Mini-PC

Intel's Meteor Lake series of processors has had a drawn-out launch since its details were officially presented in September 2023. The series marks Intel's foray into the consumer market with a tile-based chiplet configuration held together with Foveros packaging. Similar to Tiger Lake, the focus of Meteor Lake has primarily been on the mobile market - ultraportables and notebooks. However, this has not prevented Intel and its partners from introducing it as a follow-up to Raptor Lake-P and Raptor Lake-H in the SFF / UCFF desktop market. ASRock Industrial has consistently been the first to market with ultra-compact form-factor motherboards and mini-PCs, with product announcements coinciding with Intel's launch of its latest and greatest mobile processors. Meteor Lake has not been any different, with the...

Supermicro E102-13R-H Review: A Raptor Lake-P 3.5-inch SBC System for Embedded Applications

Single-board computers in the 3.5-inch form-factor have become extremely popular for embedded applications involving a mix of high performance requirements as well as extended peripherals support. Typical use-case scenarios...

1 by Ganesh T S on 5/14/2024

ASUS Unveils NUC 14 Pro and Pro Plus Meteor Lake Mini-PCs

As part of its 2024 CES announcements, ASUS officially unveiled a number of NUCs based on Intel's Meteor Lake platform. The company had earlier released the NUC 13 Rugged...

8 by Ganesh T S on 1/10/2024

ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-7840U mini-PC Review: AMD Phoenix in an UCFF Avatar

AMD's Phoenix line of low-power processors for the notebook market has been lapped up by various second and third-tier mini-PC vendors in the Asian market. The platform's value proposition...

15 by Ganesh T S on 12/28/2023

ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX 8040 and NUC(S) Ultra 100 BOX Series Bring Accelerated AI to Mini-PCs

ASRock Industrial maintains a lineup of ultra-compact form-factor machines in the NUC BOX (Intel-based) and 4X4 BOX (AMD-based) series. These systems have gained significant market acceptance (evidenced by the...

10 by Ganesh T S on 12/23/2023

GEEKOM A5 mini-PC Review: Affordable Cezanne Zen 3 at 35W

Ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) desktops have gained significant market share over the last decade. Processors with TDPs ranging from 6 - 15W formed the backbone of this segment in the...

35 by Ganesh T S on 12/8/2023

Zotac's Zbox Pico PI430AJ Uses Frore's AirJet Solid-State Active Cooling

Zotac has introduced the industry's first compact PC featuring Frore's AirJet solid-state cooling system. Zotac's ultra-compact Zbox Pico PI430AJ is powered by Intel's Core i3 processor is designed primarily...

18 by Anton Shilov on 10/20/2023

GEEKOM Mini IT13 Review: Core i9-13900H in a 4x4 Package

The performance of ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) desktops has improved significantly over the years, thanks to advancements in semiconductor fabrication and processor architecture. Thermal solutions suitable for these 4in. x...

9 by Ganesh T S on 10/16/2023

ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-N97 and GMKtec NucBox G2 Review: Contrasting Compact ADL-N Options

Intel has been maintaining a low-power / low-cost x86 microarchitecture since the introduction of the Silverthorne Atom processors in 2008. Its latest iteration, Gracemont, made its debut in the...

20 by Ganesh T S on 10/6/2023

Asus Formally Completes Acquisition of Intel's NUC Business

ASUS has formally acquired Intel's Next Unit of Computing (NUC) products based on Intel's 10th to 13th Generation Core processors. Asus is set to continue building and supporting Intel's...

9 by Anton Shilov on 10/2/2023

Khadas Mind Premium Review: Raptor Lake-P in a Modular Portable Workstation

Khadas is a well-known vendor in the ARM-based single-board computer (SBC) circles. Recently, the company made its first foray into the small form-factor x86 PC space with a rather...

20 by Ganesh T S on 9/14/2023

Minisforum Unveils Mini-ITX Motherboard with MXM Slot for… SSDs

Minisforum continues to diversify its business beyond compact PCs and this week it introduced a rather unusual Mini-ITX motherboard with an MXM slot. Typically used for graphics cards, Minisforum's...

15 by Anton Shilov on 9/8/2023

ASRock Reveals 4x4 Box 7040 Series: SFF PCs with AMD Phoenix and USB4

ASRock Industrial has introduced a new lineup of NUC-like systems based on AMD's Ryzen 7040-series 'Phoenix' processors for laptops and compact desktops. The new 4x4 Box 7040 series compact...

9 by Anton Shilov on 9/5/2023

GEEKOM Mini IT13 Packs Core i9 into 4x4 NUC Chassis: 14-Cores NUC

While Intel's classic 4x4 NUCs have been pretty powerful systems capable of handling demanding workloads, the company never cared to install its top-of-the-range CPUs into its compact PCs. GEEKOM...

21 by Anton Shilov on 8/25/2023

Beelink GTR7 mini-PC Review: A Complete AMD Phoenix Package at 65W

The increasing popularity of small form-factor (SFF) PCs has allowed a number of second and third tier vendors to market their wares. While the trend was kickstarted by the...

56 by Ganesh T S on 8/24/2023

Zotac Taps Desktop and Laptop GeForce RTX 4070s For New SFF Zbox PCs

Zotac this week introduced two new compact desktops, both packing versions of NVIDIA's higher-end GeForce RTX 4070-series graphics processors. The Zbox Magnus One is an upgradable, desktop-style SFF machine...

17 by Anton Shilov on 8/18/2023

GEEKOM AS 6 (ASUS PN53) Review: Ryzen 9 6900HX Packs Punches in a Petite Package

The market demand for small form-factor (SFF) PCs was kickstarted by the Intel NUC in the early 2010s. Since then, many vendors have come out with their own take...

15 by Ganesh T S on 7/31/2023

ASUS Signs Agreement to Continue Development and Support of Intel's NUC Business

ASUS and Intel late on Tuesday announced that they had agreed to a term sheet involving Intel's NUC business, ensuring the continued support of existing NUC hardware as well...

6 by Ganesh T S & Anton Shilov on 7/19/2023

ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1360P/D5 Review: Raptor Lake-P on the Leading Edge

ASRock Industrial has been a key player in the ultra-compact form-factor PC space over the last few years. They have managed to release 4"x4" systems based on the latest...

21 by Ganesh T S on 7/18/2023

Palm-Sized Minisforum EM680 Desktop PC Packs AMD's Ryzen 7 6800U and USB4

We've seen AMD's Ryzen Mobile 6000 series chips show up in several mini-PC devices thus far, and now a recently-released mini-desktop from Minisforum is the smallest yet. The Mini-PC...

19 by Anton Shilov on 6/8/2023

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now