News The Element: Intel's Push For A Modular PC

Intel has shown off a new dual-slot PCIe card which the chipmaker has dubbed as 'The Element,' though the official product name is still up in the air. The Element houses its own processor, memory, storage, and other interfaces, such as Thunderbolt 3, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and USB ports.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-the-element-modular-pc,40594.html

 

[kNUCkles]

And it's not just a concept:

Intel's goal with The Element is to offer a swappable and inexpensive solution for NUC owners to upgrade their systems without buying a completely new device.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intels-element-comes-to-life-in-ghost-canyon-nuc

 

[NateDawg72]

Looks like a review / preview of it has been leaked from a chinese forum, detailed pictures of the innards (Edit: already linked)

dimensions:
238 x 216 x 96mm ("5.0 L", 4.96 L)

for reference, S4M:
348mm x 225mm x 64mm (5.01 L)

Sorry to bring some negativity but considering Intel went all out with a new form factor, all this brings to the table over a S4M is IO. I don't see the big deal with the swappable compute board considering we already can swap motherboards that effectively accomplishes the same purpose. Intel's NUC does have more room for tall GPUs, but length limitations are similar.

And on the downside, it comes with a blower fan and what is presumably a 40mm fan in a 1U power supply. Maybe Intel has it configured well enough to be quiet but I'm skeptical.

Best part about it is no 24 pin connectors

 

[Thehack]

Looks like a review / preview of it has been leaked from a chinese forum, detailed pictures of the innards (Edit: already linked)

dimensions:
238 x 216 x 96mm ("5.0 L", 4.96 L)

for reference, S4M:
348mm x 225mm x 64mm (5.01 L)

Sorry to bring some negativity but considering Intel went all out with a new form factor, all this brings to the table over a S4M is IO. I don't see the big deal with the swappable compute board considering we already can swap motherboards that effectively accomplishes the same purpose. Intel's NUC does have more room for tall GPUs, but length limitations are similar.

And on the downside, it comes with a blower fan and what is presumably a 40mm fan in a 1U power supply. Maybe Intel has it configured well enough to be quiet but I'm skeptical.

Best part about it is no 24 pin connectors

Looks like it's using intel's new 12V only specs.

At 5L we didn't gain much in terms of power per liter. I wonder also if NUC boards are socketed; if they aren't then it's a step backwards.

 

[NateDawg72]

At 5L we didn't gain much in terms of power per liter. I wonder also if NUC boards are socketed; if they aren't then it's a step backwards.

The specs leaked today showed several 45w 6-8 core BGA options, so I don't think it'll be socketed either

 

[McSpain]

Detailed report on koolshare (Chinese):

Intel Ghost Canyon幽灵峡谷开箱拆解评测 - 电脑及外设 - KoolShare - 源于玩家 服务玩家

Intel Ghost Canyon幽灵峡谷开箱拆解评测 ,KoolShare

koolshare.cn

Translated:

Google Translate

 

[InfernoZeus]

Sorry to bring some negativity but considering Intel went all out with a new form factor, all this brings to the table over a S4M is IO.

It also brings Intel's marketing and customer influence to help push it towards being more mainstream. That might not seem a big deal to people already interested in this niche, but if Intel gets more people involved in SFFPC, there will be more demand for the custom stuff we like, and that's good for all of us.

 

[reasons4reasons]

This seems like a kludgy solution and I'm unsure what the problem they think they're solving is. Is it making their NUCs repairable and upgradable? If so, sticking with more standard parts (like a socketed CPU and an STX-sized motherboard with a PCIe slot) would have made more sense. Is it making a SFF solution with room for a dGPU? If so, bolting a whole daughterboard onto your motherboard to handle your PCIe slot seems weird, too. It does succeed at being "modular," in the sense that the CPU, RAM, IO, and some storage are on the same easily swappable board, but I'm sort of unclear what benefit that brings other than being admittedly cool.

Also, one of the big problems with "modular" PCs (and phones) has always been platform commitment, and I don't see this being much different at the end of the day. If Intel doesn't keep making or revising these boards the fact that they're theoretically easily replaceable doesn't make a lick of difference to the end user.

 

[NateDawg72]

It also brings Intel's marketing and customer influence to help push it towards being more mainstream. That might not seem a big deal to people already interested in this niche, but if Intel gets more people involved in SFFPC, there will be more demand for the custom stuff we like, and that's good for all of us.

We will see. It's Intel's third NUC that is aimed to be more of a full desktop or workstation. The previous ones were cool in their own right but I'm not sure they really brought people into custom SFFPC. Who knows, maybe having expansion slots is enough to make a difference.

I really do think Intel could have done more with a NUC with pcie slots though. It looks more like they went with a compute module because it seemed cool, not because it was practical. This could be 3-4L without really giving anything up.