Really bad selection of pictures. Did you not actually have a unit with you when reviewing? There's no external shots, there's no pics of the board/GPU connected together, there's no pics of rear backplane with ports/whatever, basically no useful info. I clicked through the gallery and I have no idea how big this thing is, or how the GPU fits into the picture, or anything else. Even "setup notes" page shows nothing useful.
The chassis gallery on the 1st page shows the fully assembled system with the rear IO ports visible and gives a decent visual idea of how big the system is.
Oh hey, I see the stuff now. There's separate galleries throughout the article, for some reason I thought there was only one per page, and the 1st page only showed disassembled cpu module so I thought that was it. Thanks for pointing it out.
It's a good thing you don't get hung up on details like proof and stuff. Guilty until proven innocent, eh? (And yes, I know history doesn't work in their favor.)
The tweet has been misinterpreted and now taken a completely unintended shape of its own. Ian plans to clarify the usage of the word 'incentive' in the context in an upcoming video / post.
FWIW, if anyone believe AMD doesn't offer incentives to its partners (of a type similar to what Intel does, and what is completely legal), then the person has no idea of how the technology industry / silicon vendors operate.
If anyone thinks the reason for lack of high-performance AMD-based (read, Renoir) 'NUC's is Intel, then I have a bridge to sell. No one is preventing AMD from creating a reference design for a Renoir-based 4x4 board or innovate with Compute Element-like products. OEMs can take the plunge only if the silicon vendors offer them a proof of concept. If a Renoir NUC reference design exists, but OEMs still don't pick it up to offer them in the market, that would be worthy of deeper investigation (that could still throw up legitimate reasons).
AMD has reference designs and an entire set of embedded Zen 1 chips made explicitly for that purpose. Udoo Bolt was kickstarted by a fairly small company. If they could do it, why not bigger companies?
The review of the ASRock 4x4 box based on that *single* reference design will be out soon. It targets the *embedded* market, and you will soon see why that is so. Currently, AMD's PC division (i.e, non-embedded) doesn't seem to think of mini-PCs as a high-margin area worth concentrating on. There is a reason why Udoo Bolt uses embedded Ryzen. And, that is why ASRock and other *embedded* market-targeting companies have those Zen 1 products.
In every silicon vendor offering marketing I have seen (as an industry observer visiting trade shows, and as an engineer working in a fabless semiconductor company), there exists a board in a form-factor very *similar* to the end product that the vendor is targeting - either created by the vendor themselves, or, an ODM with close ties that is led hand-in-hand by the vendor [ eg. Thundersoft does the reference design implementation of Snapdragon IP cameras for Qualcomm - https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2016/02/05/snapd... , and the ODM was funded in part by Qualcomm Ventures - https://www.qualcommventures.com/companies/mobile/... ].
I would be very interested in knowing whether there are any examples for what you are suggesting - where a product was created for the end market without a reference design from main silicon's vendor.
A mitx board is 6.75 x 6.75 inches. The final dimensions for this machine are around 9.5 x 8.5 inches.
$1000-1700 without GPU, SSD, RAM is ridiculous for a mitx system. You could build an good (complete) system just a fraction bigger for that same price.
Exactly. Sliger even offers a case with a similar kind of PCIe splitter as this NUC offers. Even in the business space, how is this machine going to compete against those @9 Liter Dell, HP, Lenovo SFF workstations at half the price?
I don't consider this a NUC, even though Intel puts it in that category - same thing with the ones with the skulls on them... the standard 4.5"x4.5" are the only ones I consider a NUC. Not really sure what the use case for this machine is.
I agree with you all around. This is far different than the goals Intel originally set out to attain with the NUC form factor. It's Intel's objective and the company can do whatever it wants with the name, slapping it on a super computer for all I care, but that doesn't mean we are compelled to acknowledge it in the same way we would prior designs.
The use case for it - a small form factor system used for gaming or GPU-based graphics work is certainly the intent. The problem is the pricing is way off as a lot of others have pointed out so the same goals could be accomplished in a similar, but slightly larger system for considerably lower cost.
This seems like a Google-style thought experiment that some employee or team dreamed up. it got approved and is on sale. If subsequent generations are not sold in the future, we will know it didn't get close to projections or targets.
I have over 60 of these deployed in my business offices. I fabricate a 4.5" x ~11" piece of stainless steel - each end is drilled with the 100mm VESA bolt pattern. There are 2 90deg brakes (bends). 1 end in sandwiched between the monitor stand and monitor - other side the NUC mounting bracket is bolted. Short (12") DP and USB cables connect NUC to monitor - sourced a 100W power brick (Intel ships a variety of designs. some with convex sides) that is rectangular - with a standard 3pin AC jack and a barrel DC jack. Y splitter for the AC power - 1 to monitor other to power brick, and a 12" DC cable. So, coming up from the wallplate is 1 AC power cable & 1 CAT6e cable
Makes an all in 1 - usecase doesn't require a desktop PC - even a normal SFF one. My employees can choose wired or wireless Microsoft keybd/mice. Keeps it super neat and super clean.
When I started to migrate those people to work at home, made the move super easy - and didn't require one of my IT staff to handle the moves - the Palo Alto Networks VPN Endpoint was preconfigured, so just plug in the desktop and the IP Phone, and they were up an running again.
I have 3 generations of units - about half are the oldest - the real NUC Tiger Lake will replace them all (not running into issues with compute power - but the iGPU struggles with dual 2560 or 4K monitors. 32GB + Samsung 512GB or 1TB NVME - no 2.5"
Take a look at Dell’s 7070 Ultra. It’s basically a monitor stand, combine with a USB-C monitor and it’s very sleek. I work for a mid sized bank and will be deploying these in the future in our branches where before we used mini-PCs VESA mounted. Much cleaner and enterprise pricing is good.
Thank's for the information - I actually bought one soon after they were released and evaluated as a replacement for the 35 or so NUCs I had installed at the time. There were manufacturing defects or issues, and had to send the eval unit back twice. By December, I had to purchase machines, as the business was expanding - and just couldn't, at that point, consider the Dell an option. The processing power at the time was pretty well evenly matched - the dual channel memory in the NUCs wasn't a huge advantage in testing. and the NVMe speed was comparable. So from a performance standpoint, they were pretty evenly matched - one of the main big features that was lacking in the Dell was the IGP - I had thought that instead of Comet Lake we would have gotten Ice Lake. Our workflow is pretty mundane - Word Excel Outlook and Chrome... So at this point the big reason for sticking with the NUCs is the "ecosystem" I have built around them - when we do replace with the Tiger Lake NUCs later this year, will be pretty well painless.
