yes, other than NUCs, most systems I sell do still have optical drives.

I went with a 300-150 isk case. One thing I see is that these ultra small systems once they are out of warranty if something breaks you are pretty well screwed or at least it is alot harder to work on no option to change cpu etc. It all boils down to whether people want something tiny at the expense of everything else. I figure most people here would rather build a little bit larger itx form factor system that is capable of alot more.

True, but at least with the NUC there is separation between the PC and display unlike the AIOs some people are enamored with. Nowadays, even with the price of an i3 or i5 NUC systems are throwaway anyway. Intel sells ridiculously solid hardware and the warranty support is fantastic. If it dies out of warranty there's a pretty good chance it's time for a new PC anyway. We rarely repair PCs nowadays because they are so reliable throughout their lifespan - it's usually not worth fixing them unless it's a bad power supply or noisy fan.

Read again on my business post, the NUC is still too expensive for that purpose. Thin clients are around $200 (fully configured, not barebone) from Dell/HP/Zotac/... And yes, you can use these for digital signage.

Not everyone wants a thin client. And even if I did I'd rather go with hardware I can grow with for a couple hundred more than go with hardware that is barely good enough today.

I still think the NUC's main purpose is for consumer usage, simply because it's too overpowered for digital signage. Designed for business in mind without a competitive price? Hmhm...

Absolutely not. It's what Intel sees the future of the desktop market in general - office, home, etc. - everywhere.

 

[Hero1711]

For small/medium-sized business I'll typically load up installation media onto the server. Much easier and quicker to install when needed anyway - but yes, other than NUCs, most systems I sell do still have optical drives.



True, but at least with the NUC there is separation between the PC and display unlike the AIOs some people are enamored with. Nowadays, even with the price of an i3 or i5 NUC systems are throwaway anyway. Intel sells ridiculously solid hardware and the warranty support is fantastic. If it dies out of warranty there's a pretty good chance it's time for a new PC anyway. We rarely repair PCs nowadays because they are so reliable throughout their lifespan - it's usually not worth fixing them unless it's a bad power supply or noisy fan.



Not everyone wants a thin client. And even if I did I'd rather go with hardware I can grow with for a couple hundred more than go with hardware that is barely good enough today.



Absolutely not. It's what Intel sees the future of the desktop market in general - office, home, etc. - everywhere.

You don't need to grow with thin clients, they are for displaying contents only. By everyone did you also mean business too? In business, you want lowest cost possible, these thin clients have at least 1 year warranty, and they are so cheap that you can just throw away after 1 year and buy new ones - have chance to get new tech - (compared to triple priced NUCs with 3 years warranty). Another thing to note is that assembling also costs money (man power of course), on the other hand the thin clients are ready to go out of the box. Additionally, when using thin clients, data/important hardwares are centralized, easier to maintain.

Image when a NUC is out of order, you have to provided another NUC for that employee and also reinstall OS/restore some personalized data (important data are always stored securely elsewhere of course) from the old NUC, takes time and man power. In that same case with a thin client, just replace a new one without issue, data are stored on the servers/cloud (this is a plus as that employee can login to that same VDI session from any thin client in the company - or even from home using VPN). VMs are much much more flexible than real machines.

You can't just use a "general" equipment everywhere, that's what "specialized" hardwares are for. So my original point is still valid, the NUCs: for office/business too expensive, for home underpowered/also expensive, for digital signage/kiosk too overpowered/expensive.

 

[Kremlar]

You don't need to grow with thin clients, they are for displaying contents only.

That's the point - they do what they do and that's it, there's no flexibility. Most "thin clients" are proprietary garbage.

By everyone did you also mean business too? In business, you want lowest cost possible, these thin clients have at least 1 year warranty, and they are so cheap that you can just throw away after 1 year and buy new ones - have chance to get new tech - (compared to triple priced NUCs with 3 years warranty). Another thing to note is that assembling also costs money (man power of course), when the thin clients are ready to go out of the box.

You're contradicting yourself. First of all, business don't want as cheap as possible (IMO) - they will spend extra for performance, reliability and form factor. $600-$800 for a PC is nothing over its typical lifespan (~5 years). If you're not willing to pay $10 per month for quality hardware you're real cheap and not the type of client I'd want.

You then say man power is money, which is true - though you can assemble a NUC in about 15 minutes. Downtime costs money too. Not smart to purchase hardware that will need to be replaced every year.

Hey, I MIGHT consider proprietary thin client garbage for a client with a full time admin on-site, but that's not most small to medium-sized businesses.

 

[Hero1711]

That's the point - they do what they do and that's it, there's no flexibility. Most "thin clients" are proprietary garbage.



You're contradicting yourself. First of all, business don't want as cheap as possible (IMO) - they will spend extra for performance, reliability and form factor. $600-$800 for a PC is nothing over its typical lifespan (~5 years). If you're not willing to pay $10 per month for quality hardware you're real cheap and not the type of client I'd want.

You then say man power is money, which is true - though you can assemble a NUC in about 15 minutes. Downtime costs money too. Not smart to purchase hardware that will need to be replaced every year.

Hey, I MIGHT consider proprietary thin client garbage for a client with a full time admin on-site, but that's not most small to medium-sized businesses.

Hey, I'm curious, what do you do when your employees don't use the flexible NUCs that you can grow with anymore?

