4" x 4" x 2" Intel i3 mini computer with dual HDMI or Thunderbolt - Page 2

Maybe he meant, not a single decibel above the noise floor? Though if that were the case, then one would have to ask - as measured where? In a library? In a subway train?

It's all relative but isn't the standard measurement at one foot with a 20dB background noise?

Probably the best SFF windows pc I owned was a bootcamped mac mini at refurb works out about the same.

I love the form factor, but I think intel is way off base on the pricing here. We start with $300, lets assume we could get a oem copy of Windows 7 for $40, SODIMM for another $40, wifi card for another $20, gonna set ya back another $200 for an m-sata ssd drive of any usable size. We are looking at $600. That is just rediculous!!! Wake up intel!!! I can buy a $500 laptop with an I3-3217U, fold it up and put it under my TV and have a way better value. Plus the laptop is way more versatile. I can grab it and run to Starbucks and web browse. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230599 . The price they are asking just does not make since here. Not to mention the laptop manufacturer has to pay for extras not included with the NUC like LCD monitor, optical drive, keyboard/touchpad, power supply and battery. Considering the bare-bones nature of these things, the price belongs somewhere in the $150 to $200 range.

Pricing is based on market forces more than anything else. If a large number of people were using this form factor, the pricing would be different. Until then, it's priced just fine for it's intended target audience. Also, $200 for an msata of reasonable size is debatable. What is it that you are installing on that drive that you must be buying $200 mSata drives? What mSata capacity are you comparing to when you quote the laptop in your example? I don't know of many $500 laptops with SSDs let alone SSDs of reasonable size as in your example.

Give it time, we'll hopefully get other OEMs releasing similar models with windows already preinstalled on an mSATA drive of reasonable size soon enough. Comparisons to completely different devices is pretty pointless IMO.

Sure it is a new form factor, but we are basically talking about laptop parts here. The laptop I referenced had a 500Mb hard drive. Granted, it is not SSD, but I am sure a standard laptop hard drive could keep up with my htpc needs. The largest mSATA SSD I could find was 240Mb. In addition to installed programs I use the hard drive to store audio and video (fancy that). I have a year old laptop that is doing quite well at it presently. I am with ya on hoping that the price comes down. These would make excellent HTPCs especially for bedrooms if the price was right. But at the current price, using a laptop as a HTPC makes more sense because it is much more versitile. With one of these your basically getting a laptop CPU and motherboard and not much more, so $300 is pretty darn spendy.

What laptop parts fit into a case this small? Not many... so no, it's not only Laptop parts, it's laptop parts squeezed into a smaller form factor yet again.

Also, you can't complain about mSATA and then compare it to 500GB mechanical hard drives. Nobody buys this device to store media on it, that's what NAS/Servers are for. The mSATA only needs to be large enough to hold the OS + codecs + applications. 64GB can do it, and 128GB is reasonably priced if you want it... there are 480GB mSATA SSDs released as well, check the tech websites.

As for versatility, you miss the entire point of this device. I can make phone calls from my tablet, it comes with a bigger higher res screen, more storage, and it has a bigger battery but I still prefer to carry my phone. If you can't see the point of this device, then it simply isn't for you, and that is perfectly fine. One day it might get down to a price point where you might see a point in this device. But everything has to start somewhere, witness contemporary touch screen only tablets... they are everywhere, and yet when they first came out, most people did not see the value in them.

I had 4 guys in the office practically fighting over the box with the intel chimes that go off when you open it. Hilarious.

Thats becaues laptop mobo's are designed to fit around a laptop body, by laptops parts we mean the cpu and ram.

Great design, but maybe more suited to an office PC than an HTPC.
It would be good to have one of these with space for a 2.5" or 3.5" HDD and a DVD or blu ray drive. Currently a bit too minimalistic for an HTPC.
Also Ivy Bridge is overkill for media playback, so this is more expensive than needed. I'm waiting for Intel to release its 22nm Atom processors with graphics derived from HD4000; that will be a suitable HTPC chip.

Is this in the works or are you going to be waiting a long time because last I checked Atom was underpowered for smooth HD video and audio playback.

Doesn't it have space for a 2.5" SSD or HDD?

