Intel's NUC (smaller than ITX) Socket 1155

I've had this sitting in my Newegg cart for awhile now, waiting to pull the trigger. Let us know how it works. Noise is my big concern, as my 2009 mac mini sounds like a jet engine most days. I've recently read about heat issues from the wifi causing the SSD to lock up, but supposedly only the thunderbolt-equipped version is affected.

http://techreport.com/news/23944/intel-nuc-nicked-by-nic-heat-quirk


My Cart:
Intel DC3217IYE Intel QS77 2 x 204Pin Chassis: Aluminum and Plastic Black Next Unit of Computing Kit - OEM
Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD3 mSATA 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102002
Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model 997078

Total: 646 including taxes and shipping

USB 3.0 and Optical drive were desired but can't get everything i want in one system it seems.
 
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it has arrived!

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Loaded up

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Mounted to the back of my TV

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XBMC Openelec beta 3 installed. This thing is FAST!
 
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It looks very appealing. How powerful is this machine? Can I use it to watch youtube video, and to run MS office?
 
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What do people want usb 3.0 on this thing for? It is clearly meant to be a networked client hence the gigabit port. So everything will be streamed and you wont often be transferring large files via usb. Which is the only case i see 3.0 a must.
 
EnzoFX said:
What do people want usb 3.0 on this thing for? It is clearly meant to be a networked client hence the gigabit port. So everything will be streamed and you wont often be transferring large files via usb. Which is the only case i see 3.0 a must.
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Even roku, wdtv has usb, usb 3.0 is nice for people bringing media over to share... how lame would it look to have to go run into the server room to transfer media before you can play it.

Usb 3.0 is an awesome feature for streaming blurays from :)
 
xyexz said:
Even roku, wdtv has usb, usb 3.0 is nice for people bringing media over to share... how lame would it look to have to go run into the server room to transfer media before you can play it.

Usb 3.0 is an awesome feature for streaming blurays from :)
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Raw blu-ray movies are 54mbit at most. USB 2.0 is 480mbit. How is USB 3 necessary again?
 
Blue Fox said:
Raw blu-ray movies are 54mbit at most. USB 2.0 is 480mbit. How is USB 3 necessary again?
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I'll grant that gigabit makes this less of an issue, but it's just pathetic that the device does not provide USB 3 when the chipset supports it natively.

http://ark.intel.com/products/64336/Intel-BD82QS77-PCH

The NUC is overpowered for a pure media playback box, so it should have the power of I/O expansion as well. If you want more storage than the SSD can provide, it will be gimped. Trust me, I put up with that shit for years on my first-gen Intel Mac Mini (slow USB 2 or Firewire 400, neither if which impressed).

I cannot possibly anticipate what I will want to do with a computer tomorrow, nor can I anticipate all devices that will be created, so I have to insist that my *generic* device bus support the latest standards if they are in the chipset. You can't even make the *power* argument because that CPU uses 17w, the drive + wifi is 5w and that leaves plenty to cover a couple of USB 3 ports (5w each).
 
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Blue Fox said:
Raw blu-ray movies are 54mbit at most. USB 2.0 is 480mbit. How is USB 3 necessary again?
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I know the bitrate of raw blurays - it was just an example, let's just remove usb 3.0 from everything, hell, let's just get rid of usb 2.0 as well - we have ethernet on all our pc's why would we need another option?

Let's get rid of HDMI as well - we have VGA, I'm thinking we should get rid of ..............

People like options - this device grants them that, as defaultluser said - it's overpowered for a htpc but people aren't just going to buy these for htpcs and the chipset supports it - USB 3.0 is the new standard so it should be on there.

People don't buy brand new Dodge Vipers and then rip the faster newer engine out to put in a slower one because it was fast enough - they use the one it comes with because why the hell not?

Coming full circle back to the bluray rips, in my experience, I've had less streaming issues over usb3 than usb2 - I know the bitrate should be fine on either but I think it had more to do with os scanning the drive etc while media was playing from it.
 
What you guys don't get is that your argument is flawed. It's DESIGNED to stream from the ground up. So if you rely on usb transfers, then this product maybe isn't for you. Like actually rely, where you use it constantly.

Secondly, if you really are going to use this thing with an external drive, then get the thunderbolt version with thunderbolt external drives, more future proof too, while putting to use that I/O =P. But for the basic version, I just think the USB 3.0 is not the use case for this thing, take it or leave it, doesn't mean that most people won't be fine with it, i.e. you are the minority, i.e. don't be overall dismissive of a product that isn't for you.

Roku/wdtv has usb 3.0? Obviously my remark wasn't at the notion of having USB in general.