No I weren't contradicting myself. The NUC is x3 the price with x3 warranty, replacing the thin clients every year is the same as replacing the NUCs every 3 years in term of cost, the point here is that you get to upgrade every year (and I didn't say it was mandatory).
The thin clients are just for displaying, and the performance/reliability are from the servers/cloud infrastructure. There is no down time on a well designed cloud infrastructure even in the case of hardware (client/server) failure. I wrote an example of the case where a NUC failed on my previous post.

I have never said "as cheap as possible", it was "lowest cost possible". They have different meaning.

And no, there is no long (I might say less than even 15 mins of assembling a NUC) down time replacing a thin client or even a server in the cloud.

 

[Kremlar]

Hey, I'm curious, what do you do when your employees don't use the flexible NUCs that you can grow with anymore?

Huh? What do you do when they don't use them? Clarify your question.

The thin clients are just for displaying, and the performance/reliability are from the servers/cloud infrastructure.

Somewhat. Can you use 12 year old "thin clients" with modern server hardware today? Why not?

There is no down time on a well designed cloud infrastructure even in the case of hardware (client/server) failure.

Wrong. There's ALWAYS the chance for downtime. If the thin client on a user's desk breaks, how is there no downtime?

I wrote an example of the case where a NUC failed on my previous post.

Yeah - you edited it in. Here it is:

Image when a NUC is out of order, you have to provided another NUC for that employee and also reinstall OS/restore some personalized data (important data are always stored securely elsewhere of course) from the old NUC, takes time and man power.

Not necessarily. You're confusing hardware with software. NUC hardware can have a full desktop OS installed with local data, and it can also act as a thin client pulling everything off a server - that's the flexibility. Even if it's running a full desktop OS with data, it does not take long to image the OS back onto it - and data is stored on the server so that's a non-issue.

In that same case with a thin client, just replace a new one without issue, data are stored on the servers/cloud (this is a plus as that employee can login to that same VDI session from any thin client in the company - or even from home using VPN). VMs are much much more flexible than real machines.

Now you're throwing VMs into the mix? Sorry, I didn't know that you couldn't use RDP and VMs with a NUC... lol

 

[Hero1711]

Huh? What do you do when they don't use them? Clarify your question.



Somewhat. Can you use 12 year old "thin clients" with modern server hardware today? Why not?



Wrong. There's ALWAYS the chance for downtime. If the thin client on a user's desk breaks, how is there no downtime?



Yeah - you edited it in. Here it is:



Not necessarily. You're confusing hardware with software. NUC hardware can have a full desktop OS installed with local data, and it can also act as a thin client pulling everything off a server - that's the flexibility. Even if it's running a full desktop OS with data, it does not take long to image the OS back onto it - and data is stored on the server so that's a non-issue.



Now you're throwing VMs into the mix? Sorry, I didn't know that you couldn't use RDP and VMs with a NUC... lol

Sorry about that question. What will you do to grow with the NUCs?

Why 12 years old? You have a choice to upgrade them every year for the same cost. Upgrade as you need.

Read again about "15 mins".

You use NUC as a normal desktop AND a thin client, isn't that a waste? Also, think about snapshoting VMs.

Again, as above.

Aren't thin client designed for VM VDI?

 

[cbn]

NUCs: for office/business too expensive, for home underpowered/also expensive, for digital signage/kiosk too overpowered/expensive.

Well, there should be a Silvermont atom NUC eventually.

Lets hope those are a lot cheaper.

 

[capeconsultant]

One thing for sure, they ARE a bit pricy. And Intel has been slow as molasses about marketing of any sort.

Imagine of they did TV ads for these the way they did with say, Pentium CPU's Low end for Grandma, higher end for businesses/enthusiasts.

And cd-rom drives? I mean really? People still use those? We have this thing called the Internet that obviates the need for those landfill disks

Anyways, great discussion. If there were a more powerful one available, I may have purchased one instead of my Mac mini. I can hardly describe my desire to drop my clunky desktop and get back some space. It overtook me like a ghost and I was not happy until I had done EXHAUSTIVE research on small desktop computers. Let me tell you, there is some real crap out there.

NUC, I have my eye on you.

 

[Kremlar]

Sorry about that question. What will you do to grow with the NUCs?

Still not sure what you mean.

Why 12 years old? You have a choice to upgrade them every year for the same cost. Upgrade as you need.

Every year?? Show me a business who wants to buy ANY piece of equipment they know they will need to replace in a year. It's just not cost effective when you account for project costs, downtime, etc... Again - MAYBE if you're talking a company with a full time IT guy in-house, but we're talking small to medium-sized businesses.

You use NUC as a normal desktop AND a thin client, isn't that a waste? Also, think about snapshoting VMs.

No, not really.

 

[Kremlar]

One thing for sure, they ARE a bit pricy. And Intel has been slow as molasses about marketing of any sort.

Well, they could save some cash by ditching the high quality box that plays the Intel theme when you open it.

 

[fralexandr]

i'd probably get one if it could mount a bluray drive internally and the price was right.

I was also thinking of getting an x51 for htpc/gaming use, but The 660 variants are a bit pricey. Also the desktop optimus doesn't seem as worth it now that GPUs idle at ~10 watts (still saves up to ~20% idle though)