Why has no-one made an N64 style NUC? (PCI-e slot)

[ChainedHope]

Ill throw up a sketchup in 30 mins or so to go along with this to show my point, but im genuinely curious.

Why not make a NUC with an exposed PCIe 3.0 x16 slot on top like an old N64? It seems like a good direction with how external graphics are starting to "blow up". Make a hotswapable pcie connector on top that plugs into the NUC. Sure your going to loose out on some pcie lanes, but with 16 lanes for just storage and wifi/bluetooth, surely it wouldn't hurt to do this?

The only thing I can think of why this hasnt been done is because of the higher center of gravity... But that could be fixed by squishing the design so that it was flatter but longer and wider. That way you would be able to make up for it by having a larger base footprint.

 

[ChainedHope]

Back Panel - I/O panel + 2 power inputs

Front Panel - Front I/O (approximately in the square usually)
Right Panel - 2x8 Pin for powering the GPU (might be unreasonably with the PSU that would be used)
Top Panel - Power Button and PCIe slot (would need a small cover piece for when its not being used and a bracket to mount the GPU to the NUC casing)

 

[Kmpkt]

I'd get one of these just so I could blow on the x16 connector every time something stopped working. Ah nostalgia.

 

[ChainedHope]

I'd get one of these just so I could blow on the x16 connector every time something stopped working. Ah nostalgia.

LMAO I didnt even think about that

Im actually looking over some feasibility of this... might not be as doable in the standard dimensions (111mm x 115mm x 48mm) since you need to include a secondary power supply for the GPU. I tossed the idea to a friend in the Asus R&D department, he said he would check into it during his personal project time.

 

[confusis]

...I tossed the idea to a friend in the Asus R&D department...

Wait what?

 

[ChainedHope]

Wait what?

lmao did I stutter?
On a serious note, yeah hes been there for 2 years lol. Was a friend from college. Mainly works on up and coming ROG products (He is an engineer). I give him so much crap for the designs they crank out and he often complains "ITS NOT ME! I gave them a good design, marketing wanted something BOLDER"

 

[Kmpkt]

This would work even better with MXM cards. Mount them in a NES cartridge made of aluminum for heatsinking IMO.

 

[ChainedHope]

So my friend got back to me when he was on his lunch break.

His reply:
"Dude this is totally possible, but we would have to change the form factor. Would come to around 180mm x 116mm x 28mm from rough estimates, think that would be good?"

My reply:
"Make a prototype and send it to me"

 

[stree]

send one to me too

 

[EdZ]

The two major issues would be:
- The PCIe protocol is not inherently hot-pluggable. Inserting or removing a card while the system is on will result in hard crashes
- The PCIe card-edge connector is not designed for hot-plugging. Inserting or removing a card while the system is powered on could result in physical damage.

Both AMD and Nvidia now have driver extensions to allow hot-plugging of GPUs when connected via Thunderbolt. A solution would be to house the GPU in a 'cartridge' that contained the Thunderbolt hardware, create a custom connector to provide the Thunderbolt interface and power to the card, and use a host with a Thunderbolt interface. The only real advantage of this over an existing 'Thunderbolt GPU dock' would be reduction in size: the GPU 'cartridge' would no longer need to house power delivery hardware, so would be close in size to a normal GPU. The disadvantage is that the power hardware would now need to sit in the host instead.

 

[Kmpkt]

MXM + TB3 = win?

 

[ChainedHope]

The two major issues would be:
- The PCIe protocol is not inherently hot-pluggable. Inserting or removing a card while the system is on will result in hard crashes
- The PCIe card-edge connector is not designed for hot-plugging. Inserting or removing a card while the system is powered on could result in physical damage.

Both AMD and Nvidia now have driver extensions to allow hot-plugging of GPUs when connected via Thunderbolt. A solution would be to house the GPU in a 'cartridge' that contained the Thunderbolt hardware, create a custom connector to provide the Thunderbolt interface and power to the card, and use a host with a Thunderbolt interface. The only real advantage of this over an existing 'Thunderbolt GPU dock' would be reduction in size: the GPU 'cartridge' would no longer need to house power delivery hardware, so would be close in size to a normal GPU. The disadvantage is that the power hardware would now need to sit in the host instead.

