NUC
Ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) machines have been one of the major drivers in the resurgence of the PC market. The trend was kickstarted by Intel's NUCs in the early 2010s. These PCs have usually relied on low-power processors with compelling performance per watt metrics. AMD was largely absent in this market till the introduction of the Ryzen processors. While ASRock Industrial was one of the first to release a UCFF mini-PC based on the first-generation Ryzen embedded processors, multiple OEMs have lined up to utilize the second-generation AMD processors in their own high-performance mini-PC lineups. Today, we are looking at the performance and value proposition of the ASUS PN50 - a high-end UCFF system based on the AMD Ryzen 7 4800U SoC.
MSI Cubi 2 Kaby Lake UCFF PC Review
The Kaby Lake-U (KBL-U) series with 15W TDP CPUs was introduced along with the 4.5W Kaby Lake-Y ones in Q3 2016. The first set of products with Kaby Lake-U...
32 by Ganesh T S on 12/30/2016
Launch of Intel’s Apollo Lake NUCs Gets Closer as Intel Lists Them on Web Site
Intel has quietly published detailed specifications of miniature NUC systems based on the Apollo Lake platform on its web site. As revealed earlier this year, Intel offers two systems...
28 by Anton Shilov on 12/12/2016
ASRock Upgrades Beebox-S SFF PCs with Kaby Lake CPUs
ASRock has introduced updated versions of its Beebox-S small form-factor PCs. The new NUC-like systems are powered by Intel’s Core i5-7100U/i3-7200U CPUs featuring the Kaby Lake microarchitecture, but apart...
9 by Anton Shilov on 12/2/2016
Memory Frequency Scaling on Intel's Skull Canyon NUC - An Investigation
Overclocking has generally been the domain of enthusiasts with desktop rigs. However, increasing the CPU frequency beyond the official specification is not the only way to extract more performance...
31 by Ganesh T S on 8/29/2016
ASRock Beebox-S 6200U Review - An Alternative to the Skylake NUC
The Skylake-U platform for mini-PCs has turned out to be an interesting one. Numerous challenges were faced by the first one in the market - the Intel Skylake NUC...
31 by Ganesh T S on 8/10/2016
Intel Readies New NUCs Based on Kaby Lake and Apollo Lake SoCs
As one might expect, Intel is working on a new generation of its NUC small-form-factor systems based on the company’s upcoming Kaby Lake and Apollo Lake microprocessors. The writers...
39 by Anton Shilov on 7/15/2016
Evaluating the Toshiba OCZ RD400 M.2 NVMe SSD on a Skylake NUC
The Skylake NUCs have faced plenty of issues since their introduction late last year. However, stability has improved with the latest BIOS updates. One of the issues with the...
16 by Ganesh T S on 7/5/2016
The Intel Skull Canyon NUC6i7KYK mini-PC Review
The desktop computing market has been subject to severe challenges over the last few years. The ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PC market that emerged with the introduction of the Intel...
133 by Ganesh T S on 5/23/2016
Intel Releases BIOS Version 0044 for Skylake NUCs
BIOS updates for motherboards and mini-PCs aren't usually important enough to warrant explicit coverage. However, Intel's latest release for the Skylake NUCs (the Core i3 and Core i5 versions...
30 by Ganesh T S on 5/17/2016
Choosing the Right SSD for a Skylake-U System
Our Skylake NUC review had a brief section on the storage subsystem performance. The comments section raised a few questions about the inability of SSDs such as the Samsung...
40 by Ganesh T S on 5/9/2016
Intel's Skull Canyon NUC is Official: $650, Shipping In May
Back in January, Intel had provided us with information about the Skull Canyon NUC based on a Skylake H-Series CPU(with Iris Pro Graphics). Today, at GDC 2016, Intel made...
103 by Ganesh T S on 3/16/2016
The Intel NUC6i5SYK Skylake UCFF PC Review
The evolution of computing platforms has left the traditional desktop PC market in a precarious state. However, the miniaturization trend has provided some bright spots. Compact PCs have been...
95 by Ganesh T S on 3/11/2016
Intel Expands Compute Stick Family with Cherry Trail and Core M Models
The desktop PC market is seeing growth only in two areas - the gaming high-end and the mini-PCs (in the NUC form factor). Intel has been strengthening its offerings...
34 by Ganesh T S on 1/11/2016
ASRock Beebox Review: A Fanless Braswell UCFF PC
ASRock had taken an early lead in serving the mini-PC market, thanks to its Core / Vision series units. Based on motherboards meant for the notebook market (smaller than...
45 by Ganesh T S on 7/14/2015
Logic Supply ML100G-30 Fanless Broadwell vPro Industrial NUC Review
Passively cooled computing systems carry many advantages. Most of these turn out to be very important for industrial and embedded applications. The low power nature of the NUCs make...
34 by Ganesh T S on 4/29/2015
Intel NUC5i7RYH Broadwell-U Iris NUC Review
Over the last couple of years, mini-PCs in the ultra-compact form factor (UCFF) have emerged as one of the bright spots in the troubled PC market. Intel's NUC systems...
66 by Ganesh T S on 4/20/2015
Intel NUC5i5RYK Review: A Broadwell-U UCFF PC for Enthusiasts
The Intel NUC category has been an interesting product line to analyze, as it provides us with insights into where the traditional casual / home use desktop market might...
83 by Ganesh T S on 2/20/2015
Intel Updates the NUC at CES 2015 with Broadwell-U
The big topic going in to CES was the launch of Broadwell-U, Intel’s 14 nanometer 5th generation Core products for laptops, mini-PCs and all-in-ones, with rated TDPs of 15W...
32 by Ian Cutress on 1/12/2015
Intel D54250WYKH Haswell NUC Kit with 2.5" Drive Slot Mini-Review
The Intel NUC category has been an interesting product line to analyze, as it provides us with insights into where the traditional casual / home use desktop market might...
36 by Ganesh T S on 5/18/2014
Logic Supply Core-ML320 Fanless Industrial NUC Review
Computers with completely passive cooling systems are advantageous in many respects. These aspects turn out to be very important for many industrial applications. The low power nature of the...
31 by Ganesh T S on 4/30/2014
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