NUC is Dead

Jul 11, 2023 at 9:33 AM

Updated on Jul 11, 2023 at 5:42 AM

Credit to Serve The Home for this news but it appears the NUC line of Intel PCs is dead. Intel is moving away from direct PC production, but intends to fulfill remaining orders as well as support OEMs in the transition.

NUC, for those that don’t know, stood for Next Unit of Computing. The program resulted in some unique mini-PCs including an oddball Intel CPU with AMD Vega graphics on the same chip package. While hardcore SFF users tend to shy away from lower end barebones and prebuilt machines, NUC systems were very popular with businesses and more casual users. Clearly though, not popular enough.

Serve The Home Original Article

Revenant

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Credit to Serve The Home for this news but it appears the NUC line of Intel PCs is dead. Intel is moving away from direct PC production, but intends to fulfill remaining orders as well as support OEMs in the transition.
NUC, for those that don’t know, stood for Next Unit of Computing. The program resulted in some unique mini-PCs including an oddball Intel CPU with AMD Vega graphics on the same chip package. While hardcore SFF users tend to shy away from lower end barebones and prebuilt machines, NUC systems were very popular with businesses and more casual users. Clearly though, not popular enough.
Serve The Home Original Article

Last edited: Jul 11, 2023

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Skripka

Cat-Dog Perch Manager

Jul 11, 2023

Unfortunate, but understandable.

Intel did some amazing mechanical design with the NUCs. But the fire breathing power hungry x86 ecosystem really doomed the project. The inefficiency has finally caught up to it. CPUs and gpus both simply are too hot now for a Mac Mini form factor to ever exist in PC space without sounding like a jet engine.

Hence why Intel NUCs kept getting more SFF like and less NUC like.

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msystems

King of Cable Management

Jul 11, 2023

Maybe it was coming either way but switching to the less efficient discrete Arc gpu away from Nvidia really killed the NUC midrange "Enthusiast" models. The Arc version, debuting with Serpent canyon, looked horrible chonky compared to the impressively slim "ghost canyon" NUC11PHKi7C with the RTX 2060.

Then on the low end models known as "Pro", these were announced months ago but were very slow to release and must have been absolutely slaughtered by minisforum and other chinese boards with radeon 680m. It took forever for the Wall Street Canyon barebones models to pop up, and then they finally launched were very expensive like $600 which just didn't compete.

Intel NUC had a monopoly on thunderbolt in the mini pc form factor for quite a while which gave it some utility, but that is also gone with AMD adding USB4 on all mobile soc, so one less reason to go Intel.

I still think there is a place for the NUC if they would focus on barebones low power models where they can offer a cost effective solution with superior reliability.

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards

SFFn Staff

Jul 11, 2023

I really am going to miss these as other brands are all over the place with the 5x5 format. Not that the Intel ones were perfect but they were atleast consistent.
I don't get them fully axing the NUC line, while they could have just as well scaled it down.

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ChinStrap

Cable-Tie Ninja

Jul 11, 2023

I have a nuc 11 enthusiast, I have been happy with it. I will miss the line.

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REVOCCASES

Shrink Ray Wielder

REVOCCASES

Silver Supporter

Jul 12, 2023

having owned quite a few NUCs, I feel sad... I think INTEL was ahead of it's time when they showed the first concept back in 2011 and the lineup later down the road had some really innovative ideas which helped forming the "mini PC market" as we know it today... not to forget the support and good documentation of their products... even for their older models they still kept releasing BIOS/security updates which unfortunately is an exception when it comes to other manufacturers...

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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N

Original poster

Revenant Tech

SFFn Staff

Jul 12, 2023

I kind of want to get the NUC with the AMD Vega graphics built-in. It’s such an oddball PC.

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REVOCCASES

Shrink Ray Wielder

REVOCCASES

Silver Supporter

Jul 12, 2023

Oh yeah, the Hades Canyon! This was my favorite NUC... unfortunately it suffered from behind the scenes quarrels between AMD & INTEL so customers had to wait ages to get (official) driver updates for the Vega... but still, a fun little machine

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Skripka

Cat-Dog Perch Manager

Jul 12, 2023

Revenant said:
I kind of want to get the NUC with the AMD Vega graphics built-in. It’s such an oddball PC.

It was a great form factor, they should have kept trying it and improving it with newer hardware. I briefly thought of getting one, but didn't have money for another PC at the time.