You guys talk like 3.0 has such wide adoption =P. Comments along the lines of "Oh why wouldn't it have 3.0?" or "Useless without 3.0" are just ignorant. "Let's get rid of HDMI as well - we have VGA" - That's flawed because again, 3.0 is still in it's infancy, it is not as ubiquitous as you would like it to be now. HDMI is mature and now widely supported. There are transition periods. 3.0 is taking a while, because I honestly feel there isn't that huge a demand for it. For whatever reason, albeit maybe some people are fine with 2.0, law of diminishing returns, or just aren't using USB all that much altogether, what with the tons of streaming options, online or local, etc. etc. Support is lacking even on full sized boards, I mean why do they only have 2 ports? Why not make them all 3.0? And this native support wasn't even around earlier this year, it wasn't until Ivy Bridge...

Lastly, just wait for the usb 3.0 version. I actually don't even want 3.0, if I had to choose. I'm all for getting rid of features I know I won't use.
 
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If you're going to have USB 2.0 ports already taking up space, why not at least make best use of that space by going with the current cutting-edge standard (USB 3.0)? The only reason I can find justifiable is price minimization (which is a laughable affair in concerns to NUC).
 
EnzoFX said:
You guys talk like 3.0 has such wide adoption
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We talk that way because it DOES.

Nearly every external drive you can purchase offers USB 3, and most flash sticks now offer it as a feature as well. The external drives already see a difference (even on 5400 RPM 2.5" notebook drives), and as speeds grow the benefits become more and more tangible. I purchased a USB 3.0 drive from Western Digital 1.5 YEARS ago, and now there's even more of them, so you can be certain there is potent demand.

Nearly every computer sold today has USB 3.0 thanks to native support from both AMD and Intel. Go ahead, find me a popular notebook or desktop that does not feature this *mature* technology (aside from bargain-basement crap, and that will also transition soon just like USB 1.1 disappeared). NUC itself is hardly "bargain basement" given the $400-500 assembly price.

For example, this SFF PC features USB 3 ports for a competitive price, and features better expandability and an optical drive, with twice the processing power. You can also configure it with a more powerful HD 7450 and still slide in at $500:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/ho...84AV?HP-Pavilion-Slimline-s5-1400t-Desktop-PC

Want proof USB 3.0 is already trickling down? How about this POS Dell SFF PC that features two USB 3.0 ports for $300:

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-660s/pd

There's no great mystery to implementing a USB 3 connector - the signaling is similar to PCI Express 2.0 mixed with SATA - two technologies already made use of on the NUC. And as said before the chipset released six months ago supports USB 3 NATIVELY:

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This means the only thing they have to do is implement the trace and connector to-spec. The fact that they did not do this screams intentional castration.
 
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Of course USB 3.0 is widely being implemented on products and computers sold NOW. It hasn't even been a year with this wide of a rollout. Most people, yes MOST people are still relying on whatever data storage solutions they were using prior to this year, and you know, the many years before that.

but ok I get what you're saying, computer being sold now being the key and the NUC being one of them =P. I'd argue that most computers require that as it is a standard on your average desktop/laptop. You need that spec war in that space where you have tons of player simply trying to differentiate from each other. However in a niche product, they can honestly afford not to include a feature they don't deem as necessary. That's just how it is sometimes with these things. They probably did it because it was easier somehow, and cost cutting, even if minor, it only gives them bigger margins on a version with 3.0 later. Or they could be really trying to move you to Thunderbolt, since they were the ones that came up with that spec and have a lot of stake in it succeeding it. They came around to USB 3.0 because they had to, Thunderbolt is what they're concerned with succeeding.

Of course if this platform takes off 3.0 will come, so you can dismiss this as a trivial loss for early adopters to undertake. I for one want it to be standardized, have other manufacturers jump in and have a race to the bottom lol, while bringing such a spec war as in other consumer spaces.
 
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Anyone hear any rumors or leaked info on the 3rd NUC model? have heard rumors of spec bump to core i5 and usb 3.0 but that's just speculation i believe. Wondering if it's worth waiting for this to get the spec bump (and for them to iron out some of the wifi and nic issues i've been hearing about). If the 3rd model is being held off until Q1 2013 to coincide with Haswell I guess it could be end of March before we hear anything. trying to tell myself that if i wait for the latest model i'll never be happy as by the time you buy something there's new tech just around the corner.
 
