Intel NUC Discontinued

[Chewy509]

Intel is killing off its own NUC range, but will still support partners is building the platform/form factor...

No more NUC: Intel’s weirdly named mini PCs seem to be going away

Intel has exited several side-businesses as it tries to stop losing money.

arstechnica.com

 

[Chewy509]

Just had a realisation that this isn't too surprising on Intel's part with recent discontinuations of other parts, like server motherboards/bare bones, GPUs (IIRC Intel built Arc cards are no longer being made and I've read rumors that Intel will only do a very short run of Battlemage cards, relying on OEMs/partners to build the majority of them), etc.
It seems Intel wants to get back to being a chip designer/supplier only, relying solely on partners doing the system stuff...

 

[ddrueding]

NUCs were fun, but lately I've been buying other companies products in that space. And having an Intel board was really nice when the others were making crap, but things seem to be fairly good at the moment.

 

[LunarMist]

That's really a bummer. I always liked NUCs. Others tend to be bulky or have some other limitations.
What brands are you using lately?

 

[ddrueding]

I've been alternating between Beelink and Minisforum, depending on whomever has the lastest CPU or connectivity. The NUCs are smaller than either, but I feel their thermal management was always compromised for my uses.
The Beelink GTR6 is the most recent acquisition for a video wall/presentation thing.

 

[Mercutio]

I have a lot of NUCs in service. Those and Lenovo SFF systems are the majority of what I've deployed over the last several years. I have nothing bad to say about them. They're the very definition of vanilla.

Lenovo's m700whatever systems can have pretty impressive configurations as well. Those can be found with discrete (laptop) GPUs and multiple ways to install storage. They occupy more overall volume than a NUC but IMO they're easier to service.

 

[LunarMist]

I'd be looking for a mainstream company and the small form factor. I only need one display, but prefer DP output and also more than one USB-C port. At least one of my NUCs lives on top on the main computer case, so the ~115mm per side style is ideal. I could probably go up to 150mm on the longer side.

 

[ddrueding]

I'll second Merc on the Lenovo units, they are great quality and do the thing.

The next warning is true for any of these smaller PCs: be careful getting the top-spec unit and filling it with stuff. If you can use the i5 instead of the i7 and not put a 2.5" HDD in it, the noise and thermals are much better.

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently, Asus is going to handle design and manufacture for future NUC products.
I don't have a good history with Asus but I'd probably trust it more than I would Beelink.

Lenovo M715q are the tiny units I like best. They have 2nd-gen Ryzen mobile CPUs, (and thus Vega-whatever graphics) they usually cost $115 - $150 apiece for lease returned units and they can run stock Windows 11 if someone wants that (note: no one wants that, but it's nice to have).

 

[LunarMist]

Why would you want that? I'd be looking for $800 range.

 

[Mercutio]

Fleet needs. Sometimes it's useful to buy a bunch of $150 PCs that I can resell as $300 computers.

 

[LunarMist]

The NUC 14s were announced at the CES.