UCFF
One of the perks of modern mobile CPUs is that, being designed for laptops and their very limited cooling capacity, they can be placed in a NUC-sized (or smaller) miniature desktop PC with little difficulty. Better still, with desktops providing room for proper heatsinks (i.e. fins), even passively cooled mini-PCs using laptop-grade silicon are more than viable. The only real drawback to these mini-PCs has largely been the niche nature of the market – leading to high prices and limited choices for higher-performing systems – which is why Topgro has been turning heads as of late with the release of their aggressively priced Intel 12th Gen Core-based K3 Mini PC. Topgro is not a household name, but it sells a collection of compact desktop PCs...
Zotac’s Zbox Edge MI351 Packs Alder Lake-N and Offers Upgradeability
Introduced back at CES 2023, Intel’s Alder Lake-N platform is the company's newest and latest budget platform for entry-level PCs. With the hardware now shipping, Zotac is among the...
16 by Anton Shilov on 4/14/2023
ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-7735U UCFF PC Review: Zen 3+, RDNA2, and USB4 in a Potent Platform
ASRock Industrial is one of the few vendors with a lineup of ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) computing systems based on the latest Intel and AMD platforms. Their lineup of NUC...
36 by Ganesh T S on 4/6/2023
Intel NUC 13 Pro Arena Canyon Review: Raptor Lake Brings Incremental Gains
Ultra-compact form-factor PCs have emerged as bright spots in the PC market over the last decade after Intel introduced the NUC. The company celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its...
48 by Ganesh T S on 3/27/2023
ASRock Industrial's 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 Series Brings Zen 3+ and USB4 40Gbps to UCFF Systems
ASRock Industrial's lineup of ultra-compact form-factor machines in the NUC BOX (Intel-based) and 4X4 BOX (AMD-based) series has gained popularity over the last couple of years. Being the first...
40 by Ganesh T S on 2/10/2023
ASRock Industrial NUCS BOX-1360P/D4 Review: Raptor Lake-P Impresses, plus Surprise ECC
Low-power processors have traditionally been geared towards notebooks and other portable platforms. However, the continued popularity of ultra-compact form-factor desktop systems has resulted in UCFF PCs also serving as...
31 by Ganesh T S on 1/29/2023
Intel NUC 12 Pro Wall Street Canyon Kits Review: Alder Lake in UCFF Avatar
Intel introduced the ultra-compact form-factor in 2012 to reinvigorate the PC market. The incredible success of the product line has now resulted in the brand name propagating to other...
26 by Ganesh T S on 1/26/2023
ASRock Industrial's NUC(S) 1300 BOX Series Brings Raptor Lake to UCFF Systems
Intel recently updated their low-power processors lineup with the Raptor Lake U- and P- Series 13th Gen Core mobile SKUs. Supporting a range of TDPs up to 28W, these...
1 by Ganesh T S on 1/4/2023
ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1260P and 4X4 BOX-5800U Review: Alder Lake-P and Cezanne UCFF Faceoff
The past few years have seen Intel and AMD delivering new processors in a staggered manner. In the sub-45W category, Intel's incumbency has allowed it to deliver products for...
34 by Ganesh T S on 8/5/2022
Intel NUC11TNBi5 and Akasa Newton TN Fanless Case Review: Silencing the Tiger
Intel's Tiger Lake-based NUCs have been shipping for well over a year now. Supply chain challenges have been impacting availability of different models in different regions, but that has...
18 by Ganesh T S on 7/22/2022
Intel Atlas Canyon (NUC11ATKPE) and GEEKOM MiniAir 11 UCFF PCs Review: Desktop Jasper Lake Impresses
Intel's low-power Tremont microarchitecture has powered a range of products - from the short-lived Lakefield, to Elkhart Lake in the embedded space, and finally, Jasper Lake in the client...
23 by Ganesh T S on 7/14/2022
Jasper Lake Fanless Showdown: ECS LIVA Z3 and ZOTAC ZBOX CI331 nano UCFF PCs Review
Intel's Jasper Lake series of products based on the Tremont microarchitecture was launched in early 2021. Since then, we have seen a steady stream of notebooks and motherboards /...
52 by Ganesh T S on 7/8/2022
ASRock Industrial's NUC1200 BOX Series Brings Alder Lake to UCFF Systems
Intel recently updated their low-power processors lineup with the Alder Lake U and P Series 12th Gen Core mobile SKUs. With support for a range of TDPs up to...
22 by Ganesh T S on 3/3/2022
ASUS PN50 mini-PC Review: A Zen 2 Business NUC
Ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) machines have been one of the major drivers in the resurgence of the PC market. The trend was kickstarted by Intel's NUCs in the early 2010s...
32 by Ganesh T S on 10/1/2021
ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1165G7 Mini-PC Review: An Ultra-Compact Tiger Lake Desktop
Intel introduced the Willow Cove micro-architecture with their Tiger Lake processors in the latter part of 2020. These were designed to span a wide range of performance levels and...
33 by Ganesh T S on 8/26/2021
Intel's Tiger Lake NUC11: Panther Canyon for Asia Alone
The electronics industry supply chain is facing a number of issues due to the ongoing pandemic. Companies are unable to meet product demand, and are being forced to fine-tune...
27 by Ganesh T S on 2/4/2021
ECS LIVA Z3 Plus Review: Compact Comet Lake NUC Clone Cuts Corners
ECS is a well-known OEM in computing circles, known for building motherboards, computers, and industrial / embedded systems for other vendors. Some of their motherboards and small form-factor PCs...
15 by Ganesh T S on 12/22/2020
ASRock Brings Zen 2 NUC : 4X4 BOX-4800U Renoir Mini-PC Reviewed
AMD-based ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) systems are slowly gaining market acceptance, with the Zen architecture slowly catching up with Intel on both the performance as well as power consumption front...
53 by Ganesh T S on 11/25/2020
Akasa Turing Fanless Case Review: Unrivalled Noiseless NUC
Silent computing systems are preferable for a multitude of use-cases ranging from industrial applications (where dust and fans make for a troublesome configuration) to noiseless HTPCs (particularly for audiophiles)...
28 by Ganesh T S on 10/26/2020
ASRock Industrial's NUC 1100 BOX Series Brings Tiger Lake to UCFF Systems
Intel's introduction of the Tiger Lake U-series processors with support for a range of TDPs up to 28W has resulted in vendors launching a number of interesting systems with...
13 by Ganesh T S on 10/13/2020
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