Are these things really the future of desktop PCs? Personally I think that smaller is not always better

Are these things really the future of desktop PCs? Personally I think that smaller is not always better.

Other urls found in this thread:

ncix.com/detail/intel-nuc-nuc6i7kyk-i7-6770hq-2xddr4-2133-e6-129452.htm?promoid=1120
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

I doubt many people even know what a NUC is.

>Are these things really the future of desktop PCs?
For shitpost and facebook, maybe.
For slave wage jobs maybe.
For things that really matter, clearly no

Linus uses one of these in his home office iirc.

>you can buy a nice laptop for the same or less than the price of just the box
>said laptop can have more ports and the same or better compatibility with external hardware
>you risk breaking the fucking thing before you even turn it on if you buy a model without RAM and/ or storage vs. a laptop
>not serviceable enough to justify over an AIO
>looks really autistic compared to an AIO (your computer is that little box? and you stuck it to the back of your monitor? are you sure you're not a virgin?)
I rest my case.

>video games matters

>implying i don't recreate the universe in a computer.

Basic PC's for web browsing and light work and maybe some very light games?
Sure.
I have one myself I use for OSX, just for work and shit.
And another one as a PFSense box but I wouldn't see them as the future of desktops because they lack power (most of them are dual core and not quadcore and are underclocked as fuck and throttle hard).

Is everything in a laptop but the screen. For everyone but gamers and some hobbyists, that's enough now days.

I'd give it five years, though. By then there will either be no such thing as a desktop, or it will be such a niche market that prices will be sky high.

If they manage to get a desktop cpu in it and the required cooling, they could easily replace desktop PCs.

Especially now that external GPU docks are getting cheaper.

For most users, a NUC would be more than enough.

Intel are not playing smart with NUCs, normies don't like to build PCs, so giving them a barebone is not an enticing offer. They need to offer the option of a complete PC that works out of the box. And that is not so expensive. If you add the RAM and an SSD, it's getting into macmini territory, and those are not exactly best sellers.

So probably NUCs will continue to be a niche, as long as Intel doesn't think like a salesman or a client.

But it could be they don't really want to compete with OEMs, just like Microsoft, because they are afraid OEMs might threaten to switch to AMD if Intel comes out competing with them directly in direct sales of complete PCs.

That's why Microsoft has a premium pricing policy on their Surface products, because they promised OEMs they won't compete on the same level.

Normies don't buy PCs. These are targeted towards the enterprise market.

Normies stopped buying PCs, it's not like they never bought one, they just don't think they need to buy a new one.

But at some point their old box will crap itself and they'll buy again, but in a different form factor. Either 2 in 1s, TVs with embedded OS and browser or compute sticks. The PC won't die, it'll shapeshift.

We use them for pretty much everyone at our office, they're replacing normal PCs as they are just as powerful as the full sized desktops they replace, yet more power efficient.

Things we have used them for:
-Basic office applications and RDP to terminal servers
-Hang on the back of flatscreen TVs as a sort of jumpbox to a person's main PC or just to open files with (also use the ComputeSticks for this as well)
-Jumpboxes to other PCs
-Controlling truck scales for ticketing purposes (RDP into the box, then run the scale programs from these guys)
-Perfect for A/V stuff, underneath conference tables, TV carts, whatever. Basically wherever you'd want a PC but want to downsize.

The ones we have have 16 gigs of RAM and onboard RAID. They are just as good as any run of the mill desktop most businesses use.

I love small form factor PCs, really like these little boxes. Only problem is no CD drive which sometimes you need in business.

For 95% of users. Yes.
For gaymen and media production. No.

Sup Linus

Is there really any other reason to use desktop computers? I'd imagine that graphics cards and shit will be much smaller in the future

>AND
>TWO
>6970's
>while at the SAME TIME
>DBRAND SKINS

I hooked one up to my 4K TV next to my DVR and blu-ray player and stuff and use it mainly for steam in-home streaming to play with controllers on a TV and it works pretty well for that purpose. When company comes over it can come in handy as well.

It even runs photoshop and after effects pretty quickly.

Haven't tried locally installed games yet

I have a Skull Canyon NUC that I like a lot

>rendering videos
>rendering models
>literally anything that needs a gpu bigger than a digestive biscuit
>literally anything that requires cooling, cpu intensive
K

Literally all of that could be handled by a halfway decent APU
Cooling is a non-issue, clearly it's cooled enough or it wouldn't be selling

top end gaymen is already done on laptops

super slim tower when?

You can already do it.

depends on what you are planning to do with it. i have a shuttle xpc from 2012 (i3 sandybridge, 16gb ram, 256gb ssd) and it runes smooth with ubuntu. it's not too loud and don't take up much space. i'll stick to this formfactor.

