Intel decided to make an effort the
market of ultra-compact desktop systems. And they immediately turned up with a
unique product: a miniature system case with only 12x11x4cm size based on
Core-i3 processor. It is proud of a truly impressive combination of features,
but does it make practical sense for us to have a large desktop case having the
advantage of such a tiny guy?
Intel’s
Next Unit Of Computing
Minimizing is one of the directions
technical progresses chosen in the today’s computer market. When better
production technologies become more common, the semiconductor manufacturers
manage to integrate more features into their chipsets, which accelerates us to
move ahead faster, having fewer chips on the PCBs and thus PCBs overall look
smaller. At the same time new semiconductor technologies lower heat dissipation
of the chipset, finally allowing the engineers to design more compact
solutions. As a result, the micro-electronic device’s small size or low weight becomes
a very powerful and favorable support, which everyone attempts to use to their
advantage. You can easily pursue the evolution of minimizing almost in any
market segment: most of components and products keep growing smaller, lighter
and thinner through years.
Minimizing
is one of the directions technical progresses chosen in the today’s computer
market.
Although a hunt for greatness primarily concerns
portable devices, such as notebooks, smartphones and tablets, the conventional
desktop segment also tries to keep pace with this popular trend. Over the last
few years, we have had a chance to see the increasing population of Micro-ATX
and then Mini-ITX platforms. There was a time when nettop, a compact desktop
system, were at the top of the game. Hence, the system case, which used to be imagined
as a gloomy huge box, finally managed to move itself from the floor to the desk
or even get hung behind the monitor in some situations.
Yet, some people believe this isn’t enough.
For instance, Zotac Company has been manufacturing ZBOX Nano series (for a
period) which have distinguishing feature made much smaller than that of a
standard Mini-ITX system. Plus, it appears like a desktop computer inside a
system case with a size of CD disk stack (consisting of half of dozen CDs) continues
to win the user’s heart. And such intention from Intel to start producing models
like that is year another part of evidence which confirmed this statement.
It
appears like a desktop computer inside a system case
However, approaching this giant microprocessor
chosen this time is pretty different from what we have seen in the mini-system
market. Until now, minimized size has come up with the term of low performance,
because such compact desktop systems had to use Intel Atom or AMD Zacate
processors. More powerful CPUs simply don’t good heat elimination inside a small
system case featuring less than one liter volume. Though, Intel decided to
change the gaming rules and introduced a desktop mini-system series built on
mobile Core i3 processors. Furthermore, these were not the usual Core-i3 CPUs,
but the ultra-book modifications with Ivy Bridge microarchitecture, which is
confident about 17W TDP and therefore can easily work in very tight spaces
where no other processor could survive. This unique combination of different
market ideologies created a quite interesting result – energy-saving
mini-computer seizing only 117x112x39mm (which is even smaller than Zotac ZBOX
Nano, but still a little larger than Zotac ZBOX Nano XS) with considerable
performance. It was given the name of Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (or NUC),
which could be considered a hint that this is where the desktop’s future is
going. And in such case, why don’t we give this future a taste and see what we
will have to deal with, in accordance with Intel’s vision. We are going to
start with the first generation Intel’s Next Unit of Computing, which is not a
concept, but a completely massively produced device and currently available in
retail.