Agree, Intel has lost it way with the NUCs. They should be in the $500-$999 range, come with best embedded graphics that Intel can provide with lots of ports. Not sure who is excited about $3000 SFF box.
intel has lost its way in alot more then just nucs. it lost its way 5-7 years ago when it thought ot was unbeatable, and kept rehashing the same cpu over and over.
I actually own the skull canyon NUC and its been a fantastic machine, I was looking to upgrade to something newer but Haydes Canyon and and now Ghost Canyon are just too expensive.
Deicidium369, what has intel done for the computer industry over the last few years ?? pretty much, nothing, stagnated the cpu industry, stuck the mainstream at 4 cores, lack of innovation, STILL rehashing the same cpu architecture....
100% agree, I can not see what the possible use case for this is. I am sure for someone out there this is the dream product. IF someone gave me one - might put a 1660TI and call it an emulation system - but I already have the niche in my needs filled.
Wait for 3rd party options from Cyberpower and CoolerMaster for larger and better ventilated cases for this platform. Nonetheless it is very interesting and good on Intel for exploring this niche.
Servethehome just reviewed the Xeon version here: https://www.servethehome.com/intel-nuc9vxqnx-nuc-r... and they found it virtually silent! Quite impressive. That said, for that price I would much rather build an AMD-based mITX-machine in a Dan A4 (which is actually smaller than this NUC) that beats this easily, plus has PCIe 4.0 for better future-proofing.
The statement about noise is in the second last paragraph on page 3, here: https://www.servethehome.com/intel-nuc9vxqnx-nuc-r... but now that I read it again I realise it was probably without GPU, which naturally adds power draw and noise. Ganesh, would it be possible for you to measure the noise with and without the GPU?
Thanks for putting this article together. Regarding optimizing for power delivery, what sort of approaches are in the works now? I imagine the low hanging fruit might be encouraging case manufacturers to integrate PSU wiring for space efficiency or aesthetics.
Biggest take away I see is at half the lanes, you still have 97% of the GPU performance in terms of frame rates. Thanks for the testing. For those looking for pictures, I would recommend Storage reviews write up - https://www.storagereview.com/review/intel-nuc-9-p... If you want this in video form, where they specifically talked about noise from the NUC(It is surprisingly quiet even at load), I would say go check out Gamers Nexus video review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCoLJeUbZTc Thank you Anandtech for getting out your review!
Over priced Intel Junk. I know its trendy to dump on Intel but man this is just poorly designed overpriced garbage and thats too bad because the industry needs new ideas and form factors.
Instead of the tiny blower heatsink being built into the compute element the cooling aspect should be part of the case. A front mounted 80 or 92mm fan that channels the air across a short heatpipe equipped heatsink, something like what is done in 1 and 2U servers. There could even be different tiers of chassis that would support larger cooling solutions that would support more powerful compute elements and larger GPUs. A design like this would create a new ecosystem with a wide variety or products for different uses and provide a way for partners to differentiate themselves.
man you are such an intel fanboy the way you bash AMD. looks like you gave up on the other thread you kept posing in cause the others put too much proof, and you had nothing else left to pro intel BS about.
your " facts " are BS, just like was pointed out on the toms forums
" I would BET that I have more and more current AMD systems than you do." and that is supposed to impress me ? or prove something ? who cares your post, regardless of what computers you claim to have, reek with anti AMD and are pro intel.
No, Jimmy it's not made to impress you, I could not care less about what you think. The point is that I am not an Intel fanboy - I prefer Intel AFTER taking the best AMD has to offer in consideration. For that year back when the AMD Athlon 2400XP (pretty sure that was the model) I was sure my next PC would be AMD also - then Core dropped ... and the Sun set on that idea.
So when Ryzen released - I put together a 1700 system, It was OK but not great - good for budget builds. The 2700X was very good, few issues, good performance, paired that with a Vega VII - and that was just meh. The 3950 is not bad, but nothing special - I do not have any use for a HEDT system - we migrated from LGA2011v3 to Intel Scalable Xeon for our engineering workstations - although the 2nd socket never got populated - still was the solid choice.
You should try to add something other than being a reflexive little troll - all you do, as does qasar is to call people fanboys - but ALL you add to the conversation is calling other people fanboy - when you 2 are the biggest fanboys I have run into. Kiddies you shouldn't be putting so much of your own self worth into what some corporation is doing - maybe when you get older you will get some perspective - back in my day I fought the Mac vs Atari ST vs Amiga wars, and later the Netscape vs IE wars - so I understand the mentality - but that 30 years ago.
Now run along, Jimmy and clean the basement.
Yeah you mean the guy who could not find the slide that said full scene RT in the cloud? Replied with the Slide that he could not find - and he later PM'd me, And still did not refute a single thing I said. So fight your own battles.
" I am not an Intel fanboy " yea right, your post reek of it, even though you keep saying other wise.
and in return, all you do is call people names and insult them cause all you have left, you cant give proof of ANYTHING you say, cause it is all your personal opinion and bias. thats funny, seems a of people refuted what you said, even Johan. what the point of calling me jimmy anyway, does it make you feel better about yourself some how ?
and your " facts " are still BS, thats why you havent replied to that thread, or the one on tom's, cause you have nothing. "You should try to add something other than being a reflexive little troll " and so should you, try posting some links or sources to back up what you say. " but ALL you add to the conversation is calling other people fanboy " and all you do is instult people and call them names, point is ? " Kiddies you shouldn't be putting so much of your own self worth into what some corporation is doing " ha, you should talk. looks like you were refuted on tom's so you came here to spread your BS instead.
If this thing wasn't over priced at least the vast majority of the work of building a SFC system would be done and that would be small win. Still wildly inferior to what you can do with off the shelf iTX hardware (Intel or AMD, dosn't mater) but it would be something. As it is this a over priced cluster fuck disaster of a design that dose nothing you can't do with off the shelf parts. Good job Intel.
I honestly have NO CLUE what the exact use case for this system is - Intel calls it a NUC - I DO NOT consider this to be a NUC system... Again, no clue.