I'll find out a bit more in a month or so, but I don't think he is going to design the top pci-e slot with hotswap in mind (I didnt actually mention that part to him, just sent him a sketchup and asked if it was possible and he liked the idea). Hotswap was just something that I had thought of when I questioned why no one had made one. He said if they make it, it has to be a gaming system first with ROG in mind and a "normal" NUC second.

I'd imagine they would keep the thunderbolt 3 port for people who want a truely hotswapable system to use, but the pci-e slot would be a way to get the full power out of the GPU instead of the diminishing returns of the current Thunderbolt 3 systems.

 

[stree]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/asus-rog-xg-station-2,news-54419.html

 

[|||]

@ChainedHope get your friend on the forum. We can then help with any concept and when marketing gives him trouble, we can back him up because we are the market

 

[ChainedHope]

@ChainedHope get your friend on the forum. We can then help with any concept and when marketing gives him trouble, we can back him up because we are the market

I asked him to join, he said he would if the project gains any ground to get some input ("market research").

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/asus-rog-xg-station-2,news-54419.html

Yes. Thats a thing. But completely different from what this thread is about lol.

 

[iFreilicht]

Question: why? What advantage does it offer over a fully built system? As @EdZ mentioned, the graphics module would have to be proprietary. And unlike a game cartridge, you rarely switch out your GPU. Additionally, it creates an awkward shape.

What would make more sense in my opinion is something like the N64DD or the Gamecubes GBA adapter. An additional unit you can just plug into the bottom of the main thing. Something like the Acer Revo Build. Granted, that only has USB connectivity, but something like this with thunderbolt seems pretty viable.

 

[stree]

I asked him to join, he said he would if the project gains any ground to get some input ("market research").



Yes. Thats a thing. But completely different from what this thread is about lol.

Whooops...... my silly... thanks for pointing out. ( I should keep my nose out of such affairs, I am strictly APU and HD Graphics sp pretty clueless GPU wise, but being a non gamer I get by)

 

[Kmpkt]

Question: why? What advantage does it offer over a fully built system? As @EdZ mentioned, the graphics module would have to be proprietary. And unlike a game cartridge, you rarely switch out your GPU. Additionally, it creates an awkward shape.

Yeah I'm kinda thinking the same thing here. While I was piping up about using MXM for this earlier, the truth is that I rarely swap out a graphics card and certainly not enough to warrant this kind of modularity. I get that it's kind of a cool idea in terms of the throwback to a cartridge based gaming console, but in all reality I don't see this filling any kind of need for an end consumer.

 

[iFreilicht]

I get that it's kind of a cool idea in terms of the throwback to a cartridge based gaming console

If that's what one is after, then having that slot for an SSD makes much more sense. SATA is hot-plug capable and with the sizes AAA games reach today you'd rather have them on an SSD than anything else anyway so there'd be an actual (if a little silly) application for it.

 

[ChainedHope]

Question: why? What advantage does it offer over a fully built system? As @EdZ mentioned, the graphics module would have to be proprietary. And unlike a game cartridge, you rarely switch out your GPU. Additionally, it creates an awkward shape.

What would make more sense in my opinion is something like the N64DD or the Gamecubes GBA adapter. An additional unit you can just plug into the bottom of the main thing. Something like the Acer Revo Build. Granted, that only has USB connectivity, but something like this with thunderbolt seems pretty viable.

The main reason is for portability. External GPU's are bulky and a pain (most externals are still bigger than a mITX system). This could make an even smaller system with a dedicated GPU of your choice. As I mentioned earlier the hotswap was just a random idea, and its been put to rest (I should edit the op). Of course, you would be getting a slightly larger nuc to keep a lower center of gravity but it would still be smaller than most options (a <1L nuc + a GPU on top).

The other reason is cost. Why would you want to buy an external GPU enclosure and get 90% of your gpu for $300-500 extra when you could just buy an i7 nuc for $600-750 that has the option to add any dedicated GPU and keep all of your performance?

I could see this being a very nice LAN or portable VR rig that could easily fit in just about any bag.