Sexecutioner said:
Anyone hear any rumors or leaked info on the 3rd NUC model? have heard rumors of spec bump to core i5 and usb 3.0 but that's just speculation i believe. Wondering if it's worth waiting for this to get the spec bump (and for them to iron out some of the wifi and nic issues i've been hearing about). If the 3rd model is being held off until Q1 2013 to coincide with Haswell I guess it could be end of March before we hear anything. trying to tell myself that if i wait for the latest model i'll never be happy as by the time you buy something there's new tech just around the corner.
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if you need something now, then buy it. if you can make do with what you have for now, then i would suggest waiting. this has nothing at all to do with specs, because like everyone else i have no idea what they will be. i am of this opinion solely because early adopters always get shafted. they always get the bugs, and the entry-level product, etc. the second or third iteration is where theyve seen some profit so they work in some new features, and theyve gotten feedback to fix and impement others, etc. this is when i like to get in. just my personal opinion. :)
 
I still have my 2009 Mac Mini hooked up to my living room TV that while noisy and clashing with my entertainment center, at least fulfills basic htpc functionality. If it'll continue to do so until the next NUC release date, well i guess that remains to be seen. Would really like USB 3.0 so i can stream media from an external drive, but intel core i3 should definately be powerful enough for my purposes.
 
had always just played video from an attached WD passport usb drive and suspected any lag in playback was due to the usb 2.0 interface but it was more likely my under-powered mac trying to process mkv files. if >256GB mSATA drives were cheaper i'd just put all my media on there but their prices are still high enough to necessitate external storage.
 
ekuest said:
if you need something now, then buy it. if you can make do with what you have for now, then i would suggest waiting. this has nothing at all to do with specs, because like everyone else i have no idea what they will be.
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well, intel has talked a little about Haswell and that chip looks mean. A Haswell NUC would be divine. Particularly with USB3.0, but now we're headed towards the place where your point is right: we're headed towards simple conjecture about configuration. Haswell, otoh, will hopefully make a fantastic spring-time frame NUC. Or would people prefer to wager on summer, fall, winter, or never time frames on that one (a Haswell NUC)?
 
USB3 + gigabit ethernet + thunderbolt would be perfect but sadly none comes with USB3 and thunderbolt version dont come with gigabit
 
I don't see Intel releasing a Haswell version of the NUC until late 2013. This version is just too new to have them releasing a new version that will compete with their own product.
 
akromatic said:
USB3 + gigabit ethernet + thunderbolt would be perfect but sadly none comes with USB3 and thunderbolt version dont come with gigabit
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2*USB3, Eth, and TB is exactly the trifecta that I'm waiting on personally... I'm thinking about picking one of the current models up just to make an itty bitty nettop tho. :rolleyes:

Hopefully we'll see a perfect mix of interfaces in the future on these!
 
Velocity Micro is releasing an Edge Mini for $499. It looks like a NUC but dunno which "kit," and most likely is one. I dunno what ssd or ram they are putting in there, but it will come with Windows. By my cost estimate, if it's a 8 GB of RAM or above and 128 GB ssd, it would be about breaking even on getting parts and license fee on your own.

Worst of it all is that frigging logo out in front.

As for the kit, I really hope VM has the rumored model with USB3.0.

Or else I might have to get an Apple Mini...
 
CHANG3D said:
Velocity Micro is releasing an Edge Mini for $499. It looks like a NUC but dunno which "kit," and most likely is one. I dunno what ssd or ram they are putting in there, but it will come with Windows. By my cost estimate, if it's a 8 GB of RAM or above and 128 GB ssd, it would be about breaking even on getting parts and license fee on your own.

Worst of it all is that frigging logo out in front.

As for the kit, I really hope VM has the rumored model with USB3.0.

Or else I might have to get an Apple Mini...
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mac mini is way bigger. :D

can you link to the VM thing youre talking about?
 
ekuest said:
mac mini is way bigger. :D
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And why is that?

Mac Mini 2012 vs Intel NUC:
4 USB 3.0 ports vs 2 USB 2.0 in back + 1 USB 2.0 front
1 SD card slot vs None
1 Thunderbolt, 1 HDMI, and 1 ethernet port vs either 2 HDMI + ethernet or 1 Thunderbolt + 1 HDMI

I don't know why the thunderbolt model doesn't come with ethernet.
 
CHANG3D said:
And why is that?

Mac Mini 2012 vs Intel NUC:
4 USB 3.0 ports vs 2 USB 2.0 in back + 1 USB 2.0 front
1 SD card slot vs None
1 Thunderbolt, 1 HDMI, and 1 ethernet port vs either 2 HDMI + ethernet or 1 Thunderbolt + 1 HDMI

I don't know why the thunderbolt model doesn't come with ethernet.
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Just use a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor if you need one, the apple one is $30, that's the point of thunderbolt, you can use it for all your external connections.
 
CHANG3D said:
And why is that?

Mac Mini 2012 vs Intel NUC:
4 USB 3.0 ports vs 2 USB 2.0 in back + 1 USB 2.0 front
1 SD card slot vs None
1 Thunderbolt, 1 HDMI, and 1 ethernet port vs either 2 HDMI + ethernet or 1 Thunderbolt + 1 HDMI

I don't know why the thunderbolt model doesn't come with ethernet.
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yeah me neither. personally i can do without the 4th usb and the sd slot and prefer the smaller size, but i would really like usb3. :/
 
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