Jimmy - go clean the basement. You seem to be following me - look bud - I don't care what you are into, I am married and your obvious infatuation is starting to creep me out. Seriously - stay away.
Power pig. Hades Canyon was great, but this is hot trash, relative to expectations set by last-gen and perf/power capabilities that are possible today.
> The Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX is a SFF enthusiast's dream come true.
I have to admit that I still don't really see the point of this system. It seems that its main gimmick is the fact that what is essentially the motherboard plugs into a PCIe riser card. That's fine and useful and all, but PCIe riser boards and cables are nothing new, and I don't really see what this does that hasn't already been doable for quite some time. You can replace the compute element? Sure, but being able to replace motherboards is nothing new to most form factors. Please do enlighten me if I'm missing something.
the series adds the ability for end-users to add a standard PCIe video card to the system system.
to the system's system ... or just to the system..
as for folks complain about the price, CPU alone is ~580 USD .. RTX 2070 mini ~539
so there is over $1k right there
I personally wouldn't be buying NUC "overall" based on should be Ryzen A and B absolutely not given seems Intel is "up to their same old BS tricks" via "preventing" folks from offering AMD based options available...
I don't think Intel manufactures those CPU cards (soldered BGA CPUs). They're probably integrated by a 3rd party OEM like Foxxcon. It's one thing to have engineering samples, but for Intel to step into the motherboard manufacturing game requires a lot of capital resources...unless the NUC parts are actually going to be made at Intel's engineering labs...If it's a production run in the 10Ks...that just might be feasible.
And like I said there are no OEMs available for you to buy from - single source - Intel. I thought I saw something a few years ago about possibly PNY - I know they do the Nvidia branded graphics cards.
The article is misleading... and very Intel biased, IMHO.
The ~$1500 USD price is for the i9 barebones kit only... just compute element [w/CPU], daughter board and PSU - i.e. not including a GPU, DRAM memory or SSD - that's why it's so outlandish...
Good ITX m/board & Ryzen 3900x CPU, plus really nice case and PSU is << $900 USD.
A review of anything can be positive or negative on that thing... and is unbiased if it seems balanced and fair in that criticism [be it positive or negative]. If said article seems to over exaggerate the positives, and/or misrepresent them, and miss out or under call some of the negatives, then yes, it's biased... and IMHO, that's exactly what this article does...
Let me indulge you. Where are the positives exaggerated? In the concluding remarks section, number of pros = number of cons. The last paragraph even mentions the pricing aspect that is not touched upon in the pros and cons. Where are the negatives that I have not dwelt upon?
The kiddies won't be happy unless you totally crap on Intel and exalt the wonderfulness that is AMD. I am a huge NUC fan - the 4.5"x4.5" NUCs - the reviewed unit is NUC in name only - and I have no clue what the use case is.
I was a KS backer of the DAN A4 v1 (silver). The KS price ended up very close to USD$280 after conversion from EUR, which did give me some pause at the time, but I really wanted it (and IIRC the initial KS run met goal in like 10 minutes after it opened). Still totally worth it IMO.
I dare Rosewill to ever produce anything this classy.
The DAN A4 KS cases shipped about this time *4 years ago*. So Intel really dropped the ball with their thermal design on this one, as far as I am concerned as the "sandwich" design has been in the wild for a long time. Keep up the mediocrity, Intel.
Going to second this. The Dan case is incredibly high quality, can accomodate water cooling (not my thing), is well thought out internally with lots of places to stash SSD's and so on, has great airflow/heat characteristics and can be built to be nearly silent even with a powerful CPU/GPU combo.
I'm incredibly happy with mine. And unless a person upgrades thier case routinely, the price isn't a big deal
In this case, what is Intel offering for their for their roughly $500-$600 plastic chassis and proprietary unbranded PSU? Superior Intel marketing? I feel your Dan A4 analogy sarcasm is spot on, but I think the reasons it's spot on does not extend to the NUC 9.
Unless you got some very specific need for this, not worth getting. Lots of these are used for home media streaming setups, so needing something this powerful is overkill. You can get 4k streaming/movies or whatever on the price of a low end 5 year old NUC or more.
The seems like the result of a "hey, we could do this" thought process, rather than "we should do this"...
Massively overpriced for home use.... Enthusiasts will build their own, much cheaper and more capable system, and normal buyers will never pay this much... they could just buy a much cheaper standard PC [for GPU], or a much cheaper Intel NUC8 or NUC10 [or Zotac, etc., equivalent] if gfx performance is not important.
GamersNexus has a detailed review on Youtube which aligns with the above.
Maybe the Xeon based Quartz Canyon will find business customers who need/value the small size, but I'm not convinced...
For anyone interested, prices for all NUC9 models are available [and for pre-order] here: shopblt.com
There are plenty of sff itx case, I mean really sff case(4~6L), out there. They cost from $30 to $200, plus a $120 Enhanced 7660b, which is a 600w PSU instead of 500. Standard high end itx boards costs $300 at best. If you spend the same $1500 on those stuff, you'd left south of 1000 bucks. Heck, you can even get a Xeon 8136 28c CPU at this point (although your only option for motherboard is that ONE ASRock server board and some janky coolers).
I just don't see the value of this okay-sized box in 2020. As in the past couple years the itx market just expand that much. Just give up on graphics and buy a regular nuc or build your own stuff.
Some are at 720p to provide context when compared with older SFF PCs we have evaluated before. Every benchmark has a 4K entry too. Please click the appropriate selection button to view the 4K comparison graph.
@Ganesh This review is far more complete then the recent AMD laptop one. Why? I was really hoping for more details but then thought you might have reduced the amount of benchmarks only to see you're fine review on this NUC.
Different reviewers having different amounts of time to spend on a particular review. Ian covers a lot lot more things than I do (I publish one or two pieces a month, Ian publishes two or three a week)
I noticed one spelling error (I didn't read the whole thing throughly):
"Though make no mistake: while biggest than the smallest NUCs, this is still well within the realm of SFF PCs." Incorrect suffix: "Though make no mistake: while bigger than the smallest NUCs, this is still well within the realm of SFF PCs."