22nm atom is due late 2013. This has graphics from the current Ivy Bridge desktop processors, presumably just with fewer execution units, so it should not have trouble with HD video playback. My old clunky system is working so no urgency about another build.
The Intel NUC only has mSATA. With a bit of work you might be able to squeeze a 2.5" drive in there together with an adapter, at the risk of adding too much heat. I prefer small mSATA SSD for boot plus HDD for storage on most systems anyway.

I've had a NUC for about 2 weeks. it will play BD iso's perfectly, 24p is fine. HD streaming is fine. I stream from my 32TB win 2012 server. I haven't streamed 3D movies since I lack a 3d display. I think for the size, power and price just depends on how cheap you are, its the perfect HTPC.

Personally I see no need myself for a HTPC with alot of storage, or a bluray drive, I image all blurays / dvds to my array. The size i wonderful. The built in gbit ethernet etc. I put in 16gb of ram which is way overkill but as cheap as ram is it was worth it.

I can stream full BD iso with bitstreamed sound to an AVR etc. I don't know how you could ask for anything better. 10bit Anime files don't play perfectly but thats because whoever decided to encode anime in 10bit is a freakin idiot.

I've run the 1080p Jellyfish 120mbit demo through the NUC like 10 times and I get 0 frames droped. Same with the BIRDS demo at 60mbit i think it was. If anyone wants me to test any video files or anything else on it let me know.

I have a NYXBoard remote thats RF and it works great. I use XBMC Frodo and couldn't ask for better performance.

I think its a great machine even if the price tag is a bit high. You just can't beat the size and power.

watchy thanks for the info. With info like that I am sure it will have no problem with 3d.

What OS are you running. Are you Running XBMC. What software are you using for BD iso's.

trying to decide what to go with. If I should go with a mediaplayer like the Meed8ter or build a XBMC box.

There's already a thread on this
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1428929/intel-next-unit-of-computing-nuc-discussion-thread#post_22592114

That thread was kinda tired and old. It was started NUC pre-release. A new thread sparks new discussion. This one was started post-release after a few folks have got their hands on one. It is kinda exciting to see a new form factor come out of intel. While the mini-ITX is still a very cool form factor, it is 10 years old now. I really hope the motherboard manufactures will run with this form factor. If so, we should see some very cool stuff out of them in the coming months. They left out USB 3.0 which kinda sucks, its been around for 3 years now. I understand it has thunderbolt on it which is cool for high speed data transfer. But it is not really being embraced by the peripheral market, USB 3.0 is and it is backward compatible so I can't understand why it was left out. Hopefully things like that will be addressed, and prices will drop as the form factor matures a bit.

The motherboard / CPU combo pack is out at Newegg at least. Soon, the cases from the whitebox guys right?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121741

No surprise here. The Celeron 847 (e.g. Biostar NM70I-847) played all those clips with under 30% CPU utilization and 0 frames dropped. It just goes to show you how overkill just about everything is today with GPU acceleration working.

Im may bite the bullet on this, Really liking the sound of it compared to a media player. The only thing which I am thinking about is cinavia on 3d blu-rays.

Yeah, just rolled back my version of TMT5 to get around Cinavia. I don't have a 3D display, but I imagine eventually I'll have no choice but to upgrade my player. Hopefully Slysoft will either add cinavia stripping to AnyDVD or they'll come out with that Slythe app they talked about soon.

I'm redoing my whole home theater setup. Thinking I might pick up two of these NUC's to handle all my rips and downloaded stuff and a couple Echos to handle extending the DVR.

Gigabyte is coming out with a new model in April apparently - adds either an i5 or i7, plus USB 3.0:

http://liliputing.com/2013/01/gigabyte-tweaks-intel-nuc-designs-mini-desktop-with-up-to-core-i7-cpu.html

I've been very happy with my Intel i3 model, but I wouldn't say no to an i7 monster

Looking at this how is performing when you run a mkv with DTS-HD and it downmixes it for stereo 2.0

Just wondering if anything video stutters or can the CPU handle it.

Thanks.

After having tested out a Zotac AD12, I don't know why they don't put a 120mm finned heatsink and slow speed fan on the top of these devices in place of the lid: something like a larger Noctua LH-L9i. Would do wonders with noise and heat concerns and should only increase the height a little.