Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) discussion thread

Nice. DisplayPort. Combined with the Ivy Bridge 4K update and the Haswell's native 4K support, this is gonna be nice.

Yes it does, right next to the HDMI port:

Very nice. It's a shame that traders aren't excited about what Intel is doing with the PC market right now. They're doing big things for 2013, very exciting.

Interesting, add a 16-lane PCI 3, firewire, 4 SATA headers, and thunderbolt and it could get interesting. I'm almost joking. This really isn't much different from a laptop MB.

It's right next to the HDMI port. The little lightning bolt symbol is the Thunderbolt port (which also doubles as a mini-DisplayPort).

I missed that as well. As I look at the images they must be showing different configurations from the bare to enclosed. This does make it a bit more interesting.

There are two versions of the NUC planned :

1. 1xHDMI and 1xThunderbolt (which I guess also works as Mini Displayport for a second display)
2. 2xHDMI and 1xEthernet

Thunderbolt + ethernet would be more interesting.

Dual hdmi makes me go "huh?" especially coming from intel.

Displayport is just plain better, and you can integrate it in a way that it will pass hdmi with a $2 dongle instead of an active adapter.

The case also looks like its came from the same place that does the zbox nanos.

An IR receiver on the front would have been nice as well.

$399 is a rip. It should be $299 and the SODIMM slots are a deal killer. I'm not going to hunt around for more expensive laptop RAM. For $399 I can pick up a cheapo fairly well loaded laptop with HDMI output anyway.

Laptop DDR3 is often cheaper than desktop DDR3. Assuming you would only install 4GB (2x2GB), the SODIMM price is $17 instead of $19 for desktop. For 16GB (2x8GB), they are both the same price: $68. Sometimes smaller = more expensive, but for RAM often smaller modules = less material = cheaper. The pendulum swings back the other way if you get into the really niche, super high density modules (that most consumer mobos don't support anyway).

*using Newegg for pricing

Cool stuff

Agreed it really needs integrated IR/CIR.

It does look like there is a USB port in the front so if you can find an ultra low profile USB IR receiver that could work.

Want USB 3 and fanless.

Got the DC3217IYE yesterday and it runs XBMC on Win 7 64-bit perfectly. It's silent except when running both video and the XBMC menu at the same time, but even then beyond a couple of feet, I can't hear anything. It's pulling content from my home server, so USB3 isn't an issue. Now I just need to get it working with SageTV and it can replace my extender.

There are a couple of annoyances, first being that while it comes with a power adapter, I needed to order a power cable (Micky Mouse version). Fortunately I knew about this ahead of time. Also, when you open the retail box, the Intel chime kicks off. They put a light sensor in the cardboard that triggers each time it's opened. Nothing a pair of wire clippers can't fix.

Ben

I think the whole VESA mount thing is the reason it doesn't have it. I imagine they were aiming for people to mount it out of sight and to control it via smartphone or tablet.

Agree on the USB3, but fanless is not needed from an acoustics point of view as from all reports, you have to have your ear right up against it to hear anything.

Ordered one of these and should be in soon. Ordered a single 8gb stick and a 64gb msata SSD (first time I've ordered a msata drive and wow...tiny...). Came out to about $400.

Can't wait to see what this thing can do.

would love to know what this thing can do in terms of high bitrate.

Does it come with Windows? Thinking maybe openelec. Love the small form factor.

High bit rate? Maybe take a look at the specs for the Intel HD 4000 graphics.

I don't think it would come with Windows as it is a barebones and doesn't have an included hard drive.

If it plays a 50GB BD .iso 1:1 encode flawlessly, it won't have a problem with high bitrate videos.

FWIW, the Celeron mobile 847 Intel 2000 HD graphics board I recently tested rendered smoothly all the high bitrate sample videos (see here: http://jellyfish.satch.com/ ) I could throw at it. It played all the "Birds" samples too. CPU usage was always ~20% on the 1.1GHz 847. I can't see the mobile i3 / HD 4000 having any issues if the Celeron / HD 2000 can handle it.

what about cpu usage using software decoder and not gpu ?

could you test it ?

BHH

What software decoder did you have in mind? Seems most utilize DXVA nowadays.