The problem...they kept trying single one-offs of hardware platform designs in the enthusiast category and nothing ever 'stuck' to gain traction with. Which, even products like say the iPhone that were instant successes actually weren't--Apple watched Microsoft flail about pointlessly and ineptly for 20 years failing miserably to sell WInCE phones before they hit the right combo of design and price and software/hardware integration.

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Analogue Blacksheep

King of Cable Management

Jul 12, 2023

THE INTEL NUC IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE INTEL NUC

I had a Skull Canyon Nuc when it came out. It was the computer that got me into SFF. Great little thing, even if it was loud and hot.

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confusis

John Morrison. Founder and Team Leader of SFF.N

SFF Network

SFF Workshop

SFFn Staff

Jul 14, 2023

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Covuk

Average Stuffer

Jul 15, 2023

msystems said:
I still think there is a place for the NUC if they would focus on barebones low power models where they can offer a cost effective solution with superior reliability.

Definitely, I use two - a bastion box and an ESX host for virtual machines.

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N

Original poster

Revenant Tech

SFFn Staff

Jul 15, 2023

Covuk said:
Definitely, I use two - a bastion box and an ESX host for virtual machines.

Zotac and Minisforum will likely pick up the slack.

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AlexTSG

Master of Cramming

Jul 16, 2023

We still use a Skull Canyon and Hades Canyon NUC as well as a number of the less exciting i3 and i5 models at the office daily.

They've been great, so I'm sad to see the range come to an end.

I was hoping to see something with a new 14th Gen CPU and 2nd Gen ARC GPU next year to replace our older models, but we'll probably go for one of the Minisforum models now.

Skripka

Cat-Dog Perch Manager

Jul 16, 2023

AlexTSG said:
We still use a Skull Canyon and Hades Canyon NUC as well as a number of the less exciting i3 and i5 models at the office daily.

They've been great, so I'm sad to see the range come to an end.

I was hoping to see something with a new 14th Gen CPU and 2nd Gen ARC GPU next year to replace our older models, but we'll probably go for one of the Minisforum models now.

I really wanted a Hades Canyon refresh in that form factor. But the naming really explains the problem; every generation of enthusiast-NUC was a totally different form factor design. Intel never settled on one, hence enthusiast-NUC never really had a brand identity. A Mac Mini you know exactly what it is, whether you like the thing and the ecosystem or not. Other PC makers selling mini-PCs really had the same problem althought the standard NUC was pretty much fixed in its case-packaging; I have a Ryzen-powered Lenovo 720-series minipc still in service (in spite of being abandonware WRT WIndows) in the family.

Intel finally standardized into the "NUC Compute Element" brain board for the enthusiast NUC...and basically every single reviewer and consumer interested in it....thought it was neat and said "When are they going to abandon this one, too?". And, predictably, Compute Element had like 2x generations of hardware and was then killed.

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Gingerbeer

SFF Lingo Aficionado

Jul 17, 2023

REVOCCASES said:
Oh yeah, the Hades Canyon! This was my favorite NUC... unfortunately it suffered from behind the scenes quarrels between AMD & INTEL so customers had to wait ages to get (official) driver updates for the Vega... but still, a fun little machine

View attachment 2606

As far as I can remember, we got the one graphics driver for it before they kinda lost interest. It was a fun little rig, but just a tad too limited for my idea of a low power gaming PC; which is why I ended up selling it. My 4 litre low power rig (9700T / A2000) can handle most games at 1440p UW with sensible quality settings - with a little help from DLSS in the AAA titles.

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REVOCCASES

Shrink Ray Wielder

REVOCCASES

Silver Supporter

Jul 17, 2023

Gingerbeer said:
As far as I can remember, we got the one graphics driver for it before they kinda lost interest

they still released one early 2021 but I think most people just moved on by then or used modded drivers...

Are you looking for drivers for Radeon™ RX Vega M (codename Kaby Lake G)?

We have engaged with AMD* and we are hoping to release an updated driver for Radeon™ RX Vega M GL/GH Graphics in Q1 2021. Thank you for your patience. Best Regards, Ronald M.

community.intel.com

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AlexTSG

Master of Cramming

Jul 19, 2023

The NUC is dead! Long live the NUC!

News out today is that Intel has granted a non-exclusive license to ASUS to continue producing NUCs.

After Exit, Intel Passes NUC Baton to Asus via New License Agreement | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com)

I wonder how long it will be before we see the first official ASUS NUC released.

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