>looks really autistic compared to an AIO (your computer is that little box? and you stuck it to the back of your monitor? are you sure you're not a virgin?)
Have you ever interacted with another human being outside of this image board?

irrelevant to the average user, they'll never do that.

Glorious master race. E-Gpu and bam, A E S T H E T I C workstation.

ncix.com/detail/intel-nuc-nuc6i7kyk-i7-6770hq-2xddr4-2133-e6-129452.htm?promoid=1120

I use one for my home office.
Mainly for programming.
Small and out of sight yet packs enough power for my needs.

Doesn't work well for gaming (which I don't care for) nor will it appeal to immature adults and teens who are into the larger is better with extra RGB lighting schemes.

>laptop CPU

What's your point?
The CPU will feed an e-GPU and keep up on almost all task loads really easy. Plenty of coarz and HT.

Couple questions

1.) what e-GPU enclosure are you using?
2.) how portable is it? I go back and forth between uni and home a lot and looking for something I can bring back and forth with me with a monitor at each end. looking at a NUC or a super mini ITX

mini-ITX won't fit in a backpack

In Mobil platforms, the two are mutually specific.

Razer core with a 1070, it sometimes doesn't recognize I've connected it (Sometimes I bring the computer to work with me, I have some extra monitors at my desk. Gaming with the IRIS works well @1080p as long as I am not going full tard with settings and whatnot, usually all at high though.)
It's portable enough to put into a bag but you have to bring the power connector. I got an extra one that I keep at my desk at work so it's as easy as pop it off the desk and go.

It's fairly portable, about as big as my Nexus 7 was but obviously thicker and a little narrower. Keep in mind it isn't really built to be moved around so don't drop it or something, y'know?

Either way, I really enjoy it! Although I'm Canada friend so it was 900 then another 500 for 2 512GB Intel NVMe m.2 SSD's and 16GB of DDR4 ram was about 140 so like 1500 bucks then the Core was 700 and the 1070 was 600 so... yeah. Would have been maybe better if I got a desktop for that price, but Canada is fucking actually retarded with pricing.

Fucking 3 goddamn thousand dollars. What the fuck am I doing with my life.
I did this with my car! Fucking Ralliart. AWD, check. Turbo, check. Hatchback, check. Fuel mileage, NOPE.
I'm going to go burn some money to see if KEK will bring me peace.

I don't know what you are trying to say.

That's exactly what I wanted to convey.

No but they make for a fantastic HTPC or low-demand home server.

I don't know why Intel advertise them like a desktop replacement when they have far better uses.

>MFW

Mobile platforms require bumblebee for the most part to function correctly. There is no getting around this, because Nvidia has partnered with Intel,

And they will partner with Nintendo to bring us the next hard coded exploit.

Awesome, thanks man, I think I'm gonna buy one

>NUC meme computers

more like CUC

Just know it will get spicy in certain load situations, mainly when using the iGPU heavily. It seems to sit around 60ish when I'm gaming with the Core but it'll happily hit 90c when I'm using the IRIS for gaming. I replaced the TP 2 days ago with Arctic Silver MX-4 and now I'm getting about 51c with the Core. Haven't tried it without but if I can sit below 90c then I'm happy cause throttle is 100.

It isn't super noisy, usually I have headphones or something is coming through my speakers (Music, game noises, whatever) so I don't really notice it.


Strongly recommend if you handle money like a sieve handles water.

I should point out that it only hits 90c in very few games, although oddly with DOOM it sits at 70c and never stutters at 60fps locked. Modern marvel, DOOM is. I guess it always has been, though. For the most part when using the IRIS for gaming it's around 60-70c.

I probably won't use an eGPU, the most intensive game I play is CSGO and even then I don't play that that often

no but im pretty sure qts would be turned off by a square box mounted on the back of an ugly asus monitor

>think it would be cool to build a small, moderate spec PC
>all the nonstandard form factor parts are way too expensive for what you get
welp

>For things that really matter, clearly no
You do know that the first two things you listed are actually the only things that matter to the majority of people, don't you?

They wouldnt give a fuck about it you dumb fuck

lol the mac mini was smaller than than 10 years ago

They are great, I hope it won't be a short-lived fad like netbooks...

Kys dumb Sup Forums babby

They were 1.5x as large you mong, they had a fucking CD drive. And who gives a shit? Everything in that size range is small enough.

They're pretty neat. They have pretty much the same power as a similarly priced tower in a much neater package. If you don't build computers, you probably don't like the tower form factor and would rather have something smaller. Got one for my grandmother and I could see myself making a media PC out of one.