Ganesh brings up an interesting comparison to the Zotac discrete GPU boxes. Those are very hit or miss, because of their very niche, boutique pricing and Intel wants to charge almost double what Zotac is charging. They're both in the same, roughly 5 Liter, range with a very similar features list, including a standard PCIe graphics card on a PCIe x16 slot. But how does that compare to a DIY enthusiast build?
Well I've got news for Intel. I just built a 5.25 Liter SFF PC using off-the-shelf, industry standard desktop components for around $700USD (the BoM might be $800 now). The ease of upgrading and appearance is arguably better too. No cheap plastic trim. If something breaks, I can hit up a plethora of 3rd party vendors for spare parts. Why did I build this specific machine? Because of the hype around the NUC 9 announcement 3-4 months back. I wanted to see where the state of DIY SFF was. Back in the days when I first got started building SFFs, case choices were very slim and they were pretty big. It all came down to the enclosures. Now with cases like the Velka 3, the Geeek A30 and the no-name Shenzen K39, companies like Zotac and Intel have to step up their game, especially for the prices they're charging. For Zotac, I think they'll continue on doing as they have. The price premium they charge can be justified, to an enthusiast, as time saved in sourcing and building. Intel's NUC 9 on the other hand....probably won't do very well. The price premium they charge is very hard to justify, considering vendor and platform lock-in...unless you place a high value on bragging rights.
I have had NUCs since the first model and have over 60 deployed as we speak. The original was used non stop for 3 years as a MQTT server - and had never had issues - I have had absolutely zero failures or issues - did get a bum stick of RAM that took a bit to diag.
I agree that this and the Comet Lake NUC will not do great - I think Comet Lake in general is not going to do well - even if you need a machine TODAY, and want an upgrade path to Rocket Lake fine - socket compatible - but won't have PCIe4 that the "Z590" will have so....
If you are wondering about similar size AMD Zen2 8 core products check out the HP EliteDesk 705 G5 Small Form Factor computer. It's absolutely amazing for the size and comes with up to 4 year on site warranty for business customers.
Yes. I wish they made the Mini in 3950X. If they can support the i9-9900K in the EliteDesk 800 G5 chassis (95W TDP), they should be able to support the 3950X as well, instead of the feeble Ryzen 5 that line tops out at.
I just got a HP EliteDesk 800 G5 with an i7-9700K and 64GB RAM, uncompromised 95W TDP in a smaller form factor (it’s for software development, so I don’t care about the GPU). You can even configure it with an i9-9900K and dual M.2 SSDs. It’s actually the fastest computer I own:
Surprised no mention here of the Velka 3 (https://www.velkase.com/products/velka-3) - full mini-ITX motherboard, flex-ATX power supply, and dual slot ITX graphics card in < 4 L.
I see some neat boutique cases mentioned in comments that I haven't heard of before, but what about SFF cases that don't have support or more space for a discrete graphics card? I know that doesn't really match this review, but I'm interested in an SFF for an HTPC using integrated graphics. I don't think we need or want discrete graphics for watching TV.
Also, I'll mention I only saw 3 lines of text from the article initially when going to a new article page. That bottom horizontal ad is huge. Come on.
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timecop1818 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Really bad selection of pictures. Did you not actually have a unit with you when reviewing? There's no external shots, there's no pics of the board/GPU connected together, there's no pics of rear backplane with ports/whatever, basically no useful info. I clicked through the gallery and I have no idea how big this thing is, or how the GPU fits into the picture, or anything else. Even "setup notes" page shows nothing useful.DanNeely - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
The chassis gallery on the 1st page shows the fully assembled system with the rear IO ports visible and gives a decent visual idea of how big the system is.timecop1818 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Oh hey, I see the stuff now. There's separate galleries throughout the article, for some reason I thought there was only one per page, and the 1st page only showed disassembled cpu module so I thought that was it. Thanks for pointing it out.FireSnake - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Based on this:https://www.notebookcheck.net/AnandTech-editor-rep...
they are not getting any money from me!
For a loooong looong time (those includd too).
bug77 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
It's a good thing you don't get hung up on details like proof and stuff. Guilty until proven innocent, eh? (And yes, I know history doesn't work in their favor.)DigitalFreak - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Ian doesn't seem like the person to throw around baseless accusations.ganeshts - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
The tweet has been misinterpreted and now taken a completely unintended shape of its own. Ian plans to clarify the usage of the word 'incentive' in the context in an upcoming video / post.FWIW, if anyone believe AMD doesn't offer incentives to its partners (of a type similar to what Intel does, and what is completely legal), then the person has no idea of how the technology industry / silicon vendors operate.
If anyone thinks the reason for lack of high-performance AMD-based (read, Renoir) 'NUC's is Intel, then I have a bridge to sell. No one is preventing AMD from creating a reference design for a Renoir-based 4x4 board or innovate with Compute Element-like products. OEMs can take the plunge only if the silicon vendors offer them a proof of concept. If a Renoir NUC reference design exists, but OEMs still don't pick it up to offer them in the market, that would be worthy of deeper investigation (that could still throw up legitimate reasons).
Namisecond - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Even when reference designs exist, availability of parts can come into play, or even OEM disinterest.quadrivial - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
AMD has reference designs and an entire set of embedded Zen 1 chips made explicitly for that purpose. Udoo Bolt was kickstarted by a fairly small company. If they could do it, why not bigger companies?arashi - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
You must understand that Intel PR and legal has been in touch.ganeshts - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
The review of the ASRock 4x4 box based on that *single* reference design will be out soon. It targets the *embedded* market, and you will soon see why that is so. Currently, AMD's PC division (i.e, non-embedded) doesn't seem to think of mini-PCs as a high-margin area worth concentrating on. There is a reason why Udoo Bolt uses embedded Ryzen. And, that is why ASRock and other *embedded* market-targeting companies have those Zen 1 products.Spunjji - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
"OEMs can take the plunge only if the silicon vendors offer them a proof of concept."This really doesn't strike me as the least bit true. Sure, a reference design would help - but it's surely not essential?
ganeshts - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
In every silicon vendor offering marketing I have seen (as an industry observer visiting trade shows, and as an engineer working in a fabless semiconductor company), there exists a board in a form-factor very *similar* to the end product that the vendor is targeting - either created by the vendor themselves, or, an ODM with close ties that is led hand-in-hand by the vendor [ eg. Thundersoft does the reference design implementation of Snapdragon IP cameras for Qualcomm - https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2016/02/05/snapd... , and the ODM was funded in part by Qualcomm Ventures - https://www.qualcommventures.com/companies/mobile/... ].I would be very interested in knowing whether there are any examples for what you are suggesting - where a product was created for the end market without a reference design from main silicon's vendor.
