Intel focused much of its time on virtuality this year THESE in his new desk i mobile processors, in addition to highlighting the laptops that will present its new hardware in the coming months. But what didn’t get much attention was Intel’s line mini PC or NUC, i NUC kits. Intel gives them one Tiger Lake-refresh this time at a more reasonable price, depending on the configuration and where you buy a unit.
The first is the Intel Enthusiast model, or the NUC 11 Enthusiast, which comes as a full mini PC or as a kit. The full PC includes an 11th generation Core i7-1165G7 processor with integrated Iris Xe graphics, RTX 2060 graphics card, 16GB DDR4-3200 memory, Intel Optane Memory H10 storage (32GB + 512GB) and even a Geospecific power cord option for USA, Europe and China. Windows 10 Home also pre-loads.
There are also a variety of ports: HDMI 2.0, Mini DisplayPort 1.4, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, 2.5 GB Ethernet port, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 compatibility, plus six USB 3.1 Gen2 ports.
The kit includes the same CPU and GPU, plus the same type and amount of ports, but the memory, storage, and operating system are BYOB situations, though they support up to 64GB of memory. Also note that if you are interested in following this path, the board supports SSD PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2, not PCIe 4.0. There are also additional power cord options in the UK, Australia and India.
The NUC 11 performance model includes the choice of a Core i7-1165G7, Core i5-1135G7 or Core i3-1115G4, with the i7 and i5 options including Iris Xe graphics and the i3 with normal UHD. None of the pre-built mini PCs include a discreet GPU. They all include 8GB DDR4-3200 memory, 500GB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD storage (weird, since the enthusiast model doesn’t have Gen4, but maybe Intel Optane’s memory has something to do with it), preloaded Windows 10 Home, and the same number of ports, minus three USB ports.
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The final model, the NUC 11 Pro Mini, includes a Core i7-1165G7 or a Core i5-1145G7 with Iris Xe graphics, a 500GB NVMe Gen 4GB SSD (again, odd), 8GB DDR4-3200 memory, and Windows 10 Home pre-loaded. Like the Enthusiast kit, the Performance and Pro kits are memory, storage, and BYO operating system. And if we look at it support pages for both the Mini PC Pro, Intel already has an expected end date sometime in the first half of 2024. The rest of the PC NUC does not.
Unfortunately, all of these models include a welded BGA socket, which means the processor won’t be able to be easily removed and upgraded in the future. The CPU you get is the CPU you get.
But there is a kind of saving: the price. An enthusiastic model fully set up by SimplyNUC it starts at $ 1,350, but with 8GB of memory and only a 128GB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD. If you start specifying the NUC 11 Enthusiast with the same components that Intel announces, the price goes up quickly, though it’s still better than the Kit NUC 9 Extreme we reviewed last year.
[TechRadar]