Partly I suppose. Mostly for work computers, gamer kiddies and video people won't have fun with them. They also need to get significantly cheaper. At the moment you can get the same performance in a regular desktop for 50% less at least.

If you're grandma shitpoastin on facepage and watching yootoob videos of puppies shrieking 16 hours a day, they take care of business.

Problem is, if anything goes wrong, you need to throw them out and get a new one. Which could be an acceptable solution if they cost about $100. Just toss it out & replace every 18 months or so. They're gimped hard to ensure you can't configure them for anything other than a disposable microsoft whateverflavortodaywindows box.

If someone built these so they were a beefed up version of a RasPi where you could play around, install what you want and have access to all the hardware to connect & cluster at will ... again, for ~$100 .... THEN we would be cooking with gas.

...

>4 watts underclocked i5 U series
>low ram speed
>no dedicated GPU

No thanks

Nah people buy laptops or all in ones.

You could've bought a laptop and a desktop or a laptop and non gaymen egpu box

They aren't, and it's not. Tower PCs will never go away.

>disposable microsoft whateverflavortodaywindows box

I run ubuntu server on mine. Works just fine with openvpn, plex, deluge, couchpotato, sickrage, jackett, plexpy, openpht and steam.

Seems like you're the problem.

Better get an AIO for the price

Tower PCs are such a shitty design though. Such a waste of space and thermally extremely inefficient too.

>not having a special render farm for that
pleb alert

For real. I also have specific needs for computational power (machine learning), but I don't need to store all tens of TB of data and process them with some 24-core CPU on my local computer. I just ssh to the grid and run 300 jobs at once. Get all my shit done in no time AND my computer stays responsive. If anything, local computing is dead. Nobody needs a huge machine at home.

This concept is quite old, iirc, the first Mac minis ran on a G4 PPC cpu, so no, this isn't the future. It hasn't been able to dominate the market in the last 10 years, so why should it now?

You need to see the whole picture m8. Back then there was still a huge relevant difference between the power you could put into a mini pc and a full tower. Nowadays the difference is still there, but simply not relevant for by far most users.

I don't think they're the future of desktop PCs, but I think they're quite fun nonetheless. Got one and use it as my everyday PC. It's very quit and the fact that it can only hold up to two SSDs doesn't bother me, as I use a NAS anyway.

NUC are all overpriced.
Laptops with the same hardware are cheaper so you know Intel is just jacking prices for no reason.

For consumers, yes.
For developers/gamers, not really

its a cool concept, probably if you need laptop level of performance and a good screen/keyboard , its a good compromise if you dont need mobility.

laptop:
- you have to pay for a shitty display
- you have to pay for a shitty keyboard
- you have to pay for decent ram (where manufacturers make the money)
- you have to pay for a decent disk (where manufacturers make the moeny)
- 5x the size of a nuc

I've been thinking about getting a NUC as just a small TV/Media PC. mainly eyeing the cheaper i3 model.

Do the Taller ones that support a 2.5" drive still support the M.2? I've got a spare M.2 lying around that i was going to use in a laptop, but decided against it, but just wondering about the thicker models.

I use it for Plex and torrenting, it works pretty well.

>you have to pay for everything
>a lot of stuff you don't need
>somehow the price is still lower than the stripped down boxed version lacking of everything

>HURR DURR what is the cloud?

External GPUs are just now becoming a thing so yeah, these will be more popular. Also with external GPUs being a thing most users will probably opt to just have a laptop and connect it to their GPU for gayming.

I have two and they're amazing.

Definitely the future for everything outside of heavy graphical use.

Shame they don't come pre-built, instead I get HP Prodesk minis for business use because they have all the parts ready and just hang on the back of a monitor with the exact same spec as a normal tower.

eh, I'd argue that debugging remote ML scripts is a pain in the ass, and debugging them locally without sufficient power is infeasible. a powerful local machine for debugging and testing before deployment on a grid is a nice compromise.

Well you'd be wrong because PC hardware is making a comeback.

When did you realize the NUC case is just OKW Synergy generic aluminum-magnesium-silicon case?

damn, and you can probably put in a SBC and have a cheaper machine at the end of the day

Defeats the purpose. If you want something small, you can just get a laptop. Desktops are for when you need powerful consumer hardware, and you can't fit that in a NUC.

>I go back and forth between uni and home a lot and looking for something I can bring back and forth with me with a monitor at each end

A solid state drive and external SATA connectors on your PCs would solve that nicely with more performance for much less money.

>Such a waste of space and thermally extremely inefficient too.

Many of us don't live in a shoebox and have no reason to care about thermal efficiency because not autists.

I have one that I use as a small web server and as a always-on torrent box.

thats what you think