bug77 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
I stopped reading when I got to the price.zer0hour - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
+1quadrivial - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
A mitx board is 6.75 x 6.75 inches. The final dimensions for this machine are around 9.5 x 8.5 inches.$1000-1700 without GPU, SSD, RAM is ridiculous for a mitx system. You could build an good (complete) system just a fraction bigger for that same price.
bug77 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Or, if you need something small, you can get a similarly specced laptop.Namisecond - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Exactly. Sliger even offers a case with a similar kind of PCIe splitter as this NUC offers. Even in the business space, how is this machine going to compete against those @9 Liter Dell, HP, Lenovo SFF workstations at half the price?shabby - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
+100 😂sorten - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
+1Stunned by the price. $2800 for a last generation CPU, 16GB of RAM, and an RTX 2070? Wow.
PeachNCream - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
NUCs have usually had a bit of a markup, but the price here is quite a bit higher than one would expect.Deicidium369 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
I don't consider this a NUC, even though Intel puts it in that category - same thing with the ones with the skulls on them... the standard 4.5"x4.5" are the only ones I consider a NUC. Not really sure what the use case for this machine is.PeachNCream - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I agree with you all around. This is far different than the goals Intel originally set out to attain with the NUC form factor. It's Intel's objective and the company can do whatever it wants with the name, slapping it on a super computer for all I care, but that doesn't mean we are compelled to acknowledge it in the same way we would prior designs.The use case for it - a small form factor system used for gaming or GPU-based graphics work is certainly the intent. The problem is the pricing is way off as a lot of others have pointed out so the same goals could be accomplished in a similar, but slightly larger system for considerably lower cost.
This seems like a Google-style thought experiment that some employee or team dreamed up. it got approved and is on sale. If subsequent generations are not sold in the future, we will know it didn't get close to projections or targets.
Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I have over 60 of these deployed in my business offices. I fabricate a 4.5" x ~11" piece of stainless steel - each end is drilled with the 100mm VESA bolt pattern. There are 2 90deg brakes (bends). 1 end in sandwiched between the monitor stand and monitor - other side the NUC mounting bracket is bolted. Short (12") DP and USB cables connect NUC to monitor - sourced a 100W power brick (Intel ships a variety of designs. some with convex sides) that is rectangular - with a standard 3pin AC jack and a barrel DC jack. Y splitter for the AC power - 1 to monitor other to power brick, and a 12" DC cable. So, coming up from the wallplate is 1 AC power cable & 1 CAT6e cableMakes an all in 1 - usecase doesn't require a desktop PC - even a normal SFF one. My employees can choose wired or wireless Microsoft keybd/mice. Keeps it super neat and super clean.
When I started to migrate those people to work at home, made the move super easy - and didn't require one of my IT staff to handle the moves - the Palo Alto Networks VPN Endpoint was preconfigured, so just plug in the desktop and the IP Phone, and they were up an running again.
I have 3 generations of units - about half are the oldest - the real NUC Tiger Lake will replace them all (not running into issues with compute power - but the iGPU struggles with dual 2560 or 4K monitors. 32GB + Samsung 512GB or 1TB NVME - no 2.5"
Icehawk - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
Take a look at Dell’s 7070 Ultra. It’s basically a monitor stand, combine with a USB-C monitor and it’s very sleek. I work for a mid sized bank and will be deploying these in the future in our branches where before we used mini-PCs VESA mounted. Much cleaner and enterprise pricing is good.Deicidium369 - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
Thank's for the information - I actually bought one soon after they were released and evaluated as a replacement for the 35 or so NUCs I had installed at the time. There were manufacturing defects or issues, and had to send the eval unit back twice. By December, I had to purchase machines, as the business was expanding - and just couldn't, at that point, consider the Dell an option. The processing power at the time was pretty well evenly matched - the dual channel memory in the NUCs wasn't a huge advantage in testing. and the NVMe speed was comparable. So from a performance standpoint, they were pretty evenly matched - one of the main big features that was lacking in the Dell was the IGP - I had thought that instead of Comet Lake we would have gotten Ice Lake. Our workflow is pretty mundane - Word Excel Outlook and Chrome... So at this point the big reason for sticking with the NUCs is the "ecosystem" I have built around them - when we do replace with the Tiger Lake NUCs later this year, will be pretty well painless.ingwe - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Yeah the pricing is crazy. Which is disappointing because I think it is a pretty neat concept and I would love something like this from AMD.Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
AMD sells CPU and GPU - nothing else.Sailor23M - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
Agree, Intel has lost it way with the NUCs. They should be in the $500-$999 range, come with best embedded graphics that Intel can provide with lots of ports. Not sure who is excited about $3000 SFF box.Qasar - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
intel has lost its way in alot more then just nucs. it lost its way 5-7 years ago when it thought ot was unbeatable, and kept rehashing the same cpu over and over.Deicidium369 - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
Yeah sure - Intel BAD AMD GOOD.Sailor23M - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
I actually own the skull canyon NUC and its been a fantastic machine, I was looking to upgrade to something newer but Haydes Canyon and and now Ghost Canyon are just too expensive.Qasar - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Deicidium369, what has intel done for the computer industry over the last few years ?? pretty much, nothing, stagnated the cpu industry, stuck the mainstream at 4 cores, lack of innovation, STILL rehashing the same cpu architecture....Spunjji - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Useless reply to a reasonable comment, @Deicidium369Deicidium369 - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
100% agree, I can not see what the possible use case for this is. I am sure for someone out there this is the dream product. IF someone gave me one - might put a 1660TI and call it an emulation system - but I already have the niche in my needs filled.Spunjji - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I carried on for sheer amusement value. I was not disappointed.loki1944 - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
Agreed.koekkoe - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
What about noise? Quite powerful components in such a small chassis probably requires quite high fan rpm's.Chaitanya - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Wait for 3rd party options from Cyberpower and CoolerMaster for larger and better ventilated cases for this platform. Nonetheless it is very interesting and good on Intel for exploring this niche.AdditionalPylons - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Servethehome just reviewed the Xeon version here: https://www.servethehome.com/intel-nuc9vxqnx-nuc-r...and they found it virtually silent! Quite impressive. That said, for that price I would much rather build an AMD-based mITX-machine in a Dan A4 (which is actually smaller than this NUC) that beats this easily, plus has PCIe 4.0 for better future-proofing.
AdditionalPylons - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
The statement about noise is in the second last paragraph on page 3, here: https://www.servethehome.com/intel-nuc9vxqnx-nuc-r...but now that I read it again I realise it was probably without GPU, which naturally adds power draw and noise.
Ganesh, would it be possible for you to measure the noise with and without the GPU?
Spunjji - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I was interested in this aspect, too. The thermal module on the CPU doesn't look very promising, but the TDP is fairly low...leonlee - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Thanks for putting this article together. Regarding optimizing for power delivery, what sort of approaches are in the works now? I imagine the low hanging fruit might be encouraging case manufacturers to integrate PSU wiring for space efficiency or aesthetics.cyrusfox - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Biggest take away I see is at half the lanes, you still have 97% of the GPU performance in terms of frame rates. Thanks for the testing.For those looking for pictures, I would recommend Storage reviews write up - https://www.storagereview.com/review/intel-nuc-9-p...
If you want this in video form, where they specifically talked about noise from the NUC(It is surprisingly quiet even at load), I would say go check out Gamers Nexus video review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCoLJeUbZTc
Thank you Anandtech for getting out your review!
Operandi - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Over priced Intel Junk. I know its trendy to dump on Intel but man this is just poorly designed overpriced garbage and thats too bad because the industry needs new ideas and form factors.Instead of the tiny blower heatsink being built into the compute element the cooling aspect should be part of the case. A front mounted 80 or 92mm fan that channels the air across a short heatpipe equipped heatsink, something like what is done in 1 and 2U servers. There could even be different tiers of chassis that would support larger cooling solutions that would support more powerful compute elements and larger GPUs. A design like this would create a new ecosystem with a wide variety or products for different uses and provide a way for partners to differentiate themselves.
AMD; work with some partners and build this.
Deicidium369 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
The "partners" would rather work on something that would, you know, sell.Korguz - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
man you are such an intel fanboy the way you bash AMD. looks like you gave up on the other thread you kept posing in cause the others put too much proof, and you had nothing else left to pro intel BS about.Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Jimmy, go clean the basement. And you are such an AMD Fanboi.FACT - Intel sells 10:1 vs AMD - so do you go for 90% of the market or 10% of the market
I would BET that I have more and more current AMD systems than you do.
Korguz - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
your " facts " are BS, just like was pointed out on the toms forums" I would BET that I have more and more current AMD systems than you do." and that is supposed to impress me ? or prove something ? who cares your post, regardless of what computers you claim to have, reek with anti AMD and are pro intel.
Korguz - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
thats why you havent replied to any of the comments on the other thread about the 4900hs review, because your facts are BS, and you know itDeicidium369 - Saturday, April 18, 2020 - link
No, Jimmy it's not made to impress you, I could not care less about what you think. The point is that I am not an Intel fanboy - I prefer Intel AFTER taking the best AMD has to offer in consideration. For that year back when the AMD Athlon 2400XP (pretty sure that was the model) I was sure my next PC would be AMD also - then Core dropped ... and the Sun set on that idea.So when Ryzen released - I put together a 1700 system, It was OK but not great - good for budget builds. The 2700X was very good, few issues, good performance, paired that with a Vega VII - and that was just meh. The 3950 is not bad, but nothing special - I do not have any use for a HEDT system - we migrated from LGA2011v3 to Intel Scalable Xeon for our engineering workstations - although the 2nd socket never got populated - still was the solid choice.
You should try to add something other than being a reflexive little troll - all you do, as does qasar is to call people fanboys - but ALL you add to the conversation is calling other people fanboy - when you 2 are the biggest fanboys I have run into. Kiddies you shouldn't be putting so much of your own self worth into what some corporation is doing - maybe when you get older you will get some perspective - back in my day I fought the Mac vs Atari ST vs Amiga wars, and later the Netscape vs IE wars - so I understand the mentality - but that 30 years ago.
Now run along, Jimmy and clean the basement.
Yeah you mean the guy who could not find the slide that said full scene RT in the cloud? Replied with the Slide that he could not find - and he later PM'd me, And still did not refute a single thing I said. So fight your own battles.
Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
" I am not an Intel fanboy " yea right, your post reek of it, even though you keep saying other wise.and in return, all you do is call people names and insult them cause all you have left, you cant give proof of ANYTHING you say, cause it is all your personal opinion and bias. thats funny, seems a of people refuted what you said, even Johan. what the point of calling me jimmy anyway, does it make you feel better about yourself some how ?
Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
and your " facts " are still BS, thats why you havent replied to that thread, or the one on tom's, cause you have nothing."You should try to add something other than being a reflexive little troll " and so should you, try posting some links or sources to back up what you say. " but ALL you add to the conversation is calling other people fanboy " and all you do is instult people and call them names, point is ?
" Kiddies you shouldn't be putting so much of your own self worth into what some corporation is doing " ha, you should talk. looks like you were refuted on tom's so you came here to spread your BS instead.
Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
johan = jarredOperandi - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
LOL, and you think this is going to sell?If this thing wasn't over priced at least the vast majority of the work of building a SFC system would be done and that would be small win. Still wildly inferior to what you can do with off the shelf iTX hardware (Intel or AMD, dosn't mater) but it would be something. As it is this a over priced cluster fuck disaster of a design that dose nothing you can't do with off the shelf parts. Good job Intel.
Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I honestly have NO CLUE what the exact use case for this system is - Intel calls it a NUC - I DO NOT consider this to be a NUC system... Again, no clue.Korguz - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
" work on something that would, you know, sell. " that implies you think this would sell.Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Jimmy - go clean the basement. You seem to be following me - look bud - I don't care what you are into, I am married and your obvious infatuation is starting to creep me out. Seriously - stay away.Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
of frank, when i am done that, i will help you clean out the garage. cause obviously, you are incapable of thatSpunjji - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Your posts here are the worst. 🤦♂️buckiller - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Power pig. Hades Canyon was great, but this is hot trash, relative to expectations set by last-gen and perf/power capabilities that are possible today.> The Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX is a SFF enthusiast's dream come true.
Ooph. Hardly.
Dolda2000 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
I have to admit that I still don't really see the point of this system. It seems that its main gimmick is the fact that what is essentially the motherboard plugs into a PCIe riser card. That's fine and useful and all, but PCIe riser boards and cables are nothing new, and I don't really see what this does that hasn't already been doable for quite some time. You can replace the compute element? Sure, but being able to replace motherboards is nothing new to most form factors. Please do enlighten me if I'm missing something.Dragonstongue - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
the series adds the ability for end-users to add a standard PCIe video card to the system system.to the system's system ... or just to the system..
as for folks complain about the price, CPU alone is ~580 USD .. RTX 2070 mini ~539
so there is over $1k right there
I personally wouldn't be buying NUC "overall" based on should be Ryzen A and B absolutely not given seems Intel is "up to their same old BS tricks" via "preventing" folks from offering AMD based options available...
Destoya - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
$580 CPU, you have to be kidding. Nobody, including OEMs, pays the tray MSRP intel has listed.If you want to look at it in terms of value, it has the same performance as a Ryzen 3600 ($175)...
Deicidium369 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
First off, there are no OEMs, it is single source Intel. I love Intel NUCs - not sure what the use case for this model is.Namisecond - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I don't think Intel manufactures those CPU cards (soldered BGA CPUs). They're probably integrated by a 3rd party OEM like Foxxcon. It's one thing to have engineering samples, but for Intel to step into the motherboard manufacturing game requires a lot of capital resources...unless the NUC parts are actually going to be made at Intel's engineering labs...If it's a production run in the 10Ks...that just might be feasible.Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
And like I said there are no OEMs available for you to buy from - single source - Intel. I thought I saw something a few years ago about possibly PNY - I know they do the Nvidia branded graphics cards.BlazingDragon - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
The article is misleading... and very Intel biased, IMHO.The ~$1500 USD price is for the i9 barebones kit only... just compute element [w/CPU], daughter board and PSU - i.e. not including a GPU, DRAM memory or SSD - that's why it's so outlandish...
Good ITX m/board & Ryzen 3900x CPU, plus really nice case and PSU is << $900 USD.
Deicidium369 - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
So a review of a product from Intel is very Intel biased.... That has to be a huge conspira-plotBlazingDragon - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
A review of anything can be positive or negative on that thing... and is unbiased if it seems balanced and fair in that criticism [be it positive or negative].If said article seems to over exaggerate the positives, and/or misrepresent them, and miss out or under call some of the negatives, then yes, it's biased... and IMHO, that's exactly what this article does...
ganeshts - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Let me indulge you. Where are the positives exaggerated? In the concluding remarks section, number of pros = number of cons. The last paragraph even mentions the pricing aspect that is not touched upon in the pros and cons. Where are the negatives that I have not dwelt upon?Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
You did fine Ganesh -The kiddies won't be happy unless you totally crap on Intel and exalt the wonderfulness that is AMD.
I am a huge NUC fan - the 4.5"x4.5" NUCs - the reviewed unit is NUC in name only - and I have no clue what the use case is.
Korguz - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
and a huge intel fan, obviously, in your posts on tom's show this. thats why you exalt the wonderfulness that is intelDeicidium369 - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Admins - can you have a talk with Jimmy, he is becoming unhinged, and is stalking me.Korguz - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
its just funny, you get called out on your BS there, so you come here, and try to spread your bs here as well.GreenReaper - Sunday, May 10, 2020 - link
Come now. His name is clearly Korguz, not Jimmy.Reflex - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
I have one of these: https://www.dan-cases.com/Full mITX in only 7.2L. It's fantastic, and I was able to build a Ryzen with full length GTX1080 no problem last year.
1_rick - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
The Dan A4 is $220. What a ripoff, when I can buy a Rosewill case AND get a PSU for $50!(Not really, but that's the same thing a lot of people are saying.)
jtd871 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
That's what they will say until they own one.I was a KS backer of the DAN A4 v1 (silver). The KS price ended up very close to USD$280 after conversion from EUR, which did give me some pause at the time, but I really wanted it (and IIRC the initial KS run met goal in like 10 minutes after it opened). Still totally worth it IMO.
I dare Rosewill to ever produce anything this classy.
The DAN A4 KS cases shipped about this time *4 years ago*. So Intel really dropped the ball with their thermal design on this one, as far as I am concerned as the "sandwich" design has been in the wild for a long time. Keep up the mediocrity, Intel.
Reflex - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Going to second this. The Dan case is incredibly high quality, can accomodate water cooling (not my thing), is well thought out internally with lots of places to stash SSD's and so on, has great airflow/heat characteristics and can be built to be nearly silent even with a powerful CPU/GPU combo.I'm incredibly happy with mine. And unless a person upgrades thier case routinely, the price isn't a big deal
Namisecond - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Thirded, the sandwich design the Dancase A4 popularized really revolutionized the DIY SFF world. We are living in the golden age of DIY SFF. :)Namisecond - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
In this case, what is Intel offering for their for their roughly $500-$600 plastic chassis and proprietary unbranded PSU? Superior Intel marketing? I feel your Dan A4 analogy sarcasm is spot on, but I think the reasons it's spot on does not extend to the NUC 9.imaheadcase - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Unless you got some very specific need for this, not worth getting. Lots of these are used for home media streaming setups, so needing something this powerful is overkill. You can get 4k streaming/movies or whatever on the price of a low end 5 year old NUC or more.BlazingDragon - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
Agreed.The seems like the result of a "hey, we could do this" thought process, rather than "we should do this"...
Massively overpriced for home use.... Enthusiasts will build their own, much cheaper and more capable system, and normal buyers will never pay this much... they could just buy a much cheaper standard PC [for GPU], or a much cheaper Intel NUC8 or NUC10 [or Zotac, etc., equivalent] if gfx performance is not important.
GamersNexus has a detailed review on Youtube which aligns with the above.
Maybe the Xeon based Quartz Canyon will find business customers who need/value the small size, but I'm not convinced...
For anyone interested, prices for all NUC9 models are available [and for pre-order] here: shopblt.com
Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Agreed - like I said I have no clue what the use case for this is. Even the Xeon unit...erinadreno - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
There are plenty of sff itx case, I mean really sff case(4~6L), out there. They cost from $30 to $200, plus a $120 Enhanced 7660b, which is a 600w PSU instead of 500. Standard high end itx boards costs $300 at best. If you spend the same $1500 on those stuff, you'd left south of 1000 bucks. Heck, you can even get a Xeon 8136 28c CPU at this point (although your only option for motherboard is that ONE ASRock server board and some janky coolers).I just don't see the value of this okay-sized box in 2020. As in the past couple years the itx market just expand that much. Just give up on graphics and buy a regular nuc or build your own stuff.
pixelstuff - Thursday, April 16, 2020 - link
That seems really large for a "Next Unit of Computing" classification.Deicidium369 - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Agreed - for me the NUC is the 4.5"x4.5" units - even the Hades Canyon to me doesn't meet the classification.Oxford Guy - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
My dream is for people to mature enough to demand that Intel not be idiotic enough to put skulls on things.Cullinaire - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
How about a pelvis instead?Silma - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Just saw your gaming benchmarks are in 720p. Why?If this computer can't have decent gaming at 1080p, what's the point of spending $1,300 ?
ganeshts - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Some are at 720p to provide context when compared with older SFF PCs we have evaluated before. Every benchmark has a 4K entry too. Please click the appropriate selection button to view the 4K comparison graph.nandnandnand - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Turn your script blocker off if you don't see any buttons for 1080p, 2160p, etc.ballsystemlord - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
@Ganesh This review is far more complete then the recent AMD laptop one. Why?I was really hoping for more details but then thought you might have reduced the amount of benchmarks only to see you're fine review on this NUC.
ganeshts - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Different reviewers having different amounts of time to spend on a particular review. Ian covers a lot lot more things than I do (I publish one or two pieces a month, Ian publishes two or three a week)ballsystemlord - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I'm sorry to hear that Ian's so busy. Thanks for your fast reply!ballsystemlord - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
I noticed one spelling error (I didn't read the whole thing throughly):"Though make no mistake: while biggest than the smallest NUCs, this is still well within the realm of SFF PCs."
Incorrect suffix:
"Though make no mistake: while bigger than the smallest NUCs, this is still well within the realm of SFF PCs."
Namisecond - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
Ganesh brings up an interesting comparison to the Zotac discrete GPU boxes. Those are very hit or miss, because of their very niche, boutique pricing and Intel wants to charge almost double what Zotac is charging. They're both in the same, roughly 5 Liter, range with a very similar features list, including a standard PCIe graphics card on a PCIe x16 slot. But how does that compare to a DIY enthusiast build?Well I've got news for Intel. I just built a 5.25 Liter SFF PC using off-the-shelf, industry standard desktop components for around $700USD (the BoM might be $800 now). The ease of upgrading and appearance is arguably better too. No cheap plastic trim. If something breaks, I can hit up a plethora of 3rd party vendors for spare parts. Why did I build this specific machine? Because of the hype around the NUC 9 announcement 3-4 months back. I wanted to see where the state of DIY SFF was. Back in the days when I first got started building SFFs, case choices were very slim and they were pretty big. It all came down to the enclosures. Now with cases like the Velka 3, the Geeek A30 and the no-name Shenzen K39, companies like Zotac and Intel have to step up their game, especially for the prices they're charging. For Zotac, I think they'll continue on doing as they have. The price premium they charge can be justified, to an enthusiast, as time saved in sourcing and building. Intel's NUC 9 on the other hand....probably won't do very well. The price premium they charge is very hard to justify, considering vendor and platform lock-in...unless you place a high value on bragging rights.
Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
I have had NUCs since the first model and have over 60 deployed as we speak. The original was used non stop for 3 years as a MQTT server - and had never had issues - I have had absolutely zero failures or issues - did get a bum stick of RAM that took a bit to diag.I agree that this and the Comet Lake NUC will not do great - I think Comet Lake in general is not going to do well - even if you need a machine TODAY, and want an upgrade path to Rocket Lake fine - socket compatible - but won't have PCIe4 that the "Z590" will have so....
Am looking forward to the NUC10 with Tiger Lake.
kwinz - Friday, April 17, 2020 - link
If you are wondering about similar size AMD Zen2 8 core products check out the HP EliteDesk 705 G5 Small Form Factor computer. It's absolutely amazing for the size and comes with up to 4 year on site warranty for business customers.fazalmajid - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Yes. I wish they made the Mini in 3950X. If they can support the i9-9900K in the EliteDesk 800 G5 chassis (95W TDP), they should be able to support the 3950X as well, instead of the feeble Ryzen 5 that line tops out at.Namisecond - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
AMD may not be able to meet the OEM demand for their 8-core and 16 core processors, whereas the 9900K may be plentiful.fazalmajid - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
I just got a HP EliteDesk 800 G5 with an i7-9700K and 64GB RAM, uncompromised 95W TDP in a smaller form factor (it’s for software development, so I don’t care about the GPU). You can even configure it with an i9-9900K and dual M.2 SSDs. It’s actually the fastest computer I own:https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1826503
https://browser.geekbench.com/user/122632
henryjin - Sunday, April 19, 2020 - link
Surprised no mention here of the Velka 3 (https://www.velkase.com/products/velka-3) - full mini-ITX motherboard, flex-ATX power supply, and dual slot ITX graphics card in < 4 L.zodiacfml - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
Weren't for Intel's NUCs being priceysjkpublic@gmail.com - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
$1600? Really? Please give me a CPU without the spectre/meltdown microcode fixes and I may pay $500 for a NUC.mikato - Tuesday, May 5, 2020 - link
I see some neat boutique cases mentioned in comments that I haven't heard of before, but what about SFF cases that don't have support or more space for a discrete graphics card? I know that doesn't really match this review, but I'm interested in an SFF for an HTPC using integrated graphics. I don't think we need or want discrete graphics for watching TV.Also, I'll mention I only saw 3 lines of text from the article initially when going to a new article page. That bottom horizontal ad is huge. Come on.
tygrus - Thursday, May 7, 2020 - link
The Baseboard acts more like a PCIe riser connecting the ECE to the 3 slots sharing the 16 lanes (x16 or X8 + x4 + x4 NVMe).itsratso - Wednesday, July 29, 2020 - link
still waiting for the ability to power your computer on and off with my remote. you know like EVERY OTHER PIECE OF HT EQUIPMENT ON EARTH